Book Review - Artemis Fowl (Eoin Colfer)

A while ago I was struck by a thought: I read the Artemis Fowl books compulsively when they were first published, yet today I can barely recall anything from them. I remember reading them while being dragged around on holiday by my parents. When I was around 11 I was on something of an Eoin Colfer kick and devoured just about everything of his I can lay my hands on: the Benny books, The Wish List, The Supernaturalist and the Artemis Fowl series.

I read his books because at the time, Colfer was one of those authors who seemed to be everywhere. I felt something of an obligation to read his work, even though I admit I can't remember enjoying much of anything he wrote (hence my failure to remember anything from them). Now in late adulthood, I thought it was time for a reappraisal of Colfer, and have begun with the first in his “cyber-fantasy” series, Artemis Fowl.

The simple-yet-absurd plot runs like this: a 12-year-old aspiring supervillain plans to kidnap a fairy so he can extort a fortune in gold from its comrades, which he means to use to rebuild his family's criminal empire. To Artemis Fowl's ill-fortune, the fairy he captures is Captain Holly Short, an officer of an elite police squad, which prompts the rest of her division to respond with extreme prejudice.

Artemis Fowl works largely because of its balance in tone. As said above, our protagonist's masterplan sounds like the sort of absurd scheme a child would come up with (though I'm sure plenty of adults have concocted far worse), yet is carried through with unwavering efficiency by Artemis and his allies. Artemis himself is something of a Stewie Griffin-type. He has the brains and audacity to potentially be a master criminal, but is tempered by a childlike sensibility. For instance, his scheme kicks off when he puts out an online advertisement which effectively says: Irish billionaire will pay lots of money to meet a fairy. This is the type of joke I only got as an adult – Colfer I've found is really good at this sort of adults-only stuff – but for Artemis it never crosses his mind that such an ad could be misinterpreted.

Artemis is also given some depth in his interactions with his henchman, Butler, and his demented mother. It's unsurprising that Artemis's only real friend would be his bodyguard, which gives the concept (a small boy giving orders to an immense, trained killer) a touch of poignancy. His relationship with his mother is even worse. YA books often have one or both parents missing, most often dead. In this case, Artemis' father has vanished and his mother is deeply traumatised by it, even haranguing her own son when she doesn't recognise who he is. It's a nasty bite to give to what is otherwise a punchy action-comedy. Thankfully Colfer doesn't wallow in it enough to make it melodramatic, but gives it enough attention to make Artemis more depth.

Of course, the fairy side of things is where Colfer really starts to go crazy with the concept. Our focus here is the Recon division of the Lower Elements Police – ie, LEP Recon. They live underground and travel in magma-driven capsules. The elves try to keep peace between warring goblins and dwarves. Occasionally they're forced above ground to deal with any escapees that may blow their cover, in one case a marauding troll.

Holly Short and Commander Julius Root give our insights into this world and how it functions. These are both likeable, engaging characters, though a bit too cliché. Holly is the young rookie eager to prove herself (first female Recon officer as well, in case it wasn't obvious enough), while Root is the short-tempered, cigar-chomping boss who always gives his team a hard time (but has a heart beneath it all). Nothing particularly wrong with any of this, but it's something we've all seen before in some variation.

One character who I remember enjoying even as a child (and still did this time) was Mulch Diggums, the kleptomanic dwarf who's roped into burglarising Fowl Manor. Mulch is the one character whose motives are not directly connected to anyone else's. He doesn't seem to care about stopping a war or about helping Artemis' plan. He only wants his freedom and helps anyone he can as long as it gets him that. He's like a far, far less annoying Jack Sparrow. His interactions with Root and Foaly are really funny (again, it's the sort of disgruntled dynamic adults would easier relate to) and his brief encounters with Butler are a highlight of the book. I only wish we'd had more of a confrontation between Mulch and Butler, though Colfer promises more in later books.

With Mulch we also come to the part that might divide people over the books and their appeal to adults, namely the scat humour. While a dwarf explosively defecating on someone's head sounds like something you'd find in a Seltzerberg movie (I'm sure it exists but I don't hate myself enough to check), I think Colfer saves it with his dry tone. As I said before, the book's balancing of ridiculousness and seriousness is one of its strongest points. The clipped narrative (by a fairy psychologist) makes a nice contrast with the crudity of the subject matter. I was anxious that Mulch's combustible bowels would turn me off the rest of the story, but it wasn't half as cringeworthy as I thought it would be.

I also found Holly's and Artemis' interactions all-too-brief, but fascinating all the same. The mutual disdain-cum-fascination teases a lot for their future encounters. Holly granting Artemis his wish at the end adds a further wrinkle, and I look forward to rediscovering how that develops.

Indeed, I look forward to seeing how all of this develops. Artemis Fowl proves a fun ride after all. I only wonder what I was missing out on as a youngster.

Film Review - Shaun of the Dead (2004)

If anyone's reading this (I know someone does because I check stats because I'm insecure), you might be surprised that it's taken me this long to post another review. This is partly due to laziness on my part, and partly to do with the general chaos and uncertainty of early adulthood. Enjoy your freedom while you have it, kids.

Today though I'm struggling to return to some sort of format by reviewing the 2004 comedy horror icon, Shaun of the Dead.

The movie centres on 29-year-old loser Shaun (Simon Pegg), stuck in a dead-end job, a failing relationship and living with his burnout friend Ed (Nick Frost). After a disastrous break-up with his girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield), Shaun pledges to turn his life around. It's around this point that zombies begin to stalk the streets of London, massacring and feasting on anyone they catch. Shaun seizes the opportunity to prove himself by shepherding Liz and his mother to his local pub, the Winchester.

Shaun of the Dead is one of those movies that experts on British TV would call star-studded. The starring duo of Pegg and Frost, along with director Edgar Wright, all cut their teeth with the cult show Spaced, fans of which will enjoy the spiritual connection. Shaun may as well be Tim Bisley a few years down the line, where his dreams of comic book stardom have crashed and his life has lost all meaning. Nick Frost's Ed is an even more extreme example of loserdom, though Ed at least has accepted his lot in life, to the point where he fails to notice the impact his slothfulness has on other people.

The actors' real-life friendship adds a lot to the central dynamic, particularly when Ed tries to console Shaun after his break-up, and also when the two try to make a plan to survive the zombie apocalypse. Pegg is a charming enough actor to make you root for Shaun despite his major flaws, such as taking his girlfriend for granted. Ed, as a character, is a lot more obnoxious and is there more to lighten the film's darker moments. There are points where I felt (especially towards the end) where I feel Ed was a bit too over-the-top and I found part of myself wishing the zombies would just eat him already.

Kate Ashfield gives a decent performance, though she's relegated to playing the “straight man” to a host of more over-the-top characters. Black Books' Dylan Moran shines as her creepy wannabe-boyfriend, David, while also making for an interesting comparison with Shaun. David has a more successful career as a lecturer, and a girlfriend of his own, but his pining after Liz makes him seem somehow more pathetic – especially as he spends more of the film complaining then trying to be proactive. Lucy Davis also stands out despite a fairly small role as Di, Liz's friend and David's girlfriend. Like Ed, her character serves mostly for comic relief. However, this makes her dramatic shift towards the end of the film all the more impressive.

The film also has two British veterans as Shaun's mother Barbara (Penepole Wilton) and step-dad Philip (Bill Nighy). Wilton does a decent job but I feel like the film could have done more to establish a relationship between her and Shaun. In fact, I felt that Barbara's strangely muted reactions to the zombies was going to be a plot point – as in, perhaps the reason Shaun had been distant towards her was because she was going senile or something? Nighy is another performer who does a lot with a small role. His is another relationship with Shaun that really could have been expanded more, given all the potential it has. Shaun weeping as Philip dies is a great scene, but I feel it should have happened later in the film to add more weight. Then again, the film's final act is quite brutal for a comedy film, so perhaps Wright and Pegg wanted to space the deaths out a bit.

