Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from Jarly and Grarg, the comic strip characters created by Dave Bezzina and yours truly. My poem's rubbish but Dave's picture makes up for it:


The world shrugs on a frosty coat of snow,
And a cold wind whispered and cried,
It’s not just nippy, it’s thirty below.
Fortunately it’s warm inside.

Despite the late hour Jarly chooses to study;
The room’s cosy snugness makes it less of a chore.
The glowing fire makes his cheeks warm and ruddy,
He can concentrate so long as Grarg doesn’t snore.

Like any sensible creature at this time of night,
The sleepy little dragon lies all tucked up in bed.
Yet even lightly dozing he has an appetite,
His tail a makeshift toasting fork for a slice of bread.

Jarly ponders the worn ancient, arcane pages,
He seeks to gain the book’s hidden knowledge,
Become as wise as wizards, warlocks and sages,
Even though he never went to college.

In his pursuit to be powerful and bold
He ponders rune and sigil and glyph.
The hot fire prevents him feeling the cold,
His nose doesn’t run, nor does it sniff.

He could use these spells to confound his foes,
But as the candlelight elegantly flickers,
He feels content; no need to tread on toes.
This doesn’t feel the time for taunts, sneers or snickers.

Any old idiot can be a thug, hooligan or bully,
He should try to soothe and try to help.
Roll away people’s troubles with a magic lever and pulley,
Not try to hurt them or make them yelp.

As he arrives at his big decision
Emotions, desires and thoughts all align,
Concepts more complex than long division.
Magic grows within him and begins to shine.

Twelve Days

My story, Ten Lords-a-Leaping, appears in the TWELVE DAYS audio anthology from Dark Fiction Magazine.

Jarly and Grarg

Character sketch by Dave Bezzina for a comic strip we're working on.

Catastrophia review

Tangent Online has just described my contribution to the Catastrophia anthology as "An out-there story with a completely unexpected ending."

I think that means they liked it.

HP Lovecraft -- Action Hero

Interesting piece on HP Lovecraft over at Matt Cardin's Teeming Brain focusing on HP's fantastical imagination rather than his reputation as a master of horror. Now I'm not overly familiar with Lovecraft's work and do tend to think of him as a cosmic horror tentacle-monsters purveying misery guts. So I was quite surprised when I read one of his Dunsany-inspired pieces earlier this year -- I forget the title offhand, the story involved something about going up a mountain -- as it showed his range was wider than I'd realised.

Something else I noticed in the last couple of Lovecraft stories I read -- Dreams in the Witch House and The Dunwich Horror -- was the way the climaxes veered into action-adventure territory. But in a very perfunctory way as though Lovecraft either didn't have the talent or the inclination to dwell on that side of things in any detail. So the hero might wrestle with a knife-wielding assailant or rush up a hill armed with an ancient spell to tackle a demonic entity or do something else that wouldn't look out of place in an episode of Buffy but that stuff will just get mentioned in passing. I think there's a similar thing in The Call of Cthulhu -- "Cthulhu's free! He'll lay waste to all before him, the word is doomed, we're all going to -- oh, he's gone."

Maybe it's just because I've been reading some Robert E Howard lately but it seems to me that in the cited stories at least, Lovecraft is more action-oriented, in a teasing kind of way, than he's given credit for. In fact, as I was saying to a Howard fan the other day, it seemed to me that Lovecraft was actually doing the kind of action scenes that Howard is famous for but Lovecraft, deliberately or otherwise, just didn't do it so well.

Just a thought. Probably completely wrong-headed and ill-informed but those are the thoughts that I tend to have the most often.

The Fall (and Rise) of the Mutants

I've been rereading some of my old X-Men comics written by Chris Claremont. Nostalgia heavily tints my reaction to his writing, I can easily overlook some of the clunkier dialogue and the way plot strands are started in X-Men but resolved in completely different comics or sometimes even forgotten altogether. But being as objective as possible I would say that for me a lot of his best work on the mutant superheroes is in the issues I've just reread: Uncanny X-Men #212-227. He still has the verbose dialogue and captions for which he's famous but here they're stripped down to their dramatic and poetic essence. The two-page description of a crashing jumbo jet that opens #215 is astounding, as is the tense, hallucinatory chase sequence that follows. And Claremont has a knack for nailing the heart and atmosphere of a new locale in a few well-chosen sentences, be it a New York nightclub, a Scottish pub or a New Mexico desert.

"Darlin', how can anyone be an X-Man and not be a romantic?" Wolverine
Emotion is what drives Claremont's writing, an unabashed romanticism. He makes us care about the characters, putting us inside their heads, letting us know them as well as we know ourselves before destroying their lives and breaking our hearts.

Some wounds are physical. Others spiritual. No less cruel. No less mortal.
Tragedy overwhelms the X-Men during this set of stories: Colossus spends most of the run paralysed, Nightcrawler lies in a coma and Kitty Pryde is being slowly killed by her own misfiring superpowers. Even those who escape physically unscathed have other problems to deal with: Wolverine has a breakdown, his rational side collapsing, leaving his animal instincts in ascendance. Dazzler frets that her former life as a pop star has left her pampered and weak, traits that could get herself and her teammates killed. Plus, there's the small matter of humanity hating mutants and wanting them dead.

