A little while back following a sort out of some boxes of old comics; I ended up spending an afternoon re-living my childhood reading classic Jim Steranko comics I uncovered carefully wrapped in Mylar Bags. Since a kid, I have loved the surreal and existential artwork of Steranko, which fitted into the late 1960’s [and early 1970’s] zeitgeist, the James Bond imagery, the off-kilter reality and the wiff of science fiction entering our reality.
Today in The Guardian, media-talking-head and comic book fan Jonathon Ross interviews Jim Steranko at the eve of Comic Con –
Jim Steranko. Many of you will not have heard his name before, a dreadful truth that troubles me every day. If he were French they'd have his statue in parks, Italian he'd be on their stamps, Japanese and he'd be doing commercials for videogames and fermented soya bean soda. But in the English-speaking world, we still woefully undervalue these master storytellers who choose panels and word balloons to work with.
To my fellow enthusiasts he is a Genius, a Wizard, a Master, a God. A one-of-a-kind, self-promoting hipster/huckster with the finest hair I've ever seen on a man of his age. He is also one of the handful of pioneers who can be said to have genuinely revolutionised the art of graphic storytelling. Glimpse his work and, before you even know exactly how he's doing it, you instinctively know it is different – better – than the norm. You'll also be hopelessly hooked. For life. Non-comic addicts might think I exaggerate – but step away from my hyperbole, and allow yourself a little time with the examples we have printed here. The work should speak for itself.
Ross’s piece and interview is most insightful, and also probes some of ‘eccentric’ tales of Steranko, such as the rumours that he doesn’t sleep –
JR: I know you are health-conscious, which comes from your work in escapology and so on. What's an average day for you now?
JS: I eat one meal a day. I believe everything you put in your body is toxic – I eat raw fruits and vegetables. A very small portion. I live on the side of a mountain and run up it with my dogs every night. I begin working after I have dinner at eight o'clock, and work till about nine in the morning. Then I turn in until about 11 o'clock.
JR: Two hours sleep? Conventional wisdom has it that you need sleep . . . JS: I am proof the body can get by on two hours' sleep.
JR: You know how mad that makes you sound?
Read More Here and Click Here for some of Steranko’s wonderful Artwork
I was delighted when David Morrell and Hank Wagner asked David Montgomery, Larry Gandle and I to contribute to the ITW 100 Thrillers collection. I have been friends with Larry and David for many years as all three of us are big Thriller Fans and Reviewers for various print and online media. Over the years we have been judges for various literary awards, such as the Barry Awards, The Thriller Awards, The Gumshoe Awards. The CWA Daggers and others. I must admit, the 'inner fan-boy’ in me was very flattered to find my name rubbing shoulders with some of the biggest names in the world of Thriller Fiction.
The photo above is of the three of us thriller reviewers relaxing at the inaugural Thrillerfest held in 2006 at The Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix Arizona.
Over at Shots Ezine, we have a competition running to give away three copies of the ITW 100 Thrillers book, as well as a bonus essay by Thriller Writer Shane Gericke available for download – Click here for details
I am delighted to see that the ITW 100 Thrillers is getting a lot of media attention; as anything that can help combat illiteracy must be applauded, and Thrillers are a good way of promoting reading and getting people to read books.
With his very first novel, David Morrell created an iconic character, now as famous as Tarzan or James Bond: "His name was Rambo, and he was just some nothing kid for all anybody knew, standing there by the pump of a gas station on the outskirts of Madison, Kentucky." So begins Morrell's electrifying and morally unsettling "First Blood." Some of his other books include the horror classic "The Totem" and one of the most exciting Ludlumesque thrillers I've ever read, "The Brotherhood of the Rose."
Hank Wagner may not write novels, but he certainly knows modern horror, fantasy, mystery and science fiction. He's the co-author of "The Complete Stephen King Universe" and of "Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman." His articles have appeared in publications ranging from Cemetery Dance to Mystery Scene to the New York Review of Science Fiction.
Both novelist and critic are members of the six-year-old International Thriller Writers organization. Its goals "include educating readers about thrillers and encouraging ITW members to explore the creative possibilities of the form." To this end, the group decided to compile this annotated guide to essential thrillers. Enjoyable in itself, the book also offers 100 possible answers to that perennial summertime conundrum: What book shall I pack for the beach?
"Thrillers: 100 Must-Reads" opens with the Greek legend of Theseus and the Minotaur and, by fudging the supposed cutoff date of 2000, closes with Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code." Each of the chosen titles -- one book per author -- is accompanied by a brief biographical note, followed by a two- or three-page essay of reminiscence, analysis and appreciation by a member of ITW. Among the essayists are Lee Child, Sandra Brown, James Grady, R.L. Stine, David Baldacci, Katherine Neville and F. Paul Wilson.
No one could seriously argue with the recommendations up to the mid-1970s. Here are Wilkie Collins's "The Woman in White" (1860), Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1901), John Buchan's "The Thirty-Nine Steps" (1915), Eric Ambler's "A Coffin for Dimitrios" (1939), and even what is, arguably, the single most famous adventure short story of all time, Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game" (1924). Moreover, the editors' definition of the thriller is a capacious one that embraces horror (Bram Stoker's "Dracula," 1897), science fiction (H.G. Wells's "The War of the Worlds," 1898) and romantic suspense (Daphne du Maurier's "Rebecca," 1938).
