I'm a cynical bastard at heart.
For instance, when I heard that Michael Jackson was dead I immediately thought, "Hoax!". He was in a lot of debt, old, and in danger of becoming irrelevent, never mind that half the world thought he was a kiddie fiddler. So why not fake your death, cash in on the increased record sales through third parties and, I dunno, have facial reconstructive surgery, change your name and move to Armenia. Or something.
Similiarly, when I first read on the web that author Robert Jordan had died, my immediate thought was, "BASTARD BETTER NOT BE DEAD BETTER BE FAKING IT BASTARD."
A little more to the extreme side than the reaction to Jacko, I admit, but I cared not a jot for the so-called King of Pop, whereas Jordan was responsible for the literary equivelant of Star Trek in The Wheel of Time series.
I picked up the first part of this series in 1998 and immediately fell in love with it. It's rich, incredibly detailed and complex. Complete nerd-bait, in fact. I remember being told by a Waterstones shop assistant while I was buying book seven that he'd stopped reading at the fourth one as he "couldn't keep up with all the plot lines". Christ, did he get out easy.
Jordan ended up prevarivating too much, spending two chapters where a page would have done, introducing extra plot lines and characters just - it seemed - to keep us all reading. The series moved further and further from the giant of the fantasy world, and closer and closer to becoming a commercial shill, a £20 hardback shat out every other year for guaranteed returns. It reached its nadir, in my opinion, with books nine and ten which were essentially the same damn novel. The eleventh book (not bad for a six-part series, how Adamsian) moved things on a bit, perhaps because Jordan knew his health was failing him. I didn't know he was sick until he died, but even then I was hoping - just as Stephen King hoped of himself - that he would live to finish the series.
And then he died.
But! The wheel turns on and on, especially when there's money to be made. The announcement that a little known "fantasy author" would pick up the baton and complete Jordan's magnum opus filled me with little more than dread. I'd long lost my love for the series, but was determined to read to the end, if only to find out what the ending actually was. Book 12 (book twelve-and-one-third to be more precise) has reignited the torch I once held for the world of The Wheel of Time.
It's obviously another authors work. There are shifts in tone and the dialogue is a little less, well, "fantasy" (the word "homicide" stands out as being blatantly out of place) but the pace of the series finally picks up and there are more threads tied off and more plotlines closed in this chapter of the series than, it feels, in the previous two. Only a million more to go then...
I had feared that the series would veer off into a completely commericalised and empty experience - much like Raymond Fiests work has ended up - but I'm glad to see that Brandon Sanderson has completed the best entry into the series since, arguably, 1994's Lord of Chaos. That's a long time waiting, but, to continue the analogy, Trekkies had to wait 13 years between First Contact and Star Trek.
The wheel keeps turning. Hopefully, soon, it'll stop, and we'll get the ending to this series we've been waiting for.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
1 of 100 Part 1
“You are one of one hundred,” says the big black dude in front of me. He's heavy, muscled and tall and he's as intimidating as all hell. I don't know who he is or which direction he came from but all of a sudden he's standing in front of me and I can smell the coffee on his breath and see the street light shining off his bald head.
“You are one of one hundred,” he repeats, “and your training begins now.”
I get the chance to think, What training?, except even in my mind it comes out Whaooooophrgh! as the big black dude throws a short, sharp punch into my stomach. I start doubling over, eyes bugging out and spit hanging from my lower lip. He throws a knee up, connecting with my chin and all of a sudden I'm on the ground, on my back, and I can feel blood on my face. The big black dude is standing over me, smiling. I start pissing myself and scrambling backwards on my elbows and arse, muttering and squelching and building up to scream.
The big black dude reaches up to a gizmo mounted on what looks like his stab proof vest. It looks like the kind of radio the police use, the kind of body armour they use too, except the police aren't usually known for violently assaulting passers by on a quiet Tuesday night in Glasgow city centre. I look around as I'm scrambling but I can't see a soul and I realise I'm shouting “Help me! Fuck's sake help me!” but there's no one to hear, there's not even a parked car.
