Reading/Watching Log #68

Well, August was certainly a strange month. I was sick off work for a full two weeks (definitely a record, as whenever I get sick, it’s seldom for very long) and then all of New Zealand went back into another lockdown when the Delta variant reared its ugly head.

So for the first time in what feels like ages, I’ve had the time to do some serious, absorbing reading. And man, that felt good. Seven books! Being so immersed in other people’s imagination has also had a follow-on effect on my writing, and I’ve made lots of headway on the story I’m trying to pull together. It certainly helps fight back against cabin fever.

I rewatched a few films that I won’t go into in any great detail, since I’ve done so on other posts already: Raya and the Last Dragon (liked it better the second time around, though they still botched the trust theme), Enola Holmes (I watched it during the last lockdown, and it makes for deeply relaxing quarantine viewing), Birds of Prey (having watched James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, I had to return to Harley Quinn’s solo movie) and Song of the Sea (still the most perfect film of all time).

I’m keeping stress and anxiety at bay, though I’m disappointed at missing out on The Firebird at the Isaac Theatre Royal. Thankfully it’s been postponed as opposed to getting outright cancelled, but apparently the theatre’s funding is in dire straits. Hopefully a patron of some kind will step in soon to save the place from closure, as I can’t count the number of memorable productions I’ve seen there.

But despite everything, I feel energized about reading again, and enthusiastic about my own creative writing endeavours. I’m going to chase that feeling.

Frankenstein (National Theatre)

I’ve had an official recording of this production saved since last lockdown, and since it was meant to be playing at the Court Theatre this week (I didn’t have tickets but apparently they managed a few performances before things went south) I felt it was an apt viewing choice.

Looking it up, I was mildly taken aback to realize it’s already a decade old. That makes sense though, as I remember this taking place at the height of the Benedict Cumberbatch stanning craze, with much made of the irony that Jonny Lee Miller co-starred opposite him – they not only alternated roles as the Creature and Frankenstein nightly, but were each currently/soon to take the lead role of separate Sherlock Holmes television adaptations. But that’s another story.

Danny Boyle’s take on Mary Shelley’s famous novel is surprisingly faithful to the source material: none of the Hammer Horror clichés (the neck bolts, the burning windmill, the hunchbacked servant) are present, and instead it concentrates on the arc of the Creature as he enters the world and discovers its subsequent beauties and cruelties. There’s the stint at the house of the blind man, the journey to Geneva, the death of William Frankenstein, the Creature’s desire for a mate, his fury at his creator, and the murder of Elizabeth.

I have to confess to getting the giggles during the opening sequence in which the Creature is born, which largely involves Cumberbatch writhing around on the floor for what felt like twenty minutes. Knowing what I did about the controversy of him revealing that he based his performance on autistic children, it feels like a pretentious method actor getting carried away with his craft (seriously Cumberbatch, you could have used autistic children as your inspiration and just not told anyone, to exactly the same effect).

But once the story starts properly, it's deeply compelling – and probably would have been even more so if you were part of the live audience. The set is immense and the choreography extremely smooth and immersive. The multitude of lightbulbs strewn across the ceiling is particularly striking; they simultaneously suggest the bolts of electricity that bring the Creature to life (another Hollywood invention, but one that’s been so deeply incorporated into the story by now that it feels impossible to leave out) and the stars in the night sky that so entrance him.

The surprising highlight is Naomie Harris as Elizabeth, a completely thankless role of love interest and murder victim, but whose simple grace and common sense at least elevates the sense of tragedy when she meets her inevitable and untimely end. (I remember being properly annoyed at the fandom when this first came out for harping so loudly and relentlessly on Cumberbatch that it was several months before I realized Harris was involved).

There were some awkward cuts and edits in the recording I watched, and I’m pretty sure that we’re meant to assume that the Creature rapes Elizabeth before strangling her (a quick Google search reveals that yes, this was the case). I’m not sure how I feel about that: on the one hand I can’t complain since it was removed, on the other – why even have a gratuitous rape in the first place?

That said, knowing that the two lead actors swapped roles every night I’d be interested in seeing Miller’s take on the Creature and Cumberbatch’s on Frankenstein: I can imagine Miller being more soft-spoken and less childlike as the Creature, whereas Cumberbatch would have a challenge in not channelling Sherlock for his Frankenstein. Perhaps one day I’ll check it out...

She Ra: The Legend of the Fire Princess by Gigi D.G. and Paulina Ganucheau

Based on a story by showrunner Noelle Stevenson, this graphic novel neither adds nor detracts from the cartoon series. I’d be interested to find out whether it was originally conceived as an actual episode, because it does very much read like a half-formed idea that could have led to several other story threads, only to be nipped in the bud.

Set in the midst of season two/three (or so I judge) it involves the Princess Alliance learning of another runestone that could provide a significant edge to whoever gets their hands on it first. Once belonging to the long-dead Fire Princess who came to an unfortunate end – and whose fate naturally has implications for both Adora and Catra – the Alliance and the Horde set their sights on travelling to a distant volcano to retrieve it.

It provides the chance for the writers to delve a little more into Adora’s feelings about leaving the Horde, something that was only very lightly touched on in the show itself (let’s face it, Catra got most of the psychological drama) and provide focus on the fraught relationship between Catra and Scorpia. The likes of Glimmer, Bow and the other princesses are present, but don’t get a lot to do.

It’s a perfectly inoffensive bit of supplementary material (to be honest, some of the stuff about the Fire Princess and her runestone probably contradicts things that were laid out in the canon of the show, but my memory is quite foggy on that score) with great artwork and dialogue that could have easily been written for a scrapped episode. All things considered, it made me want to reschedule a rewatch of the show itself.

The Damascened Blade by Barbara Cleverly

I actually finished this last month, but forgot to put it on July’s reading log. Following on from The Last Kashmiri Rose and Ragtime in Simla, Cleverly takes her protagonist Detective Joe Sandilands from India to the border of Afghanistan: specifically a front-line fort at Gor Khatri where tensions are high between the British government and the local tribes.

