The first of my book reviews to appear on the Cairns.com.au website! The Verdict: Does without SF’s usual toys and doesn’t need them – a gripping, heart-wrenching read.
Actually, sorry, it's the second: the first is here! The Verdict: Less pacy but more characterful than the first (book in the sequence); a great sophomore work for (Scott) Lynch.
When I was growing up, one of the answers I gave to that perennial question, "So what do you want to do when you grow up?" was "Work at a newspaper." This was, of course, a cover for my real answer which was (and still is) "For crying out loud, I have no idea!"
You know, I’m becoming more and more impressed with the quality and diversity of stock that the Cairns Libraries have in. Books I wouldn’t have dreamed of searching the Hornsby Shire computer system for, like Callahan’s Con or Red Seas Under Red Skies, are present out here in what many would consider Hicksville. After getting the movie out on DVD from my local video rental place I decided to try my luck with the library. Right there on the G shelf was a copy of the novel Stardust by Neil Gaiman, but this was just a plain prose novel; I wanted the original with Charles Vess’ artwork. I hit the computer system and found that the library had three more Stardusts in stock, including one with the full title of Stardust: Being A Romance Within The Realms of Faerie at the Earlville branch. Figuring I had nothing to lose I put a reservation on it. Within a pair of days the library had e-mailed me with confirmation that it had arrived at the city branch, and when I went in this morning, there was the Vertigo graphic novel.
There’s a rule in fiction: Show, don’t tell. If something’s going on, show it happening; don’t have someone in the fiction talk about it.
On Tuesday night, the first season of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles came to an explosive end. Apparently, this was due to the US writers’ strike, but it left the show on a very neat cliffhanger to be picked up next season (and although it’s never a sure thing until it hits the screens, signs seem pretty good that T:SCC will be picked up for Season 2).
The capstone of a very intense final episode, though, wasn’t the bright last couple of shots, but the major fight scene near the end. Except, it wasn’t a fight scene.
I think – heck, I’m pretty sure – I have a new favourite movie.
I’ve gone trough favourites a lot lately. As many will tell you, my favourite movie from between 1991 and, I don’t know, 2000 or so, was Aliens. Things got uncertain for a while after that. A Knight’s Tale was in there for a while, then Serenity and recently, Transformers.
Last night, though, I went to the DVD store to find something to tide away a dull-TV Friday Night. I narrowed it down to three films; Surf’s Up, Stardust and Ratatouille (I was in a kids’ film mood and Enchanted isn’t out yet). I was keen on Surf's Up (Shia leBoeuf and Jeff Bridges jamming on dialogue sounds like the hot-buttered awesome), but I figured I'd leave the final call to Vickie, and after telling me I didn’t have to get a kids’ film (no, she loves them too, she just wanted to be sure I didn’t think I was being brow-beaten into a genre) she asked for Stardust.
Although they’re half a world apart and have never met, Captain Lennox (Josh Duhamel) and Sam Witwicky (Shia leBoeuf) both have girl trouble. Lennox and his platoon of infantry are stationed at a US Army forward base in Qatar, thousands of miles from his wife and their infant daughter, the latter of whom he’s yet to meet. Witwicky, a seventeen-year-old high schooler, doesn’t have a girl, and in order to rectify the situation he needs a car.
Sam’s dad (Kevin Dunn) is helping to rectify the problem, though, by pitching in half the money for a used car. No one notices the battered yellow muscle car that cruises onto the sleazy dealer’s lot by itself until Sam picks it out. Luck and some not-so-subtle promptings from his new car’s stereo see Sam driving gorgeous fellow student Mikaela (Megan Fox) home that evening – but later that night, his car takes off on its own. Sam loses the car in a rail yard, but seconds later he sees a giant yellow figure send a signal into the sky.
Lennox is nowhere near as lucky – a video transmission with his wife is interrupted by the arrival of a special ops chopper believed shot down weeks ago. The aircraft disrupts all transmissions and radar, then breaks apart, reassembling itself into a massive robot, and lays waste to the base. The armament of Lennox and his team is useless against the monster, which hacks the base’s central computer, looking for something buried deep within the US military network. The data line is cut before the machine can succeed, but Lennox’s team is forced to flee into the desert, where a sinister pursuer is intent on ensuring no word gets out before the machines find what they’re looking for…
(The Christmas post will have to wait until tomorrow. This is cross-posted from Robinson's Place.)