He comes after me slowly, still smiling, and he's muttering into his gizmo or radio. I can't hear all of what he's saying but I think I catch “No resistance” and “Good show” and then he's laughing like he's just shared a joke and then he's growled and raised a foot and stamped and oh christ I think he just broke my ankle.
I'm sobbing now, really sobbing and I'm crying for my mum and I don't know what's happening and then he's crouching down and he's patting me on the cheek and smiling and he says, “I'll see you next year.”
And just like that, right before my eyes, he disappears. Evaporates. Disintegrates. Like Scotty just beamed him up only without the special effects. I blinked and he was gone.
*
Fourteen hours later I'm propped up in a hospital bed and no one is believing my story. A very tall and very stern policeman gives me a serious expression and a serious voice while taking down notes in a tiny pad with a pencil smaller than a cigarette end. He's not best pleased at my comparison of the big black dude's body armour to his. He asks me how many drugs I'd been taking. I say none. He just raises his eyebrows as if to say Aye right pal and asks what I'd been drinking, why I was there, where I thought the big black dude came from and went to and why he did what he did.
I just stare at him, slipping into shock.
*
That was my sixteenth birthday present. A brutal assault by a still unfound crazy man, three days in hospital and weeks of scrutiny by police who thought I was just another Weegie drug peddling wee shite. And I wasn't! Okay, maybe I moved a couple of bars of hash every now and again for pocket money but lets face it, who hasn't? I'm not a bad guy, I didn't do anything to deserve that. I don't even know why it happened, but I tell you what, you wont find me walking the streets of the town alone these days. I barely go anywhere alone unless it's in a nice crowded place.
It's the day of my seventeenth birthday and I'm in one of those new shopping malls that sprung up around Glasgow after the millennium. All white tiles and mirrors. Makes the place look like a giant public toilet. I've got cash in my pocket and a song in my heart and I'm off to buy something Playstationy, or perhaps X-Boxy. I wont decide until I see what's on the shelves. First of all though, I need to do something about my aching desire to pee. My Dad's with me and I leave him in a golf shop to go look for the lavs.
Up three escalators and round a corner and I'm in the generic public toilets in this giant generic public toilet. As usual with these places the whole room smells of pish and three of the cubicles have “Out of Order” signs sellotaped to the doors. Can't use blu-tak after all, cos the locals would only steal it. For all that it's busy in the mall it's surprisingly empty in here.
I approach the urinal, unzip and....relax...
There's a tap on my shoulder.
“You are one of one hundred. What have you learned?”
My eyes open wide and my piss arcs over the wall and my shoes as I turn just in time to catch a fist on my jaw. It's him. He's here. How the. What the. I've fallen with my cock out. He's picking me up and I'm trying to hide my penis, ashamed of being seen and then he's punched me in the belly again and it's him, it's the big black dude, he's here and oh please god don't kill me.
“You are one of one hundred. If you die, you die, but I can't kill you until you start fighting back. It's the rules”.
What the fuck? Did I say that out loud?
“Yes.”
He grabs me by the jacket, two handed, and throws me across the toilet floor. I slide on the tiles, coming to rest against the line of cubicles. It's him. It's the same guy, same outfit, but this time it's light and I can see him. He's tall, muscled, really muscled and he's wearing some sort of body armour. Not police-issue stab proof, but molded to perfectly fit his frame. There's a gizmo on his shoulder and it's flashing red, little lights like LEDs. He's got big fuck off bone breaker boots on – and I should know – and he's coming towards me. He's grinning again. The flourescent lights shine off his skin which is almost proper black like you see in some African guys, not the watered down browns and mauves and creams you see on the streets.
“You are one of one hundred,” he says, leaning down and grabbing my aching jaw in his hand, “and you have been chosen. These are the rules. Every year on your birthday I will come to you. If you do not fight back, you will not die, but you will be badly hurt. If you do not fight back on your twenty-first birthday, I will kill you. This is authorised.”
