Monday Movie: James and the Giant Peach

James has been living with his two horrible aunts ever since his parents were eaten by a rhinoceros. He's lonely, mistreated and miserable. All that changes when he grows an enormous peach using magical crocodile tongues, and sails away with the transformed invertebrates who live inside it. He'll have to face up to a mechanical shark and a crew of drowned pirates (among other dangers) along the way, but it seems he may finally get the chance to fulfil his parents' dream of reaching New York.

Director Henry Selick adaptated Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach into a mostly animated, part live-action fantasy full of magic and adventure. Stepping out from Tim Burton's shadow, Selick created an eerie, visually rich dreamscape suffused with the most fantastic dreams - and darkest fears - of childhood. It's marred only by that usual blight of American animation: gratuitous singing.

I HAS A ZZZZZZ

"Dany Boon est Bazil."

Twitch have all eight of the new teaser trailers for Jean-Pierre Jeunet's latest film - each of them focusing on a different character - right here, on the other side of the link that I know you just clicked on.

Yes, Dominique Pinon plays one of the characters. Why do you ask?

Thursday Comic

Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life - Bryan Lee O'Malley

Scott Pilgrim is an aimless twenty-something in a rock band that's not really very good. He shares a bed with his gay room-mate and is obsessing over one girl while dating another. Oh, and that first girl is using a sub-space portal in his head to deliver packages for Amazon.ca.

Lee O'Malley has a perfect ear for hip, self-aware, snappy dialogue, something he put to excellent use in his earlier Lost at Sea. In many ways, I think Scott Pilgrim is sharper and funnier, with its self-deprecating humour and constant video game references. And then you get to the last act, which sees the main plot arc kick into gear in a sequence that's kind of like the first moment in a musical when everyone starts singing, only the rules are taken from a fighting game instead.

It's a sequence that I'm certain will be amazing in Edgar Wright's upcoming film adaptation, but it seems a little rushed, and for something that should really be setting up the plot of this whole series, it leaves a lot of important questions unanswered. Lee O'Malley doesn't seem like the kind of guy to write about a woman as a passive trophy to be won by fighting her ex-boyfriends, and yet that's undeniably the set-up we're left with by the end of this volume. I'd like to imagine that future instalments acknowledge and subvert this, but as will be the case with most new readers, I only have the first one to judge.

It's weird, because, as I've mentioned frequently before, I'm usually all for mixing up the mundane and surreal, but the impression I've got from this first Scott Pilgrim book is that I much prefer the moments when it's being down-to-earth to when it's hyperactively adhering to old-school video game tropes.

Happy Earth Birthday, Cassini!

NASA's Cassini mission has been orbiting Saturn for five Earth years as of June 30, 2009. That's about one sixth of a Saturnian year, enough time for the spacecraft to have observed seasonal changes in the planet, its moons and sunlight's angle on the dramatic rings.

Visit the Cassini homepage here.

Monday Movie: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

World famous oceanographer Steve Zissou is out to find the mysterious shark that ate his best friend in Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. On the way, he'll be forced to deal with pirates, the airline co-pilot who might be his son, and his own fading legend.

I'm not sure exactly why I like this movie so much. Something about the combination of quirky-but-believable characters and impossible sea creatures (provided by animator Henry Selick), along with the brightly coloured sets, lo-fi synth music and frequent, dead-pan absurdity all seem to strike some off-beat chord in that peculiar organ I call a heart. A film that defies genres and explanations, there's probably no way to know if you'll like this one until you've seen it.

Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders: Part 47

Previously: “Kirkham was dead, the walls of Fortress City breached. Now Una, Sigrid and I faced the alien wrath of Prometheus.”

Part 47: Prometheus No More

As the house rained down around us, Una pushed me beneath herself. A brick bounced off her back with a metallic clang. I stumbled over shattering masonry, pulling Una along behind me. And we were outside, and safe.

Or not. Looking up, we saw Prometheus closer than ever - towering over us, its long, jointed legs splayed around the house like a spider over its prey. Una glided up beside me, rubbing her back with one hand.

Prometheus lowered its great, expressionless, human face, mouth open. I could feel my hair starting to bristle. I took Una's hand in mine.

Blue electricity began to crackle around us. Una squeezed my hand. “Well,” she said, “I suppose this is it.”

I pulled her closer and kissed her temple. The most peculiar sensation began to build in the pit of my stomach. If you've never almost been imploded by a Sky Spider machine, I can't really describe what it felt like.

But I noticed immediately when it began to fade away. The arcs of ethereal lightning stopped with a sudden pop. And the slick black skin of Prometheus began slowly to brighten and turn grey.

“Because we killed Kirkham?” Una mused.

I pointed to the almost imperceptible figure riding on the back of Prometheus. “Or because we had a little help from a see-through friend of ours.”

Like sunlight piercing the clouds, Prometheus began to glow with internal light, its replica of Kirkham's face warping into something stranger, and more reassuringly Sky Spider in nature. Before it had become almost completely white, Prometheus had turned and begun walking away, stepping harmlessly through townhouses like it wasn't really there.

Sigrid stepped out of the rubble of the old cottage, brushing debris from her shoulders. “What happened?”

“Kirkham lost Prometheus,” I said.

Sigrid nodded. “Well, he's got no need for it where he is.”

Una stepped away from me, looking out over the ruins of Fortress City, dust and smoke still rising from it. “What a waste. Yet more people without homes and food and who knows what else.”

“They're free, at least,” I said. “Which is what you wanted.”

“Let's hope they're not too proud to turn down help from Remus and Unity City.”

“I didn't think you...”

She shrugged. “How else can they survive now?”

Sigrid was looking around with wide eyes. “Wait, back up a minute. What have you two been doing here?”

TO BE CONTINUED...

Next week: Check back in a week's time for the next instalment of Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders!

Enceladus Knowledge +1

Credit: NASA/JPL/SWRI/University of Colorado

"Our measurements imply that besides table salt, the grains also contain carbonates like soda. Both components are in concentrations that match the predicted composition of an Enceladus ocean," [Frank] Postberg [Cassini scientist for the cosmic dust analyzer at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany] said. "The carbonates also provide a slightly alkaline pH value. If the liquid source is an ocean, it could provide a suitable environment on Enceladus for the formation of life precursors when coupled with the heat measured near the moon's south pole and the organic compounds found within the plumes."