"Every path, every option seems to end in blood." Storm
Storm has a particularly bad time of it. Stripped of her powers in an earlier storyline she continues to lead the X-Men against foes who could kill her with a flick of a finger. Grief-stricken over the injuries sustained by those under her command. Conflicted over her oath never to take a human life versus the increasing need for lethal force in order for the X-Men to survive. Shocked by the revelation that the only way to save the world from a mystical apocalypse is to kill the man she loves. Forget Halle Berry's anaemic portrayal in the X-Men films, here is Storm as she should be: a woman of great honour, dignity and passion.

"You ever wonder sometimes whether we even deserve to be saved?" Crimson Commando
Moral ambiguity lurks behind the drama and the pulse-pounding action scenes. A trio of superpowered vigilantes hunt criminals for kicks while rationalising it with talk of honour and Storm fears the only way she can stop them is to resorting to murder herself. Former criminals become government sponsored superheroes while the altruistic X-Men are branded outlaws. The X-Man Rogue is herself a former supervillain seeking redemption for past crimes including the attempted murder of her teammate Dazzler. Meanwhile many of the humans the X-Men save want them dead, baying for blood no matter what sacrifices the mutants make to save them.

"If we gotta go either way might as well make it mean something." Wolverine
But there is hope too, an idealism that may be battered and tarnished but never vanquished. The X-Men keep fighting, striving for equality and acceptance no matter what. Moral victiores are achieved -- Collosus and Kitty Pryde prevent a rampaging mob from killing an injured Nightcrawler not by blasting them with superpowers but by making them confront the immorality of their actions. On occasion humans even stand up for the X-Men, judging them by their actions not by the fact that they're mutants. Speeches abound, a Claremont speciality, imploring everyone to live in harmony.

"I beg your pardon. But don't you know it's impolite to shoot people?" Longshot
But it's not all moralising and speechifying. There's fun to be had as SF and fantasy blend together with the odd bit of horror thrown in for good measure. Humour and quirkiness sneaks in too with Dirty Harry and the Brigadier from Doctor Who making sly cameos. And when Dazzler tackles the unstoppable powerhouse Juggernaut he turns out to be a fan of her records and is more interested in getting her autograph than engaging in an epic super-battle.

So, classic superhero action. Superbly handled romance and drama. A plea for tolerance and an end to prejudice. Not to mention fantastic artwork from John Romita, Jr, Rick Leonardi, Barry Windsor-Smith, Alan Davis, Jackson Guice and Marc Silvestri.

No wonder I love Claremont's X-Men.

FantasyCon 2010

Everybody else in the universe seems to be doing a blog about FantasyCon so I suppose I'd better do one as well.

Friday

Arrived in Nottingham with my friends Pam Creais and Lilly Ibelo.

Went with Pam, Lilly and Mark West to an Italian restaurant around the corner. Lily and Mark were taken aback to find that the pizzas they ordered were only slightly smaller than the Isle of Wight.

FantasyCon quiz. The problem with the quiz these days is that only the real hardcore fans attend. The kind of people who can answer questions such as, "To the nearest footpound of pressure how strong did William Shatner's girdle need to be for Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Gut?" People like me who can barely spell K-9 don't stand much of a chance. Fortunately our team had Jay Eales and Selina Lock who could not only tell you the exact combination of sandworm excretions, water, sun and air needed to create melange but could also draw you a diagram of the molecular structure of each component. Just as well as Mark revealed a hitherto unsuspected competitive streak as he sat there muttering, "Don't let us come last. Don't let us come last." Finally the results came in aaaand ... we came last. It took the fire brigade three hours to talk Mark down off the top of the hotel.

Get Real panel. Bit disappointed with this one. The participants were eloquent and erudite but they all seemed to have been booked for the wrong panel. Instead of discussing the way real life issues impact on genre fiction the panel quickly digressed to talking about the writing process.

Consoled Gary Greenwood about Ryan Reynolds' costume in the upcoming Green Lantern film while non-comics fan Paul Meloy looked on in bemusement trying to work out what all the fuss was about.

Saturday

Visited Nottingham Castle and its museums. They had exhibits from the Russell Crowe Robin Hood film. Reminded me of Lord of the Rings but without the elves and magic.

Chatted with John B Ford who I haven't seen for ages. John published my first collection, Spare Parts, but don't hold that against him, he's a really nice bloke.

Catastrophia signing. I had to keep apologising to all the people who asked me to sign the book as my signature looks like that of an epileptic dyslexic writing while onboard a plane experiencing severe turbulence. Also, no one told me that photos would be taken of the contributors; I hate having my photo taken and my attempts at a casual, relaxed pose resembled someone about to have a circumcision without the aid of an anaesthetic.

Went for a curry with Pam, Lilly, Paul Meloy, Gary Greenwood, Gavin Williams and Roy Gray. Great food, great company. Funniest moment came when Pam casually asked, "So are you guys up for anything?" Turned out she was talking about the awards.

BFS award ceremony. My leg cramped up halfway through and I was sitting on the far side of the room from the exits so I couldn't just sneak out and shake off the muscles. By the end of the ceremony I was in agony. Consequently I wasn't giving the awards my full attention but there was much clapping and cheering so presumably everyone was happy with the results. Apart from the losers, obviously.

