The State of the Art (audio drama)

Adapted by Paul Cornell from the Iain M Banks novella of the same name (reprinted in the collection of the same name) this BBC Radio 4 radio play finds agents of 'The Culture' - an interstellar post-scarcity civilisation comprising of a variety of sentient lifeforms, although primarily humanoid and machine - visiting present day Earth in order to assess it's suitability for membership.

To my knowledge this is the only adaptation of any Culture stories and fortunately it's a very good one with a rock solid cast featuring Antony Sher, Nina Sosanya, Paterson Joseph, Graeme Hawley, Brigit Forsyth and Conrad Nelson and with it's contemporary setting stripping it of most of it's space opera trappings it makes for a perfect introduction to Banks' defining creation.

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The Chrysalids (radio play)

'The Chrysalids' was the third of the 'John Wyndham' novels published in the 1950s after 'The Day of the Triffids' and 'The Kraken Wakes'. It's the story of a group of telepathic children living in a post-nuclear Canada in a fundamentalist Christian society that practices an extreme doctrine of genetic purity following the 'Tribulation', a nuclear war that has left much of the world devastated and the remnants subjected to the vicissitudes of the fallout. Eventually forced to flee their home the telepathic teens are introduced to a wider world potentially every bit as extreme as the one they are running from.

This version was adapted for BBC Radio 4 in 1981 by Barbara Clegg - later to become the first woman to write a 'Doctor Who' serial, 'Enlightenment' - and stars, amongst others, Stephen Garlick ('The Dark Crystal'), Spencer Banks ('Timeslip' & 'Penda's Fen') and Michael Spice ('The Brain of Morbius' & 'The Talons of Weng-Chiang').  It's an obvious labour of love that has been assembled with a real care for the source material.  There is an argument to be had over the use of adults voicing the children's parts but that's a quibble with what is otherwise an excellent adaptation. 

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Who Goes Here? (audio drama)

In the 24th century guilty men join the Space Legion to, quite literally, forget as the offending memory is electronically erased upon induction but when new recruit Warren Peace awakens from the procedure with his entire memory is gone he absolutely needs to find out just how much of a monster he must have been?

From the novel written by Bob Shaw, dramatised for BBC Radio 4 in September 1991 and starring Douglas Hodge as Warren Peace, it's a quick and light-footed adaptation of Shaw's equally quick novel. With it's feet firmly planted in the same territory as 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' this is a fabulously daft story that takes Warren across the galaxy and back again in his quest to find out what it was exactly that he did and who exactly he is.

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Hardware

I can't really remember when I first saw 'Hardware' but it was fairly soon after it's 1990 release but what I do remember was sitting there in amazement wondering how I could have missed the news that 2000AD had made a movie of one of my favourite stories, 'Shok!' from a treasured Judge Dredd annual (1981) and then scouring the credits wondering why there was no mention of writer Steve MacManus or artist Kevin O'Neill or even of 2000AD who subsequently sued for plagiarism and won.

Hardware is a post-apocalyptic tale of mechanical mayhem triggered by the discovery of the dismembered remains of a prototype murder robot out in the desert wastelands by Nomad, played by Fields of the Nephilim singer Carl McCoy,  the first of three rock star cameos in the opening 20 minutes and who is presumably just wearing his own clothes.  The second cameo soon comes in the form of Iggy Pop's radio DJ Angry Bob, who gives us some background info on the world we're in before Lemmy ferries two of our stars across the river to the sounds of 'Ace of Spades'.

Thanks to Shades (John Lynch) and Moses (Dylan McDermott - perhaps the most recognisable non musician here thanks to roles in various series of American Horror Story) the robot's head soon finds itself part of an industrial sculpture made by Stacey Travis' Jill before it starts drawing the power needed to start itself up and murder everyone in sight except for Jill because in the grand tradition of the slasher there needs to be a last woman standing.