More Information on ITW 100 Thrillers including the competition and free .pdf Download of Shane Gericke’s look at John Sandford’s RULES OF PREY is available here
I love joining-the-dots about unrelated events, conspiracy theories and trying to see exactly who are 'the men behind the curtain’. Sometimes my mind does wander and I get puzzled about things. As a businessman, the financial crisis, which still continues, has made me scratch my head, and fuel anxiety. Frank Baum’s ‘The Wizard of Oz’ [1900] has always haunted me since seeing it preformed as a musical play when I was a child. I have always believed it to be an allegorical fable based on exposing the ‘truth’ behind what we term money. These rumours have circulated for many years, even the BBC investigated these claims -
It's unlikely its young fans will have been thinking about deflation and monetary policy.
At a time when some economists fear an onset of deflation, and economic certainties melt away like a drenched wicked witch, what can be learnt from Oz?
The 1939 film starring a young Judy Garland was based on Lyman Frank Baum's book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in 1900. It told of an orphaned Kansas girl swept by a tornado into a fantastical world, but who wants to return home to her aunt and uncle.
Thinking the great Wizard of Oz can grant her wish, she sets out to meet him with her beloved dog, Toto, joined by a scarecrow, a tin woodman and a lion.
Baum published the book in 1900, just after the US emerged from a period of deflation and depression. Prices had fallen by about 22% over the previous 16 years, causing huge debt.
Farmers were among those badly affected, and the Populist political party was set up to represent their interests and those of industrial labourers.
The US was then operating on the gold standard - a monetary system which valued the dollar according to the quantity of gold. The Populists wanted silver, along with gold, to be used for money. This would have increased the US money supply, raised price levels and reduced farmers' debt burdens.
What we should all fear most, in these days of economic turmoil, is the danger of the ‘mob’ and the growth of xenophobia stirred up by the extremists [both extreme right and left]. It was Anglo-Irish Politician and Philosopher Edmund Burke who stated that “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” The danger of the mob first presented itself to me when I was a young child in school, and my fear of people / mobs [especially the under-educated, or manipulated] continues today. It also contributed to my love of reading. People who read books [especially fiction] in contrast [to non-readers] tend to think for themselves, hence why totalitarian regimes burn books. The theme of book burning was raised in Fahrenheit 451, but it was an earlier Ray Bradbury short story entitled ‘The Crowd’ that put my fear of ‘crowds / mobs’ into context. I soon realized that the mob needed to have ‘someone’ in authority turning a blind eye, for their evil to succeed. That someone could be called the ‘Commissioner’.
Today I enjoyed [though ‘enjoyed’ is perhaps the wrong word in this context], a blog post, by the talented writer John Baker, entitled ‘They are selling postcards of the hanging’. The reason for my interest is that it offers insight into one of my favourite Bob Dylan songs ‘Desolation Row’, which in turn reflects the nature of evil. It is strange that I’ve enjoyed John Baker’s work for many years, first meeting him a decade ago via both newsgroup rec.arts.mystery and then at a Dead-on-Deansgate event in 2001. So it was little surprise that he too understands the nature and meaning behind Dylan’s song ‘Desolation Row’ and the evil that it mentions in its surreal lyrics. You need ‘The Mob’, as well as ‘The Blind Commissioner’ [who turns ‘a blind eye’ thus allowing the Mob to rule and for the ‘postcards’ to be taken]. Such evil by mob, augmented by a ‘Blind Commissioner’ occurred in Duluth in 1920, and in November 1938’s Night of Broken Glass and many, many times since. Before you say that, those were in the past - just look at what is happening in Iran, as the mob are alive and holding rocks [not ropes] while the Commissioner remains sightless.
On the 15th June 1920, three black circus workers were attacked and lynched by a mob in Duluth, Minnesota.
Rumors that six African Americans had raped a teenage girl gave rise to a mob of five to ten thousand locals.
The circus workers were snatched from the police station and hung from their necks on a corner of the street. Pictures were taken and a postcard offered for sale. The Chicago Evening Post reported, “This is a crime of a Northern state, as black and ugly as any that has brought the South in disrepute.”
No one was ever convicted for the murder of the circus workers, Isaac McGhie, Elmer Jackson and Elias Clayton.
A physician’s examination of the teenage girl subsequently found no evidence of rape or assault. Dylan’s song, Desolation Row, from the album Highway 61 Revisited, opens with a reference to the hangings, which took place in his home town 20 years before his birth.
I loved the way My Chemical Romance re-worked Dylan’s Desolation Row for the closing credits of ‘Watchmen’. When I saw the film for the first time, I smiled as one of my all time favourite songs closed the film version of one of my all time favourite graphic novels.
Before you say, hey, that incident was a long time ago, and we have a black man in the White House now…. yada, yada, yada. My response is simple as my concerns are not leveled at segregated America [as it was then], but the wider world. The mob mentality is truly scary, and to think that little has changed when you hear of the terrible things that happened in Nazi Germany, Stalin’s Russia, Bosnia, Darfur, East Timor…and the list of ‘officially’ condoned ‘mob violence’ is endless. The Mob now grabs rocks instead of rope in Iran. It makes one despair.
To read more of the terrible incident in Duluth on 15 June 1920, and Dylan’s links to Desolation Row from The Independent – click here
The warning from Desolation Row "Someone says, 'You're in the wrong place, my friend, you better leave'." has haunted me for many years, as being an outsider, I’ve felt its sting on my psyche many times, and heard those words spoken with hatred, and all the while the commissioner remained blind. I just hope ‘the commissioners’ in Iran see the light, because some things are just plain evil, even a blind man can see that.