At the bar Paul Finch regaled a croup of awe-inspired listeners with tales of his time on the police force. Then I chatted with John Travis, Andrew Hook and Terry Grimwood about noir books and films; the pros and cons of The Mist (both the film and the novella); the way the media encourages unhealthy body images for women; and why, despite what Gary McMahon thinks, Cary Grant and James Stewart are great actors. John also became obsessed with figuring out as many sports as possible for decomposing zombies to play. And at some point Allyson Bird wandered over and discussed how men often ignore what women are saying. Or something like that, I wasn't really listening.

Sunday

Chatted with David Price and Gary Greenwood. Jonathan Oliver nearly fainted when I told him that I actually quite liked the latest series of Dr Who. Well, apart from the Daleks and Spitfires episode. Obviously.

Robert E Howard panel. Passionate and informative discussion of Howard's works that makes me long for a clean sword and a clean foe to flesh it in. Or maybe to just read some of Howard's books.

Got Ramsey Campbell to sign my copy of Night Visions. Yay! Failed to track down Lisa Tuttle to sign the same book. Boo!

Bryan Talbot slide show on the history of anthropomorphic animals in comics. Fascinating lecture.

Chatted to Bryan Talbot as he signed my copy of The Adventures of Luther Arkwright. Think I avoided coming across as a total idiot. No small feat.

FantasyCon raffle. Hosted by the hilarious Guy Adams. I won a copy of Stephen Volk's multi-award nominated novella Vardoger which he graciously signed even though he knew I'd blagged it in the raffle rather than actually bought it.

Allen Ashley and Andrew Hook collared me for a photo of Catastrophia contributors. I was forewarned about the photo this time so I managed to dial down my look of discomfort from recipient of medieval circumcision to, "Christ, someone just gave me a wedgie!"

Then it was time to go home. Thanks to everyone at the Con: Simon Bestwick, Gary Couzens, Chris Teague, Carole Johnstone, Martin Roberts, Helen Hopley, Jenny Barber, Tim Lebbon, Adele Harrison, Nina Allen, Mick Curtis, Debbie Curtis, Gary MacMahon, Emily MacMahon, Gary Cole-Wilkin, Soozy Marjoram, Gary Fry, Lord and Lady Probert, Ray Russell, Gwilym Games, Trevor Denyer, Steve Upham and Stephen Bacon. And to everyone else who I've forgotten to mention.

And of course a special mention to London Underground and National Express who, thanks to their hard work and dedication, were able to turn a ten minute detour on my return journey into an extra hour of travelling time.

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu

And so we bid a fond adieu to Quentin S Crisp as he continues on his blog tour. But as a farewell gift here's my first attempt at interviewing him from a few years back.

Quentin S Crisp

Right, here's a mini-interview I've conducted with Quentin S Crisp, author of The Nightmare Exhibition, Rule Dementia! and Shrike. Quentin's going to be loitering around the blog for the next week so if anyone has any questions they want to ask him about his writing or being short-listed for the Shirley Jackson Awards or his new book Remember You're a One-Ball! please do so via the comments function. This is to make the interview fun and exciting in a hi-tech interactive kind of way and not just an attempt to cover up the fact that I couldn't be bothered to ask Quentin any decent questions.

Let's start with the important stuff. Your name is Crisp. But if you actually were a crisp what flavour would you be?

There can be no question but that I would be Worcester sauce flavour.

Your new book is called Remember You're A One-Ball! Does this have anything to do with the legend surrounding Hitler's lunchbox? Or with WWI flying ace Albert Ball who, due to his tendency to spend his free time by himself, found himself nicknamed by his fellow pilots as Solitary Testicle?

Now you’ve gone and spoilt the plot.

Hitler makes a kind of cameo appearance in the book. Kind of. Albert Ball would probably find much resonance in the novel. I suppose I’ve become more sensitive in recent years to the whole notion of spoilers. I’m not sure I cared that much about them when I was younger. I feel like I want everything about the book to be a surprise to readers, if possible, but I suppose if one is going to publicise the damned thing then something must be said other than simply, “Read this book!” So, I can at least reveal that this book does involve testicular surgical intervention of a kind. And I’m sure that, knowing that, you’ll all rush to buy it.

Go on, tell us some more about the book. Spare no detail. What type of paper is it printed on? What font was used, Times New Roman or Dutch Courier?

I think the typeface might be Palatino, but I wouldn’t swear to it. The design for the book was undertaken by Bigeyebrow, in consultation with Chômu Press. I think it looks very striking and unusual.

Someone told me recently that the book is a bildungsroman, and I decided this was a great way to describe it. Just add the epithet ‘macabre’ or perhaps ‘grotesque’, and you have a reasonable sound-bitey description: macabre bildungsroman/grotesque bildungsroman.

I really feel that this novel is a kind of definitive statement for me about certain aspects of my experience of existence, and it seems unlikely that I’ll need to cover the same area again. Having said that, they do say that most writers basically have one story that they write over and over again. I think I have at least two, but I may be wrong. “Remember You’re a One-Ball!” seems to go pretty much as far as I can go in following certain preoccupations of mine, but I suppose psychoanalysts might decide I was still writing the same story even after I’ve moved away from traumatised schoolboys with intimate injuries and passed on to depicting Utopian futures of holographic animism and the parasexuality of invertebrate aliens.