He’s inevitably joined by a young female sidekick; in this case Lily Coblenz, a rather spoiled American heiress who is determined to see the untamed side of the British Empire’s colonies. She’s put into the reluctant care of Sandilands, who would prefer to enjoy a well-earned rest in the company of his friend James Lindsay (commander of the fort).

Now he finds himself under orders to indulge Miss Coblenz in her desire for adventure, as well as help James manage the influx of guests arriving at the fort, including James's pregnant wife, a handsome Pathan prince, and a boorish English bureaucrat. It would all be complicated enough, except that a tentative peace is only just holding between the borderlands – one that’s put in extreme jeopardy when one of the party's number ends up dead.

Believing it to be a deliberate killing, the temperamental friend of the dead man takes a hostage and disappears into the hills surrounding the fort, leaving Joe with a limited amount of time to discover the murderer before an important British official is killed in retribution.

Combining tribal warfare, political intrigue and cultural factors of the time and place, The Damascened Blade is less of a mystery than an action thriller/adventure, and maybe suffers a little from that. As it happens, Sandilands is pretty ineffective as an investigator, surrounded by other characters who are given far more agency and attention than he is, with our protagonist more of a witness to events than a participant. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does leave the story a little focus-less.

Cleverly also relies heavily on the Pashtunwali lifestyle to construct her plot (particularly the concept of badal, or vengeance) which is depicted as completely incomprehensible and dangerous to the Western characters. Yes, there’s a certain amount of “othering” going on, especially with the whole story told from the perspective of British colonists... but at the same time you can tell it comes from a place of genuine interest in the subject matter and the historical/cultural context it belongs to. Basically, your mileage may vary.

It’s not my favourite of the early Joe Sandilands mysteries, and I’ve already moved onto The Palace Tiger, which I much prefer.

Losing Christina trilogy by Caroline B. Cooney

Comprised of The Fog, The Snow and The Fire, I actually read these books a couple of years ago on my phone, only to find hard copies (or rather, paperbacks) at my local second-hand bookstore. The urge to re-read them came upon me, and since I don’t think lockdown is the time to deny oneself anything, I indulged myself.

Christina Romney has come with three other students from an island settlement off the coast of Maine to board with the Shevvingtons: a married couple who are the proprietors of the Schooner Inne and teachers at the local high school (he’s the principal, she’s the English teacher). They’re trusted, well-respected members of the community... so no one believes Christina when she starts insisting that they’re up to no good.

Her friend and fellow classmate Anya is having some sort of nervous breakdown: rambling about the sea, wanting to drop out of school, gradually becoming listless and paranoid, but everyone claims that the Shevvingtons are trying to help rather than harm her. Only Christina seems to notice their barbed comments, their passive-aggressiveness, the strange occurrences that she chalks up to their deliberate gaslighting...

First read back in high school, there’s something about the ambience and content of this trilogy that just sticks with you. It’s not just the psychological horror of trusted adults doing their best to convince you and your family into believing that you’ve gone crazy, but the general creepiness of a coastal township in Maine and the way in which it’s described.

Places with names like Candle Cove, Schooner Inne, Burning Fog Isle and Breakneak Hill just bring the place to life, and Cooney’s descriptive (vaguely purple) prose means you can almost hear the waves and smell the sea salt. It’s littered with bits of local folklore, such as the honeymooning couple that were swept away by the tide, or the captain’s wife who threw herself from the cupola at the top of Schooner’s Inne, which add to the unsettling atmosphere.

Which is funny, because in many ways these books are terribly written: at one point “weak” is misspelled as “week” and Mr Shevvington’s first name changes from Arnold to Arthur and back again seemingly at random. All three are weirdly anti-climactic, and too often Cooney ends a chapter on a frantic cliff-hanger, and then uses the next chapter to recount how the situation was resolved in hindsight.

There are also plenty of subplots that never get resolved, such as the character of Miss Frisch, an ally of the Shevvingtons who seems to be extremely integrated into their plans as the school psychiatrist, and yet is nowhere to be seen after the first book. What the heck was that about?

And yet it’s these inconsistencies that ironically add to the flavour of the story itself, which is after all, about potentially losing one’s mind. The overwrought writing is such an intrinsic part of pulp fiction that it seems odd to complain about it, and there’s such a strange, nebulous quality to Christina’s stream-of-consciousness that you’re left wondering if perhaps she is a little unmoored from sanity.

They are a little formulaic: each one ends with Christina desperately trying to save a more vulnerable girl from both the Shevvingtons and the elements (the titular fog, snow and fire) but there’s obviously something about these stories that are just captivating. It’s strange that they’ve never been adapted for the screen (television movies obviously, probably on the Hallmark channel) and Christina is such a vivid, unforgettable heroine. Perhaps only someone a little unhinged could have gone up against the Shevvingtons and won, dragging other survivors in her wake.

The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip

Patricia McKillip is one of my favourite authors, though her dense prose takes some getting used to (it’s not as dense as Catherynne Valente’s, but just as ornate and requiring just as much of your attention to grasp). But some of her earliest works are more straightforward in how they’re told, and that includes The Forgotten Beasts of Eld.

Sybel is a sorceress raised among magical creatures on Eld Mountain, calling to them to her from across the world and living a life of happy isolation. Until the day a traveller comes to her gate with an infant in the folds of his cloak, one that he claims is kin to Sybel. She’s reluctant to take the baby under her wing, but the man – Coran – tells her that the child’s parentage is in doubt, making him extremely valuable to the future of two warring countries.

Sybel agrees to raising Tamlorn, but as the years pass, he becomes more and more interested in his heritage. Believing himself to be the son of King Drede of Eldwold, the plot thickens when Sybel gains feelings for Coran, who wants to reclaim Tamlorn to use as leverage against Drede. There are plenty of twists and turns contained within this setup and Sybel’s divided loyalties, especially when she becomes the target of Drede’s paranoia and fear.

It straddles that fine line between fantasy and fairy tale: I equate the former with world-building and complex narratives, and the latter with simplicity and morality tales (that’s a huge generalization, but it’ll do for the purposes of this review), and The Forgotten Beasts features archetypal characters in a complex political setting. It’s also a one-and-done story which I’m always profoundly grateful for when it comes to fantasy novels.

