The Fractal Hall Journal

Some years ago, when the Nineties were young and the summer days seemed to last forever (making the damned television screen that much more difficult to see) I read Robinson’s Red Mars. And I didn’t understand a word. Ever since it’s been on the list to re-read, as I expect I’d probably like it now, but it’s a bit of a doorstop and I’m already committed to eleventy-squillion other books I’ve got halfway through and am currently ignoring in the hope that we can’t be too far away from a device (an iDump, if you would) that reads stuff for you before injecting its hot sweet data payload directly into your brain.

While waiting for the revolution, I picked up Forty Signs of Rain because it’s only about 350 pages.

The book’s largely set-up, the first of a trilogy dealing with environmental change and humanity’s response to it. It’s surprisingly upbeat, in the sense that while catastrophic climate change is inevitable and we’re all intent on ignoring it, the protagonists are all scientists working in seperate fields that combined may have a way of saving society.

Which makes it all the more heartbreaking that despite this tone, all I’m taking away from the book is a feeling of futility. Robinson’s characters are the scientists we all read about in the days of Asimov, the heroes who use logic and knowledge to better our lives and provide solutions. The book points towards the creation of a scientific institution that can combine different ideas and viewpoints, but that will also carry political weight and influence.

That just isn’t going to happen in this day and age. This isn’t SF, unfortunately. It’s fucking fantasy. I hate to get all doom and gloom, but if the past few decades have shown anything it’s that science isn’t considered the way forward anymore, if it ever was. Science, logic and reason have become something to be dismissed in favour of vague notions of faith and incredibly distinct notions of corporate wealth accumulation. Robinson suggests that it’s possible to make changes now for the better. We all know that’s not going to happen.

OK, that romped off to a bit of a dark place.

Anyway, the book’s a great example of science-heavy SF done well, with likeable characters and a surprisingly touching romantic entanglement showing up unexpectedly towards the end. Sure, there’s probably a little too much Science to appeal to the general populace, but when do we ever give a shit about them? Buy this book and feed your inner lab-nerd.

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“…Society is, always has been and always will be a structure for the exploitation and oppression of the majority through systems of political force dictated by an elite, enforced by thugs, uniformed or not, and upheld by a wilful ignorance and stupidity on the part of the very majority whom the system oppresses.” – Richard Morgan, from an interview on saxonbullock.com, via Wikipedia.

A few days ago on Twitter I mentioned that if Rambo was an adjective, it would describe this book. Let’s expand on that, Internet Friends.

In the US the novel’s been retitled Thirteen, I’m assuming due to difficulties anticipated with the original name. If this is due to race issues (I don’t know for sure that it is, but it really wouldn’t surprise me), then it makes an interesting echo of some of the themes of the book.

Set about two hundred years in the future, the story is broadly about a genetically-engineered Thirteen’s hunt for a serial killer. Thirteens were created as supersoldiers, all throwbacks to pre-agriculture human hunters, a species of lone killers bred out of the human race hundreds of years ago. With wiring so different from modern humans, they’re seen as psychotic monsters to the general population. There’s a lot of subtext here about views on race and religion, but also on what humans actually are, what role our genes play in behaviour, how behaviour shapes society, but also whether or not life experience really does shape who we are. The “black man” describes the protagonist not just in terms of race, but how his society views him. It’s a dark, cynical book, one that echoes many of this author’s usual themes, outlined most clearly in the quote above.

It’s also incredibly violent, with people getting dispatched in many and various bloody ways. The swears are many, and there’s a couple of extremely explicit bongo scenes. A book for Grown-Ups, in other words.

While occasionally uncomfortable, it’s still very well written and easy to read. On his website, Morgan mentions that a fair few people don’t like the book very much, because they were expecting another Altered Carbon (his debut). Which is a surprise, because it’s not that radically different in terms of style or even theme, although the religion thing tends to get people hopping mad. Morgan has a distinctive voice, and that’s not a criticism. His next one is a Heroic Fantasy (capitals added for extra grandeur), which really will be a proper departure from previous work.

