Durzo is a character with a lot of back story, but since Night Angel wasn’t about him, we didn’t get to see much of it. “The Perfect Shadow” will give readers a glimpse into his life, specifically about how he became the man that is Durzo Blint. If you haven’t read any of the Night Angel books you wouldn’t know that Durzo is actually almost 700 years old, and has lived a lot of lives, in different countries, under different names.

As far as character studies go, it’s too short and even disappointingly cliche. It’s written much like Weeks’ first book WAY OF SHADOWS, with its movie-esque action scenes and standard fantasy setting; the pace is quick and the prose easy to read. Unfortunately very little time is spent on Durzo actually learning the assassin trade and the rest of the time we’re exposed to frequent wish-fulfillment sex. There’s little to no setting, so those unfamiliar with the world will have a hard time creating a mental image of the time and place, especially since Weeks jumps around Durzo’s memories.

It’s only available on Kindle and Audible for pretty cheap, so if you loved the Night Angel world, and Durzo fascinated you, then you may want to pick this up. It’s a quick read with details and insight about what makes Durzo an interesting character. But if you haven’t read the trilogy, you’d best pass.

Recommended Age: 16+
Language: Quite a bit
Violence: Well, yes, he is an assassin, so there’s blood and killing
Sex: Referenced. A lot.

It’s during a stroll through Cairndonan Estate’s extensive grounds that Gill inadvertently walks into the Otherworld—and a man follows her out.

From there on out it’s a tumbling waterfall of story and information. Because, really, there’s a lot of back story that has to be revealed. Fortunately Freda Warrington’s deft hand weaves all the information without clunky exposition or contrivance (OK, maybe there is some contrivance, but the prose is so charming that you’ll just go with it) into a complicated story that blends the magic of the Otherworld with Earth.

Gill and Julianna, our PoV narrators, are two very different women. Gill is still a young woman, but is broken body and spirit, and despite her assertion that she’s recovering from her injuries, it’s more like she’s hiding. Julianna is in her 60s, although she looks much younger. She’s driven by the need to make Midsummer Night, the sculptural group she’s been working on, perfect before presenting it to the public. The supporting cast of ex-husband, housekeeper, art school teacher Peta, and others, are well drawn and interesting in their own right. There’s Leith, the man who follows Gill from the Otherworld who is human, but has been gone so long from Earth he can’t remember his former life. Then there’s the sinister Rufus, the Aetherial man who first took Leith and will do anything to get him back.

There is present-day Earth as you know it, but there’s also the Otherworld, a sort of fairyland where magic originates. There’s crossover between the realms, with ley lines on Earth where Aetherials—the inhabitants of the Otherworld—travel from realm to realm. Some Aetherials have chosen to live among the humans, and as a result they’ve changed from those who still live in the Otherworld; Peta is one such Aetherial, which would explain her knack for art. In MIDSUMMER NIGHT the boundaries between the two realms blur, and we slowly come to understand that the Aetherials don’t necessarily have the humans’ best interests at heart.

The story ebbs and flows, so occasionally you come to a point in the novel where you feel like the climax should be any minute and story will wrap up…only a new event or information is tacked on. By three-quarters of the way through you’ll start to feel that the story is being dragged on unnecessarily, and wonder if Warrington will just get on with it. But when the climax does come, then you realize that it couldn’t have been any other way. It doesn’t end like you’ll expect it to, all tidy and happy. But that’s what makes this story worth reading, because it would have been just another mediocre book if it had—Warrington stays true to the tone of the novel that she started with.

If you enjoyed Harkness’ A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES, and are impatiently waiting for the sequel, this may be the book to tide you over.

Recommended Age: 16+

Language: A handful of profanity.

Violence: A sense of peril and some fisticuffs.

Sex: Referenced with some detail, including adult sexual abuse. Also, readers who enjoy romance and thwarted love will get their fill.

MIDSUMMER NIGHT is the loosely tied sequel to Freda Warrington’s ELFLAND, but is readable as a standalone.

Spoiler alert for those of you who haven’t read THE MAGICIANS already: Fillory is real, and Quentin ends up living there, instead.

Of course, it isn’t that simple. THE MAGICIANS is best described as a realistic Harry Potter. Quentin goes to a school for wizards, he befriends a group of like-minded self-obsessed teens, and they end up kind of saving the world.

Some people loved the book because of the shot of realism it injected into a genre that usually has more than a bit of rose-colored tinting going on in it. Some people hated it because of how mean and petty the main characters can be. Full disclosure: I was a huge fan of the first book. It made me realize some of the assumptions so many fantasy books make—it asked important questions, and the answers to those questions weren’t always pretty. What if the magical world the main character discovers doesn’t change his life for the better? What if the problems he had before—character flaws, unmet dreams, etc.—still exist? And when you think about it, doesn’t that make sense? Why should walking through a wardrobe suddenly make everything else okay?

