F.R. Jameson's Blog, page 10
December 9, 2018
Doctor Who Reviews – The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos
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My one paragraph, instant reaction to the final episode of this series of DOCTOR WHO (Well, technically it’s two paragraphs this week)
After a series which has been good, while only rarely touching the heights of great, it’s almost fitting that the final episode is the very definition of underwhelming. Actually it’s more than that: this feels spectacular in how underwhelming it is; it’s magnificent in how little it whelms. Now, the idea of a monster who, through the actions of The Doctor, has managed to set himself up as a god, is a really good one. But here, it’s used as the backbone for a story which is lacking in the epic, has a weirdly slow pace and – beyond the Tardis team – no characters at all to care about. (It doesn’t help that the monster in question, although a great design, was rendered into something of a joke by his name in the first appearance.) Mentioned in this episode was the time the Tennant Doctor dragged the Earth back across space with a force-field lasso from his Tardis. That was stupid and I hated that episode. But at least it was big and epic and bold and I can remember it. This one, I think I’m going to struggle to remember much about come Tuesday. And given it’s a series finale, that feels a shame.
And so now we wait until 2020. If Moffat were still in charge, he’d try to change things around for the next series, learn from his mistakes. I can only hope Chibnall does the same and gives us something that isn’t just content in being good, but really goes for broke in trying to be great.
If you’re interested in my own writings, SOMETHING WENT WRONG AND OTHER STRANGE TALES – my frankly must read collection of scary and quirky short stories is available for free now!
December 5, 2018
What’s the Worst That Could Happen? by Donald Westlake
With the world the way it is, so confusing and unsettling and downright scary, you sometimes just need books that will put a smile on your face. Last weeks’ was most definitely one of these. And of course, anything with the Westlake name and a Dortmunder starring role, is going to have the requisite jokes to take me away from the real world.
Loveable thief, John Dortmunder breaks into a supposedly empty Long island mansion, where he’s surprised to find the owner with a pistol in hand. This owner – who couldn’t be any more a composite of Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump if he was named Murdoch Trump – takes the opportunity to actually steal from Dortmunder. Plucking a ring from his finger before the rent-a-cops haul him away. Well, Dortmunder isn’t going to have that, and so the quest begins for Dortmunder and his crew to get that ring back and steal all they can from Murdoch Trump along the way.
If this hadn’t been written a few years earlier, one could take this as a direct riposte to the George Clooney/Steven Soderbergh version of OCEAN’S ELEVEN. Both end up with the robbery of a Las Vegas casino, but whereas Danny Ocean and crew have various terrible twists and turns along the way, John Dortmunder and his crew manage to do it with professional ease. Reading this, I thought it was the kind of heist that Richard Stark’s Parker would have approved of. And given that Dortmunder is Parker’s slope shouldered, more easy-going, less ruthless alternate universe twin – and is much more at home with calamity than success – that wasn’t a sentence I expected to write.
Yes, it took me away from thinking about Brexit and Trump (although obviously I enjoyed Murdoch Trump getting his comeuppance) and all the other distressing things in the world. There’s more than one amusing set-piece in WHAT’S THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN? I can’t shake the feeling, though, that this isn’t top level Dortmunder. However, even mid-ranking is guaranteed to put a smile on my face.
If you’re interested in my own writings, SOMETHING WENT WRONG AND OTHER STRANGE TALES – my frankly must read collection of scary and quirky short stories is available for free now!
December 2, 2018
Doctor Who Reviews – It Takes You Away
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My one paragraph, instant reaction to this week’s DOCTOR WHO.
Well, without even seeing next week’s, I can confidently proclaim that ‘It Takes You Away’ is my favourite episode of this series of DOCTOR WHO. Let’s be honest, next week is not going to have a moment as magically surreal as The Doctor making friends with and then promptly breaking up with a conscious universe that has taken the shape of a frog with a northern accent. It was such a perfect moment that few things on TV are ever going to top it. And it made me remember, as if I needed a reason, why I love DOCTOR WHO so much. (Can you think of another programme anywhere that would even attempt such a scene?) But the thing is, in banging on about the frog, I’m ignoring all the other great things about this episode: the Scandi ghost vibe of the beginning, the ‘monster’ in the woods, the antizone (and particularly Kevin Eldon as Ribbons), the proper emotional heft to Graeme’s arc and The Doctor actually having one of those rousing heroic moments where the score swells up. Sat on the couch, Mrs Jameson said to me “Here’s the big speech”, but in this series we actually haven’t had as many of those as I would have liked. This one was a kicker though and it was brilliant and – if I haven’t already mentioned it – the frog was brilliant and the whole thing was wonderful. Simply put, I loved it!
If you’re interested in my own writings, SOMETHING WENT WRONG AND OTHER STRANGE TALES – my frankly must read collection of scary and quirky short stories is available for free now!
November 28, 2018
Huckleberry Fiend by J. Paul Drew
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HUCKLEBERRY FIEND is a book made for bibliophile mystery fans, so there’s no wonder I had such a good time reading it.