It’s probably not the most accessable of his books; it’s got something to piss of practically everybody and it slows down a bit in a few places, but it’s still very good and damn near essential if you like your SF both thought-provoking and blood-thirsty.

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You know a film I’m really looking forward to? Rambo.

Please stop doing that snorty laugh thing.

Look, I’m part of the ultra-violence generation. Brain corrupting video-games, Robocop, staying up far too late to watch Mark Cousins on BBC 2, all of it. Action films have become anaemic PG friendly revenue generators, with no nasty swears and absolutely positively none of that Godless sexin’. I need my killfix. Quickly, before I lose myself and go out in a hoodie looking for a right-thinking common-sense member of the public to beat to death.

Sly’s actually written well about plans for both Rambo and in the run up to Rocky Balboa over on Ain’t It Cool News and please will you stop laughing now. I don’t care. It’s been great to see how enthusiastic he’s been to revisit the old characters, though it helps to love the original Rocky more than it probably deserves.

Which I do. It’s in the top ten somewhere, perched uneasily next to  other worthier works, like Twelve Angry Men, Fellini’s 8 1/2, and Predator 2.

What?

I still haven’t seen Rocky Balboa, not because I don’t want to but because I missed it in the cinema and there’s still a part of me that thinks it’ll get another showing somewhere so I can see it on the big screen. Which, I grant you, is a little odd.

Speaking of long-delayed sequels, I keep going back and forth on the new Indiana Jones. I read somewhere that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will be thematically based on a 50s B movie, in the same way that the originals are 30s adventure serials. Which is a little worrying, because while I understand why Lucas and Spielberg need to put a new spin on it, I’m really not sure that grey melon-headed Aztec spacemen squirreled away in a New Mexico bunker quite suits the occult archaeology angle.

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The Fury has been intense around the Journal these past couple of weeks, and by that I mean the emotion rather than the Nick. So lets dial it back, chillax a little, and not yell about body parts so much.

So, a few rage-neutral notes to kick off the week:

You may have noticed that there are few picture-heavy posts on the Journal. I usually avoid putting images into the entries. Sure, they can make the place look pretty, but they get in the way of this site’s raison d’être; its Prime Directive, if you would: giving the People a motive for skiving. Rest assured, we at the Fractal Hall strive for the optimization of sneaky workplace reading.

This week is also the last time I pick up a pre-ordered stack (and I do mean stack) from my local comic shop.

In the past couple of years I just haven’t been enjoying Marvel and DC stuff very much. I’m sure it’s all appealing to someone but that someone just isn’t me. So rather than have a scream filled tantrum about it (my instinctive fanboy response- we are none of us immune) I thought I’d take a great big dose of positivity and embark on Constructive Plan Alpha.

Is that a distant, wobbly voice I hear asking what that might entail?

Well, Distant Wobbly Voice, it’s fucking revelatory is what it is. Stage One was to get shot of back issues I don’t want. Thing is, obsessive collecting is part of the pathology and we need to burn it out like sin. So from now on if I like something I’ll keep it, but Issue 11, Cover E of The Darkness (do not ask) is getting Al Gored because fuck knows it’s not going to pull its weight on Ebay.

Stage Two is not buying something or the sake of getting it in particular if it’s only being bought to keep the run intact, hence the slashing of the reservation list. The calculus isn’t complex:

Paul Dini issues of Detective Comics > (Issues of Detective Comics not written by Paul Dini) x 10¹⁰⁰

Stage Three is switching to trades, on the grounds that they’re easier to store and if a title didn’t make it to the trade, then maybe it wasn’t worth getting.

I’ll let all you good folks know how it turns out, but it’s amazing how relieved I feel more than anything. Weird.

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The Fractal Hall Journal Guide to Utilising Only 50% of Your Rear End Whilst Engaged in Everyday Tasks.

Drivers, don’t bother using your indicator lights on roundabouts. You’re so important everyone knows exactly where you’re going at every given moment.