A couple of Sundays ago, around midday, I splurged twenty dollars on a nigh-on seven-hundred-page book. By the evening of the next day, I'd made it to the back cover. Although I could put it down, I had a very hard time doing so; I devoured chapters during morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea at work. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to read it through again, much more slowly this time, something I don't think I've ever done with any book before.
Although I din't know it when I bought the book, it was written by an Australian. John Birmingham previously (well, twelve years ago) made a literary splash with his novel, He Died With A Felafel In His Hand, about sharing a house in Brisbane, which was made into a movie locally. He followed it up with Leviathan: An Unauthorised History of Sydney. He's also a regular columnist for the current affairs magazine, The Bulletin.
The novel I read was a marked change of pace to say the least. It's called Weapons of Choice: World War 2.1. It opens fifteen years from now, as a fleet of ships from the US, UK, Australia, Japan, France and Indonesia gathers off East Timor under the supercarrier USS Hillary Clinton, preparing to take Indonesia back from the radical Muslim sect that overthrew its government. Tagging along with them is a reserach vessel at work on a new form of weapon system. When the head researcher decides to try to break the speed of light instead, Something Goes Wrong - and the multinational force suddenly finds itself halfway across the world and eighty years in its own past, materialising in the midst of Admiral Ray Spruance's task force en route to what ought to be the Battle of Midway.
I know I was intending to write a review on Batman Begins, but I let that slide a little too late. Besides, I've been harping on about the various movie versions of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds for ages, so I thought I'd be remiss if I didn' review its most recent film adaptation ASAP.
So, as many are already aware, the Steven Spielberg film War of the Worlds, starring Tom Cruise, is an adaptation of H. G. Wells' seminal turn-of-the-twentieth novel about alien invasion; probably the first alien invasion story ever written. It opens on an introduction to Ray Ferrier (Cruise), a New York dockworker who has just been given his kids, the sullen teen Robbie (Justin Chatwin) and precocious pre-teen Rachel (Dakota Fanning) by his divorced wife Maryann (Miranda Otto), for the weekend. It's clear that the younger Ferriers don't exactly get along with their dad, and that he's not the world?s best father either.
Things start turning strange when an unnatural storm forms over Ray's suburb, sending bolts of lightning repeatedly into the intersection in the middle of town. Ray goes to investigate, only to discover a huge alien machine rising up from under the road on three legs. The machine starts killing townsfolk indiscriminately, and Ray barely escapes with his life. He races back home, and begins a desperate journey to keep his family safe as alien tripods emerge across the globe and set about the extermination of the human race?
The very bad day of Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman) is just starting. A group of council workers have turned up in bulldozers and excavators, with the intent of knocking his house down to make way for a bypass. Arthur’s lie-down protest is interrupted by the appearance of his friend Ford (Mos Def), who’s in a hurry to get him down the pub and get some beer into him.
At the pub, Arthur relates the tale of a party he was at, where a bright young girl he was making progress with (Zooey Deschanel) was swept off by some smug jerk (Sam Rockwell) with a pickup line about being from a different planet. Then Ford tells him that Ford himself is from a different planet, and wants Arthur to depart Earth with him ASAP.
Ford is interrupted by the council workers demolishing Arthur’s house – who are in turn interrupted by the arrival of the Vogon Constructor Fleet, who have come to demolish Earth itself to make way for an interstellar expressway. Ford grabs Arthur and, sticking out his thumb, hitches a ride on board a Vogon ship mere seconds before the Earth is destroyed...
Continue reading "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Film)" »
It’s 2004, and the billionaire head of the Weyland Corporation (Lance Henriksen) is paying top dollar to gather a team of archaeologists, scientists, drillers and explorers from across the globe. Once aboard his ship in the Antarctic ice pack, Weyland explains his mysterious purpose – to be the first to reach a heat source that suddenly appeared deep under the ice. Satellite photos indicate the bloom is some sort of underground pyramid. Archaeologist Sebastian (Raoul Bova) believes the pyramid may be a missing link between three ancient cultures, while climber and Antarctic expert Lex (Sanaa Lathan) is only concerned with the lack of prep time the team is being given before they face the perils of an Antarctic expedition.