Working on a small budget director Richard Stanley has made a real go of it and parts of it look pretty nice but the limitations do shine through.  Most filming took place inside the then disused Roundhouse so everything has a nicely grimy, derelict feel but poor soundproofing meant all dialogue needed to be re-recorded giving the film the look of a poorly dubbed foreign language film. 'Based' as it was on a 7 page 2000AD short what little story there is can only be stretched so far and patience is stretched thin as the robot repeatedly revives itself for yet another bout of murderdeathkill.  In amongst this the cast deal competently with a hammy script with Stacey holding the centre stage well and earning her scream queen stripes and William Hootkins as creepy, peepy neighbour Lincoln Wineberg Jr making a memorable cameo.

Truthfully you can't fault Stanley's ambition (you can definitely fault his ethics) and he made a gritty, hissing clanging post-industrial slasher with it's toes in the same fetish club aesthetic that spawned Clive Barker's Hellraiser but like it's tin man antagonist it's lacking heart and is essentially a mish mash of Terminator, Blade Runner and Soylent Green, occasional spaghetti western tropes and a thousand no-budget Italian grindhouse post-apocalypse schlockers all wrapped around a plagiarised core.

 

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The Night Caller

'The Night Caller' (or 'Night Caller from Outer Space' or 'Blood Beast from Outer Space') is a UK science fiction film made in 1965 and is the story of aliens (from Jupiter's moon Ganymede) kidnapping young women via an ad in the pages of 'Bikini Girl' magazine to breed with in order to repopulate their devastated home.

Directed by John Gilling who would, a year later, go on to direct Hammer's 'Plague of the Zombies' & 'The Reptile' with, in the grand tradition of 1960s UK science fiction, an American lead this time in the form of the always reliable John Saxon (Roper in 'Enter The Dragon') accompanied by ITC regular Patricia Haines, Maurice Denholm ('Countess Dracula' & 'Night of the Demon') and Alfred Burke who provide a rock solid core at the heart of the drama.

Like the Quatermass movies this is a take on the cold war analogous red menace alien invasion movies of the 1950s but unlike Quatermass it doesn't have Nigel Kneale writing it so it just isn't as good but few things are so we're not going to hold that against it.  What it is is a big, silly, rubber-suited and jaguar driving alien monster (called Smith) sci-fi movie that feels as joyously dated as it actually is.



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Time Out Of Mind

'Time Out Of Mind' was a short, 5 episode, BBC2 documentary series that gave a brief career overview along with interviews with 4 key science fiction authors of the day, Arthur C. Clarke, John Brunner, Michael Moorcock and Anne McCaffrey.  We get to see each relaxing in their own spaces talking about their inspirations, their motivations and their distractions with occasional talking head interjections from other authors such as M. John Harrison, Thomas M. Disch, Frederik Pohl, Brian Aldiss, Harry Harrison and Fritz Leiber and in the final episode we are shown around the science fiction convention 'Seacon 79' at the Metropole in Brighton which also includes glimpses of folk like Tom Baker and Christopher Reeve.

I found this whilst searching for Michael Moorcock videos who's the only author here that I'm a fan of.  The others are either not my particular cups of tea -  Clarke and McCaffrey - or have long languished on my 'must get around to reading him one day' list - Brunner.  It makes for interesting viewing filled with nice little insights that will give fans and the curious alike a glimpse into the worlds of these creators of worlds and back to a time when science fiction conventions were less of a movie marketing enterprise and more concerned with the ideas behind them.



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Trees Vol 2: Two Forests

Warren Ellis (writer)
Jason Howard (artist)
Image Comics

A survivor of the Blindhail Event looks for signs of imminent global disaster among the megaliths and relics of Orkney, while the new mayor of New York plans to extract his revenge for the awful thing that happened the day the Tree landed on Manhattan.

The first volume of Trees was a multinational sort of beast slipping between Europe, China, the Arctic Circle, Africa, and New York as we are introduced to some of the players and the idea of a world where giant, inscrutable alien monoliths have planted themselves in the Earth and then proceeded to not do much of anything except occasionally leak toxic waste.