This brings me on to the next point. The first two acts of the film are a comedy with a few touches of horror here and there. The focus is less on the zombies and more on Shaun and Ed's confused reactions to them. The duo treat the epidemic more like an inconvenience than a threat to the human race. The climax of the film reverses this balance, turning into a bloody horror-thriller with only a few jokes here and there. When I first saw Shaun of the Dead (about ten years ago), I found the tonal shift off-putting and the gore and trauma to be incongruous next to the irreverence of the film's opening. This time around, I didn't find it quite so jarring, though I still feel Hot Fuzz did a better job maintaining a consistent tone. This is probably one of those cases where the first film is a learning process upon which later films build, though that's not factoring in The World's End (which I haven't seen since it's release and would need to revisit).

As for the overall theme of growing up, what I found interesting about the film is that . . . it doesn't really tackle it. A conventional movie would reduce the zombie epidemic to an allegory for the tribulations of life, with Shaun rising to the challenge and proving himself a hero – and also that he's ready to grow up.

Instead, the movie's treatment of this theme is more cynical. Look at the sequence where Shaun forms and then rapidly adjusts his survival plan: “Take car. Go to Mum's. Kill Phil. Grab Liz. Go to the Winchester. Have a nice cold pint and wait for all this to blow over.” This is, I feel, one of the film's funniest moments. It also demonstrates Wright's manic editing style, which is well-suited to Shaun's short-hand.

The sequence shows Shaun's refusal to take the crisis serious, using it as an excuse to have another pint. One would expect Shaun to grow and become more noble as the film progresses, and he certainly tries, growing more empathetic to the plight of those around him. However, by the film's end, with the crisis averted, Shaun is back to where he was at the start, only now he's lounging on the couch with Liz instead of Ed. Liz, by contrast, goes from wanting to try new and exciting things (and dumping Shaun for lacking her enthusiasm), to happily settling for a life of ease.

The film starts off poking fun at the “zombifying” effect the rat race has on people, and yet by its end society hasn't really progressed. In World War Z (the book, not the movie), the epidemic has a profound psychological impact on the survivors, who radically reassess their lives in the face of the horror they've witnessed. In Shaun of the Dead, the survivors incorporate the epidemic into the tedium of before, with zombies showing up in talk shows and reality TV. Despite its unconventional style and heavy use of humour, Shaun of the Dead stays true to the Romero-interpretation of zombie-dom – that zombies are an allegory for the drudgery and inescapability of modern day life.

Is it worth seeing though?

Yeah boyyyyyyyy!

Book Review - The Fatal Eggs (Mikhail Bulgakov)

Today I review Mikhail Bulgakov's 1928 novel, The Fatal Eggs.

In Moscow 1928, zoology professor Vladimir Persikov stumbles across a momentous discovery: a ray of light generated in a microscope that causes cells to evolve at a lightning rate. This causes the frog population in his lab to explode, becoming more virulent and more aggressive to one another. As the media and the authorities begin to intrude more into his personal life, Persikov has to fight to contain an even greater threat: a plague of giant mutated reptiles.

To anyone who knows their history, The Fatal Eggs was published at a crucial point in Russian history. Josef Stalin had just gained control of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party, and would soon impose his brutal dictatorial governorship on all of Soviet society. Given the tight control of all forms of cultural expression in Stalinist Russia, it's impossible to read The Fatal Eggs without trying to separate it from its historial context.

Bulgakov came under investigation following the book's publication for being an alleged counter-revolutionary. It becomes clear soon enough why that should be the case, as Professor Persikov hardly comes across as the model Soviet citizen. He's short-tempered and anti-social, is more concerned with his experiments than engaging with the society around him, and doesn't hide his irritation and contempt for the authorities who keep intervening in his life.

The novel opens with a brief prologue about Persikov's career during the Civil War (1918-1922). Rather than go off on a rant against the Whitists or the Trotskyists, Bulgakov focuses on how the constant rationining and War Communism (confiscation of food by the Red Army) causes Persikov's specimens to starve to death. This causes Persikov far more upset than the wider geopolitical forces tearing his country apart.

Persikov emerges as the sort of bourgeois scientist you'd find in the works of Jules Verne or H.G. Wells (Bulgakov gives a nod to Wells's story, Food for the Gods at one point). Like Verne's Phileas Fogg, or Wells's time traveller, Persikov is dedicated to science itself, caring little for personal relationships. One of the first things we learn about him is that his wife ran off with another man, leaving a note where she expresses her disgust with his keeping of frogs and reptiles. Right from the start, Bulgakov establishes a dichotomy between science and interpersonal relations, with Persikov choosing the former to give his life meaning.

Persikov is at times a comical figure with his constant grumbling and irritation at the world around him, like a Stalinist-era Victor Meldrew.

Bulgakov only adds to his consternation (and perhaps Stalin's as well) by depicting Russia as a grotesque parody of a country. He makes constant reference to neon news reports delivered by garish spotlights. The reporters who pester Persikov skew the facts to give him a celebrity status he tries to reject. Whether at home or in his lab, Persikov is bedevilled by the sounds of the outside world: trams, loudspeakers, broadcasts from the Bolshoi Theatre. Even the secret police, the symbol of Leninist and later Stalinist terror, come across as nothing more than a nuisance to him.

Instead of a flowering utopia built on equality and hard-work, Bulgakov portrays a Russia that's succumbing to a sort of insanity.

In an absurdist twist, the reptilian disaster is not caused by an evil plot, but by bureaucratic incompetence. A Party apparatchik persuades Persikov to let him use his ray on a batch of chicken eggs in the hopes of procuring a bountiful source of food for the people. A screw-up in the postal service means a batch of Persikov's own snake eggs are delivered to the experiment farm instead, resulting in a plague of enormous man-eating snakes terrorizing the countryside.

Furthermore, the day is saved not by Soviet might but (in another Wellsian parallel), by a fluke of nature: the Russian winter sweeps in and kills off the reptiles. Sadly, this isn't enough to save Persikov from a furious mob who blame him for the disaster. Bulgakov ends his black comedy with a suitable ending: the bourgeois scientist (an icon of 19th century literature) is destroyed by that symbol of Soviet fury, the angry mob.

At 100 pages exactly, The Fatal Eggs is a nifty read that nonetheless leaves the reader a lot of food for thought. Bulgakov follows a man at the mercy of greater events than himself, yet just about finds enough ridiculousness in the scenario to poke fun at it. In doing so, he creates a surreal yet poignantly apt depiction of a dark chapter in Russian history.

TV Review - Primeval Series One Overview

Today I start a series of overviews of ITV's science-fiction adventure series Primeval, which debuted ten years ago today.

I was fascinated with dinosaurs when I was a kid, so this show came out at just the right time for me. My love of all things prehistoric stemmed from the BBC's Walking with franchise, co-created by Tim Haines, who was also one of Primeval's co-creators.

The show sadly was never renewed in 2011, nor was its Canadian spin-off picked up after one season. Primeval largely seems to have fallen by the wayside since. While it was a far from perfect show, it was still a pretty big deal for ITV, a channel which hardly ever makes high concept drama of this sort. The show did also last for five seasons, far more than ITV's subsequent attempts like Demons or Jekyll & Hyde.

This series of reviews will revisit this old favourite of mine, and hopefully might tempt a few readers out here to check out or else revisit the show themselves.

Primeval centres around a sudden outburst of wormholes that begin opening across England. These wormholes (called anomalies) lead to the distant past or the future and allow all manner of weird creatures to enter the 21st century. An assortment of people become involved in the phenomenon and are hastily recruited by the British Home Office to contain the creature incursions, while keeping the anomalies' existence a secret from the public.

The team is led by Professor Nick Cutter (Douglas Henshall), a palaeontologist whose wife Helen (Juliet Aubrey) vanished eight years previously. He's aided by his assistant Stephen (James Murray), wide-eyed student Connor (Andrew Lee Potts) and herpetologist Abby (Hannah Spearritt).

Primeval's first series doesn't really have much of a story arc, apart from Cutter trying to find his wife. The mythology of the show, such as it was, wouldn't really be expanded on until future series. Series One acts more like a police procedural with prehistoric fauna instead of criminals. When I was younger, I felt Series One was one of the weaker ones for this reason, as I didn't get as much of a sense of drive from it as I got from subsequent series. On reflection this mentality has changed somewhat, though I'll expand more on that in future reviews.