When the group arrives at the deserted whaling town atop the ice above the pyramid, they find that someone has already drilled a perfect tunnel down into the pyramid chamber. They start to explore, but it’s only a matter of hours before they realise the pyramid is preparing for the resumption of an age-old hunt – and before they know it, they’re being used as breeding stock for acid-blooded creatures, which the pyramid’s ancient hunting gods have returned to Earth to do battle with…
Continue reading "Alien Vs. Predator (Extended DVD Release)" »
Thanks to an expanded setting that caters for any particular taste of Paranoia you may have, a satirical take on modern woes and new mechanics that encourage Paranoia’s brand of backstabbing and betrayal without sacrificing speed and playability, Paranoia XP manages to successfully modernise the game whilst keeping the best of what old-time players love about previous editions. Worthy of a place on the bookshelves of all self-respecting gamers.
Although hampered by vague writing, Alien Summit does what it intends – facilitates interesting conversations and arguments – and does it well. Well worth ninety-nine cents as a before-the-main-event activity or something different for jaded die-rollers.
This review is hosted on RPGnet.
It’s the Dark Ages, and the Roman Empire is in control of roughly half of England. The Roman legionnaire Artorius, often called Arthur (Clive Owen), is commander of a unit of Knights from the country of Sarmatia. The conscript Knights have served Arthur and Rome for fifteen years in battle against the rebellious Woads, led by Merlin (Stephen Dillane), and are on the verge of being freed when a Roman bishop (Ivano Marescotti) orders Arthur to take them north of Hadrian’s Wall on one last mission. An army of Saxons is pillaging its way south, and a friend of the Catholic Church is to be evacuated.
At the village of Marcus Honorius (Ken Stott), Arthur discovers Marcus’ priests torturing captured Woads, including the mysterious Guinevere (Keira Knightley), in the name of saving their souls. Arthur frees them just before the Saxons arrive, and the evacuation becomes a race against time and the elements to get Marcus, his family and the villagers back beyond the Wall before the Saxon leader, Cerdic (Stellan Skarsgård), and his army catch up with them…
Henry Roth (Adam Sandler) has a life any bachelor would kill for. He’s a veterinarian for a Hawai’ian aquatic park, and is refurbishing a boat for a trip to Alaska; in the meantime, he’s romancing gorgeous tourist women, then ditching them when they get clingy.
Things suddenly change when Henry's boat breaks down off the coast; taking his dinghy into shore to call the coast guard, he meets Lucy Whitmore (Drew Barrymore) at a local café and is immediately smitten, departing with a promise to see her at the same place the next day. But when Henry returns, Lucy acts as though she’s never seen him before. She lost all short-term memory retention a year ago in a car accident, and her family and friends, including the café staff, conspire every day to make sure she’s happy, even if that means pretending it’s the same day over and over again.
Lucy’s protective father (Blake Clark) and brother (Sean Astin) warn Henry to stay out of Lucy's life or else, but he just can’t go back to who he was before, and must come up with ever-crazier schemes just to spend a few minutes in Lucy's company each day…
It’s some time in the near future. The survivors of a third World War believe that the human race won’t survive a fourth, and have taken drastic steps to ensure it doesn’t happen. Deciding that the root of all conflict and war is human emotion, they have created out of the ashes a new nation – Libria – whose citizens are required to inject doses of an emotion-suppressant called Prozium every day. Enforcing the edicts of Libria’s leader, Father (Sean Pertwee), is a new arm of the law, the Grammaton Cleric, tasked with hunting down and executing “sense offenders”.
Cleric John Preston (Christian Bale) is the best of the order; able to know an offender is feeling almost before the offender does. Within the first five minutes of the film, he employs his order’s dual-pistol-wielding martial art, the Gun Katas, to spectacular and deadly effect, dispatching an entire room of armed sense offenders quickly and efficiently. When his own partner, Partridge (Sean Bean), is caught concealing a book of poetry, it’s Preston himself who pulls the trigger.