Volume 2 is considerably less frenetic and for much of it's time tells of only 2  characters; sleazy New York mayor-elect and his attempts to clean house and Dr. Jo Creasy the sole survivor of the whatever it was at Svalbard in the previous volume.

The mayor's story plays out as a more straightforward action piece of political sci-fi filled with camouflage cloth and drone strikes.  The Dr. Creasy story on the other hand rings all manner of Wyrd Britain bells as she is packed off to the Orkney Islands to look for black flowers where she meets an archaeologist and things get very 'Quatermass Conclusion' which to my mind is always a good thing.

As much as I enjoyed the first book it was a little hyperactive for my sedate tastes but this is much more settled set that really opened out the storyworld in all manner of interesting ways and was an absolute joy to read.

Buy it here -  UK  / US

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Trees Vol 1: In Shadow

Warren Ellis (writer)
Jason Howard (artist)
Image Comics

Ten years after they landed. All over the world. And they did nothing, standing on the surface of the Earth like trees, exerting their silent pressure on the world, as if there were no-one here and nothing under foot. Ten years since we learned that there is intelligent life in the universe, but that they did not recognise us as intelligent or alive. Trees looks at a near-future world where life goes on in the shadows of the Trees: in China, where a young painter arrives in the “special cultural zone” of a city under a Tree; in Italy, where a young woman under the menacing protection of a fascist gang meets an old man who wants to teach her terrible skills; and in Svalbard, where a research team is discovering, by accident, that the Trees may not be dormant after all, and the awful threat they truly represent.

Trees tells the stories of human existence after the arrival of extraterrestrials in the form of giant cylindrical 'Trees' that smashed into various points around the globe - including the middle of New York, rural Sicily, the arctic tundra, China -  and then proceeded to do absolutely nothing, except occasionally vent toxic waste.

Now though, many years on we join the stories of several people living in the shadow of the Trees whose lives are being profoundly impacted by their presence; a scientist monitoring a new breed of flowers, a young woman finding the teacher who can help her find her way to owning her own life, ambitious New York and Somali politicians and an artist discovering himself amongst like minded souls in a walled city in China.

As is often the case with Warren's work he begins his story with a focus on world building as seen through the eyes of the protagonists where we're offered a glimpse of who, where and what they are with the rest to be filled in as and when it suits.  I love this people centred approach,  too much science fiction is concerned with the idea over the people and whilst like the rest of you I love a big bold idea - and I think the benignly malevolent Trees are a great idea - it's the stories of the people that are the most interesting.

I'm always excited by a new Ellis book and whilst his Injection books have got me besotted this proved to be prime Warren full of invention and sass and I'm very much looking forward to the next volume.

Buy it here - UK / US

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Other Edens

Christopher Evans (ed)
Robert Holdstock (ed)
Unwin

This 1987 collection of sci fi and fantasy shorts was produced to address a perceived gap in the availability of a mass market anthology collection at the time.  A hark back to the myriad of books of shorts that covered book shelves of the 1970s.  It went on to spawn two sequels over the next two years.  This first one boasting a line up entirely consisting of UK based - not necessarily British - authors proved to be an enjoyable if slightly inconsistent read.

The standout story here is Robert Holdstock's 'Scarrowfell'. Having just emerged from his 'Mythago Wood' I was enthused to read more and it certainly delivered with another piece of pagan Celtic fantasy that felt both uncontrived and remarkably fresh.

I'm a huge Michael Moorcock fan so the biggest disappointment here is undoubtedly his 'The Frozen Cardinal' which I thought was just daft although the treatment of women in many of the tales was an equally disappointing experience with both Tanith Lee's 'Crying in the Rain' and Christopher Evans' 'The Facts of Life' reducing them to mere property and Lisa Tuttle's 'The Wound' to that of a mutation.

Ian Watson's 'The Emir's Clock' is an interesting piece with a dumb ending and R.M. Lanning's 'Sanctity' was an interesting set up to an ending that reminded me of  Monty Python joke and David Langford's ' In a Land of Sand and Ruin and Gold' owed a real debt to Moorcock's 'Dancers at the End of Time' series.