Our plot (which knows it’s ludicrous and knows we’ll find it ludicrous and revels in its own ludicrousness) centres on a former journalist, Paul, who comes into possession of the lost original manuscript of THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN. But, before he’s really decided what to do with, it’s stolen from him. He then gets it back, before – almost as swiftly – its stolen from him again. It would all be funny to him too, if there weren’t murders involved. As he investigates what the hell is going on, he meets all kinds of colourful characters who are interested in getting their mitts on the book, creating a full-on noir – with guns and menace and femme-fatales – while not leaving the library set.
I haven’t read THE ADEVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN since I was about eleven years old, and so fear that some of the literary allusions may have gone over my head. But still I had fun in the twists and turns of its plot and the general absurdist hard-boiled feel of it. Our protagonist is someone who is out of his depth and knows he’s out of his depth, but keeps a good humour about it anyway – and that makes for an engaged guide through the knotty and, apparently gun filled world, of antiquarians.
If you’re interested in my own writings, SOMETHING WENT WRONG AND OTHER STRANGE TALES – my frankly must read collection of scary and quirky short stories is available for free now!
November 25, 2018
Doctor Who Reviews – The Witchfinders
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My one paragraph, instant reaction to this week’s DOCTOR WHO.
It’s an interesting phenomenon that this series seems to be on its surest footing in the historical episodes. The two before – ‘Rosa’ and ‘Demons of the Punjab’ – could have both, with a few tweaks, been straight historicals with no sci-fi elements at all. This one ends up leaning more heavily on the fantastical, but that’s where it let itself down for me – with a rushed deus ex machina ending which wasted a lot of the atmosphere and tension that had been built up. Why this is, I have no idea – but at the moment DOCTOR WHO, in its evoking bygone days – is more than meeting co-creator Sydney Newman’s mandate for that show, that it be educational tool for the kids. Anyway, that’s a long-winded way of saying I was on board for most of this episode. I loved the way it looked, I loved Alan Cumming’s delicious and flirtatious performance, the way the script built up to the big witch trial climax and the fact that this Doctor – for the first time ever – gets into trouble because of her gender. The last couple of episodes she has just taken control because she is The Doctor (and Jodie is brilliant at the part), but it was so right and so real that at this place and this time, The Doctor, as a woman, would find herself in jeopardy, (And I liked yet another Houdini reference thrown into the show when she saves herself, the two of them must really have been fast friends.) Yes, there were flaws – not only the rushed ending, but the fact that most of the Time Team just wandered around aimlessly half the episode. However, in the main, I really enjoyed ‘The Witchfinders’. If you’ll excuse me, though, I’m going to go off now to ponder why DOCTOR WHO can’t do sci-fi properly anymore? And if it isn’t a sci-fi show these days, what on earth is it?
If you’re interested in my own writings, SOMETHING WENT WRONG AND OTHER STRANGE TALES – my frankly must read collection of scary and quirky short stories is available for free now!
November 21, 2018
Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
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In the teens of the Twentieth Century, at the point of the oil boom, the Osage tribe of Native Americans found themselves incredibly – and suddenly – wealthy. They’d rather smartly and fortuitously retained the oil and mineral rights to their lands, and so the arrival of derricks and pipelines made them all tremendously rich.
The tribe became an object of fascination in the press due to their spending and ostentation (although the point is made here that what they did with their money wasn’t so out of place with the rest of The Roaring Twenties). However, the institutional racism of the time meant that the US government often didn’t think of them as capable of looking after their own cash – regarding them as little better than children – and put white guardians in place. As horrifying as that sounds all by itself, these white guardians would to often try to skim off, or even outright steal, as much of the money as they could. But even worse (and if you’re looking for the pits of human nature, this book will provide it), a plot was soon hatched to kill the Osage and try and to take control of the land and the rights.
Grann is a master in bringing this world and these people back to life – but it’s hard not to be overwhelmed by man’s inhumanity to man. (Particularly the postscript which reveals how much further the crimes went.) I’d recommend it to anyone, although you should be aware that this is a sobering, brutal, if ultimately fascinating read.
If you’re interested in my own writings, SOMETHING WENT WRONG AND OTHER STRANGE TALES – my frankly must read collection of scary and quirky short stories is available for free now!
November 18, 2018
Doctor Who Reviews – Kerblam!
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My one paragraph, instant reaction to this week’s DOCTOR WHO.
Like The Fourth Doctor series ‘The Robots of Death’ only rubbish-er! This felt like the weakest of the series so far. The satire was half-hearted, the plot was so-so, the jokes were poor, the effects are going to age really badly and that’s all before getting to the ‘ghost in the machine’ idea, which was so under-developed as to leave me scratching my head and saying ‘huh’ at the end. To be fair I didn’t guess whodunnit and the bit with the fez made me smile, but in a series I’ve largely enjoyed this was an episode which provoked more irritation than anything else. But then Mrs Jameson liked it and the consensus on Twitter (which I appreciate is not a scientific measure) seems to have enjoyed ‘Kerblam!”, so maybe I’m just in a grumpy mood today. Next week though is already really speaking to me.