THE MAGICIAN KING picks up where THE MAGICIANS left off. Quentin is now a king in Fillory (much like the Pevensies are kings and queens in Narnia at the end of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe). And he and his fellow narcissists are off hunting a magical rabbit. Quentin has grown bored with how easy his life has become, and he’s wishing things would get a little less boring.

Wish granted.

He embarks on a quest that begins as more of a lark but takes a terrifying twist for him when it ends up dumping him back in the real world. (Yes, that’s fairly spoilery, but it’s also boldly stated on the book’s jacket flap, so I don’t suppose I’m spoiling too much for you.) That’s about all of the plot I want to give you, though. You don’t need much more, because you’re likely going to only read this if you’ve read the first book. In that case, you find yourself in one of a few groups.

First, you loved the first book. If that’s you, then by all means: full speed ahead. Grossman does a fantastic job bringing the story to the next level, and exploring the same world in a manner that doesn’t feel tired or hackneyed or been-there-done-that.

Second, you hated the first book. If that’s you, then I’m surprised you’re even reading this review. There’s not much here for you if you absolutely loathed book one, as some people did. It’s still Quentin, and he’s still, well . . . Quentin. So move along, folks—nothing to see here.

Third, you were on the fence about the first book. You liked the literary feel of it, but the characters bugged you. If that’s you, then let me tell you a bit more. THE MAGICIAN KING introduces an important viewpoint character: Julia. She’s far less self-centered than Quentin, and her sections help to balance the book in a way that The Magicians could never quite reach. Instead of being bogged down in Quentin’s mind for unending stretches, you get the chance to see this world through someone else’s eyes. And while she has flaws and challenges herself, she is much easier to accept, identify with, and root for. (Really, it would have been disappointing if she didn’t have flaws—that’s one of the strengths of this series. The characters are real, with believable shortcomings that go beyond Hermione-is-a-know-it-all and Draco-is-snide-and-mean-and-evil.)

It also helps that this book starts with Quentin already having learned lessons from his experiences in the first book. You don’t have to relive that same journey again; he grows in different ways this time.

THE MAGICIAN KING is a quick read, well-paced, and intriguing throughout. It has a strong literary flair to it, but enough adventure, magic, and humor to keep it from feeling stuffy. As long as you didn’t hate the first book, you should definitely check this one out.

Recommended Age: 18 and up.

Language: Lots. Plenty of it plenty objectionable. This is an adult book. It would easily be rated R, for all the reasons you can think of.

Violence: Yes. Not pervasive throughout, but there are some very graphic, disturbingly violent scenes in the book.

Sex: Quite a bit, including one very specific, highly disturbing scene. Like I said, this would be a hard R movie if it’s ever adapted and sticks close to the source material.

It can be difficult to believe again more than the adjustments in the digital planet since Tron was made. In accordance to Wiki, 1982 was the yr when “the World wide web Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) was standardized and the concept of a planet-broad network of fully interconnected TCP/IP networks referred to as the Web was launched”, despite the fact that the impact of the world wide web on common tradition was still much more than a ten years absent.

This was the initial film to be mainly based mostly on laptop or computer-created visuals, and it manufactured quite an influence when it very first appeared. It even predated Neuromancer, the innovative novel imagining what it may well be like for a human mind in a pc network. So it has a secure spot – in fact a cult position – in the history of SF movies: but how does it stand up now?

The film focuses on four characters who are current in both the actual and digital worlds: Jeff Bridges plays the computer games designer Kevin Flynn (and also his virtual equivalent, an independent programme referred to as Clu), cheated out of his effective inventions by the head of software organization ENCOM, (David Warner). The others are two ENCOM employees (Bruce Boxleitner and Cindy Morgan) who support Bridges to break into the company’s mainframe to discover evidence of Warner’s guilt. Nevertheless, the mainframe has actually created a head of its individual, the MCP (Master Control Plan) which is ready to “seize” Bridges and trap him in a virtual video game planet. Most of the movie is made up of the 3 heroes battling their way by means of the recreation earth to achieve their goal.

The plot is simplistic and the CGI is of study course primitive, but I failed to head that – it was appropriate for the goal and extraordinary for the time. Ironically, what struck me more was that the first part of the film, set in the true planet, had a instead dated come to feel. Also, whilst the digital track record audio was fine, the inclusion of the a lot more conventional orchestral aspects jarred considerably. Even with this, I loved seeing it once more – it is nonetheless entertaining and worth watching if you have in no way seen it.