The series pilot is a bit messy as they try to introduce every main character at once. We have an investigation into rogue predator attacks (a Gorgonopsid from the Permian), a local boy discovering a winged lizard, the introduction of the Home Office and the subsequent cover-up, and a foray into the Permian where the remains of a human campsite are found, setting up the series finale.

Cramming all this into 45 minutes, along with every major character, comes off as a bit of a misstep as it leaves the show feeling overly-ambitious and too thinly spread as a result. It does however leave later episodes a chance to specialise more in what Primeval does better: the creature attacks.

Given it's Framestore and Impossible Pictures, the special effects are pretty impressive for a TV show. There are a few moments though that feel a bit too gimmicky - moments where a monster will lunge straight at the camera, as if the show is trying to milk some cheesy, non-existent 3D feature. The Walking with series were portrayed as documentaries, so the subjects behaved in a more naturalistic fashion. Here, the prehistoric creatures play the role of movie monsters; the more frenetic pace doesn't gel quite as with the real environments, making the creatures seem a bit more artificial. Not that this is a huge turn-off if you watch Primeval with a mind solely to be entertained.

Kudos to the writers for generally avoiding the more cliched dinosaurs and sabre-toothed cats, at least for this series. Instead we get relatively obscure Permian and Carboniferous monsters, as well as some Cretaceous sealife. Dodos show up briefly, but this quickly swerves into a parasite horror story. While I like that the show tries to leave its comfort zone a few times, I found this plot a little too outlandish even for a show like Primeval - the show even tries to work in some Devil-possession-overtones with a deep voice and purple eyes. The end result is pretty laughable, which is especially unfortunate as the episode in question is meant to be a tragedy. Furthermore, there's a flock of dodos wandering from one anomaly to another in the past, no doubt spreading their parasites to God knows how many time periods, but this is never remarked upon.

The series finale really takes a turn though with the introduction of the terrifying Future Predator. The homages to the Alien and Predator franchises are pretty stark, but the conception of the creature itself is still effective. The Predators (who would go on to be a recurring threat) are a frightening glimpse into the future evolution of life on earth. It's quite a bleak statement for a prime time show watched by kids, though Doctor Who had helped pave the way with its own conceptions of a future gone to shit. It also culminates in an exhilarating creature-fight, ending the series on a strong note.

In terms of character, Nick, Helen and James Lester (Ben Miller) are the standouts. Douglas Henshall strikes a great balance between gruffness and endearment with his character. Cutter's more interested in the anomalies than having good relations with the army or the government (or even his colleagues), but there are some nice moments of humanity here and there. Two of my favourites are him rejecting Helen's offer to run away into the past ("You call yourself a scientist?" "I call myself a human being.") and consoling Connor after one of his friends is killed by a parasite. Henshall also gives the character a sense of authority, making for a good leading man.

His wife, Helen, is an enigmatic figure with no clear allegiance. Juliet Aubrey plays to her strengths with a beguiling yet weirdly sinister turn. Season One is definitely Helen's finest due to her ambiguity; she doesn't come off as malevolent, just preferring not to have to put up with the government telling her what to do. Her behaviour around Nick throws up questions of whether her isolation has made her this way, or whether this was the cause of their estrangement before her disappearance.

And then of course there's the fantastic Ben Miller, whose cold detachment causes plenty of friction between himself and Cutter. Like Helen, Lester is at his most fascinating in this series. He really comes across as a guy who could disappear someone if he felt they posed a threat to national security. He also gets all the best lines: "You spend all your life preparing for every single eventuality - up to and including alien invasion - and this happens. So much for thinking outside the bloody box."

The rest of the cast are decent, doing the best they can with their material, but the writing doesn't help them much. Stephen's a more stolid counterpart to the maverick Cutter, but often comes across as a piece of male eye candy. Connor can be downright irritating at times. Abby and Claudia (Lucy Miller) are decent, but like Stephen, they didn't stand out much for me.

Primeval Series One is one that I enjoyed more on a rewatch than I thought I would. I'll get around to the later series at some point, but for the moment I can say I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting this series, despite its weaknesses and many lapses in internal logic. Worth checking out if you're a prehistory fan.

Film Review - Legend of the Werewolf

Today I review the 1975 horror, Legend of the Werewolf.

In 19^th century France, a young boy is found living wild in the forest by a travelling troupe of entertainers. The boy, christened Etoile, is taken in and raised into a strapping young man (David Rintoul). After attacking another entertainer in a sudden fit of rage, Etoile flees to Paris where he's taken in by a zoo keeper (Ron Moody), where he develops an affinity with the wolves. Before long, a series of grisly murders begins in the streets, and a local coroner (Peter Cushing) fears there may be a supernatural cause of it.

Legend of the Werewolf has all the hallmarks of a Hammer horror without actually being Hammer – it was produced by Tyburn studios. The shoestring budget is made clear from the measly carnival and zoo sets, but these in a way add to the feeling. The world of the movie is a seedy and awkward one. The cheap sets suit its weird characters, like Hugh Griffith's bombastic showman and Ron Moody's ratty yet somehow endearing zoo keeper.

It's a weirdness that reflects Etoile's strange relationship with the people he meets. The travellers treat him like an animal and keep in a cage, yet somehow the narrator (also played by Cushing) tells us that they become a sort of family to him. Likewise, Moody's zoo keeper comes off as a sleaze from the start, but has very brief moments of affection towards his strange young charge.

These weird tonal shifts add a charm of sorts to the movie, but I doubt this was the filmmakers' intention. The script and characters are paper-thin, and its up to the actors to wring any sort of life from them.

Fortunately, the film does have a fairly decent cast. Moody gives his zoo keeper perhaps more personality than such a thin role deserves. Lynn Badly plays Christine, a local prostitute and the object of Etoile's affections. She also brings some life to her role as a sweet but in no way timid heroine. Entertainer Roy Castle (best known for his children's show Record Breakers) provides some comic relief as a twitchy photographer.

Rintoul was clearly cast more for his beefcake looks than for his acting. However, I do remember enjoying his reading of an audiobook of Susan Cooper's The Boggart when I was a child, so it's not that he doesn't have charisma, it's just there's none to be seen here.

But of course, the real star of the show here is Peter Cushing, one of the stallwarts of British B-movie horror. Cushing seems to elevate the movie to a higher class by his very presence, playing an intelligent and rational coroner, Professor Paul, who seeks to find the werewolf before the police do, not to destroy it but to understand it. It's no accident that the film drastically improves when Cushing becomes the focus, who not only lights up the screen but delivers a welcome note of doom to the story.

If you're at all familiar with this particular genre of horror, you'll know what to expect from Legend of the Werewolf. Cheap sets, corny red-screen shots and thin plot abound. But it also retains some charm from its cast, and especially from Peter Cushing.

Book Review - Knots & Crosses (Ian Rankin)

This is a review of Ian Rankin's 1987 novel, Knots and Crosses, the first in the John Rebus series.

The story takes place in Edinburgh, where a serial killer is targeting pre-teen girls and strangling them. The police are baffled by both the seemingly random nature of the crimes and the lack of a sexual element. Meanwhile, DS John Rebus is being hounded by anonymous letters as well as a journalist who suspects he's involved in a drug-dealing operation.

This is quite an unusual crime novel. In the introduction to the 1999 omnibus, Ian Rankin says that he didn't set out to write a crime novel and was surprised when the book was categorised as such. It certainly shows as Knots and Crosses is far less preoccupied with the mechanics of the investigation than with the analysis of Rebus himself.

From the get-go, Rankin establishes Rebus as a deeply damaged individual. He has a disastrous relationship with his brother, ex-wife and daughter, still suffers PTSD from a period in the SAS, and has a poisonously cynical attitude to the city around him. Rankin avoids wallowing in his protagonists' misery however, and keeps the plot moving at a brisk pace to ensure the reader is never bored. Rebus' little bouts of depression (and there are more than a few) are enough to establish the character to the reader, but never feel drag on to the point that they feel self-indulgent.

The actual investigation is left to the supporting characters, mostly Rebus' fellow DS Jack Morton. Rebus spends most of his energy struggling to connect with his remaining family, while puzzling over the sinister but oddly vague letters he keeps receiving.