As a long-time fan of McKillip it’s interesting to see how her prose evolves from this point, but also some of her favourite subjects: lonely enchantresses, magical creatures and mountain citadels pop up many times in her repertoire.

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

Growing up in the eighties and nineties, I must have read every single children’s fantasy story worth reading: The Neverending Story, The Chronicles of Prydain and Narnia, the Earthsea books, The Dark is Rising... and yet somehow The Last Unicorn eluded me. True, it was more of an adult fairy tale story along the lines of The Princess Bride, but it’s been on my radar for decades now, and I know that the Rankin and Bass animated adaptation was a seminal part of the childhoods of many in my generation.

But I missed out on it completely, and so came in completely cold as to the story and its content. I knew only one thing: that there was a character called Molly Grue, who on seeing the unicorn says something along the lines of: “how dare you come to me now; why not twenty or ten years ago?” It’s a commentary on the nature of youth, innocence and its relationship to a creature of purity such as the unicorn, and I’d also read the oft-circulated quote from Peter Beagle himself in which he expresses wonderment that he was able to write such a character in his mid-twenties.

Which is why I had to offer something of a rueful smile when we learn that Molly Grue is “thirty-seven or thirty-eight...” yup, my age. It made me wish I had read The Last Unicorn at an earlier age, as Molly and her hang-ups clearly hit differently as you get older, making the story one that you should read at various stages of your life, gaining something new from the experience each time.

I compared it earlier to The Princess Bride, largely because there is a sardonic, satirical quality to the writing, as well as many deliberate anachronisms, though Beagle never loses a more pronounced fairy tale ambience. The titular unicorn lives alone in a lilac wood, until one day overhearing from a couple of hunters that she may well be the last of her kind. Curious about what happened to her kin, she sets out on a journey to discover their whereabouts, and hears about a terrifying “red bull” that seems to be connected to their disappearance.

As with all the best fairy tales, it’s a metaphor for all kinds of things: innocence, aging, storytelling, memory, death, the passage of time... there are symbols and archetypes galore, sprinkled over with a light touch and humorous narrative voice. 

Everything means something; everything is connected to the book’s larger themes and ideas. There are prophecies and foundlings and talking animals and everything else you’d expect from a fairy tale, though with a fair amount of deconstruction and self-awareness from the characters (though not so much that it becomes cynical).

All that said, it didn’t quite enrapture me the way I hoped it would; likely because I didn’t experience it in my childhood, and so was denied the gradual realization of what certain passages and characters actually stood for (too much literary analysis over the years has stripped that away from me). But it was still a rewarding read, and a seminal book within the fantasy genre.

My edition included a short story called Two Hearts, which carries on the story several years after the conclusion of The Last Unicorn, featuring a girl going in search of one of its original characters to assist with the killing of a gryphon terrorizing her village. There were over three decades years between the publication of the original book and this short story follow-up, which made it feel like I was cheating a little by being able to read them in immediate succession, but it does hint at yet more stories to come (even if Two Hearts was released in 2004, already seventeen years ago).

Time, it does fly.

City of Stars by Mary Hoffman

This is the second book in Mary Hoffman’s Stravaganza series, in which ordinary teenagers from our world stumble upon talismans that transport them by night to an alternate-world Italy (called Talia). The last book dealt with Lucien, a terminally-ill boy who eventually made the decision to leave our world forever and start his life anew in the city of Bellezza (Talia’s Venice) so it’s only natural that one of the characters in City of Stars would take the exact opposite approach this time around.

Our protagonist Georgia has home troubles; namely her nasty stepbrother Russell. She’s just saved up enough for a beautiful statuette of a winged horse, which turns out to be the talisman she needs to transport her sleeping consciousness to Remora (Siena) just in time for a famous horse race.

She’s quickly thrown into the intrigues of the city, which is divided up into portions that denote the twelve city-states of Talia, and where being in the wrong neighbourhood at the wrong time could have serious consequences. She finds herself among a family whose prize mare has just given birth to a rare and precious winged foal, which is sure to be a target for theft or sabotage were anyone else to find out.

She crosses paths with Lucien, who she had a crush on for many years before his “death” in their own world, and also meets two members of the di Chimici family (yup, alt-world Medicis) who are gradually making alliances and treaties throughout all of Talia, consolidating their power. It’s rather odd to see them portrayed as villains so soon after watching them as sympathetic anti-heroes on Medici.

But Georgia ends up befriending Gaetano and (especially) Falco di Chimici, the latter being a young boy recently crippled in a horse-riding accident. Learning of the medical advancements in the 21st century, Falco is gripped with the desire to become one of the Stravaganti and “translate” into the new world, leaving his old life and body behind forever. Wading through the moral implications of this, as well as the effect it will have on his powerful family and the cities in which they rule, makes up the crux of the story, along with a smattering of interconnected subplots.

They’re fun, imaginative reads, mostly down to the vivid world-building that Hoffman does in her alternative-world take on Italy, and you can tell she had a lot of fun creating its cities, histories, mythologies and belief systems. She also doesn’t stint on descriptive detail: you can feel the heat, smell the aromas, taste the food of the city, and so it's no wonder that her protagonists are so enamoured of the place.

I read all but the last two books in the series years ago, and I probably retained the strongest memories of City of Stars thanks to Georgia, who was always my favourite heroine. Hoffman captures the stress of living with a bully that you just can’t escape, and how she resolves that particular plot-thread is satisfying without going full “punish and humiliate the bully” (who is, no matter how awful to Georgia, clearly a troubled young man with his own psychological issues).

Dreamhunter by Elizabeth Knox

Elizabeth Knox isn’t particularly well-known outside of New Zealand (she’s most famous for The Vitner’s Luck, largely thanks to the 2009 film) but damn – I really wish she was. Knox was friends in real life with our most famous children’s author Margaret Mahy, and the two have a lot in common with their use of magic realism and coming-of-age tales. But Knox skews a little older (Dreamhunter is classified as a YA novel) and reminds me of Susanna Clarke in her absolute mastery of “show don’t tell.”