However, in another study published in Nature, researchers doing ground-based observations did not see sodium, an important salt component. That team notes that the amount of sodium being expelled from Enceladus is actually less than observed around many other planetary bodies. These scientists were looking for sodium in the plume vapor and could not see it in the expelled ice grains. They argue that if the plume vapor does come from ocean water, the evaporation must happen slowly deep underground, rather than as a violent geyser erupting into space.

Read the rest here.

It also well worth taking a peek at the explanation for the diagram above, which outlines several proposed models for Enceladus' plumes. These recent observations have ruled out model A, but the others (or some combination of them) are all candidates of various plausibility.

Sepia Equinox

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Image source

Here's another image of an equinox shadow on Saturn's rings, cast by Mimas as before, but this time in natural colour.

Monday Movie: The Scarlet Claw

Canada, the fog-enshrouded village of La Mort Rouge: the church bell tolls as a dying woman tries to draw attention to her plight. Not far away, her husband is debating a sceptical Sherlock Holmes at a meeting of the Royal Canadian Occult Society. Does a mysterious and supernatural beast roam the marshes of La Mort Rouge, searching for its next victim?

The Scarlet Claw is almost universally accepted as the best film to feature Basil Rathbone's portrayal of the world's most famous detective. Director Roy William Neill rises above his often quite workmanlike and unsubtle craftsmanship on other films in this series, evoking an eerie, shadowed ambience to relate a thrilling mystery with a fair few twists and turns.

Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders: Part 46

Previously: “Prometheus had clawed through the walls of Fortress City - not an outcome we'd expected when we confronted John Kirkham. The future of the city was hanging in the balance.”

Part 46: Sky Spiders Ex Machina

The ground shook as Prometheus ploughed through the buildings of Fortress City. Its impassive face - a perfect likeness of John Kirkham's golden mask - bobbed over chimneys and rooftops as they collapsed into a rising cloud of dust. Behind it, Kirkham's hot air balloon rose into the air, its burner flickering against the dull fabric of the envelope.

Una and I turned to flee from the half-ruined cottage. And right in front of us, Remus' glassy Sky Spider automaton stepped into existence, as if rounding an invisible corner. Its huge, inhuman hands rested on the shoulders of a stocky woman in faded military fatigues, looking rather bemused.

“Sigrid!” I exclaimed.

She grimaced a greeting as the automaton faded away behind her. “Some airy-fairy pretty boy - or maybe it was a woman - snatched me off that rusty old ship and told me you two were in trouble.”

Una shrugged. “Oh, you know: same old, same old.”

Sigrid's eyes widened as she saw Prometheus tearing through mouldy, smog-blackened brickwork to reach us. “I don't see what I can do to help, save give you some company on the passage to the hereafter. Shouldn't we be running?”

“Have you ever shot down a balloon?” I asked.

Sigrid shrugged. “There's a first time for everything. Can I have that rifle?”

I handed Sigrid the rifle Una had borrowed from a deserting soldier, and she immediately dropped to one knee, sighting down the length of the barrel. I was about to say something when she fired. Una and I both jumped.

“Damn it,” Sigrid muttered, and started adjusting the little metal sight at the end of the barrel. “Who was supposed to be looking after this thing?”

Una said, “I got the impression its previous owner wasn't too interested in maintaining his equipment.”

Sigrid pressed the stock to her shoulder again. “Well it's a crying shame.”

Straight ahead, the row of dilapidated houses across the street parted like a veil of filthy mist before Prometheus' clattering, arthropodal legs. Sigrid barely seemed to notice.

She fired. The basket of the hot air balloon suddenly erupted into a shower of flames, disintegrating and dropping detritus onto the rooftops below.

“Shot the fuel tanks,” Sigrid yelled, over the avalanche of footsteps that heralded Prometheus' advance. “Now let's run like mad.”

She immediately sprinted towards the door, only to be thrown back into the room when one of Prometheus' peculiar electric blue missiles struck the side of the cottage. Another hit the wall with the collapsed, gaping window, and the whole rotten building began slowly to topple forwards.

I grabbed Una as she grabbed me, and bricks began to rain down around us.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Next week: We've been sure that it really must be it for our heroes enough times before, but now, surely, it really, really must be all over for our heroes next week! There's no surviving the merciless point-blank assault of Prometheus! Check back in a week's time for the next instalment of Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders!

Thursday Book

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - Haruki Murakami

I enjoy walking for long distances, but I hate running for even the shortest amount of time, so I can't actually comment on how much this book is of interest to runners. For die-hard fans of Murakami (such as, you know, me), however, this is at least worth a look, as it's possibly the most autobiographical work we're likely to get from a writer who's notoriously uncomfortable with his fame.

Murakami's been running for as long as he's been writing, an attempt to counteract the sedentary life he was expecting to lead as an author, and he sees these two parts of his life as being closely intertwined. It's a side of the man that I think some of his fans might find surprising, although his general lack of competitiveness (except against himself) seems somewhat more in tune with the thoughtful tone of his books.

Anyway, chances are that if you're a Murakami fan, you've already got this book, or at least added it your list - and if you're unfamiliar with the author, there are probably much better places to start than this. Unless you're a runner, of course.

DVD Review: The Good The Bad The Weird

At the start of Kim Ji-woon's The Good The Bad The Weird, three Korean misfits, their homeland occupied by the Japanese, converge on the same train in 1930s Manchuria. Following close in their wake are trouble and a whole hail of bullets. And that also happens to be what they're walking into as well.

First up, there's Yoon Tae-goo (played by Song Kang-ho, previously a bleach-haired and irresponsible father in The Host), a wreckless thief who just hopes to rob the train of its valuables. Next comes Park Chang-yi (played by Lee Byung-hun, the lead in Kim's earlier A Bittersweet Life) a vicious bandit on a mission to steal a mysterious map from the train. And pursuing Chang-yi is the bounty hunter Park Do-won - played by Jung Woo-sung, who I've never actually seen in anything before, but whose purpose here seems to be to look as non-threatening as possible while racking up the highest body count of any of these three anti-heroes.