In a darkly comic twist, Rebus is also unknowingly being followed by journalist Jim Stevens, who suspects he's involved in a drug ring. Stevens has a similarly unfulfilling life situation, but expends his energy on his work. This manifests itself in an obsession with a drug story he's not even attached to, as well as pining for a female DI that Rebus is involved with. In a way, Stevens is a slightly more interesting character than Rebus as he's more proactive and drives the plot more, as opposed to Rebus who mopes around waiting for the plot to happen. That may sound like criticism but it's really not, as Rebus' self-paralysing depression becomes a mjor plot point (and again, Rankin knows not to push this trait too far to make him insufferable).

As with many crime authors, Rankin gives as much personality to the setting as his characters. Rebus projects his misery on to Edinburgh itself, seeing the whole city as an enabler for appalling crime. It says a lot for Rebus' state of mind that he begins to see his own trauma reflected on the environment. I was glad however, that Rankin didn't stuff the book full of geographical pointers and map references (as say, Ben Aaronovitch does for London). While I'm sure this can be a lot of fun for readers familiar with the setting, it can be quite alienating to those with no knowledge of it.

Knots and Crosses is certainly not a happy book, but I still found it to be great reading. Rankin knows how to balance plot with introspection without making things self-indulgent, and also creates a very evocative setting. Highly recommended.

Book Review - Doctor Who; Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible (Marc Platt)

Today I review the 1992 Doctor Who novel, Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible by Marc Platt.

A mishap in the time vortex causes the Doctor's TARDIS to collide with another ship, but not just any ship: a primitive Gallifreyan time machine (a Time Scaphe) from before the age of the Time Lords. The incident catapults both crews into a nightmarish world where Time has broken down. Abandoned by the Doctor, Ace must team up with the suspicious other crew to discover what's happened.

Marc Platt is best known in Doctor Who circles for writing the 1989 TV story Ghost Light, a Victorian adventure notorious for its balls-out surreality and sketchy, seemingly random plotting. For some, it's a tribute to just how successful the Andrew Cartmel template could be in the right hands. For others, it demonstrates just how dismal Doctor Who had become in its final televised years, as straight-forward storytelling is sacrificed for pretentious faux-intellectualism.

I'd count myself firmly in the former camp. I think Ghost Light is a classic, but I understand why a lot of people hate it and its style. Unsurprisingly, Time's Crucible has a similarly controversial relationship with fans, especially on the Doctor Who Ratings Guide. Unbound by the constraints of shooting a TV series, Platt lets his imagination run riot on the page. It's a fantastic read if you're in the mood, but only if you're in the mood. Otherwise it can leave the reader surly with themselves for bothering to read it.

This review comes after my second reading of Time's Crucible. The first time, I was impressed by Platt's imagination and the shameless manner he exploits the print format to create a story that could never have been realised on TV. However, I found his characterisation rather poor except for Ace. I was also lukewarm towards the Gallifreyan backstory; while I understand the temptation to want to explore the mysteries of the Times Lords, I felt this was something that was best left to the imagination. Like the Doctor's own backstory, there are some things about the Doctor Who mythos that are just better left in the dark.

I came away from the second reading enjoying the story far more. For one thing, knowing the basic plotline meant I wasn't as overwhelmed by the surreality of Platt's concept and could better appreciate it. I also enjoyed the Gallifreyan parts of the book, to my pleasant surprise. I still won't insist that Platt's vision of Time Scaphes, ancient fortunetellers and inferitility curses should be the “canon” version of Gallifrey (Doctor Who tends to be more enjoyable when its mythology is open to debate), but I thought the execution was intriguing and made the backstory worthwhile.

The plot is actually fairly simple when all the surreal aspects are stripped away. The 7^th Doctor is for once in a fairly vulnerable position for much of the book; he fails to protect the TARDIS in the beginning, and is genuinely at a loss for much of the story as to what is going on. This almost feels like an attempt to counterbalance the usual super-powered 7^th Doctor we usually see. Platt captures the character beautifully. One of my favourite moments occurs early on when the Doctor and Ace are sitting in a diner in Perivale, and the Doctor can clearly sense something amiss, but can't put his finger on it. The contrast between a mundane setting and the cryptic Doctor is a striking way to open the story.

Granted, the characterisation goes a little askew midway through the book when the Doctor loses his memory, and has to spend a good chunk of the book catching up with himself. The problem with memory loss in fiction – especially if involves character we already know – is that the reader doesn't learn anything new about the character in the process, because so much of the character's “arc” feels more like a character “loop” because ultimately, the character is only coming back to where they were at the start of the story.

This was my impression of the Doctor here the first time I read this book. On a second reading, I found that the Doctor does change a little throughout the story (in that he realises the full significance of the Time Scaphe and its crew, and the implications this has for him as a Gallifreyan). However, this could have worked just as well without the memory loss. It comes across like an extreme attempt to counter the 7^th Doctor's usual all-powerfullness. While I appreciate the intention, I don't think Platt had to go quite as far as wiping his memory completely.

Thankfully, Ace remains a fairly straightforward protagonist. This is still very much TV Ace before her development takes a sudden swerve in Love & War. Platt does a great job of getting across her brashness as well as her uncertainty. Platt shows his grasp of the two characters' relationship, with Ace torn between her distrust of the Doctor's manipulative ways, and her genuine affection for him.

Another benefit of a second read was that I came to appreciate the secondary characters more. We're not given much backstory on the Time Scaphe crew or their personalities, but their grappling with their horrifying future did make for an engaging plotline. The breaking down of Time brings the crew face-to-face with their own futures, allowing the story to explore themes of fate and predestination. To be honest, I can't say how well the book covers these themes (what with the general insanity of the concept), but I was at least more involved with the Time Scaphe crew the second time around. I can't stress enough that this is a book that needs to be read repeatedly to try to appreciate it.

Our villains are a bit of a mixed-bag. The most prominent is Vael, the sixth member of the Time Scaphe crew. We first see him on Gallifrey as a student with pyrotechnic powers (that are never really explained), and ambitions of breaking out of Gallifreyan society and attaining some grand destiny for himself.

Vael is an example of one of my least favourite villainous archetypes: the power-hungry schemer. He's so obsessed with his own perceived specialness that he becomes insufferable. There aren't any layers to his morality or character; he's just a straight-up bastard who screws everyone over just because. Even worse, the Doctor seems to agree that Vael is a greater threat than anyone he's ever faced (Worse than Sutekh the Destroyer? Don't make me laugh!) when really he's just another weedy collaborator we've seen a hundred times. On a second reading, I wonder if Platt was trying to tease the reader that Vael could be the origin of the Master (another villain who I'm not too fond of).

Our next villain is the Process, who is certainly more interesting than Vael, if only because of the sheer weirdness of its concept: an enormous sentient leech with two mouths on each end of its body, who also has an older and younger self (who co-exist due to the Time breaking down) vying for power. The Process is fun to read just for the fact that you know Doctor Who could never have done this on TV with the budget they had.

There are a few issues here as well, however. Where does the Process get its name? Where did it actually come from? Was it a Chronovore in the Time Vortex? That seems to be implied but Platt could have done us the courtesy of making that clear.

Also, its dialogue is pretty cliched villainous affair. The Process spends much of its time boasting of its impending victory, or else demanding the Doctor's destruction. The time paradoxes also mean it speaks in mangled present tenses, which can get a little tiresome. As a character the Process is weak, but conceptually, its one of the most inventive creations I've ever seen from Doctor Who.

Our final villain is the Pythia, and this takes us into one of the more controversial aspects of the book. Time's Crucible delves into Gallifreyan history and the Time Lords' origins to an extent Doctor Who hadn't done since The Deadly Assassin. Like that story, this has caused quite a rift in the fandom. Some people find Platt's vision of Gallifrey's past uninteresting, whereas others argue that the very act of exploring Gallfrey's past is a mistake, as it demystifies the Time Lords.

I can sympathise with the latter viewpoint having felt the same way after my first reading. On a second reading, I came to appreciate Platt's intention more. The Pythia symbolizes the old guard of superstition, whereas Rassilon and his followers represent progress and iconoclasm. The Pythia's curse shows that even progress can have a terrible price.

Rassilon himself also gets an interesting depiction here. Here we see Rassilon before he became the ruler of the High Council, when he was an idealistic and inexperienced student. Platt wisely doesn't delve too much into Rassilon's own lifestory, but we see enough of him to get a sense of who he is as a character.