Within a fantasy context, that’s even more extraordinary, as a lot of world-building has to be done regarding the rules and limitations of whatever magical system you’ve designed, and how this effects the plot and characterization of the book. It’s a delicate and difficult balancing act, especially in avoiding great chunks of exposition, but Knox makes it look infuriatingly easy.

In the case of Dreamhunter, we’re introduced to a world quite similar to our own, slightly opaque in regards to its time period and geography (it feels like... a colonized Pacific nation in the 1960s... maybe?) but which largely revolves around the titular dreamhunters.

There is an area on the island where cousins Laura Hume and Rose Tiebald live that is (rather unimaginatively) known as The Place, that only a select few number of people can visit. It’s essentially another dimension, where those known as dreamhunters can fall asleep and “catch” certain dreams – some adventurous, some romantic, some peaceful... and some a little racy. What’s more extraordinary is that these dreamhunters have the ability to then share these dreams with others.

This has led to a whole industry of dream-sharing growing up around this select group of people, who are employed at hospitals, prisons, schools and theatres, all to share a range of dreams with the populace.

I already feel as though I’ve explained too much, as part of the joy inherent in this book (much like Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials) is being thrown headfirst into a strange world and only gradually coming to grasps with what exactly is going on. Laura and Rose are the daughters of the two most famous dreamhunters in history, and naturally expect that when their time comes, they’ll easily pass through into The Place and begin their illustrious careers as dreamhunters.

The time in which they and every other hopeful can test whether or not they can enter The Place is fast approaching, though Laura is distracted by her father’s increasingly strange behaviour. Just before she’s due to be tested, he disappears without a trace.

Naturally Laura and Rose take it upon themselves to discover the truth behind his disappearance, a mystery that expands to include their family history, how the government employs certain dreamhunters, and the nature of The Place itself. It’s essentially one of my favourite genre mash-ups: the fantasy-mystery, in which an unfolding mystery is formed within a fantasy setting, intrinsically connected to its unique world-building. It’s a rare thing, and difficult to pull off, but – like I said – Knox makes it look easy.

Her prose can’t be understated: it’s precise and ornate, and she beautifully captures the delicacies and nuances of human nature. The loving cousin relationship between Laura and Rose is especially heart-warming, as is Rose’s cunning nature when she befriends a rather unpleasant girl at school for the sake of learning more about her politician father, who may be connected with her uncle’s disappearance.

The book also requires close attention, as often Knox lays down the puzzle pieces and leaves it up to the reader to piece them together, or choosing to narrate a particular scene from a surprising point-of-view so that the reader can draw upon things they’ve already learned to figure out exactly what’s going on. Again, this was a tactic employed often by Susanna Clarke in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, and it makes for a fascinating, almost interactive, reading experience.

I read some great books this month, but Dreamhunter was definitely the stand-out.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

I picked this one up on entirely a whim – I’m pretty sure one of my friends didn’t want her copy anymore and so passed it on to me, and it’s been sitting on my dresser (as opposed to one of several bookshelves) ever since. Time to put it somewhere else!

Holly Black is best known for dark urban fairy tales (namely The Spiderwick Chronicles) but this is a foray into vampire fiction with most of the traits you’d expect, though I appreciate that Black didn’t just bottle the usual tedium of YA vampires (as sexy, dangerous-but-not-really love interests) but rather churns in the distinctly unglamourous side of what it means to be an immortal bloodsucker.

The Coldtown of the title refers to the walled cities that sprang up in the wake of vampirism becoming known to the human population (think modern day leper colonies). When people are bitten by a vampire, there is an incubation period in which their skin grows deathly cold. At this point they can either recover and revert back to being human, or chose to drink from another person and cross over into full vampirism. While this goes on, those bitten are morally and legally required to enter their nearest Coldtown.

Coldtowns are where the vampires live, and – as you might expect – have been politized, glamourized and capitalized upon. Live video feeds broadcast the glitz of unending vampire parties into every living room, which exist alongside reality television shows about vampire hunters and blogs that record the experiences of desperate wannabes who want to become vampires themselves. The message, as they say, is deeply mixed.

This is the world Tana belongs to when she wakes up after a summer sundown party. It’s morning, she’s in a bathtub, and everyone else in the house is dead – massacred by vampires who got in through a stray open window. Escaping with her infected ex-boyfriend and a vampire that was chained up in the corner of a bedroom (apparently both the companion and the target of the other vampires still roaming the house) Tana is now obligated to take them both to the nearest Coldtown.

Along the way they fall in with a pair of runaways who have romanticized the idea of vampires and are going to the same destination with the hopes of becoming vamps themselves, and Tana finds herself having to manage this range of powerful personalities while keeping herself safe from hungry fangs.

It’s fine. Engaging and interesting while it lasts, but not too memorable. It did however introduce me to a new literary (or rather, fandom) term: the “HFN ending” – that is, the “happy for now ending”, a resolution that implies a happy outcome without guaranteeing it. It’s a good way to describe how this story concludes, and a useful term to carry forward. After all, happy for now is the best we all can hope for.

Gullstruck Island by Frances Hardinge

Have I mentioned how much I love Frances Hardinge? It seems she’s finally getting the recognition she deserves after the publication of Deeplight in 2019, but it was from the moment I read Cuckoo Song that she shot right into my favourite author’s pile. She vibes with Elizabeth Knox in that both authors are excellent at crafting Puzzle Box Plots, with strong characterization and narratives that are constructed out of fantasy world-building, though her prose is more descriptive and sharper, whereas Knox’s is dreamy and delicate.

But in many ways this reminded me of Dreamhunter. Unlike most YA, its setting is a time and place that feels totally foreign to most readers, though to a New Zealand reader it’s clear that both take place in the South Pacific (Hardinge’s afterword mentions Māori mythology and New Zealand landmarks as inspiration) and both are interested in the way colonization and exploitation of the land has shaped the lives of its main characters.