Tron Legacy also functions Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner, reprising their roles. Bridges once again has two components, as an enhanced CLU (who has not aged, thanks to some CGI trickery), and as Kevin Flynn, who has invested the final twenty many years trapped in “The Grid”, the title for the virtual sport globe he produced. The emphasis now is on Flynn’s grownup son, Sam (Garrett Hedlund) who follows a path in search of his long-misplaced father and also finds himself trapped in the Grid. Cue for many reprises of the virtual chases and overcome scenes, as father and son attempt to escape. To expose more of the plot would spoil a few surprises, so I will restrict myself to generalities.

The CGI is of training course vastly superior to the unique film even though the identical basic visual appeal of the virtual planet is taken care of, with some additional touches reminiscent of the Matrix sequence. The artificially youthful Bridges is a clever thought but not totally convincing – if you failed to know what had been done, you would feel he was wearing actually thick make-up. Some inquiries from the first film continue to be unanswered: what exactly is the nature of the individuals trapped in the Grid? What occurred to their bodily bodies when they have been “scanned” into the Grid, and how have been they reconstituted when they came back out again? If they are virtual, why did Sam Flynn “bleed” when hurt and why ought to Kevin Flynn age? These minor niggles kept bothering me as I watched the movie.

All round, Tron Legacy isn’t going to actually just take the ideas of Tron a lot further, and it is of study course nothing at all like as fresh and ground-breaking. It isn’t really in the identical league as The Matrix. Nevertheless, it can be undemanding amusement and anyone who liked the first and is ready to park their critical faculties and get pleasure from the experience will almost certainly like the sequel.

The setting is the near future, and the basic plot element a familiar one: a giant asteroid is believed to be on a collision course with Earth. There is a twist here, though – there is intelligence that its course is not accidental but has been modified by a resurgent and strongly nationalist Russian leadership to strike the continental USA, “accidentally” destroying the country without incurring the immediate response of a nuclear counter-strike. The problem is that no-one in the USA knows which asteroid has been selected, where it is, or when it might strike.

Oliver Webb, a British astronomer and astrophysicist, is one of a small international team assembled by the US government to work in secrecy to identify and locate the asteroid and devise a plan for diverting it from its course. The secrecy is necessary because of a fear that if the Russians found out that their plan had been discovered, they might launch a nuclear first strike for fear that the USA would do the same. Strong voices on the US side, alarmed by the possibility that the asteroid could arrive with little or no warning, are indeed urging a first strike by the USA while it is still possible.

Against this tense background, Webb and the rest of the team are in a race against time, which involves locating a rare and ancient book by an early Italian astronomer which is believed to hold information vital to identifying the asteroid. Scenes of their struggle against increasing odds are interwoven with those of political infighting in the US government and also with some from the past, in which the Italian astronomer faces trial for his heretical beliefs about the nature of the Solar System. As in The Lure, the arguments debated in these scenes are well thought through and convincing.

Arthur C. Clarke is quoted on the cover as having described Nemesis as “The most exciting book I have ever read”. I wouldn’t go quite that far, but it is certainly a page-turner and I can understand Clarke’s enthusiasm since Napier, a professional astronomer, share’s Clarke’s interest in including a lot of accurate and realistic astronomical science. He also shares Clarke’s rather weak development of his characters. The book is a very good read and while the writing has some rough edges, it is a remarkable achievement for a first novel. Not surprisingly, it is not quite as good as The Lure, mainly because the plot elements (not the asteroid but the human shenanigans) are rather more far-fetched, but it can still be confidently recommended to anyone who enjoys this kind of near-future science thriller.

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I had heard good things about Nick Harkaway’s The Gone-Away World, published in 2009, so I bought a copy and settled down to enjoy the read. The story starts in a confusing future, when it is clear that something has gone drastically wrong with Earth; what is left of humanity survives in the Livable Zone. The first chapter concerns a team of people dealing with an unexpected emergency, but the reader is left dangling as to what this might be as the second chapter jumps back in time to the early childhood of two of the team members – the book’s main protagonists – at a time when the world was much as it is now. Most of the rest of the book then works its way forwards to the events of the first chapter.

There’s some memorable writing but much of the book consists of digressive sub-plots rambling around all over the place. Some of them are amusing set-pieces but they turn the story into a patchwork quilt which only occasionally remembers that it’s supposed to lead somewhere. I wanted to like this story and stuck with it for more than half the book, but finally admitted defeat and stopped reading when I realised that I was becoming more and more reluctant to pick it up and wasn’t interested in discovering the ending.