I can understand completely why so many people dislike Time's Crucible , especially since this business of ancient curses and cults of prophets is too much like high fantasy to be recognisable as Doctor Who. I personally don't mind when the series does fantasy as long as the story is good, which I felt was the case here, but I can see why the book has such a controversial reputation.

Whether you'll like Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible depends on what you want out of Doctor Who. If you want fun, irreverant stories or in-depth character studies, you're bound to be disappointed. If you prefer general mindscrewiness, time paradoxes and obsessions with the show's mythos, I'd say you'll like this book or at least be fascinated by it.

Oh, and it even has a moon that turns out to be a giant egg.

Book Review - After Doomsday (Poul Anderson)

Today's review is Poul Anderson's 1963 novel, After Doomsday.

In the distant future, planet Earth is suddenly hit by a catastrophe that annihilates all life and leaves the planet utterly barren. A scattering of crews travelling through space are all that remains of the human race, and instantly set out to rebuild their civilization and discover the cause of the disaster.

After Doomsday is an interesting book in the way it revolves around a colossal concept, yet manages to tell a fast-paced and engaging story. It also shows a well-developed universe, populated with all manner of civilizations with complex and dynamic relations. The human survivors have to navigate between imperialists, capitalists and feudalists to carve out a niche for themselves in a vast and uncertain universe.

The book is fairly scant on characterisation. Our protagonists are resourceful and have moments of introspection as they remember their former lives on Earth, but developing deep personalities does not appear to be Anderson's main objective. Not that this takes away from the story, but if you like your science-fiction to be heavily character-based, you're likely to be disappointed here.

Anderson does have a slightly annoying habit of delivering exposition through character's thoughts, rather than try to work it into dialogue or behaviour in a way that feels natural. These attempts to establish character backstory comes across as a bit lazy. Again, this doesn't detract from the book's strong points, but some readers might be a bit put off by it.

Apart from the main thread of the the mystery of the Earth's destruction, the plot is largely episodic. Characters move from one planet to another, gradually giving the reader a better understanding of this universe and how it functions. I enjoyed this method of revealing the book's universe, with Anderson gradually teasing details out to stoke the reader's curiosity.

There's a curious segment where an immense space battle is described to the reader through a combination of epic poetry and a fictional historical account. I liked both these little details as they further fleshed out Anderson's created world, giving an insight into the cultures of these alien societies.

One major issue I have with the book is the ending. It ends with a cliffhanger, which I thought was a great idea, but the whole thing feels a little rushed. I didn't feel the extent of emotional impact that Anderson clearly wanted to get across. This spoiled the ending for me a bit.

That said, I still think After Doomsday has more good than bad in it. It's a nifty read and a great example of how you can develop a dynamic fictional world without going all George RR Martin and becoming swamped in your own detail (sorry George).

Highly recommended.

TV Review - Doctor Who, "The Aztecs"

Today I review the Doctor Who serial from 1964, "The Aztecs" written by John Lucarotti.

The TARDIS arrives in Mexico at the height of the Aztec Empire. Barbara is mistaken for a reincarnation of the god Yetaxa, giving her great influence over Aztec society. However, Barbara learns to her horror that she is to preside over human sacrifices, a practice she tries to stamp out by declaring it illegal. Meanwhile, Ian runs afoul of an arrogant warrior while the Doctor's attempts to reclaim the TARDIS draw the affections of a local noblewoman.

"The Aztecs" is remembered as one of Doctor Who's early classics and rightly so. It's a tightly plotted serial that explores two fascinating time travel concepts: adapting to a completely different society and, a recurring theme in Doctor Who, the implications of trying to change history.

These themes revolve around Barbara's 'ascension' to godhood. While Barbara's attempts to change the Aztecs' thoughts on sacrifice is well-intentioned, there's an unmistakeable note of moral superiority about it. Barbara doesn't consider the implications of trying to radically alter a society's conception of death overnight. Her attempts also ring somewhat hollow given she argues her case on her presumed divinity – something she knows to be false but still tries to use to manipulate the Aztecs.

Barbara's efforts lead her to clash with Tlotoxl, the High Priest of Sacrifice. John Ringham adds a lot of flavour to this villain, walking with a stoop to match his plotting nature, and sneering every line with undisguised glee. Once-off villains in Doctor Who can sometimes feel a bit one-dimensional and unremarkable; Lucarotti tackles this by showing that Tlotoxl is not some abhorrence to Acztec society, rather he represents a cornerstone of the Aztecs' belief system. It's Barbara who comes across a threat by trying to impose a completely alien belief upon to the Aztecs, and expecting them to accept it because of her alleged godhood. Tlotoxl may be an unsavoury individual, but to the Aztecs themselves he can't possibly be a “villain” because he represents order.

The serial further shows how different the Aztecs' society is with its inclusion of the Perfect Sacrifice, a man who is to be honoured by being sacrificed and is thus treated like royalty. This isn't some police state that deprives its citizens of their rights (making the Doctor and his friends into heroes for fighting the regime), but a society where people understand and accept the reality of death. These moral complexities make “The Aztecs” one of the most compelling of the early Doctor Who serials.

Then there is of course the famous argument between Barbara and the Doctor, leading to one of the show's most famous quotes: “You can't rewrite history, not one line! Believe me I know, I know.”

I feel this is a scene that's even more important when you look at it in the context of the series. The Doctor was characterised very early on as a prickly, stubborn, and sometimes stupidly selfish person. This was demonstrated in earlier serials like The Daleks, where the Doctor sabotages the TARDIS on Skaro to give him an excuse to explore the planet's surface.

This however is the first time we hear the Doctor discuss the implications of time travel, along with the suggestion that he's tried to change history himself and failed. These days, we're used to the Doctor being the authority on time travel and warning his companions of its dangers. This though is the first time we hear the Doctor struggle to educate his companion in such a manner, using dispassionate logic against Barbara's strong sense of morality. It's one of those little character establishing moments that sees the Doctor slowly change from an irritable meddler into the wise and authoritative figure we know him as today.

A more controversial element (controversial in the fannish sense) is the Doctor's budding romance with Cameca. I'm not normally a fan of the Doctor being written as a romantic as I feel it undermines the aloofness and alienness that's crucial to his character. I will however cut this story a bit of slack largely because the Doctor hadn't yet been confirmed as an alien – the pilot confirms he's from another world, but he could've been a future human colonist for all the information the show gave us.

Besides, the dynamic is so well executed (especially with some lovely understated performances from Hartnell and Margot van der Burgh) that it's hard not to find endearing, even if it does 'violate' your normal fan preferences. At the end of the day, being a Doctor Who fan generally involves a bit of doublethink, as the show's longevity and parade of writers and creative teams mean certain contradictions of canon are bound to appear.

To use another example, I quite enjoy a number of stories from the Cartmel era of the show, even though I generally don't like the Doctor being written as some cosmic, godlike figure. I appreciate the Cartmel interpretation of the character even if it doesn't fit in with my ideal version of what the character should be, and the same is easy to do here as well.

In conclusion, “The Aztecs” is definitely one of the highlights of Doctor Who's early years. It's a story that takes the concept of time travel and runs with it, and is also a great example of how to write a protagonist (in this case Barbara) who's sympathetic but still heavily flawed.

Book Review - Perdido Street Station (China Miéiville)

Hello people, today I review a 2000 novel from China Miéiville, Perdido Street Station.

Perdido Street Station takes place in the city of New Crobuzon in the fictional continent of Bas-Lag. Here, a renegade physicist named Isaac dan Grimnebulin is approached one day by a strange refugee: a garuda (a humanoid bird-of-prey) named Yagharek who's been stripped of his wings as punishment. Yagharek seeks Isaac out to help him regain the power of flight, an offer that appeals to Isaac's curiosity and antipathy towards authority. However, Isaac's experiments inadvertently unleash a terrifying threat on the city that could leave all its inhabitants worse than dead . . .

Perdido Street Station is an incredibly rich and inventive novel. Miéiville has clearly had a lot of fun designing this bizarre alternate society, full of strange creatures and cultures. The garuda are just one distinct group in this city. New Crobuzon is also comprised of humanoid beetles, cacti, frogs, and other even more bizarre and terrifying entities.