Some of you might wonder why the mob, the blind commissioner or extremists are of such concern? I would reply that in times of economic crisis [such as ours], there is real danger for us all. Even EC Comics warned us with a 1952 story ‘The Patriots’ by Al Feldstein. This tale showed these dangers vividly where a Crowd turns into a jingoistic Mob that misdirects patriotism into murder. I respect writers such as Shirley Jackson, who warn us about the dangers of Mobs. She published her novella ‘The Lottery’ [1948], a chilling work that was banned in South Africa at the time; and one that resonates strongly for those of us concerned at the barbaric ‘stoning’ punishment in Iran and other repressive states. The Mob again has their blind Commissioner, to allow the unspeakable to happen.
My day was enriched today thanks to John Baker making me ‘think’ as only a writer can. If you haven’t discovered the work of John Baker – click here and here because his writing is well worth exploring.
And remember what Edmund Burke said “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
This is the first film that you are on board with as a producer. Can you talk about that experience working with everyone on the film?
Dennis Lehane: Oh, it was great. I just wanted to be involved as a producer because, at that point, I didn't have Shutter Island for several years and gotten it back, gotten the rights back, and I wanted to protect this a little bit. I wanted to be involved with really good people and I wanted to have conversations with those really good people about talent and that was sort of the limit of my contribution to things. The secret of my success is refusing to get involved with anybody who doesn't have a certain level of quality. I just won't do it. I have no problem walking away and leaving a bunch of money on the table. It doesn't bother me.
There was a quote from you that I read where you said that you wouldn't want to adapt one of your own novels because it would be like operating on one of your own children. What is the process for finding a screenwriter for one of your books? Is it like finding a spouse for one of your kids then?
Dennis Lehane: No, I think it's more like finding a really good contractor to work on your house. They're going to be in your shit for a few months (Laughs) and it probably could be aggravating unless you go with someone you really respect. The process started with, when Clint Eastwood and I chose Brian Helgeland for Mystic River, we were 100% in agreement on. We chose him based on what he had done with L.A. Confidential, which was just an unadaptable book and he adapted it. Once you see the gifts on display with really great adapters, just step out of the way, is my feeling. I am not a really good adapter. I think I am a good novelist and I think I'm a good teleplay writer and I think I'm even a decent screenwriter, but I'm not a good adapter. It's a different skill set, it's a different art form and the people who are good at it, man, all you do is sit back and take your hat off. I don't know what else to say about them. They're just a different breed.
Helgeland is one of the best. His adaptations are usually phenomenal.
Dennis Lehane: Oh, yeah. And Laeta Kalogridis killed this, Shutter Island. She just nailed it. I could see in Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard's script for Gone Baby Gone, the same thing. They just got it, whatever it is that I couldn't have gotten. I couldn't do it with my own work. I probably could do it with somebody else's, because you have perspective but when I try to do my own work, I just lack perspective.I saw one of the DVD clips and you were talking about how when Leonardo DiCaprio came in, he was asking you all these questions about the character that even you couldn't answer.
What was it like to work with someone who is such an immersive actor like Leonardo is?
Dennis Lehane: Well, for the writer, a lot of times, we've kind of moved on and he's living in that present tense because he's playing the character. When he's asking me those questions, it was about five years after I had written the character, it was like, 'Wow. If only it was five years ago,' you know what I mean? Or maybe I just should've read my own damn book before I came to meet him. Yeah, he had that same kind of - him and Sean Penn have this real uncanny intelligence, in terms of their characters. I can't describe it, you just have to see it. You see the results on the screen, so it's not that hard to believe.
I know I have become fascinated, perhaps obsessed by Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy. Today I read with great interest The Telegraph’s article by Lasse Winkler [editor-in-chief of the Swedish book trade magazine Svensk Bokhandel] when he met with Larsson and discussed his [then] unpublished trilogy in an interview –
It all started one sunny day in late September 2004, on a park bench outside the Gothenburg Book Fair. John-Henri Holmberg, a Swedish publisher, sat down next to me and told me about three manuscripts he had just read, written by a friend of his named Stieg Larsson. They would, he said, make their author the most famous Swedish writer in the world, “bigger than Henning Mankell”.
At that time, Mankell had conquered almost every market around the world, achieving international sales of around 20 million copies. Larsson, who was then working as an editor on an anti-racism magazine called Expo, hadn’t published a single word of fiction.
If it had come from anyone else, I would have laughed off Holmberg’s claim as a piece of far-fetched fantasy. But my faith in his judgment, and the fact that this Larsson character had waited until he had three manuscripts ready before even approaching a publisher, intrigued me. So the next day, I called Larsson and asked if he would let me interview him.
Larsson lived with his long-term partner, Eva Gabrielsson, but his name was not on the doorbell of their flat and his address was not listed in any records or databases. The couple had several established routines whenever they left home: sometimes they would leave by the front door; at other times, they went out the back, via the basement. Larsson had a habit of glancing over his shoulder frequently, as if to check if anyone was following him.
Not long before our meeting, the police had informed him that photographs of him and Gabrielsson, as well as information about their address, had been found in connection with a murder investigation they were conducting in Stockholm.
I began our interview by inquiring about this aspect of his life, asking if he took any precautions to protect himself. It was a mistake. “Sure,” he snapped back, “but I’m hardly going to tell you about them, am I?”
Recently Shots and The Rap Sheet sat down with Lee Child to discuss his Novel 61 Hours. Now Child’s English language publishers [Transworld] reveal the title and jacket images for his next novel.
In the UK, Transworld will publish Worth Dying For on 30th September 2010 as a Bantam Press hardback. It will be the fifteenth novel in Child’s series featuring maverick ex-military policeman, Jack Reacher, and the first time he has published two books in the same year.