Graham Charnock's 'Fulwood's Web' was an entertainingly old fashioned bit of 'man shouldn't meddle' fun. David Garnett's 'Moonlighter' gave a tweak to the hoary old parallel dimension trope whilst M. John Harrison's 'Small Heirloom's' was intriguing but needed far more room than it had here. Gary Kilworth's 'Triptych' was one interesting idea sandwiched between two lesser ones but Keith Roberts' 'Piper's Wait' was very much the redemption of the book's latter half.

As I said an inconsistent read redeemed entirely by Holdstock's tale but not without a smattering of other interests strewn across it's pages.

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Night of the Big Heat

The original novel that spawned 'Night of the Big Heat' was written by UK writer John Lymington (real name John Richard Newton Chance) who produced a seemingly endless stream of sub John Wyndham sci fi through the 1960s, 70s and even into the 80s - indeed fellow sci fi writer Brian Stableford suggested that Lymington chose his nom de plume specifically because of it's similarity to Wyndham's name - and this, his first, is very much in that category.

Set on the island of Fara where despite it being winter the locals are suffering in an intense heat wave.  Onto the sweltering island comes vampish secretary, Angela Roberts (Jane Merrow) in an attempt to rekindle her affair with novelist / publican Jeff Callum (Patrick Allen).  Already on the island are various locals including Dr Vernon Stone (Peter Cushing), a team of meteorologists and a brash scientist called Godfrey Hanson (Christopher Lee) who is investigating the heatwave and uncovering some unexpected results.

Directed by Hammer stalwart Terence Fisher (The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula) and starring that companies two biggest stars - although Cushing is very much a supporting cast member here - it seems strange that this was made by the obscure Planet Film Productions but perhaps that goes a long way to explaining just how cheaply made it seems but continuity errors and dodgy effects are the stuff that all our favourite B-movies are made of and this is definitely a B (possibly even a C).

The film is often achingly slow being a creature feature with an uninspiring creature that resembles a stranded jellyfish and with a script that was, at least in part, written by  Pip and Jane Baker - more familiar for their work some 20 years later on Doctor Who - this is a film that is saved by it's cast as Lee is obviously relishing his role, Cushing dominates each of his few scenes and Merrow is deliciously vindictive as the bonkers femme fatale.

In all it's a mess but it's a mess with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing at it's heart and that's a pairing that is always going to make me happy.

Buy it here - UK / US - or watch it below



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The Invisible Man (1984)

When scientist Griffin (Pip Donaghy) develops a process to turn himself invisible his already fragile mental state soon degenerates into complete delusional mania, terrorising people and declaring it the beginning of the reign of the Invisible Man.

Made by the BBC in 1984 as one of it's Classic Serials this adaptation of H.G. Wells' 'The Invisible Man' was deemed too violent by the Beeb's hierarchy and, well, too boring by viewers and so has, to a large extent, slipped into obscurity.  By modern standards of course it isn't particularly violent but it is, a little, slow and could certainly have benefited from some pruning down to maybe four episodes instead of six.

Typical BBC budgetary constraints are in evidence throughout with all the more well known cast members appearing only in the earlier episodes, and there's some woeful overacting on display particularly when Griffin is meant to be up to shenanigans and the cast are, of course, having to react to and fight against nothing but in the more sedate sections the invisibility effects are reasonably well done and personally I always get a kick out of seeing the headless dressing gown walking around.

Produced by former Doctor Who director and producer Barry Letts (the man who brought us the Roger Delgado Master) it is a fairly faithful adaptation (by James Andrew Hall) and that's perhaps part of the problem as what works for text doesn't necessarily translate to the screen. It is though nice to see a respectful adaptation that doesn't send the story off down some rabbit hole of the script writer's choosing - yes I'm looking at you Day of the Triffids.

Buy it here - The Invisible Man [DVD] [1984] - or watch it below.

