2013-06-20T08:07:09-04:00 Alice Charles http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=alice-charles Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Alice Charles Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3433794 2013-06-13T07:35:21-04:00 2013-06-13T18:06:11-04:00

Alice Charles http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alice-charles/
Once in London, he hooks up with a motley crew including a 21st-century Artful Dodger named Jem, a "gentleman of leisure". Soon he is living in a squat and learning about London's secret places but it is not until Trent meets the strident, enigmatic 26, that this story begins to take shape. 26 is a techno activist and she soon has Trent involved in a campaign to influence British politics.

There is much to enjoy here. The scenes were Trent discovers London's underground music movement reminded me of my own misspent youth frequenting illegal raves and evading the police. But the London Doctorow describes is more reminiscent of the capital under Ken Livingstone when the capital's arts scene was thriving and England's film industry wasn't people entirely by Oxbridge types named Olly and Thomasina. He takes a sideways swipe at Hollywood bully boys, who in their increasing desperation to protect their market share, use million-dollar sledgehammers to crack peanuts.

But in the end, Pirate Cinema must be one of the most frustrating books I've read this year. Doctorow appears to rush headlong through the story and I get the impression that he was afraid that actual events might overshadow events in the book. At the time of writing, National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden had just gone into hiding after exposing government intrusion on our civil liberties. So perhaps such fears were grounded. I only wish that he had taken a little more time to edit this before publication.

Reading this, I had to wonder who this book was for. The tone is a little too cynical for the young adult market, but the characters and subject matter appear to be written to appeal to younger readers. Consequently, Pirate Cinema occupies some uncomfortable middle ground. As a writer, Doctorow certainly isn't short of ideas, but he seems to throw everything at the wall. Thus we get a fictional "drive-by" past contemporary politics - the Occupy movement, copyright laws, gentrification and political atrophy. And it feels as though he wrote this book with one eye on a movie adaptation. A 21st-century Slackers, anyone?

I say "frustrating" because I can see how Pirate Cinema could have been a contemporary classic, echoing through the ages rather like Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse- Five. Instead, Doctorow seems to be in a rush to publish as many books as possible. This is more than a shame; in Pirate Cinema there is a spark of something great that is quickly extinguished.

Pirate Cinema is published by Titan Books, £7.99

]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3414290 2013-06-10T07:10:02-04:00 2013-06-11T10:25:25-04:00

Alice Charles http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alice-charles/
When Kuklinski allows a porn peddler with a big mouth a moment of prayer and the chance to see if God will save his life, we know it's only a matter of time before his line of work catches up with him. As we all know, God moves in mysterious ways...

Iceman boasts a surprisingly impressive cast, including Ray Liotta as Mob boss Roy Demeo, David Schwimmer as his partner, the loose cannon Josh Rosenthal, and Winona Ryder as Kuklinski's long-suffering wife Deborah. And James Franco and Chris Evans pop up in smaller roles. Director Ariel Vromen behaves like the Iceman himself, moving from one scene to another with almost clinical efficiency. And this is where the film falls down. With such a high calibre cast, it is more than a shame Vromen does not really allow them room to breathe. Consequently, this is a curiously underwhelming film. It ends not with a bang but with a whimper with Kuklinski safely behind bars and shunned by his much-loved family. He is unrepentant about his crimes and only expresses regret for hurting his family.

Vromen seems unsure what message to leave the audience with. This is a surprisingly moralistic film and he seems conflicted about making Kuklinski too sympathetic. Ultimately, this is to the film's detriment.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3341880 2013-05-27T08:44:29-04:00 2013-05-29T19:28:03-04:00

Alice Charles http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alice-charles/
This being Stephen King, there's a sting in the tail and this is it: the park boasts its own ghost, a young woman named Linda Gray who was murdered in the Horror House, her throat slashed by a mystery man. We know it will be only a matter of time before Dev discovers Linda's killer and sets her spirit free to "crossover".