You write in a genre you call demented fiction. But doesn't that name apply to everything that Terry Pratchett has written since developing Alzheimer's? (This joke courtesy of Jonathan Ross's and Russell Brand's book How To Disguise The Fact That You're Not Actually Funny By Insulting A National Treasure.)

I realise that I’m using the word ‘demented’ in an inaccurate way from a medical point of view. People have asked me about this, taking it rather seriously, and I can see that you’re taking it a little too seriously yourself, but the term ‘demented fiction’ is really just something I made up. If dementia ‘goes viral’ at some point, that would be gratifying, but my invention of the term was really just my way of saying, “Girl Power!”

Finally, as an old school Dr Who fan what would you say if the BBC asked you to not only write the next series but also to star as The Doctor? But the entire series has to be done as a musical. Co-starring John Barrowman. And Bonnie Langford.

I’d say, “When do I start?”!
…

… Can you put a word in for me?

Video interview

Me making a twat of myself in my first ever video interview

And despite what the video description says I won a British Fantasy Award not a Stoker.

Don't work harder, work smarter

My copy of Where the Heart Is arrived yesterday. Just got to tear out all the stories by the other contributors so I can tell people that my story is the best in the book.

Where the Heart Is

I've got a story in
Where the Heart Is
But don't let that put you off, there's loads of other authors in there as well.

Here's what the publisher, Gray Friar Press, says about the book:

Take an alternative tour of Great Britain . . .

Writers are often told to write about what they know best . . . and what do they know better than their own homes? In this anthology, 19 fine authors of dark fiction reveal some of the less palatable elements of their native environments.

There's blood where the heart is.

Much blood.

So it's kind of like Bill Bryson. If he wrote horror. And if there were 19 of him.

Macho Macho Man

Apparently portly funnyman James Corden used to get teased at school 'cos his middle name is Kimberly.

Doesn't he realise that his girlish name is actually a chance for him to channel his masculinity with industrial strength levels of testosterone? Let's just look at the precedent:

John Wayne. Real name Marion Morrison. Went on to define Hollywood masculinity for several decades. Even if he did wear a pink shirt in Rio Bravo. And kiss Walter Brennan.

Bruce Lee. Real name Lee Jun Fan. Given a girl's name by superstitious parents in order to confuse the demons they thought would kill him. I don't know if this is what drove him to learn kung fu but I wouldn't be surprised. Of course the style he majored in, wing chun, was devised by a woman so even after all that training he still hit like a girl.

In fact the easiest way to defeat Lee in combat was to question his manliness.



Lee Van Cleef. Despite his unisex name Van Cleef was a hard bastard in umpteen westerns not least of which was The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Not to mention portraying a geriatric ninja in trash TV classic The Master.

Mel Gibson. Now I can't say for certain that Mel stands for Melanie but that would help explain why he gets sozzled and tries to reinforce his masculinity by calling female police officers "sugar tits." It also explains the intensity of his performance in the Lethal Weapon films. He wasn't acting, he really was crazy -- about the fact that he had been given a girl's haircut.

It probably didn't help that he even got to play a character with a unisex name when he portrayed Brett Maverick. And Brett was a coward who couldn't fight and who flounced around in lacy shirts. And even Maverick's surname is associated with homosexuality due to it being used so prominently in Top Gun , a film which Quentin Tarantino famously suggested to have a gay subtext.



Well, at least Tom Cruise could feel secure playing Maverick in Top Gun as there have never been any doubts about his sexuality.

Robin Hood. I don't remember Mel Brooks picking up on the unisex nature of Robin's first name in Men in Tights; instead he chose to ridicule the legendary outlaw's outfits. Hollywood duly noted this and scratched their heads over how to avoid any more sniggering over Robin's choice of attire. Fortunately they got round this by dressing him in skintight leather trousers.

Darth Vader. Real name Anakin "Annie" Skywalker. Okay, so you've got the most powerful Jedi ever known and you're worried that he's going to turn evil if he doesn't learn to control his emotions. So you constantly refer to him by a girl's name? You make him wear a stupid little pigtail? And then you act all surprised when he turns to the Dark Side. Jedi Knights really haven't got a clue, have they?

So we should all we very careful about teasing James Corden over his middle name because like the others mentioned in this post he could snap and unleash death and destruction upon us all.

And if we really piss him off he might make another series of Horne and Corden.

The Matrix

Caught a bit of The Matrix:Reloaded on telly the other night and it reminded me about this article I wrote a few years back about the Matrix series. Originally published in Prism, The British Fantasy newsletter way back in 2003.

(SPOILER ALERT! Don’t read this if you haven’t seen the entire Matrix trilogy. And don’t read this if you’ve got housework to do. The carpet won’t hoover itself you know …)

I’m confused.

The Matrix was a near-perfect action blockbuster: stylish action set-pieces, a tightly constructed plot, there’s even an attempt at depth by moulding philosophical concepts to the action. (Okay, so certain aspects of the plot don’t really stand up to close inspection and some elements of the film are highly derivative but any film that can persuade Keanu Reeves to increase his dramatic range to the point where he has two facial expressions has to be commended.)