Gullstruck Island is a volcanic island, covered in jungles and ringed by coral reefs. It brings to mind J.M. Barrie’s Neverland for a hot second, what with the temperate climate, the indigenous tribes, and the existence of a group of island inhabitants known as the Lost. There the similarities end, as the Lost refer to individuals that can send their five senses (predominantly sight) outside of their bodies for a range of purposes: scope out approaching storms, read messages from miles away, and keeping a lookout for any trouble along various roads and trade routes.

Needless to say, the existence of the Lost makes up the very backbone of how commerce and politics is run all across the island.

A coastal tribe known as the Lace have a Lost among their number – or so they say. Hathin is the younger sister and permanent caretaker for Arilou, who might be a Lost who untethered herself as a child and therefore has only a minimal grasp on her own body, or who (to use the book term) might simply be an imbecile. Either way, the Lace are eager to keep up the pretence that she is a Lost, for such people are a precious commodity, and given that the Lace are a despised underclass among the colonizing force known as the Cavalcaste, they need all the resources they can muster.

A disaster, born of racial tension and dark history, will inevitably occur, leaving Hathin to guide her sister across the dangerous volcanic terrain of the island to what she hopes is safety, learning the truth about herself and a conspiracy that's taking place all around her...

The fascinating thing about Gullstruck Island is how deeply enmeshed the plot and characters are in the cultural milieu that Hardinge creates for them. There are culture clashes here, between Lace and Cavalcaste, that simply cannot be breached. There are rituals and rites that seem surface-level absurd to a reader, and yet are clearly an intrinsic part of the world these characters have grown up in, and so cannot be lightly thrown aside.

And because they’re described in such rich detail, you can feel the weight and history behind them – for example, one character keeps a wild bird on a leash with her at all times, because it’s believed that the creature will steal threads of her soul if she doesn’t either kill or tame it. And this of course makes for a potentially fatal weakness in her character if someone else were to get hold of said bird...

Then there’s the fact that the Lace are culturally required to keep a smile on their faces at all times – which is as strange and off-putting to us as it naturally is to the Cavalcade (I’m slightly reminded of our country’s history of Māori children getting in trouble with their Pākehā teachers. To them avoiding eye contact is a sign of respect, whereas for white people... well, how often have we heard an adult yell: “look at me when I’m talking to you!”)

The story itself is so packed with twists and turns, scams and double-crosses, secrets and conspiracies, that it all gets a bit difficult to follow towards the end. A second read is sure to be more rewarding than the first, with a clear idea of who is doing what and which characters carry hidden agendas – but the initial read is packed with all the exhilaration of discovery and suspense.

The main problem with Hardinge is that once you realize she’s published only nine books, you have to parse them out carefully so as to not read them all at once. And I only have three more to go!

The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952)

So continues my project of watching all the Robin Hood filmic retellings – and this one took over two days to download, so thankfully it was good. Produced by Disney back in the fifties, it’s intensely jolly in that way all Disney films of the fifties were, though I was impressed by how they reconfigured certain parts of the story in order to craft a narrative that was both fresh and familiar.

For instance, the famous archery tournament (complete with gold arrow prize) is here, but it’s not staged as a trap for Robin, but rather a way for the new Sheriff to root out the best archers in the county to employ for his goon squad. When Robin’s father refuses to join him, he’s killed on the way back to his estate, and Robin is forced to take to the woods.

Robin himself is a yeoman, not a noble, and it’s Marian and her father who are the aristocrats (the latter being the Earl of Huntington, the title oft-used for Robin). And Robin’s last name is Fitzooth, which indicates that the screenwriter took a deep-dive into Robin Hood lore. Further evidence of this is that – incredibly – there are three Wills: Scarlet, Stutely and Scathlock. Most adaptations combine these aliases into one character (largely because they probably were all the same person in the oldest ballads) but this separates them into three distinct figures.

Allan-a-Dale, complete with lute and dog, provides the framing device... though Much the Miller’s Son has been renamed as “Midge”. That one threw me, though some rudimentary digging tells me that was a viable name for him in some of the tales.

Famous encounters like the bridge fight with Little John and the “crossing the stream” argument with Friar Tuck are present and accounted for, but much of the plot revolves around trying to raise the money for King Richard’s ransom, with the film in its entirety framed by his departure from and return to England. It’s in trying to avoid paying the ransom, along with general dickery, that makes the Sheriff of Nottingham and Prince John the baddies (no Guy of Gisborne, though the Sheriff was young and fairly handsome, so I kept assuming it was Gisborne).

But perhaps the film’s great innovation is that Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine has a fairly large role as the regent of England and the woman in charge of collecting Richard’s ransom money. As far as I know, this is the only time Eleanor has had a significant role in a Robin Hood retelling (she was a guest star on the BBC’s version, but only for an episode).

As for our leading couple, Richard Todd’s Robin is a fine if not blandish offering, perhaps holding the record of the Robin who goes shirtless the most, but Joan Rice’s Marian is fantastic. So often depictions of Maid Marian have her as either a tough ass-kicker (Lucy Griffiths, Judi Trott, Uma Thurman) or a charming but fairly ornamental love interest (Olivia de Havilland, Amy Yasbeck, Monica Evans) ...or worse, someone touted as an ass-kicker but who ultimately ends up a distressed damsel (Cate Blanchett, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio). But here Marian is helpful, intelligent and possessed with agency, while avoiding the lazy “let’s give her a sword and call it a day” characterization of so many female characters these days.

They make it so that she defends Robin’s good name to Eleanor – to whom she’s a lady-in-waiting – before disguising herself as a boy and seeking him out in the forest to verify her story. When things are settled between her and Robin (and they do get a pretty cute love story), she heads back to Nottingham with the funds they’ve collected to add to Eleanor’s coffers. Then there’s a fun bit at the end when King Richard returns and makes Robin Earl of Loxley, calls Marian out and tells him she has to marry said Earl, and then reveals that he’s actually talking about the man she’s already fallen in love with. Okay, it sounds mean, but trust me – it plays out well.