This is a curious book. King seems to have written it with one eyebrow firmly raised. He draws a vivid portrait of amusement park life at a particular time and there is a real sense of nostalgia for a bygone age. King has certainly done his homework. The Joylands of this world are few and far between, replaced by the "mega" theme parks of the likes of Disney (criticised more than once in the book as being "too corporate"). But the characters are pure cornball. Joyland is a world where the men are all virile and women of child-bearing age are all beautiful. Dev is shown to be a thoroughly good egg, saving not just one life, but two; there are even characters called Mike and Annie, a Mrs Robinson figure who allows Dev to finally lose his virginity. Yes, Joyland is as American as apple pie.

While I have seen a number of Stephen King adaptations on the big and small screen, this is the first Stephen King book I have read and I was left feeling more than a little bemused. The story is slow to start, but nonetheless draws you in. There's the obligatory red herring, but then it's left to a secondary character - the red-haired Erin - to do the real sleuthing, playing Nancy Drew to his Hardy boy for no apparent reason. While Dev does eventually guess the identity of the real killer, his realisation comes almost too late - almost. We know that no harm can come to Dev as he is safely narrating the story as an old man, apparently pining for an America that no longer exists.

In 1973, King would have been 26 and it's hard not to draw parallels between the author and Joyland's protagonist. Is this the author's mid-life crisis novel, as he reflects on his waning physical prowess and loss of libido? Or is there a metaphor here about the state of the publishing industry - the loss of independents and the rise of "mega" authors such as Dan Brown, JK Rowling, Stephenie Myers and even EL James? (At one point Erin and Dev speculate that the amusement park killer may have claimed as many as fifty victims - Fifty Shades of Gray, geddit?)

I found the ending strangely anti-climatic and somewhat of a cheat, and I was left curiously unmoved. I could have done without the gratuitous gore at the end and the frequent use of the "c" word. Plus there is something unsettling about the way that King relegates people of colour firmly to the periphery. They appear only as janitors and there's a young black woman whose rape and murder is dismissed as being the work of another killer - for Dev has divined that the funfair murderer's problem is that he "can't get it up".

That said, this is the sort of book to while away a few hours on a long train journey or flight - and then leave in a seat pocket for someone to find.

Joyland is published by Titan Books, £7.99]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3330388 2013-05-24T05:08:48-04:00 2013-05-29T19:06:56-04:00

Alice Charles http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alice-charles/ Populaire boasts an offbeat premise. In the 1950s bright, ambitious Rose Pamphyle (Deborah Francois) wants to be a modern woman. There's just one problem - she's the only child of a stubborn father, who manages a small grocery store in a French backwater. But no matter, full of gumption, Rose packs a bag, books a room in a women-only hostel and attends an interview to be a secretary at a small insurance company run by Louis Echard (played by French heartthrob Romain Duris).

Being a secretary, Rose believes, will give her the opportunity to meet interesting people and travel the world. Louis quickly puts her straight on that score and the pair clash instantly. But like all good romantic comedies, we know it's only a matter of time before the spark of anger turns into something else entirely.

Rosie is an inept secretary but she does have one unique talent - she can type really, really fast. It is this talent that Louis spots and decides to nurture, his own dreams of being a champion thwarted by his domineering father. While Louis can appreciate Rose's womanly attributes, he wants to enter her into the regional typing contest to win a bet with his American friend Bob, and so no distraction can be allowed to rear its ugly head.

A desire to win at all costs compels Louis to drive Rose harder and harder, even inviting her to share his home - so she can spend more time practising. But Rose is more than up to the challenge and aces the regional championships. We can see she has an altogether different motivation - she just wants Louis to love her. Louis, however, is battling his own post-war demons which prevent him from reciprocating.

Rose is shown to be no doormat, but a sparky heroine who isn't afraid of making her opinions known - or making the first move. She is proved right in the end - Rose does get to see something of the world and to meet all kinds of people, but she learns it can be quite lonely at the top.

Populaire is beautifully styled - I wanted to take home every one of Rose's outfits - and the attention to detail is impressive. This is a delightful French comedy of the kind I only wish we could make in England. How do the French consistently and continually manage to turn out populist, crowd-pleasing fare, while we struggle to produce even one decent film? If you're afraid of films with subtitles, let this be the one that changes your mind.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3109739 2013-04-18T11:24:07-04:00 2013-06-18T05:12:02-04:00

Alice Charles http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alice-charles/ the story as it's also about a middle-aged man coming to terms with the death of his wife.