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Legends from the End of Time

Michael Moorcock

A few months ago I revisited a book I had first read in my teens that I'd enjoyed but not fully 'got'.  'The Dancers at the End of Time' was Moorcock's tribute to the decadents of the closing years of the 19th century such as Wilde, Beardsley and George Meredith.  It told the story of the inhabitants who lived lives of blissful, artistic anarchy in a world reshaped to their every whim at the very end of everything.

Whereas I'd enjoyed the novelty of it as a young man I adored the very heart of it as an older one.  It's a beautiful book and I didn't want it to end.  So, imagine my joy when a few months later I discovered that in some ways it hadn't.  Here, in this companion volume we have several extra little stories involving many of the supporting characters and vistas of the main story arc.  We have stories of time travellers and champions, of visitors and residents, of restraint and abundance, of foolishness, of grace and of beauty.

It's too disjointed to be entirely engrossing and the individual stories exist sideways to what we know which robs them of some of their power but Moorcock is a writer who makes words dance and from whom ideas pour and who can, I think, be summed up - at least a little - in this speech by Lord Jagged of Canaria...

'Explore all attitudes my dear.  Honour them, every one, but be slippery - never let them hold you, else you fail to enjoy the benefits and be saddled only with the liabilities.  It's true that canvas against the skin can be as sensual as silk, and milk a sweeter drink than wine, but feel everything, taste everything, for it's own sake, and for your own sake, then no one thing shall be judged better or worse than another , no person shall be so judged and nothing can ensnare you.'

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Space 1999: Dragon's Domain

Space 1999 was a British (ITC) / Italian (RAI) co-production made by the former Century 21 (Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Joe 90) partnership of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. It told the unlikely story of the moon - along with it's moonbase inhabitants - breaking it's orbit and plunging through black holes and space warps finds itself adrift far out in the universe.

At it's time Space 1999 was the most expensive television series on British television and featured a double act of US stars in the form of Martin Landau and Barbara Bain at it's head in a blatant appeal to US networks.  It ran for two series between 1975 and 1977 and while still having a devoted following has to some extent been relegated - some would say deservedly - to the status of a bit of an also ran.  I have to admit I'm in that latter category but apart from 'Captain Scarlet' I'm not much of a fan of any of the Anderson's productions.  With the exception of that killer Barry Gray theme tune and the very cool Eagle spaceships (I always loved the way the pilot's seats slid into place) I thought it was a pretty bad show then and a recent rewatch failed to convince me otherwise.

If you want to check it out for yourself though the entire series is here, albeit in a slightly eccentric running order...



There is an exception though.  One episode in particular has stuck with me all these years, 'Dragon's Domain'.  I didn't really get scared much by TV shows as a kid.  I always kinda liked scary / gory things even as a nipper but there were a few things that put the frighteners on me.  One was the end of Assignment 4 of Sapphire and Steel, another was the opening credits to 'Armchair Thrillers' and the third was this episode of Space 1999 and a recent posting of a screengrab of the alien from it over on the Wyrd Britain Facebook page showed I wasn't the only one.

This episode is the story of Eagle pilot Tony Cellini's (Gianni Garko) encounter with a very hostile alien.  We get an extended flashback sequence to a doomed mission he had undertaken 3 years prior to the moon going walkabout that resulted in the gruesome deaths of all the others on the mission (including Grange Hill's Mr. Bronson, Michael Sheard).  Back in the present the moonies find themselves once again confronted by the mysterious spaceship graveyard that had been the previous mission's downfall.

Whilst cursed by the clunky acting and the typically ropey effects of the era, 'Dragon's Domain' with it's Lovecraftian tentacled horror from deep space with it's huge, glowing, hypnotic eye and it's gaping maw that strips a human down to a skeleton in seconds is still pretty effective even if it doesn't seem to be able to get through doors.