Then came Matrix: Reloaded. The explosions were bigger but unfortunately so were the philosophical discussions. These conflicting elements sat awkwardly beside each other. And the ‘To Be Continued … ’ ending was so ineptly handled that it even used a “dramatic” musical sting of the sort outlawed in 1937 for being too corny. But although disappointed the fans remained loyal, ignoring the film’s obvious flaws whilst secretly hoping that the next instalment would see a return to former glories. (The technical name for this kind of blind loyalty on the part of SF fans is known as ‘The Phantom Menace syndrome’.)

Finally came Matrix: Revolutions. Presumably the revolutions of the title are a reference to the 180° turns in allegiance performed by most of the Matrix’s fans after watching this incredibly tedious film. Action scenes are almost entirely jettisoned for impenetrable philosophical discussions, main characters such as Morpheus are reduced to simpering sidekicks, and Keanu Reeves has by now totally misplaced his second facial expression. The film even denies the audience the consolation that this is the final instalment in The Matrix story; with the Oracle and the Architect musing on a future disruption of the newfound peace.

But is the Matrix trilogy really that bad? Perhaps it’s too soon to fully assess the films’ merits. Maybe they will repay multiple viewings. Have the Wachowski brothers produced a set of SF classics that are too sophisticated for the current audience but which will in years to come be treated with the same awed reverence as films such as Blade Runner?

Frankly, I don’t care.

The Matrix films were marketed as action blockbusters and that’s what I want damn it! The first film showed that the philosophy could be worked into the story without slowing the action scenes down so why did they mess around with things on the sequels? I’m guessing because they wanted to show off their knowledge of Baudrillard and Barthes in an attempt to silence the intellectuals who sneered that they had just copied the names from their old notes from Philosophy 101.

And they had to work in all the pompous religious and mythological symbolism. Most of the characters have Biblical names! Neo gets blinded just like Oedipus! He dies and is resurrected just like Jesus!

But all the clever intellectual games are pointless without a decent plot to go with them. The Wachowskis’ sense of pacing gradually deserted them over the course of the series, the balance between action and dialogue becoming increasingly uneven. So The Matrix opens with a kick-ass fight scene! Reloaded opens with explosions! And Revolutions opens with Neo sitting at a train station …

Meanwhile the scenes in Zion are deathly dull, turning the entire trilogy into a holo-deck episode from Star Trek. Characters like the Trainman, the Albino Twins, and the Indian family that turn up whilst Neo’s trapped in the train station, appear and then disappear as The Wachowskis realise they don’t really know what to do with them. Even The Architect, who is a pivotal character, only appears after they’ve scoured the dictionary for enough multi-syllable words with which to pepper his dialogue. In fact by Revolutions even the trilogy’s three main characters -- Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus -- are relegated to the sidelines for large chunks of the film. Instead we’re supposed to care about the geeky kid (imaginatively named Kid) and the gruff Captain Mifune. But these aren’t characters; they’re extras who have somehow managed to blag a few lines of dialogue.

The fact that elements of the plot are explained in tie-ins like The Animatrix series and the Enter the Matrix computer game doesn’t help. When I watch a film I want all the relevant information to be included in the film itself not in some spin-off product that I’ve got absolutely no interest in. (Okay, so I’ve read The Matrix graphic novel but that’s because I like comics, not because I’ve been brainwashed into buying any old rubbish that carries the Matrix brand name.) No doubt the Wachowskis think of these tie-ins as ways of allowing the fans to enjoy the Matrix in a more intense interactive manner but that only applies to the hardcore Matrix fanboy. The term that comes more readily to mind for the average filmgoer is total rip-off.

Even the lauded special effects aren’t that special. The Burly Brawl in Reloaded loses all credibility once the CGI goes into overload. Up until then it had been an exciting slice of chop socky with the only major effects being used to create the illusion of multiple Agent Smiths. But as soon as Neo goes into his kickboxing poledancer routine the fight just becomes laughable. And yet still the scene plods on, proudly displaying its blocky sub-Pacman graphics.

The attack on Zion in Revolutions also suffers from being too long. Long after the audience has figured out exactly which clichés the humans are going to use to save the day the Wachowskis feel the need to drag the scene out for a seemingly interminable length of time. For some reason they think it will make the supposedly unstoppable Sentinels scarier if they reinforce the machines’ total inability to kill unarmed and unprotected people despite the humans being weighed down by heavily laden wheelbarrows.

The fact that the Wachowskis expect people to dissect the films, searching for all the clever references they’ve made, also means that people start to find all the bits of the story that don’t seem to make sense. Like, how comes Neo can use his computer-generated powers in the real world? If the computers can’t create a perfect version of the Matrix because human minds reject it why don’t they just clone braindead humans who wouldn’t be able to reject the perfect Matrix? If Neo and Agent Smith are supposed to be so radically different from all the other computer programs in The Matrix, blessing them with unpredictability, then how comes The Oracle can always predict what they’re going to do?

Maybe all this stuff makes sense and maybe it doesn’t. But if it does the Wachowskis haven’t done themselves any favours by making it such a tangled mess. They should’ve stuck to the formula of producing a slick action movie that touches upon the metaphysical stuff just enough that the audience could delve deeper into the references if they were interested. By keeping everything moving quickly they could gloss over the story’s inconsistencies.