Ida, played by a luminous Trine Dyrholm, is an ordinary housewife and mother of two grown-up children, who works as a hairdresser. But Ida is recovering from breast cancer. She has had a mascetomy and is in remission. There's a lovely scene where a consultant asks Ida if she would like reconstructive surgery and she refuses, much to the consultant's surprise. Her husband, Ida says, would scarcely notice. And anyway, "He sees what's inside," she insists. Our sense of foreboding is fully justified when she returns home to find her oafish husband Leif screwing a much younger woman on the living room couch. With their daughter's wedding taking place in Italy in a matter of days, Ida insists on keeping up appearances. And that's where the trouble starts...

Pierce Brosnan stars as Ida's love interest Philip, a man who has shut down emotionally after his wife's premature death. He is determined to be alone, despite the best efforts of his sister-in-law and employees. But fate, of course, has other ideas. When Ida and Philip literally crash into each other, they take an instant dislike to one another. He thinks she is stupid and she thinks he is hard and uncaring - and then they discover that their children are marrying each other. It's a pleasure to see Brosnan starring opposite someone old enough to be his wife. Hollywood's May to December pairings are beginning to pall. All the cast here deserve praise; no one strikes a false note, and the result is a joy from start to finish. The humour is never puerile, but warm and gentle.

This is a delightful romantic comedy of the kind I only wish we could make in England. Love is All You Need has real heart and soul.

Love Is All You Need is in cinemas now.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3100357 2013-04-17T10:15:52-04:00 2013-06-17T05:12:01-04:00

Alice Charles http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alice-charles/
Here the pair talk about the book and their collaboration.

How did you come to work together?
CS: Back around 2002, I was thinking about collaborations and, for some reason, was talking to Cory in email. The idea of writing a story together came about: I think I suggested it first, but I might be wrong.

CD: Charlie and I had not met but I was living in San Francisco and editing the website Boingboing. I had read his work in Asimov'shttp://www.asimovs.com magazine and other places, and we got to corresponding. He asked if I was interested in working on a story with him and I really liked his work, so I said yes. He sent me a 500,000 word chunk the first part of Rapture of the Nerds, that was Jury Service. I rewrote what he sent, he rewrote what I had written and we went back and forth that way. There was minimal discussion as to where we were headed.


How did the concept for The Rapture of the Nerds come about?

CS: It didn't. Instead, I rooted around in my folder full of hopeful starts and found a 1,000- word long beginning that didn't go anywhere. I kicked it across to Cory, who added another thousand words and threw it back at me. Ping, pong, repeat. After about 5,000 words, we had a dialog going in the shape of a story, and began chatting about where it should go - but the final direction wasn't definite until we already had half a novel (two novellas) written and sold.

In the broader sense, though, The Rapture of the Nerds (based on a disparaging description of the singularity, by a sceptic whose name eludes me) is a reaction to other singularity-focussed sci-fi. Is it a good science-fiction idea, or just warmed-over mediaeval Christian theology in scientific drag?


CD: The concept emerged from the story. Charlie had the idea of the singularity story, the idea that as time goes by and as we achieve some kind of machine transcendence, where we can leave our physical bodies behind and become beings of pure software. This was the inverse of the Christian fundamentalist Rapture story where the pious go to heaven and the sinners are left on Earth. Ken Clarke had called the singularity version the Rapture of the Nerds, though I hadn't heard of that before we started working on the story. In the singularity version, all the people who are thought of as sinners or sceptics, those people disappear and all that's left behind are the religious people or environmentalists, or those who have an anti-technological bent that causes them to reject this kind of transcendence.

You both have successful solo careers. Why collaborate with another writer?

CS: For shits and giggles. And also for the joy of not working on one's own all the time.