At the end of his latest book, 61 Hours, published in the UK in March this year, Lee Child left readers in limbo. Was Reacher dead or alive? The British edition ended enigmatically – ‘To be continued, 30/9/10.’
Today, Transworld reveals that Worth Dying For will be another Jack Reacher novel but readers will have to wait until 30th September to find out how Reacher survived a massive underground explosion which was the culmination of 61 Hours.
The Edmonton Journal has a fascinating article on authors and their feelings about film adaptations of their work with insight from Dennis Lehane –
When author Anne Rice heard that Tom Cruise had been cast as Lestat in the 1994 film version of Interview with the Vampire, she went ballistic, complaining that he was "no more my Vampire Lestat than Edward G. Robinson is Rhett Butler."
It's to Rice's credit that she ate crow after seeing Cruise's performance in the finished film, to the extent of buying a two-page advertisement in Daily Variety, praising his work and apologizing for her earlier diatribe.
However, bestselling author Dennis Lehane is still annoyed about Rice's behaviour. He wrote Shutter Island, and has no complaints about Martin Scorsese's hit film version. Two of his other novels -- Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone -- also became critically acclaimed films, and again Lehane was hugely supportive of what directors Clint Eastwood and Ben Affleck did to those two books.
"What I hate, I truly hate -- and I always did, way before I became a published author -- is someone who runs out in front of cameras, talking about how unhappy they were about adaptations of their works," Lehane says. He cites Rice's notorious complaint about Cruise playing Lestat. "Like we're talking about a character of Hamlet's level!" he adds with a snort. "We're talking about a vampire who ends up in a rock 'n' roll band in the second book, if I remember right. This is not Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, (so) shut up! It reminds me of the guy coming out of the whorehouse, complaining he didn't feel loved."
Lehane has his allies. Nicholas Sparks, whose love stories are a continuing gold mine for Hollywood, doesn't complain. In fact, he sometimes finds the result an improvement. Mario Puzo had the good grace to admit that his bestseller, The Godfather, had been elevated to a work of art by director Francis Ford Coppola.
Lehane was recently asked whether selling screen rights to a book is like giving a child up for adoption. His reply was succinct: "No, it's like giving it up to a babysitter. That's exactly what it is."
People are constantly asking him for his opinion on what Hollywood "did" to one of his novels. He figures Hollywood hasn't done anything; "my books are still there." He figures authors who complain aren't drawing the proper distinction.
"A book is an apple, and a movie is a giraffe," he says whimsically. "They don't have much more in common than that. They have basic similar narrative DNA, but they're two separate entities. I have no problem looking at Jaws, the book, and Jaws, the movie, L.A. Confidential, the book, and L.A. Confidential, the movie. They're two different entities and two different beasts."
How do you follow something as cerebral and exciting as Battlestar Galactica? Well it seems writer / producer Ronald D Moore & Remi Aubuchon and his colleagues decided to go retro with some future-chic providing a glimpse of how machines could become sentient with the existential spin-off TV series Caprica.
While Caprica, like BSG, now has established a large and deep narrative, last night's a cliffhanger episode arguably lacked the punch of BSG's finest mid-season finales. That said, the show still appears to have enough momentum and unanswered questions to fuel a full season.
Caprica has wisely, I think, managed to keep the BSG homages and portents to a minimum so far, focusing instead on building a layered universe with a smart retro-future aesthetic that meshes BSG storytelling and Mad Men style, with the CGI small-scale and non-intrusive. Viewers have to admire the care taken in the world-building, such as the intricate slang and rituals created for the "foreign" Tauron characters. It is familiar yet other-worldly.
There have been plenty of present-day analogies and weighty themes thrown into the mix. Already we've seen sexual politics, moral grey areas, and techno-espionage aplenty, but the depiction of Caprican society has been particularly on the nose. Theoretically it's got it all, embracing the unlimited potential of technology, but something is rotting inside. It's spinning out of control: a world where some would rather flee into virtual reality or join terrorist cults than participate in meaningless conspicuous consumption.
Eric Stoltz as Daniel Graystone has emerged as the real gem in the cast. BSG's producers clearly like conflicted scientists (see also Gaius Baltar), and Stoltz excels at playing a complex genius driven by such grief and hubris that he creates the downfall of his entire race. We saw one particularly gripping character moment in episode eight, when Daniel tried to provoke his daughter into betraying her presence in the U-87 by playing on her childhood fears of fire.
I've really liked this show, even as the ratings have struggled to recover from an initial drop-off. While Syfy continues to tout the show's performance with the ever-important younger demo, I've watched the weekly tally hover right around a million viewers. The numbers for Friday's cliffhanger show 1.1 million viewers, with a 0.5 rating for adults 18-49 (tied for a series high). Yes, the season premiered right up against the Haiti telethon, and the hyper-serialized nature of Caprica has meant that it's harder for newbies to access the series if they missed week 1 or 2. I, for one, think the show would do a whole lot better if it aired on a different night of the week.
But I digress. The show's producers have clearly been building up to last Friday's cliffhanger, and Syfy has now pulled it off the air until the fall, in hopes that a larger audience learns to love the show by then. You can find most of the episodes in their entirety right here, and if you are one of those few who catches up with it during this indefinite “hiatus,” here's betting that you fall into one of two camps: The viscerally bored or the intellectually stimulated.