Because even in some of the smaller details the films fall apart. One of the great things about the first film was that the Agents were so unstoppable that even the super-cool Morpheus and Trinity legged it as soon as they appeared on the scene. Yet in Reloaded despite the Agents having upgrades that allow them to go toe-to-toe with Neo suddenly Morpheus and Trinity start duking it out with anyone they can find who’s wearing a black suit and shades. Worse, if the upgrades mean that a mere handful of Agents can hold their own (albeit briefly) against Neo then how come he isn’t totally overwhelmed when battling a hundred or so copies of Agent Smith? And why does Neo keep forgetting he has superpowers whenever the Wachowskis want to prolong an action scene? I just wanted to scream at him, “You can fly, you moron! You can halt bullets in mid-flight! You can enter into Agents and unravel their very being! Why are you standing there letting them punch you?”

Although for me the biggest problem of the films is the way that the heroes quite happily blast away at innocent people. It’s clearly stated that if you die in The Matrix you also die in the real world. Therefore when Neo and Co. shoot at the Agents, causing them to vacate the bodies they’d hijacked, leaving them as bullet-ridden corpses, the good guys have effectively just killed innocent people. Now, fair enough, when faced with certain death at the hands of an implacable killer who makes the original Terminator look cuddly you’re not going to be too bothered about how you stop him so long as it works. In that sort of situation self-preservation rules. But there’s not even the slightest hint of remorse following these regrettable slayings. The only time I recall this dilemma even being mentioned in the films is in the training sequence with the woman in the red dress where Morpheus tells Neo, “If you are not one of us, you are one of them.”

Well, that’s all right then. Why bother displaying genuine human emotion over a truly horrible situation when you can just hide behind rhetoric and a pair of shades?
Not that I’m condoning “The Matrix Defence” that has sprung up in America where teenagers claim to have been driven to kill people because of the messages of violence in the Matrix films. No doubt these kids have also seen Disney films, with blatant messages of love and tolerance, but did that make them go out and start acting like saints? No. The teenagers’ violence came from mental problems and sociological strife. If these issues had been dealt with then the question of whether the Matrix films could ever have driven them to commit murder would never even have arisen.

And yeah, I know there’s a whole looking glass reflection aspect to the human/machine relationship in the Matrix films. We can’t live without the machines and they can’t live without us so we’re locked in an endless cycle of mutual dependency and hatred. So showing the heroes as being capable of an icy ruthlessness that matches that of the machines may well have been intentional. Maybe it’s to remind the audience that okay, humans are the good guys but we can still act like right bastards when the occasion demands. Although if this was the Wachowskis’ purpose I think they fumbled the ball badly.

This lack of compassion is something that I feel mars the series as a whole. The first two films are, on one level, love stories, with Trinity’s love bringing Neo back from the dead in The Matrix and then him returning the favour in Reloaded. And Revolutions has them both so filled with love for humanity that they sacrifice their lives so that their comrades might have a better future. Yet frankly I found these scenes didn’t touch me at all on an emotional level. In fact Trinity’s death scene was so badly handled, with the camera panning down ever so solemnly to reveal that she had been skewered by umpteen sharp objects (but she hadn’t told Neo this because she didn’t want to upset the poor dear), that it totally avoids pathos and instead jumps straight into black comedy.

Even the other romantic elements that were brought in after someone noticed that Neo and Trinity had absolutely zilch chemistry together fail to elicit audience sympathy. Link and Zee’s romance is never given enough screentime to engage the viewer whilst the romantic triangle between Morpheus, Niobe, and Commander Lock that started in Reloaded is conveniently forgotten in Revolutions when the Wachowskis realise they don’t actually know what to do with the subplot.

With no emotion at the heart of the story the trilogy becomes empty, soulless.

The kind of story that might have been written by a machine.

The Mask Behind the Face WHC edition

Just had it confirmed that there will be a special limited edition of my British Fantasy Award winning novella, The Mask Behind the Face, on sale at the World Horror Convention 2010.

This edition comes with a new cover quote from legendary horror author T.E.D Klein. "Wow, what an impressive story ... ambitious, in fact downright audacious"

This goes along with the previous quotes from bestselling novelists Mark Chadbourn and Brian Keene so I'm a litle bit chuffed right now.

Robert B Parker RIP

Robert B Parker passed away on Monday. He made a huge impact on the crime scene in the '70s and published over 60 novels, most famously the Spenser series. His work was tough, funny, intelligent and romantic. From all accounts so was he.

One of my favourite writers. I'm sorry that he's gone.

2009 reading

I'm probably forgetting a bunch of stuff but here's a rough list of what I read last year. Probably would've helped if I hadn't waited until halfway through the year to start listing my reading. And if I hadn't then lost the list.