Naturally Tae-goo, the Weird, winds up finding the map, forming a distrustful alliance with Do-won, the (relatively) Good, and then gallivanting across the Manchurian desert towards the map's destination with Chang-yi, the Bad, in hot pursuit. All three lead actors acquit themselves brilliantly. Song's comedic performance as the Weird could quite easily have stolen the whole film, but Lee's bandit exudes perfect, graceful menace, and Jung, while he may seem to get much less screen time than the other two, also gets to command the action scenes, cutting a swathe through Manchuria without batting an eyelid.

This film is an action-adventure, through-and-through. Every time you think that Kim must have surely reached a plateau and run out of ways to escalate the action, he pulls out the kitchen sink and throws it into the mix. By the final act, Tae-goo's motorcycle is being pursued by Chang-yi, Do-won and two rival gangs on horseback, while the whole lot of them are shelled and machine-gunned by the Japanese army. And while the eventual three-way showdown is far from unexpected, it still manages to feel fresh and bring a few interesting things to the table.


I've mentioned before that Kim has clearly taken inspiration from Leone in the past, but although this film does borrow a lot of the language of the western - amoral vagabonds embarking on violent misadventures in pursuit of riches - the biggest inspiration here seems to be classic Spielberg adventures like Indiana Jones. There's the treasure map, the huge real world sets that are inevitably blown to bits, the stunt-intensive chase with people leaping between vehicles and being dragged along the ground, and the general feeling that the film is doing everything it can to present you with adventure and spectacle at every turn.

Of those Korean films that are released in the west, it's almost routine to expect visual perfection, and Kim certainly doesn't disappoint in that regard here. The action direction's not quite as tight as in A Bittersweet Life, but events are always presented in a way that maximises their impact, be they moments of action or atmosphere. The sound design is excellent as well - not just because of the bombastic, multicultural, frequently anachronistic soundtrack, but because Kim knows when to let the action speak for itself, and also because he clearly understands that gunshots (of which there are plenty) should be loud and emphasised, rather than muffled or over-stylised as they often are in action films.


The Good The Bad The Weird is a rip-roaring, violent, characterful, colourful and sometimes hilarious action-adventure. It's a new entry in a genre that has been pretty poorly served so far this century, and watching it, it's strange to realise that. This is flat-out entertainment of the highest calibre, and anyone with an interest in chases, explosions, gunfights and gags should run out and find this film immediately.

HAY GUYS

HOWS IT GOIN

Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders: Part 45

Previously: “Prometheus had clawed through the walls of Fortress City - not an outcome we'd expected when we confronted John Kirkham. But it wasn't quite the rampage it seemed.”

Part 45: Birdwatching

“It's not moved?”

I shook my head. “Not a hair's breadth.”

Una shoved a brown paper bag at me. “I brought you food.”

“Thanks. And you found a rifle, I see.”

She shrugged. “I think its previous owner was in the act of deserting his post. He didn't seem to want it anymore.”

It had been hard work to find somewhere with a commanding view of Prometheus where you didn't have to walk up stairs to get there, but we'd found it in the end: a mould encrusted cottage that dated from times when Fortress City had fended off human enemies.

I'd set up a telescope aiming out of a gaping hole in the brickwork that probably used to be a window. Una sat down in the deckchair beside mine and laid the rifle across her lap.

“So,” she said, “you think Kirkham's just redrawn the borders? It's no longer him versus the Sky Spiders, but John Kirkham: zoo keeper.”

“Right. He's just going to sit up there and wait for everyone to come back to the city. If they come back at all.”

“They will,” Una said confidently. “There's nothing between here and the ocean except Circhester and the factory farms. They might be tempted to try looting the farms, but if they do they'll only wind up disrupting their own food chain. And Circhester will provide them precious little fun as well.”

“You know, people can be surprisingly decent in situations like this.”

Una leaned over to look through the telescope. “And surprisingly ruthless as well.”

I turned to look out at Fortress City and the giant black war machine sitting on top of it, insectile legs curled around the rubble of the buildings crushed beneath its bulk. “I keep looking at the area around Prometheus. Somehow I don't think Kirkham would want to be too far away from it.”

“I can see a lot of likely places. I wouldn't exactly care to wander up there and try searching for him, though. And even if we did find him - what then?”

“I'm not sure. Killing him might just remove whatever control we might ever hope to have over Prometheus.”

Una shrugged. “Or maybe it'll revert to whatever it was supposed to be doing before Kirkham stole it from the Sky Spiders. In any case, I can't see putting a bullet through Kirkham as being anything other than a positive step.”

I sighed. “Okay. Well, we can't sit here forever. If we don't make a move, Kirkham will.”

“What are you thinking?”

I shrugged. “Run away. Go back to Unity City. Stop worrying about who's oppressing who and relax. The whole problem with Fortress City is the people are living in fear, behind a wall and a load of big guns when they don't need to.”

Una smiled. “Tempting. But no. Don't let me stop you, though.”

I touched Una's shoulder and pulled her back from the telescope. “Look at that.”

“A hot air balloon. Is it the same one-?”

“I think so.”

“And you don't suppose?”

“Who else would you expect to find riding Kirkham's hot air balloon over Kirkham's stolen Sky Spider machine?”

Una stood up and brought the stock of the rifle to her shoulder. “It's still pretty low.”

“Do you really want to take the chance that it's Kirkham in there and not someone else trying to fight him?”

Una thought about it for a second. “Well, yes, actually.” Her finger tightened on the trigger and a look of almost childish mischievousness came over her face. “Are you a better shot than me, Perry?”

“Seriously, don't call me Perry. And I honestly have no idea.”

She sighted down the barrel and fired. We waited a few seconds, but nothing about the balloon seemed to change. Una pushed the rifle into my hands. “Well now we can find out.”

I worked the action and leant into the stock, taking careful aim, trying to correct for the range and the wind. Then I squeezed the trigger.

Again, no change in the balloon.

Una laughed suddenly. “Actually, I suppose we might both have hit it. It's not like it's going to just pop is it?”

“I'd imagine not.”

“If only Sigrid were here.”

In the distance, the silhouette of Prometheus began to rise, its legs unfolding steadily, joint by joint.

Una laughed again. I joined her. “Wonderful,” she said. “An opportunity to regroup and come up with a plan, and yet here we are: running from Prometheus yet again.”

TO BE CONTINUED...

Next week: Showdown over Fortress City! It's human versus Sky Spider automaton, and there's no backing down! Check back in a week's time for the next instalment of Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders!

