Review: Stardust - Neil Gaiman

Don't try and take a purposeful walk with Neil Gaiman.  It'll take forever, you'll stop and smell myriad roses and probably end up never getting where you want.  In short, you'll meander, often simply for the sake of it, and he'll keep your attention for a while, but often be left feeling that the whole exercise was pointless.

The journey can be the reward ... but sometimes that reward is unsatisfying and annoying.

I've tried, wanted, to like Gaiman now - two times - and failed.

Stardust is one of my all-time favourite movies.  It's certainly got to be right up there - it features a predictably callow youth coming of age story, plenty of imaginative fight scenes, a strong - climactic - ending, wonderful sense of humour and  features all of Dexter Fletcher, De Niro, Ricky Gervais, Jason Flemyng, Mark Strong, Michelle Pfeiffer, a chick from Coupling and Claire Danes. 

Yes, Fletcher is listed first because he was in one of my kiddie favourites (Press Gang) and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.  Perhaps that's where the disconnect occurs: the producer of that seminal modern East-end gangster film was Matthew Vaughn, who directs the feature version of Stardust.  He obtained its rights at no cost from Gaiman, who thought he could do a good job in bringing it to life.  It turns out I like Matthew Vaughn's work a lot more than Neil Gaiman's.  This is one of those rare movies where it exceeds the work from which it grew.

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Gaiman's version reads much the same as the first two thirds of the movie, but with the author's typical homespun feel.  While, alongside his delicate, graceful prose, this ability to create believable, real-world fantasies stands as (in my opinion) his greatest skill, this realism doesn't translate through to a big-screen fantasy.  Celluloid, for obvious reasons, plays up popular emotions like love, romance, intrigue and adventure.  Gaiman's style is to do quite the opposite, creating an interesting world with complex, engaging characters motivated by "real" human emotions.

The result is that the novel enchants you for the first sixty pages, then continues and finally peters out with about thirty pages remaining.  There isn't so much a climax, as a slow recession into nothingness like an old man trying to vocalise lost thoughts.  It's not bad, and quite enjoyable, but leaves the reader somewhat disappointed at the lack of climax.  It doesn't feel like it's missing a sword fight, or a great happy ending; just that the final pages see a bunch of interminable meandering, as life would generally provide.

Unfortunately, Gaiman is writing (mostly, up to this point, very well) a fantasy.  We don't want real-world finishes, or at least, I don't.  I want an inventive solution which isn't a deux ex machina.  Gaiman creates wonderful starts, beautiful situations, yet Stardust only strengthened a burgeoning belief that this is his forte, rather than pursuing a narrative.  Tennis balls.

Review: Fragile Things - Neil Gaiman

I'd heard so much about Neil Gaiman.

He's probably the most followed auteur author on Twitter, he wrote a quality episode of my favourite TV programme (Doctor Who - The Doctor's Wife), I loved the movie Stardust and he's become a sort-of geek Elvis.  Inspired, I reserved a copy of a short story collection from my local library, my first Gaiman.

I hope I chose poorly.

Fragile Things is a collection of short stories and poetry that Gaiman was commissioned to write for various collations.  It begins with a twenty-odd page exploration into the roots of each tale, during which he writes about a time where he began to collaborate with master of the genre Harlan Ellison.  He says that Ellison had to finish one of his own works, and told Gaiman to begin work on their short story and he'd catch up.  When he returned, he told Gaiman "No, not doing it - it reads like Neil Gaiman".  This could perhaps sum up the book better than any of my observations: Gaiman has his own recognisable style which he pairs with a varying tone from story to story.

Which is fine, of course, expected even - except when the stories aren't grabbing the reader.  The title, Fragile Things, is perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of the work, for it perfectly describes Gaiman's writing.  He uses each word precisely, delicately and lightly, giving the reader the feeling that should they close the book too quickly, the words of the text will dislodge and flutter into disorder.  He writes like one assembles a jigsaw - there is no alternative but to be precise.

Courtesy: Jar of Juice

He is an artisan, respectful of the written word and it's propensity misuse and so writes with paramount agility.  Unfortunately for my preferences though, his deftness with sentence construction is paired with a minimalist approach to storyline; this collection comprises mainly beautifully constructed scenes which rarely tell the end of the tale.

The stories within are immaculate games of "What If...", leading to a number of unusual situations, but often lack resolution.  In many ways, this book is like a lighter collection of Coen Brothers short films - stuff happens and then the movie ends.  Given my past reviews, it should come as no surprise  that resolution forms a key part of my literary enjoyment.  Gaiman, like the Coens, aren't strong on this and prefer to present interesting scenes that leave the reader where the artist started - with a "What about..."