He looks me right in the eye. He's got really big teeth.
“If you fight back and kill me, you win and go onto the next stage. But you are one of one hundred, and you must fight until you are one of one. Only then will you win.”
He gives me a big shit eating grin.
“Can you win?”
“Win what?” I stammer.
“Your life.”
I see his other hand raised in a fist and then it's coming down quick and then it...
*
I wake up slowly, listening to two old men bicker.
“Christs sakes Jack, who'd dae something like this?”
“Probably some junkie Victor. Why wont this blasted mobile work?”
“Just go oot and find a flunky for gods sakes. The poor wee fella needs somebody a wee bit quicker than you tae help him.”
“Aye right, fair enough. Here, take this.”
“What dae I want your bunnet for ya lunatic?”
“Tae cover up the wee fella's wee fella. He's in enough bother right noo, he doesny need a crowd a folk gawpin at his willy”
“Oh christ just go and find someone, would ye?”
The blackness comes again.
*
Then I'm in an ambulance, covered up, neck brace and gas mask on. There's a paramedic pottering about and my Dad's ashen faced and silent beside her.
“It was him Dad,” I manage to croak. “It was him again.”
“You are one of one hundred,” he repeats, “and your training begins now.”
I get the chance to think, What training?, except even in my mind it comes out Whaooooophrgh! as the big black dude throws a short, sharp punch into my stomach. I start doubling over, eyes bugging out and spit hanging from my lower lip. He throws a knee up, connecting with my chin and all of a sudden I'm on the ground, on my back, and I can feel blood on my face. The big black dude is standing over me, smiling. I start pissing myself and scrambling backwards on my elbows and arse, muttering and squelching and building up to scream.
The big black dude reaches up to a gizmo mounted on what looks like his stab proof vest. It looks like the kind of radio the police use, the kind of body armour they use too, except the police aren't usually known for violently assaulting passers by on a quiet Tuesday night in Glasgow city centre. I look around as I'm scrambling but I can't see a soul and I realise I'm shouting “Help me! Fuck's sake help me!” but there's no one to hear, there's not even a parked car.
He comes after me slowly, still smiling, and he's muttering into his gizmo or radio. I can't hear all of what he's saying but I think I catch “No resistance” and “Good show” and then he's laughing like he's just shared a joke and then he's growled and raised a foot and stamped and oh christ I think he just broke my ankle.
I'm sobbing now, really sobbing and I'm crying for my mum and I don't know what's happening and then he's crouching down and he's patting me on the cheek and smiling and he says, “I'll see you next year.”
And just like that, right before my eyes, he disappears. Evaporates. Disintegrates. Like Scotty just beamed him up only without the special effects. I blinked and he was gone.
*
Fourteen hours later I'm propped up in a hospital bed and no one is believing my story. A very tall and very stern policeman gives me a serious expression and a serious voice while taking down notes in a tiny pad with a pencil smaller than a cigarette end. He's not best pleased at my comparison of the big black dude's body armour to his. He asks me how many drugs I'd been taking. I say none. He just raises his eyebrows as if to say Aye right pal and asks what I'd been drinking, why I was there, where I thought the big black dude came from and went to and why he did what he did.
I just stare at him, slipping into shock.
*
That was my sixteenth birthday present. A brutal assault by a still unfound crazy man, three days in hospital and weeks of scrutiny by police who thought I was just another Weegie drug peddling wee shite. And I wasn't! Okay, maybe I moved a couple of bars of hash every now and again for pocket money but lets face it, who hasn't? I'm not a bad guy, I didn't do anything to deserve that. I don't even know why it happened, but I tell you what, you wont find me walking the streets of the town alone these days. I barely go anywhere alone unless it's in a nice crowded place.
It's the day of my seventeenth birthday and I'm in one of those new shopping malls that sprung up around Glasgow after the millennium. All white tiles and mirrors. Makes the place look like a giant public toilet. I've got cash in my pocket and a song in my heart and I'm off to buy something Playstationy, or perhaps X-Boxy. I wont decide until I see what's on the shelves. First of all though, I need to do something about my aching desire to pee. My Dad's with me and I leave him in a golf shop to go look for the lavs.