The gulf between these extremes illustrate's the show's ratings problem. Caprica may be a Battlestar Galactica prequel, but it's a show that up to this point has almost been devoid of action. It's an insulated bubble of a thing, about two dead daughters, two fathers who aren't quite getting the whole mourning process, and the virtual avatars of these two girls who continue to roam through a futuristic virtual space. (I've written truckloads of detailed copy about the show over at Techland, and you can find all the detailed analysis here, along with an interview with the show's co-creator here). There was a brilliant moment in an early episode where the series all but came to a standstill in a black box, with three avatars looking at each other. In one corner was the virtual representation of a living teenage girl. In another corner was the avatar of Zoe Graystone, who created a standalone virtual replica of herself prior to her death. And in a third corner was the avatar of another dead girl, constructed after her death in a botched experiment. She has no memories of her real-life alter-ego. She is a wandering CG construct, existing unto herself.
Confused yet?
Yes, all of this is quite trippy, but that's part of the show's allure. It keeps scrambling up our conventional notions of humanity, reality and morality. In these three avatars, we see a sliding scale of humanity, between the real girl in a fake world, the echo of a real girl in a fake world, and then the fake replica in a fake world. All three avatars can function, and feel emotion, but they represent very different things. So who's real, and who's not? As Zoe's avatar is downloaded into a robot in the real world, does she owe any allegiance to Zoe's father? After all, technically Zoe is dead. This is Zoe II, with a mission all her own. For all the series' flaws, they have successfully given us a character who is neither human nor robot. But something in between. That's pretty remarkable. Now I know that Jim hasn't been covering this show intimately, so it's a little hard for me to bring everyone up to speed. And I guess that's not really the point of this post, anyway. I merely wanted to give a shout-out to a show that I think has turned a rather significant corner. In last Friday's "mid-season finale," each and every storyline exploded (or imploded, depending on how you look at it). Daughters betrayed their fathers, characters attempted suicide, cyborgs that were locked down in computer labs have now broken out, and are engaged in high-speed car chases. Even a sweet-natured high school teacher, who did little more than sit around and talk for the majority of the first season, is involved in a car bombing. I'm going to refrain from giving away all the twists and turns, and instead encourage you to simply catch up with Caprica while it's away on break. Give some heady, smart sci-fi a try. As someone who thinks that A.I. is the best sci-fi film of the last decade, I have been thoroughly riveted by Caprica, and all the moral implications of its artificial life. If you could bring a dead loved one back in the form of a hologram, would you? Should you? What does it mean, to cheat death and escape mourning? And what would your loved one's replica owe you? Heck, what is love? Is it the exchange of emotion, or a one-way affair?
While we wait for the second slug of Season One of Caprica, you can catch up with more information via the SyFy Channel in the US or Sky One in the UK. If you’ve missed Caprica, the extended pilot is available on DVD for US Here and UK Here while the second part of season one of Caprica is planned for Autumn [if you live in the UK], or Fall [if you live in the US] 2010.
Personally speaking, I’m rather excited to see what happens when human material gets integrated into the machine, because with Caprica, we are taking a glimpse into the future; as long as we don’t destroy all we survey.
I love independent SF / Horror movies that have an existential angle; films that divide an audience; films that require thought, attention and imagination such as PRIMER, The Jacket, The Butterfly Effect [I and III]. I was fortunate to view on DVD a remarkable film last week entitled THE OBJECTIVE, and this movie has settled into my brain ever since.
So what’s THE OBECTIVE about?
Forces in the front lines of the war on terror find themselves battling a foe more deadly than a bomb in this thriller. Ben Keynes (Jonas Ball) is a CIA operative based in the Middle East whose is keeping an eye peeled for a potential crisis a few weeks after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Keynes is checking some readings from a spy satellite when he discovers what appears to be a massive cache of radioactive material in the mountains of Afghanistan. Worried that Al Qaeda guerillas are constructing a nuclear weapon, Keynes arranges to join a reconnaissance mission headed to Afghanistan, using the cover story that he's trying to ferret out an international terrorist leader. Keynes and the soldiers head into the mountains with a local, Abdul (Zindune Chems Eddine), serving as both translator and guide. Abdul warns Keynes and the soldiers that their intended destination is considered sacred ground by Afghans, and that they're risking their lives by trespassing. Keynes pays him little mind, but he and the soldiers soon discover that Abdul's warnings were well founded, and that a supernatural force lurks in the mountains more dangerous than any band of terrorists.
Co-Written and Directed by Daniel Myrick, best known for his work as the co-writer / Co-director of 1999’s independent smash-hit movie The Blair Witch Project; Myrick’s THE OBJECTIVE is a far deeper and complex movie which can be interpreted in several ways [as to its meaning and the bleakness of its final reel]. Some people hated the movie, which I put down to that fact many people today watch films and expect the film-team to have laid out the plot and resolution out completely; wheras, THE OBJECTIVE requires the viewer to concentrate in order to understand and interpret what they see. Like the ulimate objective of life and death, THE OBJECTIVE offers no clear answers, except [possibly] one, if you care to concentrate.
I strongly recommend you take the time to view one of 2009’s most interesting movies – and as it's on DVD, it is even more intriguing on a second viewing – But a warning; THE OBJECTIVE is really scary.
As a student I studied Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, and being named Ali, growing up in the 1960’s / 1970's meant that when it came to cast the school production; my deeply-racist drama teacher cast me in the role of Cassius; as one of my [many] nick names growing up in those days was ‘Clay’. I used to have to fight a lot of wankers & bullies, being the only black kid in the school. Many wankers wanted to fight me due to Mohammed Ali [aka Cassius Marcellus Clay] being in the spotlight a lot; and being a sucessful black man was something new for many people to accept. I am glad I was named Ali; like in the Johnny Cash song 'A Boy Called Sue' - if you know what I mean.