Some of the costumes and the swordfights are a bit dodgy, but I appreciated the archery: people would aim and then raise the bow before releasing the arrow, something I’ve never seen in any Robin Hood (or any medieval based archery depiction) ever.

Robin and Marian (1976)

I was expecting a light-hearted comedy, and that’s definitely not what I got. This film is a bit of an odd duck, exploring the twilight years of Robin and Marian (and to a lesser extent, the rest of the Merry Men) shot through with a deep sense of melancholy and loss.

It’s always fascinating to me just where each version of Robin Hood choses to place itself on the historical timeline. Most will position the characters at the end point of the Third Crusade, in which King Richard’s return to England provides a Rightful King Returns conclusion, allowing him to expel his usurping brother, pardon the outlaws, and bless the marriage of Robin and Marian.

Some, like 2010’s Robin Hood or Robin of Sherwood, skip forward a few years, beginning with (or including) the death of Richard and the ascension of Prince John into King. The BBC’s Robin Hood ended with news of Richard being held hostage in Austria, while others ignore Richard and John entirely, and take Robin much further back in time, to when the various ballads are set during the reign of an unspecified King Edward.

Sometimes Robin will accompany Richard on the Crusades, returning home early to see how England has suffered in his absence, while others (usually those that portray Robin as a yeoman) keep him in England for the Crusade’s duration, to much the same effect (though with less character development).

Needless to say, the story’s position on the chronology will deeply influence the mood and tone of the retelling: those that chose to end things on the return of Richard will invariably go for a neat happy ending, while those that take place afterward are more likely to be bittersweet – or downright sad.

Robin and Marian is unusual again, as it posits to be a distant sequel to any Robin Hood story that ended with King Richard’s return. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men – if you squint, you could make this film a follow-up to any one of these retellings, if one were to assume that after the outlaws defeat Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham, Robin accompanies King Richard on his later campaigns... for twenty years.

Yes, there’s a twenty-year time skip between this movie and whatever adventures of their youth you’ve imagine Robin and his men having. Like the Ridley Scott offering, it begins with the death of King Richard (characterized as bloodthirsty and cruel) in France, freeing a middle-aged Robin to finally return home. It almost plays out like an epilogue to the legend itself, culminating in the famous “last arrow” in which Robin shoots out an open window and asks to be buried where it lands.

The outlaw camp has long been abandoned, the likes of Will and Tuck aren’t immediately recognized because of their advanced ages, various parents are long-dead, and Marian has spent the intervening years in a convent, and is now the Mother Superior. On finding her in trouble with the law, Robin interrupts her attempt at martyrdom and takes off with her into Sherwood Forest (he does this by punching her unconscious. Oof).

What follows are the standard beats of a typical Robin Hood story (the rescue of hostages, the mustering of the peasantry, a one-on-one swordfight with the Sheriff) though with one massive difference: it culminates in the death of Robin. And Marian too, whose character is combined with the Prioress of Kirklees when she deliberately poisons Robin – and herself – not out of malice, but weariness and worry. Not sure how I feel about that particular plot twist!

Another thing that fascinates me about Robin Hood retellings: how the Crusades are depicted. I think the latest film I’ve seen that portrayed them (or at least the idea of them) as something positive was the 1953 Disney version, discussed above. Robin of Sherwood in the eighties was fairly neutral on the subject, despite the scathing depiction of King Richard and the positive (and trendsetting) inclusion of Nasir the Saracen. By Kevin Coster’s film in 1991 there’s nothing glamourous or honourable about Crusades as-depicted, and of course by 2010 and 2018, we’ve reached full deconstruction of the event.

So I was interested in how a movie released in 1976 would handle the subject. Would it lean more toward the earlier or later interpretations of the Crusades in their entirety? As it turns out, it’s very critical. King Richard is portrayed as an absolute bloodthirsty monster, who demands the sacking of a castle filled with women and children for the sake of a gold statue that doesn’t even exist. Later, Robin wearily recounts the atrocities of the Massacre of Ayyadieh, telling Marian how women and children were killed and their bodies pulled apart to ensure they hadn’t swallowed any treasure.

Again, I find it fascinating that those who complain about how new versions of old legends are “too politically correct!” are completely ignorant at how early narratives started to change.  

There’s some great dialogue throughout, as you’d expect from the writer of The Lion in Winter, from Marian’s “my confessions were the envy of the convent” to the Sheriff’s “I know him. He’s a little bit in love with death.” The performances are careful and considered, especially from Audrey Hepburn (unsurprisingly) as an older, wiser, sadder Marian and Nicol Williamson as the taciturn Little John, who gets a heartrending scene with Marian towards the end – you’ll know it when you see it.

Sean Connery is... well, Sean Connery, with that overbearing masculinity that’s fun to watch but exhausting to be around, playing Robin as the loveable but insufferable type of hero that you’d expect from the Trickster Archetype. Richard Harris and Ian Holm cameo as Richard and John respectively (both so young that I hardly recognized them) though sadly Will and Tuck are virtually non-entities (no sign of Allan or Much).

It’s not a sweeping epic, but a more character-driven, intimate tale. There are some long and thought-out action sequences, though the musical score is quite overbearing, and totally at odds with the actual mood of the film. Like I said, an odd duck – perhaps the most unusual take on the legend (at least compared with how most films approach the source material) I’ve seen so far.

Gunpowder Milkshake (2021)

Remember that Clive Owen movie of a few years back called Shoot ‘Em Up? This bears more than a few resemblances to that: a hitman (or woman) finds themselves responsible for a vulnerable baby (or child), is helped out by a sexy sidekick (or three), and gets pursued by violent assassins. Paul Giamatti is also there.

The stylized trailers, which promised the likes of Karen Gillan, Lena Headey, Michelle Yeoh, Angela Bassett and Carla Gugino shooting up hordes of bad guys in a beautiful library clearly promised fair too much awesome for the movie to ever realistically live up to. It’s not that it isn’t a fun – and extremely violent – romp, but besides the amazing cast there’s nothing much in the way of story or characterization.