Up three escalators and round a corner and I'm in the generic public toilets in this giant generic public toilet. As usual with these places the whole room smells of pish and three of the cubicles have “Out of Order” signs sellotaped to the doors. Can't use blu-tak after all, cos the locals would only steal it. For all that it's busy in the mall it's surprisingly empty in here.
I approach the urinal, unzip and....relax...
There's a tap on my shoulder.
“You are one of one hundred. What have you learned?”
My eyes open wide and my piss arcs over the wall and my shoes as I turn just in time to catch a fist on my jaw. It's him. He's here. How the. What the. I've fallen with my cock out. He's picking me up and I'm trying to hide my penis, ashamed of being seen and then he's punched me in the belly again and it's him, it's the big black dude, he's here and oh please god don't kill me.
“You are one of one hundred. If you die, you die, but I can't kill you until you start fighting back. It's the rules”.
What the fuck? Did I say that out loud?
“Yes.”
He grabs me by the jacket, two handed, and throws me across the toilet floor. I slide on the tiles, coming to rest against the line of cubicles. It's him. It's the same guy, same outfit, but this time it's light and I can see him. He's tall, muscled, really muscled and he's wearing some sort of body armour. Not police-issue stab proof, but molded to perfectly fit his frame. There's a gizmo on his shoulder and it's flashing red, little lights like LEDs. He's got big fuck off bone breaker boots on – and I should know – and he's coming towards me. He's grinning again. The flourescent lights shine off his skin which is almost proper black like you see in some African guys, not the watered down browns and mauves and creams you see on the streets.
“You are one of one hundred,” he says, leaning down and grabbing my aching jaw in his hand, “and you have been chosen. These are the rules. Every year on your birthday I will come to you. If you do not fight back, you will not die, but you will be badly hurt. If you do not fight back on your twenty-first birthday, I will kill you. This is authorised.”
He looks me right in the eye. He's got really big teeth.
“If you fight back and kill me, you win and go onto the next stage. But you are one of one hundred, and you must fight until you are one of one. Only then will you win.”
He gives me a big shit eating grin.
“Can you win?”
“Win what?” I stammer.
“Your life.”
I see his other hand raised in a fist and then it's coming down quick and then it...
*
I wake up slowly, listening to two old men bicker.
“Christs sakes Jack, who'd dae something like this?”
“Probably some junkie Victor. Why wont this blasted mobile work?”
“Just go oot and find a flunky for gods sakes. The poor wee fella needs somebody a wee bit quicker than you tae help him.”
“Aye right, fair enough. Here, take this.”
“What dae I want your bunnet for ya lunatic?”
“Tae cover up the wee fella's wee fella. He's in enough bother right noo, he doesny need a crowd a folk gawpin at his willy”
“Oh christ just go and find someone, would ye?”
The blackness comes again.
*
Then I'm in an ambulance, covered up, neck brace and gas mask on. There's a paramedic pottering about and my Dad's ashen faced and silent beside her.
“It was him Dad,” I manage to croak. “It was him again.”
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Comme ci, comme ca?
I've been watching with interest the furore over Caster Semenya, the new womens World 800m champion... or is she? The IAAF are conducting gender tests to ensure that she really is a woman, although it all seems a bit complicated to me.
Surely they've seen her in the showers?
According to the BBC, 'external genitalia can be "ambiguous"', which I'm sure is reassuring to all those men suffering from LWS*. As if they don't have enough to worry about having a small dick, now they have to worry that perhaps it's really an enlarged clitoris.
The most worrying thing about the whole affair is of course the question of genetics. If it turns out that Caster Semenya is really a man who's had his trouser snake turned from an out-y into an in-y just to gain an advantage then fair enough. The game is up and he's caught. If, however, she is a she, as her parents assure us, and they would know, but it turns out that genetically she is a hermaphrodite, then what effect will this have on modern sports? Random gender tests along with the random drug tests? And what would happen if the results where publically disseminated?