I digress as ever.
The soothsayer’s warning line from Julius Caesar ‘Beware the Ides of March’ seems somewhat apt to me today, as on March 12th - two of my favourite contemporary novels hit the silver screen on the same day in the UK. Fortunately I’ve already seen ‘The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’ in a press screening last year, so my ticket for Dennis Lehane’s sHuTtEr iSLanD is organized.
I for one do not fear ‘The Ides of March’ – in fact I am rather looking forward to them as both novels like a punch from Ali, float like butterflies, but they linger in the mind like a sting from a bee
This is a coping mechanism often credited as originating from the French school of existential writing from writers such as Voltaire, Camus, Sartre et. al. But many other writers such as J. G. Ballard had the same thoughts. Ballard was quoted as saying –
"The most prudent and effective method of dealing with the world around us is to assume that it is a complete fiction."
That’s why I read so voraciously.
So to close the weekend, I thought I’d leave you with an existential joke -
Jean-Paul Sartre, the French existentialist, is sitting in a cafe in Paris. “Can I get you something, Monsieur Sartre?” says the waitress. “Coffee, please,” he says. “Sugar, but no cream.” She leaves him to think, but returns a few moments later. “I’m sorry,” she says. “We have no cream. Should I make your coffee with no milk instead?”
Personally, the best coping mechanism in the grim and absurd reality that confronts us, is the shelter that our family and friends create. I am priviliged to have a wonderful family and some very dear friends - a few pictured above.
I have someone close who is feeling pretty low currently.
No matter how I try and explain that we have to take solace in the ‘little victories’ in our day - to make ourselves happy. Life is totally relative and the way I cope with the ‘downs’ is to realize how I lucky I am, and that we should always use our good memories to make us remember the good times; rather than look at what’s currently ‘wrong’ in our line of sight.
Happiness is not a constant, but a ripple that vibrates along our journey that is our life, a life unique from everyone else.
I adore a couple of lines from Guy Garvey’s Elbow song ‘One Day Like This’ that seems to put this into persepective.
“So throw those curtains wide! One day like this a year would see me right!”
There are many great times in my life that I re-visit in my memory when I feel low, and these moments or ‘days’ I re-explore, to make my world seem right.
This Video of Guy Garvey and Elbow singing with the BBC Concert Orchestra [and the Radio 3 choir of the year Chantage] celebrates how we have to smile when we feel low -
One Day Like This by Guy Garvey of Elbow
Drinking in the morning sun Blinking in the morning sun Shaking off the heavy one Heavy like a loaded gun What made me behave that way? Using words I never say I can only think it must be love Oh, anyway, it's looking like a beautiful day Someone tell me how I feel It's silly wrong but vivid right Oh, kiss me like the final meal Yeah, kiss me like we die tonight Cause holy cow, I love your eyes And only now I see the light Yeah, lying with me half-awake Oh, anyway, it's looking like a beautiful day When my face is chamois-creased If you think I'll wink, I did Laugh politely at repeats Yeah, kiss me when my lips are thin Cause holy cow, I love your eyes And only now I see you like Yeah, lying with me half-awake Stumbling over what to say Well, anyway, it's looking like a beautiful day So throw those curtains wide! One day like this a year would see me right!
Here’s Guy Garvey putting things into perspective so why not take a wider look at your life, and throw those curtains wide and celebrate what’s good, and when you have a good day, store it in your memory for when you might need to retreat from a difficult day.
I use Books, Films & Music to distract my mind from all that is wrong in my ‘line of sight’ – and to be perfectly fair, I could wallow in ‘sadness’ at what’s wrong.
I chose not to.
I look at what’s right and what’s good in my world; but at times, like my friend, it is very hard to smile – but if you don’t – there lies the path of madness.
There are numerous celebrations of the life of Robert B Parker in newsprint and the web. Suffice it to say, he influenced many writers of crime fiction, specifically PI Fiction with his Spenser and Hawk series. I read many of his novels, including Poodle Springs, the Chandler work and have to state that Robert B Parker was a legend to many of us.
I will leave the last post to fellow Boston writer Dennis Lehane - “He cast an enormous shadow over all of us, and that gets obscured because of how ridiculously successful he was, ” said Lehane in a WBUR interview on Tuesday. “He was the king of Boston. We were all kind of princes at best.”
Lehane followed in Parker’s footsteps with his own Boston-based crime fiction, including novels such as “Mystic River.” Lehane says the hero of Parker’s three dozen “Spenser” books, the uniquely tough private investigator, changed the way private eyes were featured in fiction. Parker created a character who was tough and fearless but also sensitive, well-read and devoted to his longtime girlfriend.
“There was private eye fiction before Parker and private eye fiction after Parker,” said Lehane. “And you can literally split it into those sort of epochs. It’s BP and AP.” According to Lehane, Parker also revolutionized the genre by incorporating topical issues and humor.
“He was really, really funny, and that was huge,” said Lehane. “For me and my friends, who were 12, 13, 14, to pass those books around because they were so hard to find. It was all about that Boston sense of humor.”
Lehane says he used to haunt old bookstores to find Parker’s fiction, and met the late author at a book signing when Lehane was 19.
“I still have a vision of him crossing Cambridge St. towards the store,” said Lehane, “and being, ‘that’s Robert. B Parker.’”
Photo Left (c) 2009 Ali Karim 'Better Days' at Bruce Springsteen in London's Hyde Park (Ali Karim, Nick Stone and Stav Sherez)
"Tell me, Will. Did you enjoy it? Your first murder? Of course you did. And why shouldn't it feel good? It does to God. Why only last week in Texas, he dropped a whole church roof on the heads of 34 of his worshippers, just as they were groveling for him. He wouldn't begrudge you one Journalist."