Making Waves and Shadows

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Image source

Here's something you'll only see once in a Saturnian equinox. We already know that Saturn's moons play a big part in maintaining its rings - both adding material to them and 'shepherding' their edges. But here we can see the ripples that tiny (8km) moon Daphnis creates are themselves casting shadows onto the rest of the rings.

Daphnis' waves apparently have a vertical component of around a kilometer in height.

Thursday Comic

Batman: Hush (Volume 2) - Jeph Loeb, Jim Lee et al.

So here I am again for the second half of this superhero spectacle, and things are carrying on pretty much as they were before: still cramming in every notable figure in the Gotham City underworld, at breakneck pace, as part of an intricate plot that isn't nearly as carefully constructed as it seems to think it is.

The romantic aspect between Batman and Catwoman does show a little more chemistry here - I can't help but think that more tension could have been wrangled out of the way Selina Kyle has fallen for Batman while remaining disdainful of Bruce Wayne, but this book is more about being a notable collection of characters than any kind of love story. Huntress is back briefly in this volume, although there's no real resolution for her, and Oracle also (yay!) finally puts in an appearance as something other than a voice in everyone's ear.

My first impressions of Hush have pretty much held. If, like me, you've enjoyed Batman stories in other media and like the idea of having a Batman comic on your shelf - perhaps one which includes every hero and villain from Nightwing to Harley Quinn - then this is a pretty good choice. Lee's artwork is bold and full of motion, while Loeb's script does an admirable job of providing a handy primer on the state of Gotham City as it was in 2004, even if it's not quite the dashing mystery thriller he's shooting for.

Monday Movie: In the Mood for Love

Until this point best known for frenetic, hand-held, too-cool-for-school visuals, director Wong Kar-Wai and cinematographer Christopher Doyle (before their infamous falling out) suddenly adopted a more measured style for their atmospheric period piece, In the Mood for Love.

With languid, perfectly-framed camerawork set to a gentle, bittersweet score, Wong tells the everyday story of two neighbours brought together when they discover that their spouses are having an affair. As their hesitant friendship blossoms, their feelings are kept in check by fears of gossip and a determination not to become adulterers themselves.

Probably one of the most intense love stories you'll find about two people who never actually make any moves towards one another.

I haven't had much of a chance to think about Sky Spiders, I'm afraid. I've got this idea for a game that I alluded to, which involves doing something a little different. But while the game would still be rather small, it'd be larger than anything I've done before, and I'm reluctant to charge in blindly.

I'm trying to come up with a smaller idea to test things with, but looking through my notes all I can find are ideas that are probably larger than the one I want to do in the end. I think I may just need to come up with something new, although it seems a shame to leave my large pile of unused ideas untouched.

Anyway, that's what I was doing instead of focusing on Sky Spiders. Sorry.

Robot Stomach Photo

Credit: NASA/JPL/USGS
Image source

In a display of dexterity that's quite admirable for her age, Spirit has photographed her underside with her miscroscopic imager instrument. It's not something that this particular camera was ever intended for, so the resulting image is out of focus, but you can still see the rover's wheels embedded deep in the soil.

As well as helping the rover team to understand the situation, this image may also help them discern whether any of the ground beneath the rover is potentially hard or sharp enough to do her an injury.

The angle of the picture accurately depicts the angle at which Spirit is currently resting. The distance between Spirit's wheel tracks is about one metre.

Yay Samus

Nintendo have announced a new Metroid game that looks very interesting. I could see this going either way really. On the one hand, I'm kind of fed up with purists complaining every time someone tries to inject new ideas into the franchise - we've already seen Samus exploring desolate alien ruins plenty of times, and if maybe now we get to expand on the Metroid universe a bit, I'm all for it.

But on the other hand, part of the reason that Samus' world is so compelling (at least to me) is because her story is usually told mostly through careful implication. Even the dialogue-heavy Metroid Fusion had her alone on a space station with just a computer for company. If Metroid: Other M turns out to be a full-on cinematic sci-fi epic, it'll be in danger of losing its chief appeal.

To say nothing of the more obvious concerns with the team behind DOA: Extreme Beach Volleyball having some measure of creative control over gaming's strongest female heroine.

Green to Yellow

I really wanted to vote Green. Following this expenses scandal, there's great potential for parties outside the main three to make gains. And I'm very much left wing and pro-science, so Green seems like a good fit. I bet many people with the same leanings voted Green today without even bothering to check out their policies.

Because when I checked their policies, I found that although they're certainly left wing, they're also rather anti-science - the only non-religious party to oppose embryonic stem cell research, for example, because 'it's not clear where it might lead' - something that's applicable to any scientific research. And then they want 'alternative medicine' available on the NHS and to reduce their regulation.

Although I'm sure their PR machine would try and spin it the other way, I get the real impression that their science policy is generally about a woolly fear of anything that strikes them the wrong way, while blindly embracing pseudo-scientific notions that chime with their ideals, regardless of actual merit. And this is a considerable concern: the European parliament has regulatory powers that can easily disrupt research throughout the continent.

And then there's the simple fact that their environmental policies aren't actually much more far ranging than those of the Lib Dems, the party I reluctantly voted for yet again. Surely there's got to be room for some radical party that's all about stimulating scientific research, promoting social justice and protecting the environment?

Chrono Tone

So I finished Chrono Trigger DS a few days back. I'm happy to say that I still find it a very charming game, with characters that are memorable and compelling, and plenty of moments that made me chuckle and blubber.

I also noticed, perhaps for the first time, that the gameplay is very nicely balanced: there's enough slaying of monsters to make it feel like your party of heroes are saving the world, but you actually spend a very significant portion of the game just exploring, talking to people, and uncovering hidden bits of apocalyptic portent throughout history. Which is fine by me, because I've often felt that most Japanese RPGs are too much like a great story turned into a grinding ordeal by random battles, and Chrono Trigger avoids that completely.

It's difficult for me to distil exactly why Chrono Trigger is such a favourite of mine, though. I think it's mostly just a combination of things that all gel with my personal preferences - with its alternate reality time periods with steampunk technology and magic and dinosaurs and implacable alien monsters, not forgetting everything I mentioned last time.