Would the gender gap in society close if it turned out that David Beckham was really 40% more female than his wife? Or that Margaret Thatcher was genetically closer to male?
Obviously any intrusion of genetics into sport poses questions. Does Usain Bolt have a genetic advantage that allows him to run so fast? (And is he a man?) And if he did, would his times be struck from the record books and his medals removed? Will athletes in the future have to prove that they're just normal folks and don't have any natural born affinities or advantages in certain sports? And if they do, then what's the fucking point in competing?
*Little Willy Syndrome
Surely they've seen her in the showers?
According to the BBC, 'external genitalia can be "ambiguous"', which I'm sure is reassuring to all those men suffering from LWS*. As if they don't have enough to worry about having a small dick, now they have to worry that perhaps it's really an enlarged clitoris.
The most worrying thing about the whole affair is of course the question of genetics. If it turns out that Caster Semenya is really a man who's had his trouser snake turned from an out-y into an in-y just to gain an advantage then fair enough. The game is up and he's caught. If, however, she is a she, as her parents assure us, and they would know, but it turns out that genetically she is a hermaphrodite, then what effect will this have on modern sports? Random gender tests along with the random drug tests? And what would happen if the results where publically disseminated?
Would the gender gap in society close if it turned out that David Beckham was really 40% more female than his wife? Or that Margaret Thatcher was genetically closer to male?
Obviously any intrusion of genetics into sport poses questions. Does Usain Bolt have a genetic advantage that allows him to run so fast? (And is he a man?) And if he did, would his times be struck from the record books and his medals removed? Will athletes in the future have to prove that they're just normal folks and don't have any natural born affinities or advantages in certain sports? And if they do, then what's the fucking point in competing?
*Little Willy Syndrome
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Salvation at last?
I must admit that when I first heard they where making Terminator 3 my initial thought was that it would be set in the future, during the war. That is I hoped it would be set in the future. Obviously it wasn't and T3: Rise of the Machines was the result, a rather lacklustre last hurrah for a franchise. Upon hearing that Terminator Salvation would be set in the future and be directed by the guy behind Charlie's Angels I though: "Oh shit."
I'm not the only one, I'm sure.
Call me pleasently surprised. Of the big three effects movies I've seen this summer, Terminator Salvation is easily the best. It may take some liberties with the franchise (i.e. mankind doesn't seem to be doing much hiding. Why hasn't Skynet used infra-red to track down their heat signatures? Or am I just being a bit too geeky?) but it ultimately succeeds where T3 failed: a worthy successor to James Cameron's original two films.
Obviously it's a set up for further entries into the franchise: Christian Bale's John Connor doesn't seem to be the leader of the resistance after all; Kyle Reese seems more a stereotypical smart-arse teen than the battle-weary scarred veterean we saw in the original; there was no mention of time travel equipment, nor the fateful encounter where Kyle and five terminators are sent back into the past, nor do we see Connor ultimately die... I wonder if McG will be brave enough to change that unhappy ending?
The future is not set, after. No fate but what the writers make...
I'm not the only one, I'm sure.
Call me pleasently surprised. Of the big three effects movies I've seen this summer, Terminator Salvation is easily the best. It may take some liberties with the franchise (i.e. mankind doesn't seem to be doing much hiding. Why hasn't Skynet used infra-red to track down their heat signatures? Or am I just being a bit too geeky?) but it ultimately succeeds where T3 failed: a worthy successor to James Cameron's original two films.
Obviously it's a set up for further entries into the franchise: Christian Bale's John Connor doesn't seem to be the leader of the resistance after all; Kyle Reese seems more a stereotypical smart-arse teen than the battle-weary scarred veterean we saw in the original; there was no mention of time travel equipment, nor the fateful encounter where Kyle and five terminators are sent back into the past, nor do we see Connor ultimately die... I wonder if McG will be brave enough to change that unhappy ending?
The future is not set, after. No fate but what the writers make...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)