* = not finished by the end of 2009
** = reread
*** = not quite a reread but heavy skimming of books that have been read previously

Novels:
GENTLEMEN OF THE ROAD -- Michael Chabon*
THE MASTER SNIPER -- Stephen Hunter
THE CODE OF THE WOOSTERS -- PG Wodehouse
THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE -- James M Cain
THEY SHOOT HORSES DON'T THEY? -- Horace McCoy
SOME OF YOUR BLOOD -- Theodore Sturgeon
TAMING A SEAHORSE -- Robert B Parker
THE DRIVE-IN: THE BUS TOUR -- Joe R Lansdale
THE LOVERS -- John Connolly
ALTERED CARBON -- Richard Morgan
ECHO BURNING -- Lee Child
THE ROAD -- Cormac McCarthy
THE TURNAROUND -- George Pelecanos
THE GATES -- John Connolly
TOMATO RED -- Daniel Woodrell
MARATHON MAN -- William Goldman
STARSHIP TROOPERS -- Robert Heinlein*
BATMAN BEGINS -- Dennis O'Neil*
THE GODWULF MANUSCRIPT -- Robert B Parker***
GOD SAVE THE CHILD -- Robert B Parker***
MORTAL STAKES -- Robert B Parker***
PROMISED LAND -- Robert B Parker***

Collections:
VERY GOOD, JEEVES! -- PG Wodehouse
E PLURIBUS UNICORN -- Theodore Sturgeon*
WAKING NIGHTMARES -- Ramsey Campbell*
BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S -- Truman Capote*
EARTHMAN GO HOME -- Harlan Ellison*
DARK VISONS -- Stephen King, Dan Simmons, George RR Martin*
NIGHT VISIONS 3 -- Ramsey Campbell, Lisa Tuttle, Clive Barker*

Short stories:
A bunch of Thomas Ligotti stories
Desperate Hours -- Jonathan Marshall
Guy Walks into a Bar ... -- Lee Child
The Sticky Wicket -- James Herriot
The Ant and the Grasshopper -- W Somerset Maugham
The Man From Glasgow -- W Somerset Maugham
The Pitch -- Dennis Etchison
The Accountant -- Robert Sheckley
Miss Marple Tells a Story -- Agatha Christie
The Last Seance -- Agatha Christie
The Snail-Watcher -- Patricia Highsmith
The Day of Reckoning -- Patricia Highsmith
The Baby Spoon -- Patricia Highsmith
A Curious Suicide -- Patricia Highsmith
A Rose for Emily -- William Faulkner
The Man Who Didn't Ask Why -- CS Forester
Examination Day -- Henry Slesar
The Seed from the Sepulchre -- Clark Ashton Smith
Home Away from Home -- Robert Bloch
You've Got to Have Brains -- Robert Bloch
The Mannikin -- Robert Bloch
The Graveyard Rats -- Henry Kuttner
The Wonderful story of Henry Sugar -- Roald Dahl
The Willows -- Algernon Blackwood
Oh Whistle and I'll Come to you my Lad -- MR James
Lost Hearts -- MR James
Canon Alberic's Scrap-book -- MR James
The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral -- MR James
Number 13 -- MR James
The Girls in Their Summer Dresses -- Irwin Shaw
The Heart of a Goof -- PG Wodehouse
High Stakes -- PG Wodehouse
Buried Treasure -- PG Wodehouse
The Letter of the Law -- PG Wodehouse
The Monster -- Joe Haldeman
Two Minutes Forty-Five Seconds -- Dan Simmons
A Way Home -- Theodore Sturgeon
Talent -- Theodore Sturgeon
The Man Born Blind -- CS Lewis
Forms of Things Unknown -- CS Lewis
Apples -- Ramsey Campbell
The Open Window -- Saki
Denton's Death -- Martin Amis
Activity Time -- Monica Dickens
Eyes -- Charles L Grant

Scriptbooks:
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: ONCE MORE WITH FEELING -- Joss Whedon
DR WHO: THE TALONS OF WENG-CHIANG -- Robert Holmes*

Non-Fiction:
CREATORS ON THE FANTASTIC FOUR -- Tom Defalco
WILL STORR vs THE SUPERNATURAL -- Will Storr*
A PATH WITH HEART -- Jack Kornfield*
ZANSHIN -- Vince Morris**
THE ELEMENTS OF ZEN -- David Scott and Tony Doubleday
AT HELL'S GATE -- Claude Anshin Thomas
BUDDHISM WITHOUT BELIEFS -- Stephen Batchelor
HARDCORE ZEN -- Brad Warner
SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP -- Brad Warner
ZEN WRAPPED IN KARMA DIPPED IN CHOCOLATE -- Brad Warner
THE COMICS JOURNAL LIBRARY 6: THE WRITERS -- Tom Spurgeon**
MEDITATIONS ON VIOLENCE -- Rory Miller
LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF VIOLENCE -- Lawrence A Kane and Kris Wilder*
WORKING WITH WARRIORS -- Dennis Martin*
IMPOSSIBLE TERRITORIES: AN UNOFFICIAL COMPANION TO THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN BLACK DOSSIER -- Jess Nevins
GRANT MORRISON: THE EARLY YEARS -- Timothy Callahan*
TARANTINO -- Jim Smith
NORMAN ROCKWELL -- Kara Ann Marling
THE PRE-RAPHAELITES -- Christopher Wood*
WONDER WOMAN: THE COMPLETE HISTORY -- Les Daniels*
ZEN FOR BEGINNERS -- Judith Blackstone and Zoran Josipovic
THE ESSENTIAL BATMAN ENCYCLOPEDIA -- Robert Greenberger*
THE NAKED ARTIST -- Bryan Talbot*