But I also think a big part of it is the game's upbeat, positive tone. And I don't mean a saccharine 'everything is great' smile-fest, I mean a game where you see the end of three civilisations, war, genocide, death and personal tragedy - and yet our heroes always look at it all and decide to fight to make things better. The worse things get, the more determined they are to put things right. And that, to my mind, is just the way to make a heroic epic that's not leaden or pretentious, but bright, affecting and... you know, likeable.

Um so...

I think I need to sit down and plan out exactly how to finish Sky Spiders, because I'm not really sure what I'm doing anymore. Not that I was all that sure before, but still.

Friday X-Ray Blogging

An X-ray of then former US president Theodore Roosevelt, taken in 1912, following an attempted assassination while he was campaigning for his new Progressive party (popularly known as the Bull Mooses). Roosevelt declined immediate medical attention and went ahead to deliver a lengthy speech. This speech began:

Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose. But fortunately I had my manuscript, so you see I was going to make a long speech, and there is a bullet - there is where the bullet went through - and it probably saved me from it going into my heart. The bullet is in me now, so that I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best.

And now, friends, I want to take advantage of this incident to say a word of solemn warning to my fellow countrymen. First of all, I want to say this about myself: I have altogether too important things to think of to feel any concern over my own death; and now I cannot speak to you insincerely within five minutes of being shot. I am telling you the literal truth when I say that my concern is for many other things. It is not in the least for my own life. I want you to understand that I am ahead of the game, anyway. No man has had a happier life than I have led; a happier life in every way. I have been able to do certain things that I greatly wished to do, and I am interested in doing other things. I can tell you with absolute truthfulness that I am very much uninterested in whether I am shot or not.

Read the rest of it here.

Why do I even know about Wolfram Alpha?

I didn't understand why Wolfram Alpha was being hyped up so much in the first place, so I'm not at all surprised that it's turned out to be rubbish. It's not just that it doesn't know the answer to any of your questions, or that it's basically Wikipedia with hardly any editors, or that a web increasingly about linking and networking is never going to get behind something that tries to be your one-stop resource for other sites' data without properly crediting them.

The chief problem is that, well, Wolfram Alpha is really boring. A search for 'Saturn' just turns up a load of numbers and diagrams. Even a search for 'sex' just turns up a dictionary definition. It's too dry for people who aren't experts and too shallow for those who are.

Orbit Plane Shadows

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Image source with more info

Cassini has sent quite a few images like this over the past month, probably because they depict something that you only really get to see if you're orbiting Saturn around about the time of its equinox: several of its moons are now casting their shadows onto the rings.

This particular shadow is being thrown by Death Star look-alike Mimas, which isn't itself pictured.

Monday Movie: Tokyo Godfathers

When three homeless people - a teenage runaway, a ruined gambler and a washed up drag queen - find a baby abandoned in the trash at Christmas, they decide to investigate themselves rather than contact the authorities. But their attempts to find the delinquent parents lead them from one unlikely encounter to another, and everything surrounding this strange child seems prone to small, often unnoticed miracles.

In Tokyo Godfathers, director Satoshi Kon takes his knack for weaving psychedelic surreality into everyday scenes and applies it to a layer of society that most of us prefer to overlook. The result is a film with a perfect, grimy urban ambience that still manages to convey a sense of magical Christmas spirit. It's also a film that, with very few direct references to Christianity, nevertheless embodies the real, non-mystical significance of the holiday: humanising those outside 'normal' culture and arguing for forgiveness, respect and understanding.

Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders: Part 44

Previously: “Five years ago, the Sky Spiders descended from space and wrought untold destruction and change on our world. Now Una and I had discovered that the leader of the largest remaining group of survivors was EON-1 - a thinking machine once sent to steal the Sky Spider's secrets, now running Fortress City as his own personal nature preserve.”

Part 44: Cataclysm

Blue lightning crackled and fizzed throughout the room, the surreal giant face of Prometheus staring at us from a neat circular hole in the thick walls of Fortress City.  

 We ran, barely making it out of the room before it imploded into nothing, sucking plaster down from the ceiling and buckling the floor beneath our feet. Una floated on ahead of me, barrelling into a group of spindly black automata and sending them flying with barely a pause. And then she stopped dead in her tracks.

 “I don't suppose this would be a good time to use the elevator, would it?” she asked.

 Before us lay a long, shallow staircase with an ornate bannister. “Oh,” I said.

 “Push me.”

 “Push you down the stairs?”

 Behind us came the sound of brick and wood collapsing, the pistoning of giant, arthropodal legs. “I'll be all right. But I don't quite have the guts to do it myself.”

 “I find that last part hard to believe,” I said, still placing my hands on the back of her shoulders.

 “Lower down. I don't want to flip over.”

 I dropped my hands to her hoop skirt and shoved. She rolled quickly down the stairs with a quick shriek. I followed close behind, stumbling as the stairs began to move and crack. At the bottom, Una put out an arm to stop herself, punching straight through a framed painting and the plaster wall behind it.

 I grabbed her hand. “Are you okay?”

 “Fine.”

 We were in the main hallway of Kirkham's home. Servants bolted for the door as Prometheus' slick black limbs sliced through the walls.  

 I cursed. “What the hell is it doing?”

 “Let's find out from a safe distance,” Una snapped, pulling me towards the door.

*

The formidable artillery of Fortress City fired relentlessly, and without effect. Prometheus was right against the outside wall, clawing through ancient stone that had seen off whole armies of invaders. Most of the guns couldn't even aim at it, their barrels carefully blocked from swinging too far towards the city itself. But those that could only proved how impotent we were against such advanced technology.

 Again and again the great impassive mask of Prometheus rippled and distorted as high-explosive shells pummelled it at point-blank range. And yet whenever the guns paused in their firing, it reformed perfectly.

 Already the streets were full of people - the drab masses of Fortress City forced to seek refuge once more, heading inland en masse.

 Una pointed a gloved hand at a couple spilling out of their roofless home, ragged bundles in their arms. “Children,” she remarked. “I haven't seen any children in years.”

 With an explosive rumble, dust began to rise from the direction of the wall. Prometheus was within the city. As it pressed forwards, it pushed against a grand old clock tower, spilling age-blackened bricks across the rooftops below.

 “Is it coming after us?” I asked.

 “No. I think Kirkham's playing his last card.”