Buy the series here - Space: 1999 - The Complete First Series [DVD] [1975] - or watch it above (or below)



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Jizzle

Take a dip into a world where reality trembles and sanity is all in the mind — a world created by the brilliant author of The Day of the Triffids and The Kraken Wakes. 
There’s a monkey with a unique artistic talent. A man living his life over again. A tube in the rush hour that was so crowded it seemed like hell; in fact it was hell...
Jizzle will grip you from cover to cover with its unique blend of horror and fantasy — a combination which can never fail.

I had a copy of Jizzle here a while back but didn't like the cover art so I couldn't bring myself to read it (yes, I really am that picky).  This newly acquired copy with it's apocalyptic artwork was a different animal and I couldn't resist it.

This anthology is a collection of short stories written pre-1954 and includes stories previously printed in 'Argosy', 'Women's Journal' and 'Everybody's'.  They are, on the whole, pretty whimsical and there's a lightness here that is missing in many of his more famous works.  A sense of fun that, whilst not being something that I felt was lacking in those novels, was a nice thing to find here.

Love and relationships are at the core of many of these tales, often of course with a twist, such as the title story of a malicious monkey or the dream man of 'Perforce to Dream', the flea circus setting of 'Esmerelda' or the drunken fortune hunting of 'How Do I Do?'

Amongst the tales of the heart we do have some weirdness in the form of a rich old man getting to live his life again in 'Technical Slip' and the train ride to Hell in 'Confidence Trick, a ghost story ('Reservation Deferred'), science fiction ('Una') and even a post-apocalypse tale ('The Wheel'). Scattered throughout there are a variety of less satisfying stories that were, at best, a diverting piece of frippery but offered little more than that.

I am though at the final reckoning quite pleased to have found an aesthetically pleasing edition of what transpired to be a fairy enjoyable read that displayed a more playful side of an author I like very much indeed.

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Child's Play

'Child's Play' was the third episode of the short lived series Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense screened in the UK in late 1984 and jointly made by Hammer Studios and 20th Century Fox Television.  Ann (Mary Crosby), Michael (Nicholas Clay) and their daughter Sarah wake early one morning to discover their house has been completely encased in a solid metal shell.  As the family strive to escape, the temperature rises, tempers fray, memories slip, a mysterious symbol starts appearing around the house and a strange green goo pours down the chimney.

Stereotypical TV gender roles abound with Clay remaining steadfast and plucky and channelling his inner A-Team by making an improvised bomb in his own kitchen whilst Crosby is all brittle emotions and desperation.  Little can salvage the ending when it arrives in the shape of a pretty desperate twist in the tail but director Val Guest (The Quatermass Xperiment, Quatermass 2, Space: 1999) imbues the episode with a sweaty claustrophobia that disguises the paucity of the story.

Buy it here - Hammer House Of Mystery And Suspense - Vol. 2 [DVD] - or watch it below. 



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Chocky

John Wyndham
Michael Joseph

Matthew, they thought, was just going through a phase of talking to himself. And, like many parents, they waited for him to get over it, but it started to get worse. Mathew's conversations with himself grew more and more intense - it was like listening to one end of a telephone conversation while someone argued, cajoled and reasoned with another person you couldn't hear. Then Matthew started doing things he couldn't do before, like counting in binary-code mathematics. So he told them about Chocky - the person who lived in his head.

I have a slight thing about reading certain editions of books.  There are quite a few novels I'd like to read but haven't yet because I've not found one with the right cover art.  Chocky was one of them until I scored this rather lovely 1970 2nd impression hardback.

I've a long standing love affair with one Wyndham book in particular (the one with the plants) although I like many of them very much.  I'm a long time fan of (post) apocalypse literature so those books in his canon - The Day of the Triffids, The Chrysalids, The Kraken Wakes - are the ones that jumped out at me, Chocky less so.  A story of a kid with a telepathic alien chatting in his head never really appealed all that much but I always knew I'd get to it someday and despite my reservations I knew I'd probably enjoy it and I was right.

Chocky is very much what we'd now call a YA novel (but without twinkly vampires) which surprised me as I was kind of expecting something more in line with 'The Midwich Cuckoos' but this is a fairly gentle affair.  Most, if not all, the action happens off the page and we essentially get a second hand account with commentary from Matthew's father.