Our protagonist Isaac starts off as a jovial if slightly selfish antihero. He's appalled by his former University's ties with the brutal city regime, yet uses his own underworld connections to acquire apparatus discretely. He gladly helps Yagharek to learn how to fly again, mostly so he can make a name for himself by making a breakthrough in physics.

Isaac also shows a level of foolishness and pomposity, such as when he blithely wanders into a garuda settlement with no consideration for their customs, resulting in him being forcefully ejected. This can also be seen in his interactions with Yagharek, where Isaac's overly-friendly demeanour comes off as a bit forced and insincere.

However, this drastically changes halfway through the story when events take a disturbing turn. Isaac becomes a darker and more desperate character in the light of his own personal tragedy, and the impact his experiments have on the city. Like King Rat, we see Miéiville start off with a relatively light tone only to completely beat down his protagonists. Towards the end, Isaac has become so embittered he's barely recognisable as the same person at the start of the book. This should not be taken as criticism however, but rather an indication of Miéiville's mercilessness towards his characters.

Another important character is Lin, a khepri (half-human, half-beetle) and Isaac's artistic girlfriend. Lin's embrace of a career in individual expression has alienated her from her home community, while her race makes her an outsider in the human community as well. Miéiville introduces the reader to khepri history and society by using Lin's experiences with it. Through Lin's defiance of their ways, Miéiville gives a sense of the tension between human and khepri.

Another exiled figure is Yagharaek, a disgraced garuda who was stripped of his wings for some past transgression. He embodies the “noble” warrior trope, remaining a solitary, silent figure for much of the book, and rarely even interacts with Isaac. Miéiville instead uses inner monologue to convey Yagharek's thoughts and motivations to us. Personally, I'm not a big fan of this device, especially when they diverge into lengthy poetic descriptions (as happens here), and wish Yagharek's character had been conveyed to us more through his actions.

Yagharek's stolidness makes for an interesting contrast with the growing insanity of the plot. He's not so much a figure of sanity, but due to his silence and deliberate removal from events, Yagharek conveys a sense of being “outside” the chaos – even if his request to Isaac indirectly causes the horror in the first place.

However, Miéiville viciously subverts this depiction in the latter stages of the book. I won't spoil it here, but it's a development which paints Yagharek in a very different light and left me having to reconsider a lot of my impressions of him. His eventual fate also left me full of questions and a very mixed emotional response, but in a way that the author clearly intended.

Miéiville provides a window into the violent struggle between New Crobuzon's secret police and the underground press through the character of Derkhan Blueday. Derkhan, a former activist and hard-left journalist, gets caught up in the madness caused by Isaac's experiments and, like him, becomes a much harder person by the story's end.

The secret press aspect doesn't relate directly to the plot, but it does flesh out the world of New Crobuzon more. It also adds to the themes of governmental oppression and its consequences, which is important as the government's shady practices are as much a cause of the story's main catastrophe as Isaac's carelessness.

Like with King Rat, Miéiville writes with a strong sense of place and a feel for atmosphere. He works hard to convey the mood and atmosphere of the city, focusing as much on the psyhcological impact the crisis has on the city's population as he does on the direct victims. While the story isn't short on action, the apocalypse that befalls New Crobuzon is of a rather insidious variety. The “nightmare epidemic” and the use of body horror adds to the surreality of the story's crisis.

There are a host of other weird entities in this book that I won't say too much about here; you really need to read this book to get a sense of some of these oddities. The Weaver is perhaps the most distinctive, with its terrifying yet dreamlike presence. While it plays an important role, the Weaver's origins and motivations are largely left opaque; its truly alien form of thought and reasoning is a major plot point. The Weaver's inclusion demonstrates how New Crobuzon, for all its depth and variety, is merely one part of a vast and weird universe.

In short, this is a weird, compelling, sometimes frightening and other times heartbreaking book.

The one issue I have (which some readers may also have) is its length, coming in at just under 870 pages. The book unsurprisingly drags in parts where the plot slows, and Miéiville can become a little too caught up in describing the place or scene.

All that said, Perdido Street Station is still an extremely rich and multi-layered book. It's the type of story that's so vast it's easy to miss things on the first go, making for rewarding rereads. Highly recommended.

Book Review - The Prague Cemetery (Umberto Eco)

Today I look at a novel from Italian author Umberto Eco – The Prague Cemetery is a historical fiction that spans central Europe for much of the 19^th century. It's told from three different perspectives: an Italian captain named Simonini; a priest named Abbe Dalla Piccola; and an unnamed narrator who pieces together a story from the combined writing of Simonini and the abbe.

I was drawn to this book because it's promise of continent-wide conspiracies intrigued me, as well as it's 19^th century setting. Seeing monumental events in recent history like the violence of the Paris Commune and the Dreyfus Affair was one of my favourite aspects of this book. However, on the whole I was extremely disappointed in The Prague Cemetery. It gets off to an intriguing start as we're given three seperate narrators (two of whom very clearly have split-personality disorder), which made me wonder if this was going to be some sort of surrealist text where you can't entirely trust what you're reading.

The more I read though, the less invested I became, and I was soon simply reading the story out of a sense of obligation, not genuine interest.

One of The Prague Cemetery's biggest flaws is this: it has no real characters. What it has are ciphers who exist to push the plot forward. Making matters worse is that nearly all of these characters are interchangeable. Nearly every character is either a scheming revolutionary, a scheming politician, a scheming civil servant, a scheming cleric, or a combination of the above. The one exception is the satanist Diana, and that's only because she exists to be a puppet of the main characters' whims. Instead of a cast of characters, we're given a conveyor belt of equally manipulative, devious and morally sterile people.

I soon began to forget the names of the various bureaucrats and employers Simonini encounters throughout his career, because all of them are equally faceless. Not to mention all of them have more or less the same ambitions and practices – namely to manipulate public opinion to serve their own interests.

Which brings me on to another big issue I have with this book: all of these characters are terrible people. Not only are they bland, stereotypical manipulators, but just about everyone is a colossal bigot. Anti-Semitism is the main focus of the book – I lost count of the amount of times someone goes off on a rant about how the Jews are conspiring to overthrow western civilization – but there's also plenty of misogyny, anti-Catholicism and racism to remind you of how loathsome all these characters are.

But Anti-Semitism is the main subject here. There are two variations: the rabid, fanatical anti-Semitism of the likes of Eduoard Drumont (whose appearance late in the story might have been a nasty shock if I hadn't long stopped caring), or else the empty cynicism of the likes of Simonini. Repeatedly in the story, Simonini forges material he claims to prove an internationalist Zionist plot (originating from a cemetery in Prague, where the book gets its name from) is taking place. His employers often know his “evidence” is fabricated, or else lifted wholesale from popular literature, but they publish it anyway to give the common people of Europe a scapegoat to distract them from the real forces controlling their lives.

This is one aspect of the story that gave me some interest – the idea that politicians and spin doctors openly lie to people to serve their own ends. But again, all of these characters are so shallow and interchangeable that it's hard for me to get invested. It's as if someone wanted to make a novel out of Yes Minister or The Thick of It, but forgot to give its characters flaws and nuances that make them relatable to the audience.

Something else that's sorely missing from this novel is an actual argument. You'd think a story that delves so far into a particularly ugly side of human history would have something of substance to say, or perhaps try to explain why people judge certain communities for being “Other”. It's a topic that's sadly as relevant in Europe today with the hostile response Middle Eastern refugees are facing. But for all it's posturing, The Prague Cemetery doesn't seem to have anything to add to the discussion of prejudice than “Man, prejudice sucks”.

It gives a dangerously simplistic portrayal of how prejudice works in the first place. Since every character in this book seems inherently awful, it gives the impression that bigotry can only exist if generated by inherently awful people. Writing about ordinary and sympathetic people who hold prejudices shows how insidious prejudice is, and might help readers to recognise it in themselves. Repeating the term “Final Solution” over and over does not help anyone better understand why the people of Germany attempted to annihilate several entire races in the 1940s.