CD: I don't do a lot of collaborating. It's not out of any particular animus towards working with other writers. I quite enjoy it, it's always nice to see what you can bring out in another writer and what someone else can bring out in you. At its best, collaboration is always a synthesis of the two writers and it transcends what either writer can do on their own. I don't do a lot of it as it tends to be very time-consuming. There's the famous quote that in a collaboration both of the writers do 75 per cent of the work. I think that's true, there's the energy you have to expend in making sure you're both on the same page. When it works, it's really terrific. I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Can you describe the experience of working with another writer? Would you both do it again?

CS: Yes/no/maybe. It's both rewarding and frustrating. If there's any one reason why I would't do it again, it's that by the time you finish the work, it turns out that you both did 66 per cent of it. Or maybe 75 per cent of it. It's definitely not an easy thing to do!

CD: When I have a problem with a book that I'm working on, I tend to write it out. Maybe it's superstition but I never really talk about what I'm writing, I just write it. With Charlie there's a lot more discussion than I'm accustomed to. In some ways that's a major difference than how I work on my own. It's nice to challenge myself to work in that way.

How did you divide the work? Did you, for example, plan the book together?

CS: The book wasn't planned, it just sort of happened in the process of a dialog we had in email in parallel with the writing. ("What are we doing here?" "I dunno. Maybe throw in a psychopathic clown and a shape-shifting, sentient banana?" "No, dimwit, I meant what are our thematic reference points?" "Hmm, maybe we could riff off Nietzsche and Vinge ..." "Hit it!")

CD: Every now and again we would have some major reversals where we'd get down a promising alley that turned into a cul de sac, particularly in the second part, Appeals Court. There was a lot of cross direction.

How long did the book take to write? Did the process take longer than working solo?

CS: The book took eight years of mostly doing nothing to write. Because it actually got written in three stages: firstly, as a novella called "Jury Service" (originally published by scifi.com, the forerunner to SyFy, in 2003); then a novella called "Appeals Court" (published back-to-back with "Jury Service" in Argosy magazine in 2006); then, finally, when we couldn't dodge the bullet any longer, a third extra-long chunk, Supreme Court, which turned it into a complete novel (circa 2010-2011).

CD: Obviously we didn't work on it for eight years in total. Appeals Court took the longest to write as it had the most reversals. When we started writing, I lived on the West Coast and Charlie lived in Edinburgh and there was this big time zone gap. I thought there would be a big time lag but Charlie is very nocturnal and I am a creature of the day and an early riser. So I'd get up in the morning and find that he'd added his 1000 words overnight.

What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of working with someone else?

CS: Advantage: you get someone to blame when it doesn't work properly who isn't staring back at you in the mirror. Disadvantage: they get someone to blame who isn't ... (etc). Actually, I tell a lie. Playing the blame game is a really bad idea when you're trying to make something work. On the other hand, you have to make compromises with your creative vision. Novel-length fiction is one of the few major creative fields where the author is used to having full control, and it's a bit jarring to lose that autonomy.

CD: We did something with this book that was transcendent, it was more than either of us could do on our own. There are some passages where I literally don't know who wrote them. That's quite cool and exciting.


What are your favourite books? Can you talk about your influences?

CS: Iain Banks. Bruce Sterling. Principia Discordia. And caffeine.

CD: I'm a 10,000 books guy, not a three favourite books guy. We've both been called post-cyber punk writers, I don't think that's wrong. I was greatly influenced by James Patrick Kelly, who gave me good advice about finding the difficult emotional stuff in a story that makes you uncomfortable, that "sit down at the keyboard and open a vein" business. Judith Merrill was my mentor early on. She was a great sci-fi writer and founded the largest science fiction library in the world in Toronto, where I grew up. She was profoundly influential on my career and writing.

What are you working on at the moment, individually?

CS: I'm on vacation right now, but when I get back, I'll be picking up my work in progress - a trilogy examining the relationship between our global political weltanschauung - the post-Enlightenment Jacobin anti-monarchist consensus - and economic development, through the vehicle of a near-future, science-fiction, techno-thriller set in several parallel universes. That, or I might just take some time out to finish a novella about unicorns. (And H.P. Lovecraft. But mainly unicorns.)