I can see, in an objective sort of way, why the book attracted some enthusiastic reviews, but it simply failed to grip me. Which just demonstrates (if it needs demonstrating) that every book ever published has some readers who love it and some who don’t.

Robert Downey plays Tony Stark, the  engineer/genius inventor head of a key armaments firm, who is injured and captured by terrorists in Afghanistan and held for a few months, supposedly operating on a weapon for them. In truth, he is creating a prototype powered armoured match with which he escapes, but he has been modified by his ordeal and decides to end producing armaments.

Back house, he is opposed by Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), his deputy, but supported by his adoring assistant, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). He functions on perfecting his driven, flying and fighting match, making use of an “arc reactor” of his individual creation to present almost limitless power. With this, he returns to Afghanistan to consider on the terrorists and is later on faced with an even far more grave danger at residence, when he is challenged by a 2nd “iron guy” developed utilizing his authentic plans. The very first movie ends with his identification as “Iron Guy” uncovered.

Iron Man is as great as Nolan’s Batman films – which is to say, extremely great without a doubt – with Downey getting remarkably convincing as the conflicted inventor. His functionality dominates the screen, with Patrow extremely excellent in the supporting position the on-screen chemistry amongst them functions properly.

As a outcome, I looked forward to the sequel, Iron man 2. Sadly, this is just a rehash of the 1st, with yet yet another “Iron Gentleman” emerging to problem him. The movie tries to distract the audience from noticing the absence of first tips by introducing Scarlett Johansson as an athletic key agent and throwing in a lot more combat scenes and even bigger explosions, but it isn’t going to genuinely work and I was relieved when it ended. It isn’t a undesirable film by most requirements, but was a significant disappointment soon after Iron man.

The plot concerns a threat to the alternate Swansea by a being called the Ragchild. There are various plot threads, following characters in both Swanseas whose lives gradually converge as the final contest draws near.

For once, a short book which I finished in a couple of sessions. Not a book for children; it’s quite brutal in places and the language is strong. The ‘sense of strange’ of the alternate Swansea was quite well done, and the main characters well drawn. I liked it because it was so different – as a result I suspect it will stay in my mind for a long time, and I will keep it for a future re-read.

For those unfamiliar with the story, a brief background: this is an unusual and complex fantasy, involving a parallel world (of approximately late-Victorian technical development) with people whose souls are housed outside the body, in talking animals called daemons. The story focuses on a 12-year old English girl – Lyra Bellaqua (very well played in the film by 13-year old novice Dakota Blue Richards) – who becomes the focus of interest of the powerful religious Magisterium and its ally, the formidable Mrs Coulter (an excellent performance by Nicole Kidman, with just the right blend of beauty, charm and reasonableness covering evil intent). In this first part, young children keep disappearing and Lyra, with the aid of a truth-divining pocket-watch like device known as the alethiometer (the Golden Compass of the film title), becomes involved in trying to discover what has happened to them. Lyra’s journey takes her to an experimental station in the far north, and encounters with giant talking polar bears, who wear armour and live for fighting.

When making a film of a long and complex book (six or seven hours of reading, condensed into a couple of cinematic hours), the film-makers can either cut out many characters and large chunks of the plot, or can try to include all of the key elements but treat them rather briefly. In the case of The Golden Compass, the later course has been selected. The film starts with a long, voice-over infodump to try to get the audience up and running, then (as far as I can recall) remains more or less faithful to the book thereafter, but with each scene cropped in a way which keeps the story moving quickly. This works well enough for those familiar with the plot, for whom it acts as a kind of visual refresher, but may I suspect prove confusing and even irritating to the uninitiated. On the credit side, there are many visually spectacular scenes and the CGI is as good as we have come to expect. The acting is also very good from a strong cast, including the Casino Royale pairing of the rugged Daniel Craig as Lyra’s “uncle” Lord Asriel and the beautiful Eva Green as the witch-queen Serafina Pekkala.

The trilogy has attracted controversy because of its anti-religious content, which becomes stronger in the later books. Not surprisingly, the Christian churches have reacted rather badly to the success of the series, although this aspect has been played down in this first film. I presume that films of the other volumes will follow if this one is successful (which so far it seems to be, although less so in the USA).

Overall, a good effort and I will certainly be watching the sequels, if they appear.

There are less stories this time, since they contain a novella Far Horizon by Jason Stoddard, illustrated by Paul Drummond (an engagingly retro wheel-shaped space station capabilities, repeated on the cover). A single of the richest adult males on a fairly dystopian, corporation-ruled near-long run Earth, has options for terraforming Venus which would not bear fruit for millennia. He decides that the immediate potential is also uninteresting to hang around for, so he cheats time by going into cold sleep right up until his new planet is prepared, only to uncover a huge surprise.