As a child, Sam is abandoned by her mother Scarlet after the latter takes vengeance for her husband’s death and has to go on the run. Sam ends up following in her footsteps nonetheless, and enjoys a lucrative career as an assassin... at least until she’s told to hunt down an extortionist and learns that his ill-gotten gains were stolen to fund the ransom he needs for his young daughter’s safety. And for a remorseless, emotionless and cold-blooded killer, that’s just a step too far!

Sam takes the money to make the deal, only for things to go downhill from there. There are elaborate fight scenes galore, each as bloody and gory as the last, with a rather flimsy storyline and characterization to hold it all together. It’s the aesthetic that sets it apart, with set pieces such as a neon-lit bowling alley, beautifully decorated library, and 1950s-era diner, but on the whole it’s fairly ho-hum.

I mean, I wanted to love it, of course I did. A female-centric action flick which involves at least four middle-aged women beating the everlasting shit out of misogynistic hitmen? That’s got my name written all over it. But... just but. Those trailers were just too stunning; those actresses were of too high a calibre. It was never going to be as good as it looked.

Still, it was certainly a viable way to kill time during the lockdown.

The Suicide Squad (2021)

Another film I watched more out of a weird sense of duty than enthusiasm. I’ve really gotta stop doing that, as I’ve officially reached full capacity for superhero-related media, even one that skewers the genre such as this. (I’ve been enjoying a Marvel-free year, but still plying on the DC properties).

The good news is that it’s better than 2016’s Suicide Squad, though that was hardly a low bar to clear (I feel bad for David Ayers though – I believe him when he said executive meddling destroyed his vision). It’s also worth saying that the behind-the-scenes drama behind The Suicide Squad is just as, if not more so, interesting than the film itself: after some rather awful tweets from James Gunn resurfaced at the hands of a right-wing troll, Disney promptly dropped him from the MCU and the third Guardians of the Galaxy film.

That’s when DC swooped in and poached him, giving him full creative control over a second Suicide Squad movie, sitting back and (I like to think) laughing uproariously as the Marvel fandom made their outrage heard on-line and tearing Disney a new one for capitulating to an on-line troll. One can only imagine the expressions at the Disney board meeting after this little coup.

Between this and the slew of directors that didn’t want to touch Gunn’s deeply personal franchise-within-a-franchise with a six-foot pole, Disney almost immediately retracted their position and reinstated Gunn as the writer/director of the third Guardians, ending the completely self-inflicted and utterly pointless uproar with more than a little egg on their face.

It’s a cancel culture story that no one is quite sure what to do with, especially since it only benefited Gunn in the long run. He got a whole other movie deal out of it.

SPOILERS

It’s also impossible not to think about the first Suicide Squad film while watching this, especially since Gunn’s offering doesn’t negate the other’s existence. Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis and Jai Courtney all reprise their roles from the previous film, and their characters clearly have a shared history based on prior events. Yet Gunn certainly learns from his predecessor’s mistakes... remember how the original cast all got introductory placards that listed their names, skills and background? All except for Slipknot? Who went on to be killed off immediately to the surprise of absolutely no one?

This time around the massive cast of characters all get equal levels of promotional material to better conceal the twist that half of them get wiped out within the first few minutes: including returning character Boomerang and Michael Rooker’s Savant, who is initially introduced as our point-of-view character.

That said, any genre savvy viewer could have predicted that there were way too many characters to be sustained over the course of the entire film, and the moment we’re introduced to a secondary unit (made up of Idris Elba, John Cena, Daniela Melchior, David Dastmalchian and Sylvester Stallone as King Shark) well... it’s obvious that these are our real protagonists who – along with Harley Quinn – are going to make it much further than their predecessors.

In hindsight, the beach massacre just seems kinda mean and pointless and predictable. We live in a post-Game of Thrones world, after all.

But when the plot gets crackling on our new team of anti-heroes, things pick up. Elba’s Bloodsport is an obvious Expy of Will Smith’s Deadshot, right down to the fraught relationship with his daughter, while John Cena’s Peacemaker is a wildcard precisely because in any other movie he’d be the undisputed good guy (he’ll defend American imperialism at all costs). Melchior and Dastmalchian manage to demonstrate a level of vulnerability and sweetness in their characters that makes you root for them while simultaneously question why they’re there at all (these convicts are meant to be the worst of the worst) and as this is Margot Robbie’s third stint as Harley Quinn, she’s got the character beats down cold.

As with most Gunn humour, there are hits and misses. We’re meant to cheer that Harley won’t enter a relationship with a man who is capable of harming children, even though Rick Flag offhandedly announces that Weasel (one of the original Squad) killed twenty-seven children prior to the mission, which is framed as a joke. Later Bloodsport and Peacemaker wipe out an entire village of what they think is enemy soldiers, only to realize that they were allies and freedom fighters. Oof. That’s bleak even for black comedy.

But hey, black comedy is what this is. It’s a bit of a shame the Starro reveal was spoiled in the trailers, as by the time it shows up the film has settled more easily into its vibe, and there’s a late scene with King Shark interacting with an aquarium full of fish that wouldn’t feel out of place in a Guardians film. Ultimately it all feels part of DC’s attempts to rehabilitate itself after a string of failures (well, not monetary failures) by giving directors with a distinctive flair full creative control over their real estate. Time will tell if it works, but if it flips the bird at Disney while doing so, I’m all for it.

In The Heights (2021)

This movie was an inevitability. The first musical penned by Lin Manuel Miranda (released on Broadway in 2008), it suddenly got a resurgence of interest after the insane success that was Hamilton – and obvious material for Universal Studios to adapt for the big screen while Disney figures out what it wants to do with its far more lucrative other LMM property.

Movie musicals are a bit hit and miss for me, and in this case I was at a disadvantage in not knowing anything about the original performance or its context, which obviously means a great deal to a lot of people. Watch this reaction to the first trailer – there’s clearly a history and a perspective here that I’m just not privy to.