CD: I am about to start work on a novella called The Man Who Sold the Moon part of a series that have the same titles as famous science-fiction stories but where I try to reinterpret their core ideas through contemporary science fiction. It's for the Hieroglyph Project for Arizona State University, plausible sci-fi written in collaboration with scientists. The story I'm working on is about people who print out habitats on the moon using autonomous 3D printers. When that's done, I'm going to write a prequel to my first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdomhttp://www.amazon.com. I'm still at the superstitious, don't-want-to-talk about it phase, but it will be about what happens when automation makes most work superfluous.

The Rapture of the Nerds is available from Amazon.com and all good book shops.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3067342 2013-04-12T05:18:37-04:00 2013-06-12T05:12:01-04:00

Alice Charles http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alice-charles/ Tom Cruise does his bit for the planet and recycles bits from other better movies, namely Blade Runner, Star Wars and 2001: A Space Odyssey, not to mention Top Gun. But mostly Oblivion is just Duncan Jones' 2009 film Moon but with a much, much bigger budget. This is the Tom Cruise show from beginning to end - no one else really gets a look-in. By the time we get to see Morgan Freeman's character Beech more than halfway through the movie, you are almost gagging for someone substantial to focus on. Two hours is an awful lot of Tom Cruise.

In Oblivion, Olga Kurylenko and Andrea Riseborough play two of the most thankless female roles I've seen on the big screen in a long time. I would like someone to explain to me why male sci-fi writers can imagine a world where we have mastered space travel, but they cannot envisage a world where a woman has a proper job. As Victoria, all Riseborough gets to do is walk around in high heels and a tight sheath dress (a dress! In 2077! How futuristic!), and say, "Copy that". A lot. Oh, and make Cruise's tea - by snipping the tops off of sachets. Meanwhile, Kurylenko gets to allow Cruise to save her - again and again.

I've never seen so many people get up and go to the bathroom during a screening, which should tell you just how uninvolving Oblivion is. This film raises more questions than it answers. I simply can't understand how studios can spend millions on CGI and yet they can't fork out for a script editor. The reason why Moon worked and Oblivion does not is that Sam Rockwell's character is very much an ordinary Joe, so his eventual epiphany is that much more shocking. Cruise's character is an astronaut; I guessed Oblivion's set-up about two minutes in, so you're left wondering if his intellect wasn't wiped along with his memory. I have no idea why Cruise put his name to this. This is one to avoid.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2978878 2013-03-29T10:27:03-04:00 2013-05-29T05:12:01-04:00

Alice Charles http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alice-charles/
Some reviewers have described this movie as sexy. I'd argue that Trance is the opposite of sex. It is charmless and wit-free. You don't believe in any of the central relationships and in place in character development we have pointless plot twists. And I would like someone to explain to me why it's okay to show a naked woman with a shaved vagina on the big screen but you can't show a penis? What's that about?

What has Danny Boyle done? He told Shortlist magazine that he realised that he hadn't made a film with a woman at the centre before. I pray he never does so again. This is a deeply misogynistic film whose basic premise is this: women are the root of all evil. There you go; something goes wrong, blame it on someone with a vagina. Isn't that the Taliban argument? Rosario's character is objectified throughout. At first, she's a ballbreaker able to manipulate men to her own selfish ends, then suddenly she's a sexual submissive shaving off her pubic hair to please her lover. Apparently, she wheedles and connives just for the hell of it. At no point are we given any explanation why she desires Goya's Witches in the Air so much, she is willing to put not just her own life on the line, but the lives of scores of others. She doesn't appear to need the money - we see she has her own successful hypnotherapy practice. Are we supposed to believe that she goes through all this just because she is bored?

I'm calling this Boyle's mid-life crisis movie. Apparently Dawson and Boyle started dating while filming. After playing a succession of thankless wife and girlfriend roles, I can understand Dawson's desire to play something a little meatier, but I'd advise her against working with Boyle again - unless he teams up with a female scriptwriter. But somehow I can't see that happening.

This is a horrible mess of a film. It left me feeling queasy. You'd be advised to stay well clear.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2970812 2013-03-28T09:17:01-04:00 2013-05-28T05:12:01-04:00

Alice Charles http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alice-charles/

"Fear is a strange, delicious thing. Ever since we began telling stories, we've reveled in scaring each other... Video games are no different," begins the introduction to Robinson's book. With interviews with some of the key people involved in designing and creating the Dead Space game, this is a fascinating insight into an ever-changing, rapidly growing world.