In Volume One of his prison diaries, Jeffrey Archer wrote about creating short fictions.  When doing so, he said, it was imperative to have the end in mind.  A novel could be plotted logically and, although needing to collect tension properly and avoid any Deus ex machinae, didn't need a hard ending in mind when writing began.  Archer is obviously from a completely different school of writing from Gaiman, but there is reason to his statements.  Gaiman can ignore them simply because these short fictions rarely led anywhere, much less a conclusion.

I'm looking forward to my next tryst with Neil Gaiman, if only because I'm positive (or at least hoping) that I'll enjoy it more than this load of marbles.

Related review: Stardust - Neil Gaiman

Review: Doctor Who: City at World's End - Christopher Bulis

Since receiving my first Doctor Who novelization in 1986 (the much-misunderstood The Gunfighters), I’ve managed to collect a rather surprising amount of Who-related books; fiction and non-fiction, real-world production information and plain, simple fantasy. I don’t read them much anymore (this is the first Who book reviewed on BwB), but occasionally delve into one to really get a feel for my teen years again.

And City at World’s End is almost certainly the worst Doctor Who novel I’ve read, and I’ve read the ultimate testament to fanboy continuity-geekdom, War of the Daleks. City, by Christopher Bulis, was one of the earlier BBC Books attempts to carry on the Doctor’s adventures while the TV show was on hiatus between 1989-2005.

Who took on a life of it’s own after the ’89 cancellation, as books describing “Missing” or “New” adventures of the Time Lord were published by various enterprises. Many of these (cough, War of the Daleks, cough) came straight from fanboys and were astonishing in their ability to turn one line of dialogue from a single episode broadcast in 1973 into entire 279-page novels. (For some reason, novelizations of the original serials – two 23-minute long episodes or ten - were almost always fit into 127-page books; for the New/Missing adventures it’s 279).

It’s this kind of backstory which explains the Who dichotomy. Because of it’s wonderfully simply and unique format, Who-fiction can be purely derivative stuff, completely original – and is often both. Take for example the 2007 broadcast stories “Human Nature” and “Family of the Blood”. These stories were written by Paul Cornell, who adapted his 1995 novel “Human Nature” to suit the reimagined series’ head honcho Russell T. Davies’ story arc allowing the Doctor’s nemesis to be re-born.

It turns out that the Master appeared in a story (Utopia) very much like this one – a group of humans building a rocket to escape their world’s apocalypse, all the time under threat by hostile aliens. I hope RTD wasn’t aware of this book when plotting Utopia, because the series deserves much better. City at World’s End is an appalling piece of fiction – even if, in embryo, the idea has merit.

City is remarkably poorly put together. It’s as transparent as a glass of water and features several (alleged) subplots which are both boring, useless – thus, utterly flawed – before they all converge nowhere. Typical Whoniverse “religion is blind and corrupt” themes (cf. 1984’s Planet of Fire) aren’t so much hinted at as shouted from the mountain tops. There’s nothing wrong with a simple plot, as long as it’s paced well – a great example of this is the early Bond novels.

Pity is, we’ve covered most of our review space and haven’t even gotten to the words yet. The “adventure” is headlined by the original TARDIS crew of the Doctor (as portrayed by William Hartnell), his granddaughter Susan as well as English schoolteachers Ian and Barbara. Hartnell, whose mannerisms should make writing for him a relative doddle (as compared to the real, as opposed to remembered, Tom Baker years) is characterized less as a gentleman traveler and speaks words like a bored telephone sales operative.

Bulis throws about verbs like a ham-fisted bun vendor and completely fails to apply any sense of urgency to what we’re told is a desperate situation. He even trots out that “give every clue it’s a main character, but don’t refer to them by name until the very end of the chapter” hackneyed crap. The prelude (and first half of the book) were of such stunning shoddiness that I only continued reading so as to see a) how bad it could get and b) how much I could pan it in a review.

Much of these flaws can be repaired, however, given a good editing job. Unfortunately, being able to poke so many holes is almost every aspect of the book means the editor (at that time one of Stephen Cole or Justin Richards) must have been on a horrible deadline, as the book is laughably incoherent. By now, the series (of books) was obviously being run by the fan-boys on Adamsian-style deadlines.

In short, the book doesn’t deserve even half of the column inches I’ve devoted to it. Sorry. Who fiction can be very good – try Davies’ Damaged Goods or even Terrance Dicks’ Players – but this is just awful. Don’t let it put you off, but don’t bother to read it. No balls.

For more Doctor Who reviews, visit Who. Reviewed.

Review: The Stainless Steel Rat Returns - Harry Harrison

When you're a doyen of science fiction and created one of the genre's all-time heroes, eighty-six years old and splitting time between the US, Ireland and England you can afford to be a little cynical. It is so with Harry Harrison and the latest installment of the Stainless Steel Rat series, The Stainless Steel Rat Returns.