Also, don’t allow yourself a realistic amount of time to get to your destination. Any further speed you may require can be generating during the journey by inserting yourself as far as possible up the backside of the vehicle in front of you.

And remember, for the best possible results perform the above in bad weather and/or low visibility conditions.

All you writers out there, don’t forget to use the phrase “…but I digress” as much as possible. It will instantly make you witty and self-effacing, even when the section you refer to isn’t actually a signifcant digression at all.

Comic book professionals, a couple for you: Firstly, you should go online and slag off both your co-workers and comic fans as much as possible. Why put the effort into aspiring to a level of professionalism most other jobs require?

Secondly, when writing dialogue in an alien language, it’s more than acceptable to tap your fingers over the same line of the keyboard a couple of times. You know, so you get “asdfasdfasdf”. Or “poiupoiuopoiu”. Something like that.

Politicians: Say the correct think-tank-approved words in the right order. That will get the stupid cattle off your back so you can do the important things, like taking money and gifts off rich people and big corporations.

Join us Monday, when I perform the surprising feat of climbing down off my high horse and up out of my wallowing-pool of bitterness simultaneously.

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The Transformers cartoons have never been very good. The 80s version is the kind of thing that really isn’t worth revisiting, a classic case of something that I remember being better than it is (that said, the worst offender is Gerry Anderson’s Terrahawks, which I remember as being crazy awesome, but is actually an incredibly dire piece of shit, far below the quality of Thunderbirds, or Captain Scarlet.)

Transformers fandom remembers Beast Wars fondly, but I never really got into it myself. And the more recent Armada/Energon/Cybertron series are incomprehensible, although some of the latter series’ toys are great.

Oh crap, I’m writing about toys on the internet again, aren’t I? I’m one Google search away from never getting decent employment ever again.

Well, let’s compound the error and talk about a cartoon aimed squarely at the under-10s. The plot is the latest rehash of the various Transformers franchises, a mix of themes from the movie and the animation style of the recent Teen Titans series. It’s more obviously aimed at children than, say, Justice League Unlimited, but that’s really not a bad thing.

It’s got a few interesting twists on the classic story- Optimus Prime is a kind of minor Autobot work-crew leader rather than a war vet, there’s obviously other Primes knocking around the Universe, and the supreme commander’s Ultra Magnus. There’s a lot of stuff here that originated with Simon Furman, which again makes me wonder whether Hasbro appreciates how much he’s brought to their table. But the best things about the series are the new character designs and animation. It’s very stylised, a bubbly anime kind of cartoon. It’s a fresh approach, and it’s pulled off incredibly well, and I’m looking forward to seeing what the toys are like.

I’m not likely to watch it religiously, but it’s a lot of fun. And also, at some point Soundwave will turn up, apparently with a Lazerbeak figure that transforms into a robot-sized electric guitar, a concept so pure in its awesomeness that I could weep.

Ok, I think two full days of positivity is enough. Join us tomorrow for a whole load of grouch.

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My God, it’s been nothing but rage and uncontrolled crabbyness the past few days, hasn’t it. Let’s talk about something good, instead.

The fondness we at the Journal have for the works of HP Lovecraft has been mentioned several times, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that I’ve been following BOOM! Studios’ The Fall of Cthulhu. Over Christmas, I finally got the time to sit down and read the first six issues in one go.

The only really negative thing I have to say about them has nothing to do with content but rather the numbering, with the prologue issued at #0. I have no idea what sales benefit companies get by starting from zero, but it happens so often there must be one. But it makes my brain itch. Don’t get me started on issues numbered #1/2.

Lovecraftian writing is a particularly popular style, a tool used well in the past by writers like Neil Gaiman and Stephen King, but one that’s difficult to do well without taking the mick a bit. The Fall of Cthulhu manages to capture the tone of the Mythos while updating the setting to the present day and playing it completely straight.