As a non-gamer (who has the time?), I was completely new to Dead Space and the book explains the mythology behind the game's universe as well as giving an idea of its genesis. We learn that the lead character Isaac, "an ordinary hero", was originally a typical, square-jawed protagonist before the games' designers had a rethink. For those unfamiliar with the game, Isaac is an engineer tasked with repairing run-down space ships - and blasting away as many Necromorphs (alien zombies) as he goes. Dead Space 3 sees him waking up in hospital, with a question mark over his sanity. He escapes to the icy expanse of Tau Volantis where he has a series of puzzles to solve before he can discover what his forebears, the Sovereign Colonies, were doing there.

The attention to detail is delightful. "The fiction of Dead Space is carried through even the smallest elements of its world," writes Robinson and this is evident at every step. Dead Space boasts its own weather system (a first for the game, apparently), and has its own religion, Unitology (which bears an uncanny resemblance to Scientology, but don't let that put you off). Art director Ian Milham, who helped define the look of Dead Space from its beginning, says: "The player's going to move through the lighting, and it gave the shadows a lot to do." I even liked that the tools Isaac uses, Timson Tools, are named for the games' lead engineer, Steve Timson.

Dead Space wears its influences on its sleeve. I may be a relative stranger to the gaming world, but even I can spot the references to Ridley Scott's Alien, Stanley Kubrick's 2001 and Danny Boyle's 28 Days, as well as TV shows such as Space 1999 and Star Trek.

Even for non-gamer like me, it's engrossing to see just how much thought goes into creating a top-of-the-line game such as Dead Space. I might even check out the game itself. As Robinson says in his introduction, this is "smarter than your average videogame".

The Art of Dead Space (Titan Books) is available from Amazon.com]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2731362 2013-02-21T05:18:41-05:00 2013-04-23T05:12:01-04:00

Alice Charles http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alice-charles/ Homunculus reads like a mash-up of other better books and stories - notably Patrick Suskind's Perfume, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the work of Charles Dickens, with a nod to Quentin Tarantino and British TV shows such as Dr Who. The plot, such as it is, revolves around a strange airship which materialises over London at the end of the nineteenth century. Millionaire Kelso Drake is determined to get his hands on the plans of a spacecraft engineered by Langdon St Ives, though we are not sure why. And that's pretty much it. The characters, including ropey evangelist Shiloh and a pair of fiendish graverobbers, circle each other for 300-plus pages before an anticlimactic showdown on Hampstead Heath. The Homunculus of the title has little bearing on the story, except to carry a rather weak sub-plot concerning mistaken identity.

As a Londoner born and bred, I found Blaylock's view of Merry Olde England (complete with bangers and peapots) curious to say the least. He appears to have gotten carried away with his research, throwing in London street names and locations with abandon. Take this: "The portly man tapped along, highly satisfied with the day's adventure. He entered Rupert Street, Soho, and disappeared into the open doorway of the Bohemian Cigar Divan..." Or this: "Willis Pule admired himself in the window of the bun shop on King Street."

By American standards, central London may be small, but Blaylock has his characters criss-crossing the capital as though they were merely crossing the street, with little acknowledgement of the difficulty of travelling in 1875.

Born in 1950, Blaylock is clearly a man of his generation. Women hardly figure in his story. Indeed, the only significant female character, Dorothy Keeble, doesn't make an appearance until some fifty pages into the book, and then doesn't really have much to do except be the object of male attention.

When I read that Philip K Dick was Blaylock's mentor, my expectations were high. But I found Homunculus so disappointing, I will not be reading any more of his work. This is one for steam-punk devotees only.