Slippery Jim DiGriz has retired and is living on a pleasure planet when the novel opens only to have his dream life shattered by the arrival of relatives who need financial help. DiGriz watches as his hard-stolen nestegg percolates into an abyss - or an enormous spaceship. It's not bad premise - but far from Harry Harrison's strongest - and has the strong ring of autobiographical content. The DiGriz family's adventures are then used to take aim at some of the US & Britain's exclusionist immigration policies.

Harrison's reputation as writing the Rat as the thinking man's space hero is well founded. As, apparently, are his liberal principles which, while laudable in their attempts often become a little obtrusive throughout the text. That this is his first novel in nearly a decade means the satire for which he earned his reputation isn't so much an undertone but coats thickly nearly every scenario. In several other of the series' books subtle sociopolitical commentary is identifiable and makes the reader smile but with this perhaps final chapter in the life of the Rat (whose age is indeterminate here) all that comes to mind is "Again, Harry"?

It's hardly the place of a younger man such as I to question vigorously a legend of the field. With his deserved reputation for being one of the pre-eminent satirists in the field for over fifty years, he deserves the benefit of any doubt - perhaps he feels the picture needs to be painted in such green-and-white terms (read the book and you'll get the green/white rather than black/white reference).

In many places Harrison appears to be writing on an subconscious autopilot system evolving over sixty-plus years. This is a shame considering his remarkable talent to quickly and easily describe fanciful plot points and makes the text sluggish. His ability created eminently readable, enjoyable and, though dealing often with darker topics, lightweight tales. It's not the case in this book and it's the only SSR novel I've had to push myself to finish. Maybe this is a result of the author's changing perspective as he (and the Rat) mature to an age with which I struggle to identify. Considering how much I respect his body of work and loved the prior Rat novels, I want this to be a failing of mine rather than of the author. As a pioneer of SF, I don't even want to consider it's a marker that Harrison's skill with the word has eroded.

The Stainless Steel Rat Returns could well be the coda to Harrison's work with his most famous creation. Like other science-fiction series (cf. the Star Wars saga, Tennant-era Who, The Next Generation movies), it could prove a marginally satisfying - if slightly disappointing - conclusion. Tennis balls.

Cover Image courtesy: thenonreview.com; of Harry Harrison courtesy: en.wikipedia.org

Review: And another thing... - Eoin Colfer

Perhaps Douglas Adams' greatest gift was for procrastination. Which created perhaps his greatest literary gift - an ability to create expansive, rambling narratives which both entertained and advanced the plot (mostly); mostly composed over hours of switch-on, switch-off composition. His legendary ability to achieve minimal results in maximum time abruptly ended the first Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy novel when his publishers literally said "Finish the current chapter and submit it". That he was able to draw the strings together on such long-winded expanses of prose after his short attention span was distracted by coffee, his Mac or even a passing butterfly was not only a gift but random acts of genius.

Eoin Colfer - he of the Artemis Fowl series - evidently has the same ability to ramble. However his contribution to the Hitchhikers' multiverse unfortunately loses steam and becomes less charming and more rambling as it proceeds. Undoubtedly a wonderful writer, Colfer turns phrases easily and thoughtfully, a quality which makes him a reasonable choice as H2G2 writing supremo. However, Douglas Adams had a remarkable knack of being able to knit a plot around his tangential observations that Colfer somehow lacks - you feel as if you are either reading a paragraph aimed at advancing the plot, or one aimed at making the reader snigger. While he's attempted quite successfully to mimic Adams' style, by the half way point many sequences have become interminable you realise the best characters, ideas and plotting were all Adams'.

This results in a book which feels awfully like the Star Wars prequels (ouch!) - the best ideas were the original ones and new "gimmicks" mostly fall flat. When riffing from the chords that Adams laid down, it's punchy and quite amusing. The premise (and plot) of the book is relatively clear - and remarkably straightforward for H2G2 - and Colfer's prosaic nous is evident throughout, the work lags badly and eventually becomes burdensome.

That's not to say it's a bad book, but it feels like Colfer began by encouraging lightning to strike twice (or for a sixth time) and ends with his realisation that no-one can really write like Douglas Adams. Like other artists of the twentieth century - Adams' contemporary Graham Chapman, for example - he will be imitated but it's best to go your own direction with established characters. As an example - have you ever tried to write in someone else's style? It's hard. And apparently gets harder as you plug on through 273 pages.

Having not read any of Artemis Fowl I wasn't sure what to expect of the work, or my beloved H2G2 multiverse. You can't copy inspiration and expect the same results. Like Doctor Who after Russell T. Davies and The West Wing after Sorkin it's best to go in a different direction rather than using creative types with talents in different areas. It's a brave attempt and doesn't reflect badly on Colfer, but doesn't shine like Adams. In a word: expected.

Hitchhikers' fans should still read And Another Thing... but do so prepared to be left flat. First half tennis balls, second half golf balls.

Cover image courtesy: forbiddenplanet.co.uk