I’m not going to get all Richard Dawkins, despite having a great deal of respect for his work as a fellow scientist. But when a tragedy of the magnitude of the earthquake that struck one of the poorest countries in the World, Haiti; one does have to speculate about our existence and its meaning, if there is any?
I didn’t know anything about Haiti until I read Nick Stone’s blistering debut ‘Mr Clarinet’ several years ago. A friendship developed that lead me to discover more about this land, and what I found was not pleasant, in fact it made me realize how much dignity the people of this land have, considering how they are forced to live.
Nick Stone has taken down all the content on his website, and placed an international appeal to help the people who survived the earthquake, but who now are in dire need of help.
If you are human, and have any feelings I would urge you to do whatever you can HERE. I know money is tough all round, but in Haiti, it is sheer hell and anything, anything, anything you can do to will help.
"Your support will help to ensure that the rights of children in Haiti are not forgotton - including their right to be healthy.UNICEF has been present in Haiti since 1949.
We are working to provide clean water, shelter and medical help to children and families affected.
UNICEF relies entirely on voluntary contributions and receive no funding from the United Nations budget. "
The plot for my debut novel, Mr Clarinet didn’t come to me all at once. I got it in two installments. The first came to me in Haiti in December 1995, where I was visiting my family for the holidays. At the time, I hadn’t seen most of them nor set foot in the country for thirteen years.
I remember the moment lightning struck. It was midday – bright and baking. I was pacing around the courtyard with my late grandfather’s Model 10 Smith & Wesson revolver. I was having a nostalgic moment.
We went back, the gun, the courtyard and me. My first memory – age three - is of playing in the courtyard; my second is of the dog that approached me moments later. It was a stray black German Shepherd. It didn’t snarl or growl or even bark. It didn’t run up to me and pounce. It simply strolled into my life and – my third memory - clamped its jaws around my forearm and pulled me off my feet.
What happened next is a blank, although I’ve long since had the empty spaces filled in for me by people who weren’t there. My grandfather was sitting nearby in the shade, watching over me. This was something he liked to do while he still could. He was dying of cancer and knew he didn’t have long to go.
He shot the dog with the pistol he always kept at his side in case of thieves. Two weeks later he died in his sleep.
My uncle Jean inherited the pistol. He mounted it in a glass case and used to pass it around at dinner parties, whenever the conversation went stale. I found the gun quite by accident, still sitting in its display case, on top of a cupboard in the house I was staying in.
Jean told me the weapon’s history and then took it out of the case and handed it to me. It had a dull grey finish and a wooden grip which had turned almost black with time. It was heavier and sturdier than it looked. The day I took the pistol for a walk in the courtyard – all the while mentally recreating the scene where my grandfather had saved my life - I noticed something about it I hadn’t initially seen, something only the intense sunlight revealed. On one side of the grip, close to the end, three thin straight lines, each about a centimetre long, had been crudely scored into the wood. I guessed what they stood for.
I wondered how my grandfather had felt, being God three times over, for a split second each. I wondered how he’d lived with himself afterwards.
And that was how and when I got the first idea for my novel. Simple, really: I’d create a character who’d killed three people. I’d give him bad dreams and a mounting sense of remorse. I’d make him sorry.
*
Haiti, in case you don’t know, is a Caribbean island, situated roughly between Cuba and Jamaica. It shares a border with the Dominican Republic. You can’t miss it when you fly over it. It’s the colour of rust on rust. Its neighbours are all lush and green, healthy and abundant. Haiti looks like it doesn’t belong there, like it’s floated in from another, sorrier part of the world, a place where it barely rains and nothing ever grows or lasts.
Haiti is apart, unique and alone, as are its people. They’re also exceptionally funny: two hundred plus years of living with almost constant natural and man-made disasters means there’s gallows humour in the DNA.
I returned to live and work there in September 1996. I’d got a marketing job in a now defunct local bank, based in the capital, Port-Au-Prince. I stayed until December 1997.
The place was a disaster zone. Think of some war/famine/drought ravaged African landscape teeming with extreme poverty and disease and you’ll get a picture of what it was like.
You couldn’t – and still can’t - drink the tapwater in Haiti. It’s so filthy you’re urged to keep your mouth shut when you’re having a shower. The electricity supply is temperamental. Powercuts can last for days. Everyone who can afford one has a generator. Everyone else lives by candlelight or in complete darkness. There are precious few streetlights in Haiti. It’s not only the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, it’s also the darkest.
The crime rate rocketed on the island: murders, home invasions, carjackings, rapes, drug trafficking and, very disturbingly, a whole new dark phenomenon - child kidnapping.
Children had always gone missing in Haiti. Most of them had disappeared for good, never to be seen nor heard from again. There were rumours of adoption rackets, black magic ceremonies, child labour and other things I won’t go into here, but kidnapping was a whole new ball game. And for once it wasn’t the poor who were suffering the worst, but the rich. After all, only they could afford to pay the ransoms.
When I heard about this I got the rest of the idea for my book. I’d send my triple murderer to Haiti to look for a missing child. I’d make him a private detective. He’d be haunted by his past - the life he’d lived, the lives he’d taken and the consequences he’d reaped. His name would be Max Mingus, after an old school friend who’d got me reading Kafka, and one of my heroes, the very great Charles Mingus: jazz bassist extraordinaire, band leader, composer, bully, brawler, genius and author of Under the Underdog – the quintessential jazz autobiography, written as lopsided noir.