Set in Washington Heights, New York, we’re introduced to an array of immigrants (most first or second generation): Usnavi, who dreams of going back to the Dominican Republic, Claudia, the neighbourhood matriarch, Nina, who has returned from Stanford University with the difficult news that she’s just dropped out, Sonny, an unregistered Dreamer whose choices in life are extremely limited because of this fact, Vanessa, who yearns to become a fashion designer but doesn’t have the money to fund her dreams, and Benny, who loves Nina but doesn’t feel he’s good enough for her.

There’s not much that passes in the way of a plot: it’s just the entanglement of these lives, the difficulties they face, and the spectre of gentrification slowly chipping away at their community. Having seen Hamilton, you can tell that the same songwriter is behind most musicals, as the tempo and melodies are very similar in a lot of respects, and the whole thing is filled with energetic dance numbers and carefully choreographed scenes.

But like I said, I feel this would have meant more to me had I had more familiarity with the original musical. Hopefully those that are long-time fans found what they were looking for with this adaptation.

Black Lightning: Season 2 (2018 – 2019)

Slowly but surely, I inch closer to Crisis on Infinite Earths. As it happens, I ended up watching a lot of the Arrowverse this month, though none of the shows are appearing on this particular log because Arrow, The Flash, Batwoman and Supergirl all have about eight or so episodes in their respective seasons before they hit the five-part crossover (Legends of Tomorrow kicks off with the Crisis, so I didn’t have to watch that one in prep).

The Crisis takes place during season three of Black Lightning, but having already watched season one, I thought I’d catch up on the in-between episodes. As a non-comic book reader, it’s difficult for me to parse what comes straight out of the source material and what is invented for the show itself, though a couple of terms such as Markovia and the A.S.A. ring a few bells.

In the aftermath of the first season, the Pierce family is picking up the pieces and getting back on its feet. Jefferson is struggling with no longer being principal at Freeland High School and getting back into the field as Black Lightning, while Lynn is working on providing medical treatment to a collection of young metahumans in cryogenic pods while worrying incessantly about her family (not without good reason, though it’s a shame she’s unaware that Plot Armour protects them all).

But for me at least, the real interest lies with their daughter Anissa and Jennifer. Both are “gifted” with preternatural powers, though whereas Anissa takes to the role of superhero Thunder like a fish to water, Jennifer is considerably more reluctant to explore and control her own abilities. She just wants to be a normal teenager, and her parents taking on a helicopter approach to her life (which includes home schooling) doesn’t go down well.

As with most CW superhero shows, a main villain is pulling the strings of several subplots, each one connected to a separate character and their arcs. Crimelord Tobias Whale is looking to sell metahumans as mercenaries, alongside his drug-dealing business and personal vendetta against Black Lightning. To be honest, I watched this season over such a long span of time that I lost track of some of these plot-threads, though there’s a surprising amount of variety here. There’s a sort of mini-arc that involves warfare between two isolated communities comprised of Black and white residents and the fate of a mixed-race baby, and another in which Jefferson’s former student Lala is resurrected through... magical tattoos? Don’t ask me what that was about.

The show is strongest when it’s focusing on the Pierce family unit (plus Uncle Gamby) as it’s a wonderful portrayal of a family whose members love each other dearly, even as they struggle with opposing points of view. But their differences only make it more rewarding when they all end up on the same page, as this is a team that’s unstoppable once they start working as a unit. You so really get to see this kind of dynamic in a superhero show; it’s usually all about found families and love interests. But here at least, blood is thicker than water.

Now... onward to Crisis!

Mare of Easttown (2021)

SPOILERS

Another carry-over from last month’s crime-related viewing. Everyone raving about Mare of Easttown is what actually drew my attention to Happy Valley, whose protagonist Catherine Cawood almost certainly provided the inspiration for Kate Winslet’s Marianne “Mare” Sheehan. Both are grizzled middle-aged lady detectives coming to terms with with the suicide of a troubled child while raising an equally-troubled grandson, with an unsolved crime involving a kidnapped teenage girl on the side.

It also provides a portrait of a very specific community, one in which every citizen is on first-name basis with everyone else, and every second person seems to be related to someone else. In this case it’s a small town in Pennsylvania, and you can be sure that the stark beauty of the forest (juxtaposed with fairly miserable looking streets and houses) is on full display.

The crux of Mare’s character is that back in her glory years she made the winning shot in a (nationwide?) basketball game and the community has been expecting great things from her ever since. Which is clearly one hell of a burden, as when things go wrong, she is forced to take all the blame – even when things are very discernibly not her fault.

The show saw Happy Valley’s theme of personal responsibility and ran a mile with it, in which Mare is blamed for everything: not solving a kidnapping in a timely manner, the fact it was her daughter and not herself who found her dead son’s body, the death of her colleague (a grown man operating of his own free will)... I mean honestly, they lay it on pretty thick. If I lived in a community that tried to pin any of this crap on me, I’d buy a plane ticket to the nearest tropical island and not look back. But then, I’m not a grizzled middle-aged lady detective.

The central mystery and its resolution are fairly rewarding (if not desperately sad), though the show on the whole is loaded with deeply meaningless subplots that... look, I get that it’s a portrait of a woman and her community, but in hindsight Mare’s romantic entanglements with Guy Pearce and her lesbian daughter’s love triangle feel like needless padding, and even the custody battle for her grandson with his recovering drug-addict mother feels completely extraneous.

Then there’s poor Evan Peters as Detective Colin Zabel, who falls to the now-cliché necessity of any prestige television show: that a ostensibly important character be suddenly and shockingly killed off. Did I see it coming? Nope, so I guess they succeeded in that regard, but – and here’s the really weird thing – after he dies there’s a press conference and a scene with his bereaved mother... and nothing else. No one mentions him again! It has no impact whatsoever on the story or upon Mare’s arc. They just did it for a shocking moment and then moved on with a shrug. Between this and The Suicide Squad it’s obvious that writers/directors are becoming increasingly inured to on-screen deaths.

All that said, it’s a compelling few hours of television. Kate Winslet is at the top of her game, with Jean Smart in unsurprisingly great support. But the hidden MVP of the whole thing is Julianne Nicolson, who I’ve liked ever since The Others in 2001 (the show, not the Nicole Kidman movie) and whose role only expands as the episodes go on.