In Pseudo Tokyo by Jennifer Linnaea, a future tourist, eagerly anticipating teleporting into Japan, finds himself not quite wherever he anticipated.

The Trace of Him by Christopher Priest is a quick glimpse of a handful of several hours in the daily life of a lady returning for the funeral of a lover she had left 20 a long time prior to.

The Faces of my Close friends by Jennifer Harwood-Smith is the winner of the James White Award. The previous remnant of a outcast group is persecuted toward extinction in an intolerant potential world but what they are being persecuted for is an unpleasant shock.

Ultimately, The Scent of their Arrival by Mercurio D. Riviera explores the earth of planet-bound but intelligent beings who communicate by scent, struggling to recognize the message sent by the vast spaceship which had arrived in orbit around their planet. All is not what it seems…

A very good crop, as common first, inventive and absorbing. I have noticed that it is some time given that I examine a story in Interzone which I did not take pleasure in. Both the normal is increasing or I’m becoming acclimatised. Or perhaps I have turn out to be far more tolerant of a fiction form which, even if it doesn’t usually work, at least isn’t going to entail a large expense in time to uncover that out. Or perhaps it’s all of these points.

The last part in the mag is, as usual, the pages of in depth and often challenging-hitting critiques of films, Tv programmes and books. Best of my “may well acquire” listing from this batch is Darwinia by Robert Charles Wilson, which seems like a tale I might enjoy acquiring my teeth into.

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I have just lately witnessed Speak to, the 1997 film of Carl Sagan’s 1985 novel about the first make contact with from an intelligent alien species. By some means I have managed to miss the two the ebook and the film right up until now, so I came to it completely clean, knowing absolutely nothing other than the fundamental premise. I must admit that I was hugely impressed. The movie normally requires an intelligent, adult technique to the concerns which would be raised by these an function and gripped my interest all through. I would have awarded it an Oscar, and given another to Jodie Foster for a excellent central efficiency as the obsessed astronomer. If only all SF movies have been this great!

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Carlin discovers that the FBI are using a “time machine” based on wormhole technology which allows them to look at any point within a radius of a few miles of the machine, but with a fixed timelag of four days and six hours. As the team look back into the past to discover clues to the identity of the bomber, they focus on a young woman, Claire Kuchever (Paula Patton) from whom the bomber obtained the vehicle used in the attack – and whose body had been found in the water near the explosion. Over days of observation, Carlin falls in love with her and, after the bomber has been identified and arrested and the case is closed down, goes back into the past to try to rescue her and to prevent the bombing from happening.

So far so good: it seems to be a straightforward alternate time-line story, with the branch point being Carlin’s attempts to alter the past, from which moment the “future” divides into the original time-line in the first part of the film (lets call it TL1) and the new one caused by Carlin’s actions, which runs in parallel (TL2). This division into two time-lines is specifically acknowledged in the film, when one of the characters considers the implications of altering the past. Unfortunately, there are some massive plot holes which make a nonsense of the story, which is a shame because it is otherwise an intriguing and entertaining film with some neat touches. If you don’t want to know what the problems are, stop reading NOW!

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The problem is that the film-makers get terribly confused between the time-lines. This first becomes obvious during a dramatic and original car chase in TL1, in which Carlin is driving a vehicle while trying to follow, through a portable viewer linked to the time machine, the bomber who is driving the same route 4+ days in the past. He is so distracted that he causes a series of accidents, and when he has to double back he drives past some blazing wrecks – but these also appear in the view of the past. That’s just carelessness, but a more fundamental problem is that a whole series of events is misplaced: starting with the murder of his partner (due to a message Carlin had sent into the past) and going through the destruction of the bomber’s property as Carlin rescues the girl, and then his subsequent visit to her flat to clean up his injuries (leaving bloodstained dressings), during which the girl rings up the ATF office to check on his identity. These events only occur because of Carlin’s efforts to alter the past, and therefore belong in TL2, but they are all observed in TL1, in which the girl died before most of the events which “involve” her. That makes no sense at all.

Yes, I know that the whole premise of the story is impossible anyway, but that isn’t the point. I am willing to suspend disbelief and go along with all sorts of impossible plot lines provided that they are internally consistent (I wouldn’t otherwise be able to read SFF at all). It’s when they lack internal consistency that I lose patience. I am frankly amazed that an entire team of people spent months working on this film and didn’t notice, or decided to ignore, these inconsistencies. Either they suffered from collective stupidity, or they assumed that their audience would be too stupid to notice. Not the way to give SF films a good name.