It's hugely enjoyable and is a very different sort of YA book that I just don't think would fly anymore which is a real shame because it's kinda lovely.

Buy it here - Chocky

Watch the TV adaptation here - Chocky

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Chocky (1984)

Matthew Gore is an ordinary sort of 12 year old; he can't draw particularly well, he's average at maths and isn't much good at cricket; that is until someone else takes up residence in his head.  That someone is an extra-terrestrial entity named Chocky and unusually for these sort of things she's not there to cause trouble.

Published in 1968 'Chocky' was John Wyndham's final novel. A YA novel of sorts; it's  rather gentle story marks a departure from the more overt post-apocalyptic scenarios - The Day of the Triffids, The Chrysalids -  that he was known for and in it's place is essentially a science fiction family drama that offers a different take on the idea of a possession or haunting.

Adapted by former Doctor Who script editor Anthony Read (who also wrote episodes for both Sapphire and Steel and The Omega Factor) the show for the most part stays very close to the source material with a few minor changes such as making Chocky telekinetic and allowing her a physical manifestation of sorts.

It's a beautifully made series that just like the book exists in the hinterland between a kids story and one with a more adult nature.  The cast are uniformly excellent with Wyrd Britain regular, James Hazeldine (The Omega Factor, The Last Train, Ride, Ride) and Carol Drinkwater (All Creatures Great and Small) as Matthew's parents providing solid performances around which the show revolves and with Andrew Ellams producing a nicely measured performance as Matthew pulling off that most rare feat for a child actor of not being precocious or irritating.  My only complaint would be that the book's weak third act isn't improved any by seeing it on film.

The success of the series led to two more being produced that took Matthew and his alien friend on further adventures which we'll return to another time.

Enjoy.

Buy it here - Chocky [DVD] - or watch it below.



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The Rituals of Infinity

Michael Moorcock
Arrow Books

It is nearly three decades since the discovery of the sub-spacial alternatives - twenty-four lumps of matter hanging in a limbo outside of space and time, each sharing the name of Earth.
Now there are only fifteen of them - the rest blown to extinction by the ruthless attacks of the D-squads. Even the surviving planets are doomed to a cruel, mutilated existence.
Standing between them and their final destruction at the hands of the merciless demolition teams is Michael Moorcock's zaniest hero - the brilliant, offbeat physicist Professor Faustaff.

In many ways I treat Moorcock books as a form of therapy.  They are one of the things I reach for when I'm feeling a bit down because they are fast, fun, are full of inventive adventure and are pretty much guaranteed to cheer me up.

'The Rituals of Infinity' or 'The New Adventures of Doctor Faustus' (which is an odd title as the main character is actually called 'Faustaff) is a multiple Earths story but not part of Moorcock's multiverse books.  Here we have a group headed by the aforementioned Doctor, a Doc Savage style pulp hero, dedicated to saving the now 15 Earths from another more shadowy group that seems hell bent on destroying them.  As he hops back and forth between Earths Professor Faustaff uncovers a conspiracy of cosmic proportions that results in a final act quite unlike anything else.

This is an early novel and it certainly isn't anywhere close to Moorcock at his best.  The story is pretty thin but the bonkers finale is a whole heap of fun and wraps the story up nicely.