Finally, I don't really get what the point of the multiple narratives was, or the split-personality. Seriously, nothing comes of it. It's clear from the start that Simonini and Dalla Piccola are the same person. Eco inserts gaps into their memories, meaning that both personalities have to write to jog the other half's memory. Why Eco didn't simply have a first or third-person narrative all the way through is beyond me.

If I can say anything good about this story, it's that the prose (translated by Richard Dixon) is nice enough, though Eco does like to go off on tangents a fair bit. The act of reading the book may have been a repetitive, often tedious experience, but at least it wasn't excruciating.

Could I recommend The Prague Cemetery? Not really. Not as a historical fiction, or a character study, or a commentary on prejudice, or a spy story, or a satire. Pretty much everything here has been done better.

Just watch Zootropolis instead.

TV Review - Game of Thrones (S06E04) "The Book of the Stranger" (Spoilers)

The latest episode of Game of Thrones gives us one of the long-anticipated Stark reunions, with Sansa, Brienne and Pod meeting Jon at the wall. What I liked about Sansa reuniting with Jon was that it was not exactly the reunion one would have expected. We've never seen these two interact before, and one would think that Jon and Bran, or else Jon and Arya, or Sansa and Arya would have been more appropriate, given that we've seen those character interact before. This odd pairing also made the emotion of their reunion all the sweeter. With all the grim happenings of late, this show has been begging for a little happiness.

Jon and Sansa's dynamic here gives a glimpse into the past lives of the Starks, building on last week's flashback to the Tower of Joy. Learning his family is not completely dead gives Jon a purpose again, as he struggles with his second chance of life. But it's Sansa who's shown to have changed the most in this episode. This isn't just shown through her regret for looking down on Jon before, but also through her demands that they return to Winterfell with arms to save their home and their little brother. With Jon, Davos and Melisandre all adrift, not knowing what to do with their lives, it's Sansa who tries to provoke them to action. This suggests that Sansa may become more a political force in the future.

The ground is also laid for plenty of complications: how will the Watch react to the call to march south, when they know a much greater threat is building to the north? How will Sansa take it when she learns Jon has been resurrected through magic (it's unlikely she already knows, given that she's yet to encounter any supernatural forces, unlike her siblings)? How will Brienne react to Jon being a product of the same magic that killed Renly?

Meanwhile, there's another force preparing to march on Winterfell to the south. Littlefinger (Aidan Gillen) returns to the Vale to persuade young Robert Arryn to mobilise to “save” Sansa, while also carrying out Littlefinger's plans to spread his influence to the north. Watching his standoff with Lord Royce made me wonder “What the heck is up with these guards?” First Dorne and now the Vale! What's with this sudden scourge of disloyalty guards have towards their employers? I'm starting to wonder if the Others cleansing Westeros would be such a bad thing, given how there's only about ten sympathetic characters left there.

I'm hoping the clash at Winterfell provides the catharsis denied in last year's anticlimactic Baratheon-Bolton showdown. Odds are at least one unpleasant character will be offed, perhaps Sansa killing Ramsay or Littlefinger, or Ramsay killing Littlefinger or Sweetrobin.

In King's Landing, we get another uncomfortable audience with the High Sparrow, this time as he tries to persuade Margaery Tyrell (Natalie Dormer) to confess her crimes. Pryce's benevolent smile throughout this whole scene continues to be one of the most unsettling things about this season, moreso than Ramsay in all his eye-bulging glory. The fact that his arguments about the nobility's debauchery carry a lot of weight only adds to the insidiousness of the character.

It's also a great scene for Dormer, who conveys through her huge doe-eyes that she's starting to be taken in by his arguments . . . only to show her real mettle when she tries to talk Loras into staying strong. Margaery's balance of firmness and humanity has made her one of the most fascinating characters on the show, and I hope she gets to do a lot more this season than just sit in a cell being lectured to.

From Cersei and Jaime alas, it's more of the same sniping with the small council and generally being ostracised by everyone. There is one tiny exception with the possibility of a brief alliance between the Lannisters and the Tyrells to undermine the Faith Militant's authority. These are two other characters that I hoped are utilised better in the second half of this season.

In Meereen, Tyrion is finally back in the saddle as he cuts a deal with the slavers to wean them off of slavery, rather than snatch it away from them like Daenerys tried to do. This subplot is based around the gap between compromise and ideals, with Tyrion being the pragmatic foil to Grey Worm's dogged loyalty to his queen, with Missandei mediating between them.

I have to say, I found Grey Worm and Missandei far more interesting in this one episode than I have in their three seasons on the show. For them, the deal with the slavers is of greater emotional significance, yet Tyrion (who's had plenty of experience working with and for people who despise him) can see the bigger picture and knows that compromise is sometimes needed. We never had this sort of ideological conflict when Daenerys was in charge. By being placed at odds with Tyrion, Grey Worm and Missandei are forced to assert themselves more, leading to more of their personalities being enforced into the show.

And speaking of Daenerys (Emilia Clarke), whom I've avoided up until this point due to the lack of momentum in her subplot, well . . . it looks like we're back to the Season 1 finale all over again. Of all the characters in this show, Daenerys is the one I'm the least invested in. This is partially because all the show's attempts to make her impressive feel like Telling not Showing, and partially because Emilia Clarke just doesn't sell it for me. When she's supposed to look powerful and frightening as she burns the khals alive, she instead comes off as weirdly detached from everything.

I didn't dislike the climax to this episode, but I didn't feel much of anything else either. It was just a thing that happened. But I suppose the fact that Daenerys' plot is once again progressing could form some interesting conflict down the road.

My prediction for the rest of the season is that Daenerys will try to retake Meereen, and will be shocked and angered at Tyrion's compromise. Daenerys will try to have Drogon incinerate Tyrion, but Rhaegon and Viseryon (whom Tyrion released whereas Daeneys imprisoned them) will fight for Tyrion, leading to a showdown between the three dragons. Last season, Shireen Baratheon mentioned the bloody Targaryen civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons, which may have been a setup for a second Dance.

And no, that does not mean I hope Tyrion is secretly a Targaryen, although it might look a lot more likely if my prediction comes true.

TV Review - Game of Thrones (S06E03) "Oathbreaker" (Spoilers)

Episode 3 of Game of Thrones introduces us to one of the most crucial moments in the whole series: the infamous battle at the Tower of Joy where a young Lord Eddard Stark (Robert Aramayo) and his friends fight to save his sister Lyanna from the remnants of Aerys II's Kingsguard. I thought Aramayo's performance was an interesting one, as it showed the uncertainty the young Ned must have felt during Robert's Rebellion. Unlike Sean Bean's composed authority, Aramayo doesn't seem to quite suit the role of a dashing knight.

That actually works in his favour though because it shows the young Ned as more vulnerable than we're used to seeing him. Instead of ruling the North with a firm but caring hand, he seems quite out-of-his depth when faced with the uber-confident Kingsguard. This is highlighted when Ned only survives because of Howland Reed's trickery, than from actual fighting prowess.

In the modern day, we see the less diplomatic players continue to dominate the stage when Winterfell is visited by the brusque Smalljon Umber (Dean S Jagger). Umber promptly chews out Ramsay for his cruelty and his father's treachery, then makes it clear that he's only here out of a need to beat the wildlings than for any semblance of feudal loyalty. It's the last thing you'd expect anyone to say to someone of Ramsay's temperament, and Jagger's unabashed frankness makes for a pretty amusing scene.

It quickly takes a shocking turn however when we see that Smalljon has delivered Rickon Stark (Art Parkinson) and Osha (Natalia Tena) into Ramsay's hands, along with what appears to be the severed head of Rickon's direwolf, Shaggy Dog. Like with the Ironborn, I'm glad to see the show has not abandoned all its past plotlines. The questions now arise as to whether this really is an amoral sell-out from the Umbers, or if the show is paralleling the Manderly plot from the books. Perhaps Umber is planning to sneak an army into Winterfell and needs someone who knows the layout on the inside. I also wonder if the show is going to try to give Rickon some depth, or will it just leave him as a plot device so as not to intrude on the characters we already have.

In King's Landing, Qyburn (Anton Lesser) has recruited Varys' little birds as his own intelligence network. The scene where he bribes a horde of ragged, wide-eyed orphans to do his bidding has a weirdly Dickensian feel that's very out of context for a medieval-style show. But I admit I actually liked the scene for this reason. Like the bloodriders' absurdly macho dialogue in episode 1, the scene is somehow endearing in its oddness.