Writer Michael Alan Nelson is also responsible for the superb online novel Dingo. There’s a real depth of knowledge of the larger Mythos, including a nice resolution for why two older stories have Alhazred killed in a different way. Other Elder Beings turn up, with a familiar antagonist; first time through the first issue I didn’t clock who it was, but second time round it was a nice little realisation.

One of the aspects of the Mythos that comes up time and again is the “dreamlands” alternate reality that ties in a bit more with Lovecraft’s cosmic SF than the out-and-out horror. It’s never been as effective to me as the unmentionably-dark-nasties-from-beyond stuff, but that said artist Jean Dzialowski does a fantastic job of switching styles to create an uncomfortable menace in the dreamscape and an atmosphere of creeping darkness in the real world. [EDIT: The style switch is so convincing he becomes a completely different person. The dream sequences are actually pencilled by Andrew Ritchie. Whoops.]

Cthulhu himself is kept in the background as an indistinct threat and mysterious force, an approach that harks back to the original story and also helps to build an expectation that while the team are certainly going somewhere with the story, they’ll spend the time to construct the world and its rules first. One of the bit players is Nodens the hunter, a Celtic deity who may be the thing that’s hunting Cthulhu. Again, an interesting use of a character established elsewhere in the Mythos, but maybe less than effective due to his appearance as a naked old dude, like a bearded old uncle who’s got plastered and forgotten where his trousers are. Then again, that’s a fault in the original text rather than with this creative team.

Probably the strongest thing about the arc is how self-contained it is. These six issues could work perfectly on their own as a stand-alone Mythos story, a classically structured descent into uncontrolled madness with a couple of twists and turns. The team have created something that’s simultaneously contemporary and modelled closely on decades-old work, retaining the atmosphere of Lovecraft’s creation. One of the most promising new ongoing series from last year.

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Some time ago, I ran the SF section in a Waterstones. Great job, shitty shitty pay. The biggest problem in the years since then is a compulsion to judge SF sections in other bookshops, and if you think that’s inexcusably spoddy, then I’d remind you that this here blog was kicked off with an earnest analysis of a superhero with a pretty magic wishing ring.

Anyway, after being initially impressed by the chromey sheen of the new Borders in town, I’m a little disappointed with the lack of selection. Even in the main section, they’re lacking books by Michael Chabon. You know, the guy (a) who won a Pulizer, (b) behind critically-acclaimed film Wonder Boys, (c) who co-scripted Spider-Man 2, (d) is phenomenally popular. Any one of those things should have tripped someone’s Significance Detector.

The problem is the skiffy section. There’s lots of books, but they’re all by the same small number people. Look, I know how difficult it is to get the spaceships in these days, what with the publishers excreting little but more doorstops about elves and swords and witches in the altogether. But it is possible with a little effort. God, hardly anything by Charlie Stross, nothing by Scalzi, and most damning of all: the Waterstones down the road has a much better section, despite historically never really being that good. Even the little “recommends” on the shelf are somewhat dubious. There’s one for Tolkien, for fuck’s sake. Do you really think the good professor needs assistance in shifting his bloated wares?

Ok, having said all that I suspect it isn’t actually the fault of any of the poor buggers who work there. Most big shops have a central organising system that tells the booksellers what they need to get in automatically. It’s the kind of genius idea that big companies find appealing: maximise profits by removing as much human intervention as possible. But it cocks up the aesthetics of book browsing because it makes everything so pathetically generic. Your likes and dislikes have been calculated, and we will provide you with the thing most of you sheep are mathematically likely to hand over cash for.

This is why people buy things off the internet. But I really like browsing bookshops, and I’m not alone. It’s a nerd response. We like it when we find something new, or rare, or interesting, or that isn’t the fiftieth in a sequence (though Cthulhu knows we love our sequences). And if you can give people something new every week, they’ll come in every week and buy it, because nerds are both creatures of habit and hoarders. Christ, if comic shops have this down, why do bookshops find it so difficult? Problem is, you need someone who’s got at least a basic knowledge of the subject, or knows what to read on the internet in order to fake it.