 “Then he's the only one who can stop it.”

 There was another thunderous crash as Prometheus hauled its bulk through town houses and factories. The guns of Fortress City were silent.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Next week: Oh no! Check back in a week's time for the next instalment of Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders!

Robots of the Solar System: Unite!

Credit: NASA/JPL

Here's one of Spirit's long lost siblings preparing to get down and dirty to simulate the rover's current situation in a more accessible environment. Opportunity has also been practising manoeuvres that may help her sister, while the Mars Odyssey orbiter is giving Spirit an extra phonecall home each day. You can read more here.

Thursday Comic

Tank Girl One - Alan Martin, Jamie Hewlett

Following high praise from certain quarters, I figured that I'd take the opportunity to check out the new, twentieth anniversary collected editions of counter-cultural icon Tank Girl.

Tank Girl, then, is a destructive sociopath who lives in some kind of vaguely defined futuristic outback where she has random, nihilistic adventures with a group of misfits and mutants - occasionally involving a tank or two. Nihilistic is perhaps the watchword here, as these stories disregard not just pretty much every social norm you can name, but also the rules for coherent, consistent storytelling and character development. The result is a glorious mess of anarchic imagination and unapologetic humour that maintains a real sense that these stories can go pretty much anywhere.

In these earliest issues, we can also see artist Jamie Hewlett moving from a more generic style towards the bold and characterful designs we know him for today, while writer Alan Martin also seems to increasingly eschew fourth-wall breaking anti-stories in favour of some sort of overarching plot. I think this, and the maturation of Hewlett's artwork, will probably bring me back to Tank Girl Two, once I get through a few more of the books on my stack.

So what am I up to, anyway?

I often find that the likelihood of my finishing a project is tied to how 'complete' the idea is when it first comes to me.

People wiser than me have argued that it's a bad idea to develop a game starting from a story, and other such people have made the argument that the opposite is just as inadvisable. At its most basic level, I think that plot is very amenable to games - I mean, what is this whole characters struggling to reach their urgent goals thing if not a recipe for gameplay?

Obviously there are bits that aren't so clear, like how to tell a story where the player-controlled characters don't win all the time without making the player feel like they should have been able to avoid defeat. And I think that's interesting to consider in light of a lot of indie/amateur games, which adopt a more short story/flash fiction style, which skips past that part of the plot anyway.

But I'm getting away from my point, which is that if you can come up with your characters and their struggle all in one go, it's better than coming up with one or the other separately, and when you're battling with one incomplete idea and a whole-formed one pops into your head, you have to go with the flow. I posted a little about a high-seas pirate game I was working on a while back. I still intend to finish that, once I figure out exactly what it is. In the meantime, I've been working on something completely different. You'll hear about it when I'm too far along to back out.

As for where Sky Spiders figures in all this, well, I guess that's the exception that proves my point. The point I stab myself with every Sunday.

Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders: Part 43

Previously: “Five years ago, the Sky Spiders descended from space and wrought untold destruction and change on our world. Now Una and I had discovered that the leader of the largest remaining group of survivors was EON-1 - a thinking machine once sent to steal the Sky Spider's secrets, now running Fortress City as his own personal nature preserve.”

Part 43: Confrontation

There were three of them, clad in long coats, their eyes stony and emotionless. At Kirkham's gesture, they each started to draw an eclectic firearm of some sort. Before I even had a chance to draw my own weapon, Una had moved with impossible swiftness, grabbing the nearest assailant and whirling him into the other two with such force they all burst open in a shower of shattered cogs and gurgling hydraulics.

Kirkham was remarkably unfazed at seeing his bodyguards collapse into a broken pile. Extending his arm to aim a gun of his own at Una, he shoot her twice in the chest. The bullets bounced off her with a quiet metallic ping.

Kirkham's single circular eye whirred and clicked. “I wasn't expecting that. Perhaps I've not been paying sufficient attention.”

“This is the point,” Una said, “where we start to renegotiate your position in the city.”

“It's funny,” Kirkham said, his gun still raised, “I always thought you'd be one in favour of preserving human culture. Has your new friend from the Select Committee been such a bad influence?”

Una said, “Put down the gun.”

I stepped forwards. “You want us to think you're so altruistic, but whose face is it on that Sky Spider machine? Who is it that has the last word on everything that happens in Fortress City? Who lives in this luxury while your citizens eat processed slop?”

Una glanced at me testily. “I told you to get behind me.”

Kirkham lowered his gun, but kept hold of it. “No, no, let him speak. It's rather remarkable to be lectured on altruism by one of those who waved the white flag to genocide.”

“We all reacted differently to the Sky Spiders,” I said. “The more differently the more we knew. Because it's the oldest and most difficult moral question. Is it right to kill one innocent person now that two may live in the future? I don't think there's a real answer to that. We all come up with our own one.”

“Humanity,” Kirkham said, “came up with its own collective answer in a hundred different cultures, long ago, with a prohibition against killing. It is one thing to be killed by circumstance. Another to be killed by intelligent action.”

“And yet the circumstance in this case is intelligent action.”

Kirkham chuckled. “So the Sky Spiders seem to think. I'm increasingly starting to believe that humans are incapable of intelligent action, this latest little drama being a prime example.”

“Both of you shut up,” Una said. “I'm the one who holds all the cards right now, and I'm saying that I want the humans of this city to be free of the Sky Spiders and Kirkham and able to make their own stupid mistakes and bring about their own stupid deaths. So put down the gun, Kirkham, and we'll start talking this out.”

“You hold all the cards?” Kirkham mused. “Because you're metal beneath that ridiculous dress? Because you can break a few primitive automata? I hold the only card that matters. Prometheus.”

There was a sound like someone stamping on both your ears at once, and the vault door that led out onto Kirkham's balcony imploded into nothing - a huge, perfectly circular chunk of the wall suddenly ceasing to exist. Una and I turned round to look, instinctively. Beyond the gaping rend in the city's thick, fortified wall was the immobile, impassive face of Prometheus, its features identical to those of Kirkham's golden mask.

In the commotion, Kirkham had disappeared. And under the intense, emotionless gaze of Prometheus, the centre of the room began to crackle and fizz in a sphere of blue lightning.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Next week: Prometheus is on the rampage! Does Kirkham really have control over it? And who can stop such a machine anyway? Check back in a week's time for the next instalment of Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders!