If you’re interested in my own writings, SOMETHING WENT WRONG AND OTHER STRANGE TALES – my frankly must read collection of scary and quirky short stories is available for free now!
November 14, 2018
The Cleaner by Mark Dawson
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I, of course, know of Mark Dawson from his huge presence in the Indie author community. All he’s achieved is a great inspiration for all of us, and I’d be personally happy to succeed even half as well as he has.
Until now though, I’d never read one of his thrillers. But having raced through the pages, I was really impressed. It’s not just the marketing he’s good at, he puts out damned gripping reads too.
THE CLEANER centres on John Milton (there’s an old convention of giving tough guy heroes literary names – see also Marlow and Spenser), a high level British agent who is going rogue. Well, maybe ‘rogue’ is not quite the right word in this instance. Certainly he’s disregarding his training and his conditioning and dropping off the grid, but he isn’t Bourne-movie-style taking on the whole establishment – instead he is making it his business to help ordinary people. This is a hero who, if he could, would spend a lot of time fixing up community centres. But of course, trouble seeks him out and he’s more than capable of dealing with it.
Reading like THE WIRE crossed with James Bond (Milton laughs at the Bond comparison in the book, but even the physical description of him reminding me on Fleming’s creation), THE CLEANER finds Milton on a tough Hackney estate, tackling rude boys, rappers and drug dealers – while also finding a certain decency in society. Although you can see what the parameters of the denouement will look like – so you know which direction its heading – Dawson still crafts an excellent thrill-ride.
It’s a genuinely propulsive narrative in a compulsive novel in a series I’m more than happy I’ve (finally) dipped into.
If you’re interested in my own writings, SOMETHING WENT WRONG AND OTHER STRANGE TALES – my frankly must read collection of scary and quirky short stories is available for free now!
November 11, 2018
Doctor Who Reviews – Demons of the Punjab
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My one paragraph, instant reaction to this week’s DOCTOR WHO.
There’s been a lot of talk about the low level of threat currently, in DOCTOR WHO. Last week it was a gremlin in space, the week before there wasn’t even an alien menace, and the week before that was an inept racist time meddler. The aliens in ‘Demons of the Punjab’ are a lovely piece of misdirection. A striking design with screaming voices which smash home their supposed threat, before it all flipped and they turning out to be fairly lovely aliens (although I could have done without The Doctor desecrating all their ancestors before that happened). The real threat is of course man against man and the episode becomes all the more affecting because of that. It’s all Yaz this week and Mandip Gil plays what she has to do beautifully. Revealing so much hurt and confusion, but also determination, with just a glance of her eyes. Jodie Whittaker has made The Doctor her own, to the point where when she referred to herself as once being a man I was actually jarred out of the programme a little. And although Ryan and Graeme are as unconventional a double act as the show has ever seen, they’re also surely one of the best double acts the show has ever seen. Okay, the stakes aren’t high. But if the show can be this affecting, and the Tardis team this engaging, what does it matter?
(Five stars to Mrs Jameson – or am I giving points now? I can’t remember – who spotted that the final theme was a Punjabi remix of the DOCTOR WHO theme. I didn’t notice at all.)
If you’re interested in my own writings, SOMETHING WENT WRONG AND OTHER STRANGE TALES – my frankly must read collection of scary and quirky short stories is available for free now!
November 7, 2018
Star Wars: Aftermath: Empire’s End
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I gave qualified, but enthusiastic reviews to both the previous books in the series. The first one because it explored the wider universe and didn’t give much in the way of needless fan service by bringing in swathes of characters from the films; while the second I greatly enjoyed because of the depth Wendig was able to give to those in service to the Empire. They stopped being just jack-booted ciphers for hate and Nazism, and instead became people who believed in their cause as passionately as the rebels believed in theirs.
Well, unfortunately we get to the third book and both things I liked about its predecessors have now gone. There is plenty of Han and Leia action here, which is fine, although I found it a little distracting – as neither quite felt like the same person they did on the big screen. Then elsewhere our various imperials – once rich and depth-filled characters – are now running around on some ill-defined mission of revenge. It’s like the third of the original film trilogy. This one is definitely the worst.
Chuck Wendig has recently been fired by Disney, for various comments on twitter (in the afterward to the first book he actually credits his twitter presence with getting the job, so this is definitely a turnaround). That’s a real shame. Not that I expect to read any more STAR WARS fiction soon anyway, but with Disney buying Fox and becoming an entertainment juggernaut the likes of which the world has never really seen, this homogenisation of voices is a dangerous sign. Creatives are by nature unpredictable and opinionated people, and to get rid of the prickly ones will just leave only the blandest behind. Even if they do occasionally write bloated books and in their spare time engage in twitter wars, the likes of Wendig (and James Gunn) should be kept close and encouraged, as – even if they don’t always succeed – they are capable of brilliance.
Fancy some scary and quirky original short stories? My collection, SOMETHING WENT WRONG & OTHER STRANGE TALES is available for free now. Just click here.