You know, this is the least consequential thing I’ve ever spent time thinking about.

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Director: Hey, aren’t you the guy responsible for stinking up the screen with Batman & Robin and Lost in Space?

Writer: Well, there were other people involved, but sure. Yup.

Director: My God, they were indescribably awful pieces of turd.

Writer: Hey, I’ve won an Oscar since then.

Director: They really should take previous offences into account with those.

Writer: Fuck you very much. Aren’t we meant to be making a film together?

Director: Er, sure. I’m A Legend, or something.

Writer: I Am Legend. A science fiction classic, one with perhaps the greatest thematic reversal and final line in the genre, one that ties the very title of the work into its theme, that shows its hand from the very start yet still remains shocking. Haunting, horrific, a study of how a man becomes a monster.

Director: Yeah, we can totally capture that with, y’know, CGI. Computer-game CGI that’ll be cheaper than using talent. Or having to pay lots of extras. Or the whole boring process of putting makeup on those extras.

Writer: I’ve been thinking. What we should do is make a film that, despite the crap effects, isn’t that bad. Have Will Smith going mad from isolation, the soul-destroying effects of hiding from monsters every single night.

Director: Whatever. Look, this is what we’re doing. Whip out the ending. Then tack on a bit with a woman and child who’ve been led by God- literally heard God’s voice, who’s guided them to Will Smith’s character. Will Smith will learn to believe in his faith once more, and thanks to God’s advice sacrifices himself and gives the woman the cure for monsterhood. Then God will lead her to a troop of survivalists- we’ll really clearly code them as survivalists, with a mountain compound, lots of weaponry, US flags everywhere- and the last scene of the film will show a big church at the centre of the compound, with bells triumphantly ringing the faithful who’ve been spared at the end of the world.

Writer: Which leaves the title of the film meaning what?

Director: That Will Smith is, y’know, a total fucking legend.

Writer: So, we’re actually making Christian armageddon porn?

Director: No, we’re making an absolute fuck-ton of money.

Writer: Hold on- you’re the guy that did Constantine.

Director: What’s your point?

Writer: Shit, even I think you should never have been let near a camera after that.

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Why, why, oh why-oh-why do I read about politics on the internet? For that matter, why do I talk to people about it. It’s next to impossible to set the terms of the conversation as we all seem to have such entrenched prejudices about what the opposing side does or doesn’t represent or believe, never mind get into an actual constructive debate. One day, my nearest and dearest will find me slumped in my chair, the subdued glow of the computer monitor playing across the post-mortem pallor of my face, news dot bbc dot co dot uk forward slash politics finally having done me in.

Oh, and also, consider this a factor 10 Godwin warning- Nazis Ahead!

The interdweebs have been positively a-buzz with an argument over whether or not Mussolini was a right-winger. This should, on the surface, be a laughably stupid argument made by stupid people. But it shows a creeping historical revisionism that crops up from time to time, as the political Right attempt to divest themselves from Nazis and Fascists by grouping them with Socialism.

There are many, many flavours of Socialism, some of which have developed into totalitarianism. This is no kind of Socialism that I or any other Socialists I know advocate. The only people I’ve ever spoken to who lean towards authoritarianism- and brothers and sisters, there have been a lot, and they’ve never been subtle about it- have been Conservatives and other Right wingers.

I don’t think many people have a particularly good grasp of what being Left-wing actually entails anymore. At best there’s a shaky recollection of miners striking and don’t they want to raise taxes or something, at worst there’s an automatic congruence of Socialism with Stalinism. Which is fucking ridiculous. Part of what makes my brain jam, I suppose, is that there’s a certain perspective common in political circles in Wales that doesn’t seem to be easily grasped elsewhere: Left-leaning policies do not immediately require a statist/centralist inclination.

Also, while I’m banging on about Razis and Commies, need I remind anyone that it was the international Socialists that fought the first war against the Fascist powers in Spain in 1936? You know, while the rest of polite society had their thumbs jammed deeply up their own backsides?

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