It's also nice to get a glimpse of how Qyburn goes about his business when Cersei isn't around, giving the background characters just a little bit more life. The scene however does make me wonder how loyal the children are to Qyburn. Varys' influence can stretch across whole continents, so I wouldn't be too surprised if Qyburn one day vanishes down some dark alley somewhere.

Speaking of Varys (Conleth Hill), he seems to be coming into his own in Meereen. The scene where he threatens the son of a Meereenese woman for her conspiring with the Sons of the Harpy restores some menace to a character who's been greatly lacking any for several seasons. I thought the throne room as a setting for this scene was curious on a symbolic level. We open with Varys sitting near the throne but not on it, symbolising how he controls the fate of monarchies despite not having kingly status himself.

I wonder what this could mean for his relationship with Tyrion. Obviously Vary only helps people if they're useful for his plans (whatever they might be), but Tyrion is clearly smarter than to be led by the nose as easily as Joffrey or Tommen might be. Perhaps the scene isn't meant to mean anything, except show how ruthless Varys can be in dealing with his enemies. But given that the scene is directly followed by Tyrion playing house (thus leaving the important work to Varys), I wonder if we might start seeing Varys being more direct and forceful in his ambitions.

While this is going on, Tyrion struggles to make conversation with Missandei (Nathalie Emmanuel) and Grey Worm (Jacob Anderson). I thought this was a nice character moment that shows that Tyrion, despite being a brilliant diplomat in Westeros, isn't so skilled when it comes to dealing with people from a country entirely different from his own. That said, I do hope Tyrion starts to regain his politicking mojo, as he's spent far too much time on the sidelines. This is even more important in case Varys really is planning to undermine him.

Speaking of characters who haven't done much of late, Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) finally makes some headway with the Faceless Men when Jaqen H'ghar (Tom Wlaschiha) gives her back her sight. This comes at the cost of Arya's old identity, which apparently has been completely rejected by now. I wonder though how long that will last when Arya returns home and sees the utter ruin her old home has become.

I was particularly glad to see some development here, as Arya's time in Braavos has been one of my least favourite parts of the series due to repetition and lack of momentum. With the ambiguity surrounding Arya's “identity” (What will the Faceless Men have her do now that they seem to think she's ready?), this plotline finally has a new lease of life.

Game of Thrones (S06E02) "Home" (Spoilers)

I know this review is over a week late. Exams and whatnot have been wreaking havoc with my schedule of late.

This week on Game of Thrones, Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon) crosses yet more lines of depravity by murdering his way to becoming Lord of Winterfell. I've noticed an odd change in Ramsay since last year. He doesn't seem to enjoy killing as much as he usually does, showing what could almost be regret as he watches his father Roose (Michael McElhatton) die before him. I wonder if the death of Myranda has shaken his confidence somehow, as he realises that his pet Reek isn't as helpless as Ramsay thought he was.

I'd say Ramsay is starting to realise that he's pushing his luck more and more. He's marked himself out as a kinslayer, and by killing Lady Walda, he's eliminated one of the Boltons' allies in the Riverlands – who also happen to be one of the most prolific families in the realm. This is Ramsay's fourth season of murder and butchery, and by law of averages I'd say this will be his final one. Joffrey didn't last much longer than three seasons; perhaps the producers are thinking of getting rid of Ramsay to replace him with yet another psychopath (Euron Crow's-Eye just happens to debut in the same episode). These murders could well prove the beginning of the end for Ramsay, something I'm sure we can all agree can't come too soon.

Perhaps his murders are also meant to parallel Ellaria and the Sand Snake's betrayal of Doran last week. From Dorne to the Wall, all the more cautious, level-headed players are being removed from the equation, leaving the way open for their reckless replacements. Across the realm, we're seeing the game of thrones devolve into a rage-fuelled stab-a-thon, which of course leaves Westeros even more vulnerable to the Others . . .

This episode also sees the return of the Ironborn, which I was glad to see. They may be a pack of salty, grim-faced bastards, but it's nice to see the show hasn't entirely forgotten its old subplots. Having Yara Greyjoy (Gemma Whelan) and her men utterly fail to save Theon would have been a pretty ignominious note to end on, and I can't wait to see how the power struggle between Yara and her uncle Euron (Pilou Asbæk) ties into the wider struggle for the realm.

That said, I thought the pacing for this segment was a bit off. It zips from Balon (Patrick Malahide) gloating about surviving the War, to him being assassinated, then to his funeral, and the promise of a Kingsmoot. This all happens within the space of ten minutes, almost as if the show's trying to make up for two years of neglect by speeding through the Ironborn plot. I think it might have worked better to kill off Balon in the pilot, then cut to his funeral for this week, just to give a better sense of the passing of time. Maybe D&D been planning on that, only for the scenes to get shuffled around for whatever reason.

It was also pretty sweet to watch the odious Balon get bumped off so unceremoniously, and frankly if you walk on a rickety bridge in a storm you deserve everything you get. Though come to think of it, what makes Yara think he was murdered at all? I mean, just look at those bridges!

In King's Landing, Tommen (Dean-Charles Chapman) seems to be venturing down the path to becoming another Joffrey, vowing to punish the people who've humiliated his wife and mother. I personally think Tommen was more interesting when there was a chance he and Margaery might actually bring some stability to the realm after the chaos of the past few years. Likewise, I think it's a shame that Jaime's (Nikolaj Coster Waldau) possible redemption has turned into yet another revenge quest after Myrcella's murder.

Cersei (Lena Headey) by contrast has become more intriguing since her release from the sept. Her quiet, soft-spoken performance makes it almost impossible to predict where she's going to go from here – or it would if the trailer hadn't added that “I choose violence” line. It'll be very interesting to see how these three characters negotiate the dark urges within them, which no doubt will be provoked even more in the coming war with Dorne.

There's also the building confrontation between the Lannisters and the Faith Militant. Jonathan Pryce continues to shine as the High Sparrow, combining gentle paternalism with an unshakeable zeal that makes him more unnerving even than Ser Robert Strong. The High Sparrow's another character who's hard to predict, but I'm wondering if all this fanatacism is going to burst forward into some frenzy before the season's out.

His brief conversation with Jaime set this conflict up decently, though I thought the dialogue was a bit weak, between Jaime informing the people who came in late that he's a Kingslayer, or the High Sparrow explaining why they adorn their corpses with open eyes. That latter infodump felt more like a blatant foreshadowing of Jon's resurrection.

In the North, Theon decides now's a good time to leave Sansa in the protection of Brienne and Pod. I was a bit disappointed with this development, given how Sansa and Theon's complicated relationship gives a lot of potential for interesting drama. Theon is Sansa's only connection with her past, something she doesn't have with Brienne or Pod since her connection to them has been tangential up to this point. I'm not saying it was a bad decision on part of the writers, but I do feel Theon staying could have led to a more interesting plotline. I'll have to wait and see how this develops before I can judge properly.

I also don't understand Theon's desire to go back to Pyke all of a sudden. It's not like his family treated him any better before he lost everything. It felt more like the writers just wanted a segue into the Ironborn plot.

Meanwhile in Meereen, Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) decides that Daenerys' dragons need to be released or else they'll wither and die, like the last dragons in Westeros. I liked the little callback to history here, and I'm wondering if that could be foreshadowing stronger ties with Targaryen history. We also get a scene that has been building since the series started, where Tyrion gets to see the dragons up close and personal.

Dinklage's acting in this scene is of course marvellous, with his usual dryness giving way to unashamed wide-eyed wonder. I admit I kind of like the dragons' design as well. Although their reptiles, the animators give their faces some expression as well. They almost come across more as giant scaly dobermans, which I thought was an interesting way to go.

But my God, how stupid would Tyrion have to be to think that just by walking up to the dragons and saying “I am your friend”, they wouldn't burn him alive? This is right up there with Tyrion and Varys' casual stroll around Meereen last week, seemingly unconcerned with the xenophobic death cult that's out to get them.

Tyrion is certainly showing a lot more confidence in himself if he can do all this. Let's hope this translates into some confident politicking in the coming weeks.