Canavan’s Comments (group member since May 15, 2018)

Canavan’s comments from the Spells, Space & Screams: Collections & Anthologies in Fantasy, Science Fiction, & Horror group.

Nick said (in part):

Coincidentally I watched the first John Wick film yesterday. I have to say that, for a retired assassin with - one presumes - a metric fuck-ton of enemies, Mr. Wick has really lousy home security.

Well, that’s true. But if you’re a stickler on realism in your films, I might advise you to forgo watching any of the movies in the John Wick franchise. 😉

Graeme said:

I thought he was excellent in Water for Elephants.

I unfortunately missed that performance. I did like Pattinson in David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis.

“Band of Souls”, C. M. Saunders

There are problems here, but at least this story shows more promise than some of the others I’ve read to this point. Some the imagery Saunders invokes in the last few pages is nice (if a bit self-contradictory) and I liked the hint that our narrator may in some respects be unreliable. All of this might have earned the story a thumbs up if the writing had been better (if, for example, the author quit laboring over bad metaphors).

✭✭

Lena observed:

DNF can help move things along when it’s just not working for you and increase your overall enjoyment!

No judgment one way or the other, but I simply don’t have it in me to do this. I must finish a story once I’ve started it.

Lena said (in part):

I wish I could tell you it’s April Fools...

The best tweet I saw in response to this news:

Bella Swan: I know what you are.
Edward Cullen: Say it. Out loud. Say it.
Bella Swan: Batman.

Seriously, I see no reason to rush to judgment here. Pattinson has actually made some interesting acting choices since his days as Edward. He’s really not a bad actor.

Randy said (in part):

Sort of a mellower mash up of the humor from Moonlighting with the silliness from The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Boy, that brings back memories. Talk about camp. “Open Channel D.” 😉

“Cape Hadel”, Brad P. Christy

I have vowed to soldier on, but the overall level of writing in this anthology is starting to wear me down. I don’t say this to be mean-spirited, but my impression is that the majority of the contributors are relatively new and inexperienced writers and that that inexperience is reflected in the uneven quality of the prose. This story is a good case in point. I like monsters as much as the next horror aficionado, but Christy’s plot oddly lurches from one climactic moment to the next, and I can’t imagine actual people talking as his characters do.

✭½

I watched the third installment in Chad Stahelski’ John Wick franchise, Parabellum. Meh. (view spoiler)[Fans and critics have noted Stahelski’s oblique references to silent film comedian Buster Keaton, and to be sure, although the Wick films are thoroughly drenched in blood and violence, there is often a deft comedic touch in the way the balletic fight scenes are choreographed. I was pretty much on board with the film’s approach until the Casablanca sequence when the body count skyrockets to such a degree that (for me at least) the enjoyment is drained right out of the film. (hide spoiler)]

I’m not a huge TV person, but I allowed myself to get hooked on two midseason series, Whiskey Cavalier and The Enemy Within. Predictably, both have been cancelled. Whiskey was a fairly silly spy comedy, but I will somewhat guiltily admit that I liked the banter amongst the ensemble cast. Enemy had a number of problems (e.g., weak supporting cast), but I’ve loved Jennifer Carpenter since her days on Dexter.

John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum, Chad Stahelski (2019) ✭✭✭½

Whiskey Cavalier, Season 1 (2019) ✭✭✭½

The Enemy Within, Season 1 (2019) ✭✭✭

Horror writer Dennis Etchison passed away on 28 May. I personally recall him as a someone whose work (especially during the 80s) helped mold my feelings about what horror fiction should strive for. A Locus obit can be read here and his Wikipedia entry here.

“She Beckons”, D. G. Sutter

I wish I had enjoyed this one as much as Lena and Fiona did. There is the germ of a good story here, but the final reveal feels like a gimmicky “gotcha” as opposed to a plot development that’s earned by dint of what we have previously learned about the characters. But my big problem with “She Beckons” is the quality of the writing: the awkward sentences and grammatical errors sunk this one for me (no pun intended).