Homunculus by James P. Blaylock (Titan Books) is available from Amazon.co.uk]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2628691 2013-02-06T05:42:59-05:00 2013-04-08T05:12:01-04:00

Alice Charles http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alice-charles/
There's something for everyone here. For Hollywood neophytes, we learn that Gerard Depardieu (who plays the ship's Cook) was "total fun" to work with. For cineastes, there are some wonderful titbits of information detailing how director Ang Lee approached using 3D, how certain shots were achieved and the extensive casting process (Suraj Sharma was a sixteen-year-old unknown when he was cast as the lead). I loved the attention to detail - the advert calling for extras for a swimming pool scene, requesting that women paint their toenails "red red"; the Hindu prayer ceremonies held before the start of shooting; and the fact that Lee enlisted the help of Steve Callahan, a naval architect who spent two and a half months on a tiny rubber raft on the Atlantic Ocean after his ship sank, and spent several hours at sea himself. There are even pages from "Pi's Survival Manual", detailing how he was able to survive being adrift at sea.

What this book reveals is that Life of Pi was a real labour of love by everyone involved, from start to finish. In his introduction to the book, Lee writes: "When I first read Life of Pi I found it fascinating and mind-boggling, but I remember thinking that nobody in their right mind would make this into a movie..." Director Ang Lee took on board a seemingly herculean task, and having read this book, it's difficult to imagine any other director going to such lengths.

The Making of Life of Pi by Jean-Christophe Castelli (Titan Books, £24.99) is available from all good bookshops and Amazon.co.uk.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2374199 2012-12-28T05:10:19-05:00 2013-02-26T05:12:01-05:00

Alice Charles http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alice-charles/
However, "Escape From Spiderhead" is not the most unsettling in this anthology. I award that dubious prize to the story entitled "Puppy" in which a mother sets out to buy her young daughter a pet only to make a truly disturbing discovery. My favourite story in the collection, however, is the title one which sees a young, awkward boy try to live up to his fantasies of being a hero - only to fail disastrously. This is the anthology's strongest story by far and one of the most gripping I have read. I literally raced through it, anxious to see how it would end.

Saunders is a great one for internal reverie. We see directly into his characters' minds - their secret dreams and fantasies - before he reveals these reveries for what they are: delusions. If I have any criticism it is this: he has a habit of revisiting characters, themes and ideas, which in a collection of just ten stories, feels like a bit of a cheat. Nevertheless, this is an absorbing read.

Tenth of December (Bloomsbury, £14.99) is available 3 January 2013]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2344145 2012-12-21T06:42:59-05:00 2013-02-20T05:12:02-05:00

Alice Charles http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alice-charles/
Birmingham quickly establishes his high-concept premise - and then goes precisely nowhere with it. Lots of questions are raised but never fully explored nor answered. Indeed, Without Warning feels very much like a six-hundred page set-up for the other two books in the trilogy.

Traditionally, pizza was made with leftover ingredients, and this feels like the literary equivalent. There is nothing fresh or new here. The concept seems oddly familiar, like an episode of The Twilight Zone, and we've come to expect the international globetrotting from TV series such as Heroes and Lost. Indeed, Without Warning feels as though it was written with an eye on a television adaptation: Flashforward meets Homeland, if you like.

At the time of reading, Adam Lanza had just murdered twenty-six people in Connecticut, twenty of them children, and the gung-ho triumphalism in this book stuck in my craw. Never mind video games, it is the macho posturing in books such as this that keeps the National Rifle Association in business - and in the headlines. Take this description of one character's demise: "She'd cleaned four of them up when a single bullet from wheelhouse of the Viarsa blew out her brains." I'm not giving anything away by revealing this: you won't care either way. And herein lies the book's fundamental flaw: by splitting the story between so many characters, it lacks focus. The result is that there is not a single character you care about, whose story you are invested in. And unless you see America as the centre of the known universe, this is a difficult story to buy into. By the time you get to the 'big reveal' at the end, I suspect you will be decidedly underwhelmed.

At this point, I should make a confession: I have thus far managed to exist without reading a single Tom Clancy book, nor anything by John Grisham, and any of those kings of the airport novel whose book jackets always feature large block type and the silhouette of a lone figure in flight - that are usually left on the plane in the seat pocket. Birmingham's novel is obviously intended to appeal to a similar market.

If you enjoyed British series such as Strike Back or the US series The Unit, then you're likely to enjoy this. However, I found the casual misogyny and racism in Without Warning nasty and disturbing.