The morning after Partridge’s death, Preston accidentally drops his dose of Prozium, and when the nearest depot is unavailable, he skips his dose. His burgeoning feelings are fanned by a recently arrested, aggressively emotional sense-offender, Mary O’Brien (Emily Watson), and he begins to doubt his mission, so much so that he stays off the Prozium. Unfortunately, Preston’s new partner, Brandt (Taye Diggs), is keen to advance his career, even if it means uncovering Preston’s sense crime, and when Preston accepts an assignment from the head of the Cleric, DuPont (Angus MacFadyen) to infiltrate the underground resistance to Libria, he faces his most difficult challenge yet: bringing down the Tetragrammaton and destroying the very society that created him…
It's 2003, eleven years after Terminator 2: Judgment Day. August 29th, 1997, the prophesied date of the machines' nuclear revolt against humanity, came and went without incident, but John Connor (Nick Stahl) hasn't let go of the fear that Judgment Day might still happen. He's living as a drifter, leaving no public record of his existence; because of this, he must resort to breaking into the veterinary hospital of Kate Brewster (Claire Danes) in order to get painkillers and perform some self-surgery after a motorcycle accident. When Kate arrives to deal with a customer's early-morning emergency, she discovers and overcomes Connor, locking him in a dog cage.
Meanwhile, a naked young woman (Kristanna Loken) materialises in Beverly Hills. She commences a murderous mission, gunning down a group of young adults whose only apparent connection is the same high school - and Kate Brewster is on the list. It is only the explosive intervention of the Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) that saves the lives of both Connor and Brewster from this new feminine assassin, the T-X. But the third Model 101 cyborg from the future also has an expanded mission: Not only must John Connor, the future leader of the human resistance against the machines, be protected, but the survival of Kate Brewster is also vital to the future of humanity...
Four men, all of whom share an unusual psychic power which estranges them somewhat from the rest of the world, unite at their hunting lodge six months after one of them, Jonesy (Damian Lewis) suffers a horrific car accident. Each of them has been thinking of a fifth, absent member of their group, Duddits (Donnie Wahlberg), whom they met and befriended as boys twenty years ago. The five of them made a dreamcatcher - a native American item meant to catch bad dreams - that hangs in the lodge.
Whilst out hunting in the snow-bound forest, Jonesy and Beaver (Jason Lee) come across another hunter wandering in the forest, bearing an odd rash on his face. After they take him in, strange things start to happen - a flood of forest animals rush past their lodge, all bearing the same scar as the hunter, and a pair of military helicopters fly overhead, announcing that the area has been quarrantined. In the meantime, Henry (Thomas Jane) and Pete (Timothy Olyphant), who went to the local store to pick up supplies, run their car off the road when they narrowly avoid hitting another half-frozen hunter (with the same rash on her throat) sitting squarely in the middle of it.
The four friends soon find themselves at the forefront of an invasion that the leader of a secret military unit, Colonel Curtis (Morgan Freeman) and his second in command, Owen (Tom Sizemore), will do anything to stop...
Continue reading "Dreamcatcher and Final Flight of the Osiris (Movie)" »
Halo: Combat Evolved has an interesting history behind it. It's developed by the publishing studio Bungie, best known for their Myth series of real time strategy games, but much beloved amongst Mac gamers thanks to the Marathon first person shooter trilogy. In 1999, Bungie officially announced development of their newest first person shooter, Halo, for PC and Mac; there was even speculation of a PS2 port (based on the release of Bungie's PC action game, Oni, on PS2). Screenshots and hype abounded, and gamers started drooling.
Suddenly, during the first half of 2000, Bungie was purchased by Microsoft. Development from Halo was immediately switched from the PC and Mac platforms to Microsoft's upcoming Xbox console (the "Xbox Only" stamp put the kybosh on any PS2 port), with release on PC and Mac promised for sometime in the future. When the Xbox launched in the US in November of 2001, Halo - now Halo: Combat Evolved - was its flagship title. Many credit the initial strong sales of the Xbox to Halo: Combat Evolved, and without a doubt, the title has almost become synonymous with Microsoft's console; in citing the Xbox as the world's most powerful gaming console in their 2003 Book of Records, Guinness used a half-page picture of Halo's lead character, the Master Chief. PC and Mac development has since been out-sourced to third-party port developers Gearbox Software (PC) and Westlake Interactive (Mac) in order to free Bungie up to work on the Xbox sequel, Halo 2.