Poetry:
The Charge of the Light Brigade -- Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The Lady of Shallot -- Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening -- Robert Frost
Fire and Ice -- Robert Frost**
To Lucasta, On Going to the Wars -- Richard Lovelace
The Love Song of Alfred J Prufrock -- TS Eliot
Macavity: The Mystery Cat -- TS Eliot
The Second Coming -- WB Yeats
Dolor -- Theodore Roethke
The Tiger -- William Blake**
The Sick Rose -- William Blake**
A Poison Tree -- William Blake
On Art and Artists -- William Blake
The Clod and the Pebble -- William Blake
A Tragedy -- E Nesbit
To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time -- Robert Herrick
How Pleasant to Know Mr Lear -- Edward Lear
Jenny Kiss'd Me -- Leigh Hunt
The Lazy Writer -- Bert Leston Taylor
La Belle Dame sans Merci -- John Keats
I Tracked a Dead Man Down a Trench -- Walter Lyon
The Raven -- Edgar Allen Poe**

Comics:
JLA: NEW WORLD ORDER -- Grant Morrison**
JLA: AMERICAN DREAMS -- Grant Morrison**
JLA: ROCK OF AGES -- Grant Morrison**
JLA: STRENGTH IN NUMBERS -- Grant Morrison**
JLA: JUSTIC FOR ALL -- Grant Morrison**
JLA: WORLD WAR III -- Grant Morrison**
JLA: EARTH 2 -- Grant Morrison**
JLA/WILDCATS -- Grant Morrison**
JLA: YEAR ONE -- Mark Waid and Brian Augustyn**
JUSTICE LEAGUE: A MIDSUMMER'S NIGHTMARE -- Mark Waid and Fabian Nicezia
FANTASTIC FOUR: IMAGINAUTS -- Mark Waid
FANTASTIC FOUR: UNTHINKABLE -- Mark Waid
FANTASTIC FOUR: AUTHORIATIVE ACTION -- Mark Waid**
FANTASTIC FOUR: DISASSEMBLED -- Mark Waid**
FANTASTIC FOUR: RISING STORM -- Mark Waid**
DAN DARE -- Garth Ennis
THE UNCANNY X-MEN: BEYOND THE FURTHEST STAR -- Chris Claremont
STREETS OF GLORY -- Garth Ennis
FALLEN ANGEL -- Peter David
THE QUESTION: ZEN AND VIOLENCE -- Dennis O'Neil
THE QUESTION: POISONED GROUND -- Dennis O'Neil
THE QUESTION: EPITAPH FOR A HERO -- Dennis O'Neil
THE QUESTION: WELCOME TO OZ -- Dennis O'Neil
THE QUESTION: RIDDLES -- Dennis O'Neil
THE NEW FRONTIER -- Darwyn Cooke
ANIMAL MAN -- Grant Morrison**
ANIMAL MAN: ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES -- Grant Morrison**
ANIMAL MAN: DEUS EX MACHINA -- Grant Morrison**
BATTLEFIELDS -- Garth Ennis
WAR STORIES -- Garth Ennis**
SCARLET IN GASLIGHT -- Mike Powell
THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS -- Frank Miller**
BLAZING COMBAT -- Archie Goodwin and various artists
RUNAWAYS: DEADEND KIDS -- Joss Whedon
SPYBOY: -- Peter David
BATMAN BEGINS -- Scott Beatty
EDUARDO RISSO'S TALES OF TERROR -- Carlo Trillos
CRIMINAL: LAWLESS -- Ed Brubaker**
MURDER ME DEAD -- David Lapham
TWO GUNS -- Steven Grant
Y- THE LAST MAN: WHYS AND WHEREFORES: Brian K Vaughan
CAPTAIN AMERICA: OPERATION REBIRTH -- Mark Waid
CAPTAIN AMERICA: PROTECT AND SERVE -- Mark Waid
CAPTAIN AMERICA/ CAPTAIN AMERICA: SENTINEL OF LIBERTY -- as many of the non-collected Mark Waid issues as I could find.
IRREDEEMABLE -- Mark Waid
FIGHT TO THE DEATH: BATTLE OF GUADALCANAL -- Larry Hama
SIN CITY: BOOZE, BROADS AND BULLETS -- Frank Miller**
DARK BLUE -- Warren Ellis**
CONAN AND THE SONGS OF THE DEAD -- Joe R Lansdale
ALLSTAR SUPERMAN VOL 2 -- Grant Morrison
THE FLASH: THE RETURN OF BARRY ALLEN -- Mark Waid
THE FLASH: TERMINAL VELOCITY -- Mark Waid
THE FLASH: RACE AGAINST TIME -- Mark Waid
THE LIFE STORY OF THE FLASH -- Mark Waid and Brian Augustyn**
GREEN LANTERN/SUPERMAN: LEGEND OF THE GREEN FLAME -- Neil Gaiman**
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: TIME OF YOUR LIFE -- Joss Whedon, Jeph Loeb
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: PREDATORS AND PREY -- Jane Espenson, Steven S. DeKnight and Drew Z. Greenberg
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN: DEATH AND DATING -- Mark Waid, Dan Slott, Roger Stern
THE LONE RANGER -- Brett Matthews
HITMAN -- Garth Ennis***
THE COMPLETE NEW STATESMEN -- John Smith
CAPTAIN AMERICA: WAR AND REMEMBRANCE -- Roger Stern