Without Warning is available from 4 January 2013.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2257276 2012-12-07T09:57:00-05:00 2013-02-06T05:12:01-05:00

Alice Charles http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alice-charles/
Meanwhile, fellow freshman Jesse singles Beca out for some special attention, though it's not clear why. Is it really just because they both have an internship on the college radio station? Or because Beca has a "hot rack"? (Warning: cleavage features heavily in this movie.) His attraction is never really explained. Meanwhile, Belles leader Aubrey is dead set on reaching the intercollege finals and trouncing the all-male group and current champions, the Treblemakers, who are led by the arrogant Bumper. But Aubrey remains firmly wedded to an anodyne routine for the Belles, while the Treblemakers mix it up with a different song each time they perform, which wow audiences wherever they go. Things are further complicated when Jesse joins the Treblemakers (again, it's not clear why): Belles are strictly forbidden to fraternise with the Trebles, or face expulsion from the group.

While Anna Kendrick is the movie's "star", it is Australian actress Rebel Wilson who makes the film her own with a career-turning scene where she cinches the group a place in the finals - after another group forfeits their place. This is the moment of crisis for the Belles. Beca is expelled for breaking out during a performance. But, of course, the disharmony is short-lived. Beca is accepted back into the fold and Aubrey agrees to mix it up a little. Meanwhile, Beca's relationship with Jesse has hit the skids after she pushes him away for trying to help her.

While the musical sequences make Pitch Perfect highly enjoyable (we hear everything from Michael Jackson, Boyz to Men and Cisco to Madonna, Jesse J and Pete Burns), it is easy to see how this could have been a much better movie. Curiously, the film takes some time to find its feet and writer Kay Cannon appears to have recycled the script for the 2006 movie, Stomp The Yard (there are so many points of similarity, I can't believe it's a coincidence), replacing dance scenes with singing ones and adding a few jokes. After the group's meltdown, Beca makes a comment about never previously having any female friends, but we see little evidence of female bonding prior to this - unless that means wearing push-up bras together and pretending to have a penis. If there's a "girl power" message here, it's an oddly muted one.

Clearly, the film's makers are hoping to piggy-back off successful TV shows such as Glee, X Factor and American Idol, of which Pitch Perfect is a natural successor. And with some solid musical arrangements and well-choreographed routines (particularly the Rihanna-inspired finale), this is sure to attract similar audiences. You will leave the cinema with a smile on your face and singing the songs - at least in your head.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1873123 2012-09-11T06:16:43-04:00 2012-11-11T05:12:01-05:00

Alice Charles http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alice-charles/ Mad Men, it was only a matter of time before someone got around to resurrecting those stalwarts of LA noir, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and, of course, the late great James M Cain. Earlier this year, HBO screened an adaptation of the author's Mildred Pierce as a mini-series and BBC Radio 4 has produced a number of Chandler's works. And the trend looks set to continue.

Though Cain has been dead some thirty-five years (he suffered a fatal heart attack in October 1977), the Hard Crime imprint will publish the writer's "new" novel, which he was apparently working on before he died. The practice of publishing author's unfinished works is not without controversy. In Cain's case, I can't help but wonder how the writer would have revised his book. Don't get me wrong, The Cocktail Waitress is delightful.

The story takes place in suburban Washington DC in the 1950s and follows the adventures of the recently widowed Joan Medford, who is implicated in her husband's accidental death. To make ends meet, Medford takes a job as the titular cocktail waitress in a local bar - and is an instant hit. Cain's women - or rather "broads" - can more than hold their own and it isn't long before Medford's terrific "gams" and other assets are attracting the attention of good-looking young dreamer Tom Barclay, and ailing businessman Mr White. Joan beats up the former and marries the latter in an attempt to provide a home and security for her young son. And that's where things get complicated...

Cain creates terrific characters, but here he piles on the coincidences, almost to breaking point. As it is, The Cocktail Waitress carries a few extra pounds she could do with losing. If only this book was as tauntly structured as The Postman Always Rings Twice. Nevertheless, this is a very welcome addition to the Cain cannon and in Joan Medford we have a heroine we can all root for.]]>