✭✭

“Beneath the Surface”, Stuart Keane

(view spoiler)[Keane’s story is a mixture of gross-out horror and sci-fi. In spite of the fact that this brand of horror is not really my cup of tea, almost against my will I found myself liking parts of it. If only there were more subtlety on display and fewer inexplicable plot contrivances... (hide spoiler)]

✭✭

“Once Tolled the Lutine Bell”, Jack Rollins

I’m not even sure where to start here. This is a by-the-numbers story of maritime spectral vengeance, and not a particularly good one. (view spoiler)[When the Red Scout bursts forth from the sea with phantom crew waving cutlasses and brandishing rifles, it’s a little hard to take seriously. Or maybe I’m just jaded. (hide spoiler)]

✭½

“Port of Call”, W. D. Gagliani

Unlike most of the stories collected in this anthology, Gagliani’s entry saw prior publication, viz., in Extremes 3: Terror on the High Seas (2001). (I think I sorta remember this collection; it was released on a CD rather than as a print book.) I’m not quite sure what special qualities editor Mark Parker saw in this tale that led him to include it in our group read collection. While not totally without merit, I thought it was in the end a failure. (view spoiler)[For most of its length it reads both in style and content a bit like a C or B story from one the adventure pulps of the 30s and 40s. Gugliani eventually introduces to the story a supernatural element, but the way in which it is introduced and why we should believe it has the impact it supposedly has are fairly baffling. (hide spoiler)]

✭½

Lena said (in part):

The Picard Trailer!!! Again, it doesn’t have to make sense, lol, I’m still going to watch it!

I know next to nothing about how this new series is going to be structured, but Patrick Stewart is in it, so I’m on board.

Graeme said (in part):

It's difficult to handle time travel without introducing paradoxes.

What Cameron does is a provide a nod and then gloss over it*, and use a pulsing narrative to drag you past any logical issues. Which is a reasonable approach - the bottomline is entertainment.

* When SC at the end of the first movie notes the 'crazy,' aspects of what has just happened, then kinda shrugs her shoulders and notes that you could drive yourself mad thinking about it - so, just forget it and move on... It's almost a 4th wall conversation with the audience advising them 'don't worry, be happy...'

Your ideas are interesting, Graeme. But you don’t have to be a bumpkin to appreciate Cameron’s approach to this cinematic problem. For me the issue is context. If I want to better understand real-world ideas and theories related to time travel, there are any number of physics books that ably lay out the possibilities and problems. If, on the other hand, I’m watching an action movie, the moment the narrative starts to devolve into a series of impossible-to-follow info dumps accompanied by seemingly random plot twists is the moment the director has failed.

Lena said (in part):

Terminator 6! It doesn’t have to make sense, I’m seeing it anyway.

I admire your optimism, Lena. Really. 🙂

If the release of this entry is greeted with rapturous critical and fan acclaim, then count me in; otherwise, I’ll be sitting out this one. The last two films in this franchise have been simply dreadful (just my opinion, of course).

“The Lighthouse”, Annie Neugebauer

I wrestled a bit with how I felt about this story, and, while I ultimately rated it a miss, it’s an interesting near miss. (view spoiler)[“The Lighthouse” features a young woman who is perhaps (or perhaps not?) being subjected to some form of chemically-assisted interrogation/torture by individuals who are for obscure reasons searching for a lightbox. In a blog post the author compares her story to Julio Cortázar’s “La noche boca arriba”, a surreal tale that explores the fluid boundaries separating dream from reality. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭½

Corinne said:

*scratches head* hmmmm Because the book had climate? I only read game of thrones from that list and it had zero impact on my feelings about climate. I don't get it.

George R. R. Martin made this connection explicit in a New York Times interview. Excerpts from that interview were published by Esquire and can be read online here.

Lena said (in part):

I was surprised that Martin did not finish the books to go with the show

So was Martin. As you probably know, when the idea of an HBO series was initially pitched, Martin was confident he could stay ahead of the show’s writing. Ah, hubris. But it wasn’t as though Martin didn’t try. This quote from an interview last November: “I’ve had dark nights of the soul where I’ve pounded my head against the keyboard and said, ‘God, will I ever finish this? The show is going further and further forward and I’m falling further and further behind.’”

Lena said:

I’m trying to think back over TV shows I was into that ended well and to my satisfaction, not always the same thing. The only one I can think of is Justified.
“We dug coal together.”

That’s a very good point.

As an aside, the line that you cite was a direct lift from the Elmore Leonard story that served as a starting point for the series, “Fire in the Hole”.

“Old Bogey”, Lori R. Lopez

(view spoiler)[I found this Jonah-type story about a sailor who is swallowed by a spectral whale relatively unsatisfying. I thought the prose was a bit overwrought and murky at times. And the story’s message about guilt and redemption feels a bit unearned — it seems to pop up out of nowhere in the story’s last few pages.

Nitpick for this story: Whaling in the U.S. was banned in 1971. And well before that federal ban the U.S. whaling industry was pretty much extinct. Those facts seem at odds with the age of our protagonist. (hide spoiler)]

✭½