Judge Anderson: Year One

Alec Worley
Abaddon Books

The untold story behind Mega-City One's most famous telepath and Judge Dredd partner, Judge Anderson, in her first year on the job!
Mega-City One, 2100.  Cassandra Anderson is destined to become Psi-Division’s most famous Judge, foiling supernatural threats and policing Mega-City One’s hearts and souls. For now, she’s fresh out of Academy and Psi-Div themselves are still finding their feet. 
Heartbreaker: After a string of apparently random, deadly assaults by customers at a dating agency, Anderson is convinced a telepathic killer is to blame. Putting her career on the line, the newly-trained Psi-Judge goes undercover to bring the romance-hating murderer to justice, with the big Valentine’s Day parade coming up.
The Abyss: Sent to interrogate Moriah Blake, leader of the notorious terror group ‘Bedlam,’ Anderson gets just one snippet of information – Bedlam’s planning on detonating a huge bomb – before Blake’s followers take over the Block. It’s a race against time, and Anderson’s on her own amongst the inmates.
A Dream of the Nevertime: Anderson – a rookie no more, with a year on the streets under her belt – contracts what appears to be a deadly psychic virus, and must explore the weirdest reaches of the Cursed Earth in search of a cure. She must face mutants, mystics and all the strangeness the land can throw at her as she wrestles weird forces.

I thoroughly enjoyed the couple of early Dredd books that have appeared over the last few years (see here & here) and so when I noticed this one I couldn't resist and jumped right in.

Leaving aside the very inaccurate cover art that has left Anderson's uniform bereft of shoulder eagle and chain this is a fairly accurate rendition of the Anderson that we all fell for in The Dark Judges storyline.  She's irreverent and fearless but here is wracked with doubts over the judge system and beset by worries that she's not up to the job.  It's not something I really buy into.  the years at the academy would have weeded that out of her but it does add a dimension to her interior monologue that Dredd obviously lacks.

The 3 and a smidge stories collected here are solid action pieces with the psi judge taking down various rogue psychics, mutants and terrorists across Mega City One and the Cursed Earth.  Worley has a fairly solid hand on the craziness of Dredd universe but has kept a fairly tight rein so the Valentine Parade feels suitable OTT rather than just silly and Marion the cow-bot is a sympathetic character behind the John Wayne-isms.

As I said I found the soul searching to be a little forced and given too central a place in the stories but other than that this proved to be another successful and very readable collection of stories allowing us a glimpse at the unreported years of some of 2000ADs finest.

Buy it here - Judge Anderson: Year One

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The Purple Cloud

M.P. Shiel
Allison & Busby

"If now a swell from the Deep has swept over this planetary ship of earth, and I, who alone chanced to find myself in the furthest stern, as the sole survivor of her crew . . . What then, my God, shall I do?" The Purple Cloud is widely hailed as a masterpiece of science fiction and one of the best "last man" novels ever written. A deadly purple vapor passes over the world and annihilates all living creatures except one man, Adam Jeffson. He embarks on an epic journey across a silent and devastated planet, an apocalyptic Robinson Crusoe putting together the semblance of a normal life from the flotsam and jetsam of his former existence. As he descends into madness over the years, he becomes increasingly aware that his survival was no accident and that his destiny—and the fate of the human race—are part of a profound, cosmological plan.

 So, you wait ages for one Shiel novel and then two come along at once.  I found this copy of his most renowned work about two days after I'd finished 'Prince Zaleski'.  I don't, as a rule, read two books by the same author very close together but I was hankering after some post-apocalypse shenanigans and this looked as good a shout as any other so in I went.

Adam Jeffson is a cowardly, unlikeable and deeply selfish character who finds himself the sole survivor of the first expedition to the North Pole and then subsequently the last survivor on a planet devastated by a murderous purple gas that has swept the world.

Convinced that he is the final pawn in the battle between the 'White' and the 'Black' Jeffson decides to facilitate a final victory by blowing up the remains of the world's cities.  So, for 17 years he travels the world doing just that pausing only to build his house of wine and gold until an unexpected discovery changes everything.

Shiel's writing her is every bit as flowery and grandiose as in the other book.  He's a fairly slow read taking his time to explore, explain and extrapolate every detail or circumstance.  There's also a deeply religious aspect to the work that never seemed fully developed.  The biggest problem though is how deeply unlikeable Jeffson is.  At no point after the first few pages did I feel anything but repulsion by either him or his actions did have me rooting for the cloud.

I'm glad I finally got to read this but I wasn't sorry when I got to the end.

Buy it here - The Purple Cloud (Penguin Classics)

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