Meanwhile news comes to us that [Sam] Raimi is planning to kickstart another franchise: “The World of Warcraft” written by novelist Dennis Lehane, whose novels Mystic River and Shutter Island has already being transformed into celluloid screen.
So the change in crew means there will be no sequels to Spiderman 3 but now we are going for a prequel ride, hope the new movie comes up with the same magic and action, though fans will be sad for the departure of the old team who have taken the webslinger franchise to a new height and so is Columbia Pictures President Matt Tolmach as he said: “This is a bittersweet moment for us because while it is hard to imagine Spider-Man in anyone else’s hands, I know that this was a day that was inevitable.”
There are some thriller writers who I admire for their narrative ability, and there are those who not only tell a good story, but also provoke thought and insight into your own life. Their fiction sometimes can provide introspection – and Peter James is one of those writers.
James is also incredibly generous and full of information about the writing process, as well as ‘left-of-field’ trivia, something I enjoy tremendously.
I often bump into him during various events, and each time is a joy. Last December he generously took a smattering of reviewers and journalists for what has now become an annual tradition – The Peter James Lunch!
After the lunch, Peter James kindly signed 3 copies of his latest bestseller - DEAD TOMORROW for a competition at Shots Magazine, so you have a chance to explore the dark side of Brighton with Roy Grace, Peter’s Detective.Click Here to Enter And to learn about the dark world of Peter James thriller series featuring Roy Grace – Click HereThere are no geographical restrictions to the competition
“They took from their surroundings what they needed, and made of it something more.”
- PRIMER [2004]
A few years ago, I watched an extraordinary independent science fiction film called PRIMER written, directed and starring a young man called Shane Caruth. I got word of the film in 2005, when it was the talk of the Sundance Film Festival in 2004, winning the Grand Jury Prize.
When the DVD was released, I grabbed a US NTSC copy, which over the last 4 years, I must have viewed a dozen times, and with each viewing, I get another perspective of what I just viewed, and what it meant. What makes it even more interesting is that it allegedly cost $7,000 to make and Caruth refused to pander to the lowest common denominator – making it a truly complex and thought provoking viewing experience.
With its theme of ‘time travel’ underpinning the framework of two friends and their relationship that disintegrates when they start using their ‘machine’; Primer not only entertains, but also provokes very deep thought about our various reflections of the reality that confront us.
On New Year’s Eve, my son and brother-in-law watched it with me, and it certainly made them think. Of course the instant reaction was – “We need to watch this again” – and they remarked, “You love watching weird things” which made me proud.
I guarantee if you watch the first ten minutes of Primer; listening hard to the creepy and surreal narration that opens the film – you’ll be hooked. The weird thing is that Caruth’s main co-actor is David Sullivan who noticed my twittering about Primer and replied back, which freaked me out a little that night.
"Primer" is a puzzle film that will leave you wondering about paradoxes, loopholes, loose ends, events without explanation, chronologies that don't seem to fit. Abe and Aaron wonder, too, and what seems at first like a perfectly straightforward method for using the machine turns out to be alarmingly complicated; various generations of themselves and their actions prove impossible to keep straight. Carruth handles the problems in an admirably understated way; when one of the characters begins to bleed a little from an ear, what does that mean? Will he be injured in a past he has not yet visited? In that case, is he the double? What happened to the being who arrived at this moment the old-fashioned way, before having traveled back?The movie delights me with its cocky confidence that the audience can keep up.
"Primer" is a film for nerds, geeks, brainiacs, Academic Decathlon winners, programmers, philosophers and the kinds of people who have made it this far into the review. It will surely be hated by those who "go to the movies to be entertained," and embraced and debated by others, who will find it entertains the parts the others do not reach. It is maddening, fascinating and completely successful
Note: Carruth wrote, directed and edited the movie, composed the score, and starred in it. The budget was reportedly around $7,000, but that was enough: The movie never looks cheap, because every shot looks as it must look. In a New York Times interview, Carruth said he filmed largely in his own garage, and at times he was no more sure what he was creating than his characters were. "Primer" won the award for best drama at Sundance 2004.
Ali Karim - is Assistant Editor at Shots eZine, a contributing editor at January Magazine & The Rap Sheet and writes for Crimespree magazine, Deadly Pleasures and Mystery Readers International and is an associate member of The Crime Writers Association [CWA], International Thriller Writers [ITW] and the Private Eye Writers of America [PWA]. Karim contributed to ‘Dissecting Hannibal Lecter’ ed. Benjamin Szumskyj [McFarland Press] a critical examination of the works of Thomas Harris, as well as The Greenwood Encyclopedia of British Crime Fiction [ed. Barry Forshaw]. Karim has contributed to ITW 100 Thriller Novels due out in 2010.
Karim been three times nominated for a Anthony Award [2007, 2008 & 2009] as well as The Spinetingler Award in 2008 for special contributions to the Crime and Thriller genre.
A little while back following a sort out of some boxes of old comics; I ended up spending an afternoon re-living my childhood reading classic Jim Steranko comics I uncovered carefully wrapped in Mylar Bags. Since a kid, I have loved the surreal and existential artwork of Steranko, which fitted into the late 1960’s [and early 1970’s] zeitgeist, the James Bond imagery, the off-kilter reality and the wiff of science fiction entering our reality.
There are numerous celebrations of the life of Robert B Parker in newsprint and the web. Suffice it to say, he influenced many writers of crime fiction, specifically PI Fiction with his Spenser and Hawk series. I read many of his novels, including 
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