A long time passed

I've not posted on here for quite some time - a little over a year. In truth I was not sure I was ever going to post on this blog again.

As anyone knows who read my post from April last year I was diagnosed with depression and my personality changed a little. I stopped reading completely and cut back severely on my watching sf or horror. I just didn't have the interest.

Well it's now more than 16 months since my diagnosis and I've still not read any fiction. I did start reading again although it's been non-fiction only. I've read my way through a number of science books including a great biography of Joseph Priestley, a fair few history books with the current one being a general all-encompassing history of Germany. Oh, and two great books by Simon Winchester.

Screenwise I've watched little sf/horror, although seem to be working my way through Nordic Noir - a list of Crime films / TV series made in Scandanavia. (By the way, anyone who enjoys a good crime show and might have enjoyed Girl with the Dragon Tattoo should watch The Bridge - just fantastic.)

But writing wise nothing! Not had even the slightest desire to hit the keyboard. It might return one day - just nothing doing yet.

New Review posted

My review of Stefan Petrucha's Blood Prophecy is now live at New Myths - go check it out

http://www.newmyths.com/

Short Film Review - The A-Team

Anyone of a certain age will have grown up watching programmes like the Six Million Dollar Man, Knight Rider and of course, the A-Team. They are cherished childhood memories. The problem is whenever Hollywood decides to revisit one of your icons and update it a feeling of dread grows within you. It did for me when I heard there was a new A-Team coming.

He backstory is updated, with the team’s framing taking place in the Iraq War rather than Vietnam. They are imprisoned separately in various security prisons, and in the case of Murdock a high security mental health unit. That is until they are broken out of prison to undertake a covert operation to…

To tell you the truth the plot is about the least important part of this movie. If you’re like me, remembering your 80s childhood self the things that are important are the characters, the silly, over-the-top, gung-ho actions and the implausible gadget-building. And they are all here.

Liam Neeson is excellent as Hannibal Smith, hamming it up to perfection and capturing that same glint in the eye George Peppard. Bradley Cooper captures Face’s vanity perfectly and Sharlto Copley is as mad as a bucket of frogs as Murdock. Even Quinton Jackson manages to almost make you forget the incredible Mr T (not quite though, that really would be asking too much).

Leave your brain at the door, you won’t need it, settle down and prepare to be entertained.

Book Review - A. Lee Martinez's Monster

Monster Dionysus (great name) hunts demons and other mythical or paranormal creatures for living. He works freelance for the Cryptobiological Containment and Rescue Services. He has a succubus girlfriend prone to mad jealous rages, a trans-dimensional being in the form of a cut-out paper gnome. He works his magic using runes written on post-it notes and today he is blue. At least blue means he’s invulnerable – useful when fighting yetis.

Judy Hines is a normal, and works in an all-night convenience store, the Food Plus Mart, where Yetis have decided to raid the ice cream. Unlike her co-workers, she doesn’t cower in a corner hoping they go away. She calls Animal Control Services – a call that gets re-routed when she utters the word “yeti”, resulting in Monster entering her life.

Monster arrives, and with help from Judy (and his fortuitous invincibility) the yetis are soon captured or killed. And so, despite the loss of her place of employment Judy’s life should return to normal, the memories of the big-bad mythical killing machines fading from her mind. Problem is when she gets home she finds her closet is infested with trolls. Cue another encounter with a, now purple, Monster. And things are only going to get stranger.

This is a fantastic romp of a novel. It’s ideal for any fans of Christopher Moore – it shares the same madcap sense of humour and the absurd – as well as Pratchett or Simon Green’s Nightside series. Martinez has a zany way of looking at the world and great way of expressing his weirdness.

He also has a way of telling a truly bizarre story without it breaking too far from reality as to be unreadable. Monster may be a magic-user. He may fight demons for a living. He may have a demon girlfriend and he may change colour every time he sleeps, with the accompanying and often unknown to Monster associated powers and limitations (including Purple meaning he cannot smell anything).

But at his core, Monster’s just a bloke. His attitudes and behaviour resemble your average plumber. And the reactions of the normal folk he encounters in his day job, from petrified stupor through to outright denial, are very believably real. It’s no mean feat to have such a grounded, realistic feeling in a book as out there as this.

Plot wise too Martinez excels. He builds tension as the novel at a good pace progresses to its inevitably bizarre conclusion. He develops the antagonistic relationship between the two leads without muddying the waters with unnecessary details of side characters or overly elaborate descriptions of locations or monsters (the creatures, not Monster himself).

After all anyone who lives in the modern world knows what a convenience store or an apartment looks like. And any sf or fantasy fan will just understand what you mean when you say Troll – we don’t need to have three pages of text detailing their fur colour and fang length. Close on perfect this one.

Some more film reviews (Murky Depths)

Have a new bunch of film reviews under consideration for Murky Depths. Films in questions are
- Saw: The Final Chapter (yeah I know a little late)
- Alien vs Ninja
- Prowl

Will try to get some more film watching in this weekend so I can keep up the pace...

..recovery is going well I think

A sale, a rejection and some submissions

New Myths have accepted a review from me - for Stefan Petucha's Blood Prophesy. And turned down the review for A. Lee Martinez's Monster. 50% is an acceptance rate I'll take. And I'll post the Martinez review on here soon.

Oh and I've sent in another 3 articles to them - fingers crossed.

Murky Depths again

Just found out another six short film reviews of mine will be appearing on the Murky Depths website soon.

These will be for -
The Bleeding
Burke & Hare
Devil's Playground
Husk
Let Me In
Little Big Soldier

You don't have to wait to visit them, go check out their site anyway - http://www.murkydepths.com/