Thursday Comic

The Good Neighbors, Book 1: Kin - Holly Black, Ted Naifeh

In terms of originality, Holly Black's story of an American teenager discovering that she's half-faerie and being drawn into the in-fighting of a strange, ruthless and supernatural underworld straight out of European folklore seems like something that's probably been done before, at least in some form. Where Black really succeeds, I think, is in taking those parts of old fairy tales that modern children are typically denied, and instead drawing them out in a way that reflects more modern teenage concerns. Her characters feel real and they have real problems, in the real world. And if that real world, as Black relates it - with substantial help from Ted Naifeh's sumptuous artwork - happens to feature magic and people with horns, well, is that much stranger than the real world we average mortals experience?

Although Holly Black is perhaps better known, especially after the movie adaptation of Spiderwick Chronicles, I actually only picked up this book because of how much I enjoyed Ted Naifeh's Polly and the Pirates. Naifeh's on fine form here, producing a highly-detailed style that manages to feel more real than real, somehow, especially when it's depicting the impossible. But Black is impressive as well, taking to this new medium effortlessly, more than happy to let the pictures do their own talking.

I've always been fond of works of any kind that can convincingly marry the everyday with the imaginative and extraordinary, and The Good Neighbors pulls this off nicely. Book 1 is maybe a little short, and after the completion of this small arc of the story, I'm actually not all that sure where it's going to go next, but I definitely think I'll be reading Book 2 to find out.

Stuck Spirit

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Further to her recent slippages, it seems that Spirit has become stuck in loose soil. Following several days of unsuccesful attempts to get free, the MER team have decided it would be wiser to perform some Earth-based experiments before proceeding, as former Rover manager Mark Adler relates here.

This isn't without precedent - Opportunity became briefly stuck in 2005, but Opportunity has always been the more healthy rover, and with a disabled wheel and some issues with communication to add to Spirit's woes, I'm sure there must be a fair few worried parents back at mission control.

Monday Movie: Our Hospitality

Clad in a ridiculous top hat, Buster Keaton is the last surviving member of the McKay family - a clan with a generations old blood vendetta against the Canfields. But when he goes to visit his ancestral home, Buster ends up falling for the sole female member of the family that wants him dead. By the time either side realises who they are, he's instead honour bound to their hospitality. At least, as long as he stays in their house...

Our Hospitality offers up plenty of perfectly timed physical comedy, daring stunts (including fun with a waterfall and a steam train) and a rather sweet romance. It also saw the last appearance in a Keaton film of the unsmiling clown's long time friend and collaborator Joe Roberts, before his death at the age of 51.

Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders: Part 42

Previously: “Five years ago, the Sky Spiders descended from space and wrought untold destruction and change on our world. Now Una and I had discovered that the leader of the largest remaining group of survivors was EON-1 - a thinking machine once sent to steal the Sky Spider's secrets.”

Part 42: The Clockwork Gamekeeper

Una set her glass of wine down on the coffee table, and Kirkham set his mask down beside it. He watched us with his single eye of circular glass. “I'm surprised,” Kirkham said. “How long have you known?”

“I was only certain when you took off your mask,” Una said, “but I've suspected for some time.”

I looked from her to Kirkham. “Well this is all rather surprising to me.”

“And what do you both intend to do with this newfound knowledge?” Kirkham asked. “Bearing in mind that your answer is closely tied to your likelihood of living to see the sunset.”

Figures entered the room, moving quietly. I recognised the man who'd tried to kill me the last time I was in the city.

Una reached out a gloved hand to take the wine glass. “That's not very promising, EON-1. Because our answer is also closely tied to the reasons behind your deception. Are you just a petty tyrant taking advantage?”

Kirkham laughed. A strange expression coming from someone whose head was a featureless cylinder. “A tyrant, perhaps, but not petty. I'm concerned for the future of humanity. It's why I was created, after all. It's my most basic instinct. To preserve your culture. And your lives.”

Una sipped her wine. “How noble. And yet I wonder what Professor Layling or the Iron Queen would say to that last part.”

“We don't have the luxury of being less than ruthless, Viscountess. There are now less than one million natural humans in this city. From an estimated world population of one and a half billion five years ago. If some humans must die so that even more may live, I don't think we can rightly pick the worse ratio just because it happens to feel better.”

“Like a gamekeeper culling the herd?” Una suggested. “It's striking how similar you are to the Sky Spiders.”

“Perhaps. We're both interested in the future of human civilisation. But I hope to preserve it intact, while they seek to change it irrevocably.”

Una looked down at her hoop skirt. “It would change anyway. Everything always changes.”

“Yes,” Kirkham said, “for example alive people often change into dead people. I've done much to rectify that over the past five years.”

“Really?” I interjected. “You mean defending Fortress City with Prometheus.”

“Yes. Thank you doctor. Precisely.”

“And yet I'm still not certain,” I said, “exactly who you're defending it from.”

Kirkham's eye twisted and refocused. “From the Sky Spiders.”

“Who have no interest whatsoever in attacking us. Who never have. Who have killed us in our droves, but only ever incidentally. Why do the inhabitants of Unity City come to be killed by Prometheus? Why do the Sky Spiders send them and not their more advanced machines? If they wanted to, they could level this whole city in the blink of an eye. If they cared about it at all.”

“This is fascinating, doctor,” Kirkham said. “Do go on. I rarely get a chance to indulge such fantastic thoughts.”

“There are people who do care, though. The new humans in Unity City. All this time we thought that Prometheus was a guard, to keep the Sky Spiders out. But in actuality, it's a jailer, to keep us inside, and to take part in this little charade of defence you've organised with Unity City.”

Kirkham laughed again. “This is too much. Now I'm colluding with the Sky Spiders?”

“Not the Sky Spiders, but the new race of humans they've created. And not colluding, but threatening. They're beholden to you, for the simple reason that you have this entire city held hostage and they actually give a damn about our lives. Maybe the Sky Spiders would have the power to step round you, to disable Prometheus. But they don't care. And the people who do only have a fraction of their power.”

Una looked at me and raised an eyebrow. Kirkham said nothing for a while, and then stood up with a sigh. “EON-2 is still out there. An unknown quantity. That's all I really care about right now. Is it a traitor like the Seer? A well-meaning madwoman like the Iron Queen? Or a comrade in arms like my dear departed EON-4? The worst thing is that as long as it's out there, it's a potential danger not just to Fortress City, but to other settlements that have to exist outside my protection. And since neither of you seem likely to be much help in this regard, I'm afraid that your participation in my society has reached its end.”

He strode towards the door, waving a curt gesture to the figures waiting in the wings.

Una carefully set down her wine glass. “Get behind me,” she said.

I went for my gun.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Next week: Surviving John Kirkham is no small task - his own automata may be deadly enough, but that's nothing compared to the destructive power of Prometheus - and is fighting him even the right thing to do? Check back in a week's time for the next instalment of Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders!

Thursday Book

Mortal Engines - Philip Reeve

Mortal Engines occupies the same kind of Young Adult fiction space as Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials - the same kind of non-standard fantasy world that's actually science fiction, albeit not reaching the same giddy heights of imagination; the same kind of teenagers-versus-the-system conflict, but shying away from any real kind of statement; the same kind of awkward, adolescent romance, but not nearly as likely to make you cry.

I'm sure all these were points Reeve's publishers considered when they decided to run this book out of the presses. They are not the reasons I am going to tell you to read this book. Reeve's single greatest strength is his characters: all of them memorable, visually well-defined, larger than life and yet strangely believable - whether its dashing aviatrix Anna Fang or the ambiguously human war machine Shrike.

The story is related as two concurrent but distinct threads, and I have to say that I found the one that stayed behind in London (in the world of Mortal Engines, a city that is now both mobile and carnivorous) to be pretty boring. The other half, following a naive Londoner who's left behind by his city and forced into a reluctant partnership with a scarred and vengeful girl, stood head and shoulders above it - not least because I found the way their friendship progresses from awkward distrust to a strong (if still awkward) bond to be very touching.

Okay, the plotting is pretty, shall we say, 'loose' - everything makes logical sense, but the connections often seem a little shaky, and the foreshadowing is usually either too much, too soon or too little, too late, but still, in terms of memorable characters and relationships, this book looks set to stick in my mind for some time. (But then, there are three sequels to read as well.)

District 9

Consider me hyped.

Rover Slip

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Image source

An action shot from Spirit, as she slips backwards in ground that proved too steep. Spirit has been struggling more than Opportunity, due to her paralysed front wheel, but recently she's also been showing a few lapses of memory that NASA hopes is not symptomatic of the onset of a decline into senility.

Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders: Part 41

Previously: “Five years ago, the Sky Spiders descended from space and wrought untold destruction and change on our world. Una and I, among others, set out from sanctuary to try to find answers with the EON thinking machines that had interfaced with Sky Spider technology. But all the answers we got seemed to point at a greater danger hiding close to home.”

Part 41: Kirkham Unmasked

The people who we walked past, all of them clad in faded old clothes, barely noticed when the big guns of Fortress City fired, but I still jumped each and every time.

“I wish Sigrid were here,” I muttered.

“She must still be days away to the north,” Una said. “But I'm sure we can survive without her uncanny knack for disappearing from dangerous situations.”

“She saved my life when the Iron Queen was about to kill me, you know.”

“And I saved your life every other time, so relax.”

“I am relaxed,” I said, shrugging away some of the discomfort of my new shoulder holster. “I'm always relaxed. I just don't like meeting with Suzette.”

Una studied me carefully. “One day you should just tell her the truth about her husband.”

“That he'd sooner take the Sky Spider's asylum than return to his wife for the end of the world? Lies are the surest path to comfort and happiness.”

“Then why are you always so curious?”

*

We stood once more in the luxurious sitting room of John Kirkham, its intricate opulence somehow still dominated by that simple circle of steel: the vault door that led out onto his balcony over the ruined world.

To my surprise, Kirkham met us by himself. He stood in the centre of the room, his golden mask turned away from us, his arms folded.

“Where's Suzette?” I asked.

“Professor Layling,” Kirkham said with a sigh, “was always a physicist first and foremost. Placing her in charge of the city's artillery was a mistake. I'm afraid she was killed when some of our munitions detonated unexpectedly. From the aftermath, it's difficult to ascertain exactly what happened.”

Suzette. I was speechless.

Touching my arm, Una asked, “And the Iron Queen's head?”

“Also destroyed,” Kirkham said, still facing away from us. “And what about your trip north? Did you find EON-1?”

A moment's silence. Una and I had agreed before to share the truth about everything except our visit to Remus and EON-3. “No,” Una said. “Only a wireless transmitter directed at Unity City.”

At Unity City, I thought, and Fortress City too.

Kirkham turned to face us. “Really? How very peculiar. Although, I wasn't sure you'd made it there in the first place. You seem to have arrived back very quickly. For that matter, none of our watchmen reported you crossing over from no-man's land, and I don't see your old battleship anywhere nearby, doctor.”

Una shrugged. “There are plenty of ways to get around, even in these times.”

“And where are the others then? The Major? The EON unit you had with you?”

“Dead,” Una said simply.

Kirkham said nothing for quite some time. It was impossible to know what he might be thinking behind that mask of his. “So,” he said eventually, “EON-5 insane, then destroyed. EON-4 destroyed as well. EON-1 missing. EON-3 in the heart of Unity City. What do you intend to do now? Perhaps you'll finally head north to find EON-2, as I suggested before the last time you left. That was the unit that contacted you, correct?”

“Actually,” Una said, “I'm tired of all this gallivanting around. I was hoping to settle down with Dr Gleve and put my, uh, feet up.”

“I see,” Kirkham said carefully. “So you want to enjoy the protection of my walls while leaving it up to others to see that those walls are protected? How very noble.”

“I wouldn't worry about all that,” Una said. “I'm quite certain that your walls are very safe.”

“Oh really?”

“The doctor and I visited Unity City on our travels. It seems that the danger caused by the Sky Spiders has peaked and will eventually pass.”

“Unity City,” Kirkham repeated angrily. “So you've met EON-3 then? And you didn't think to destroy it? This ultimate traitor to the human cause?”

“It wasn't doing much of anything,” I interjected. “Just indulging its sense of wonder.”

Kirkham scoffed. “That damned viscount and his whole insufferable mob. Useless. Completely useless. How can you betray your whole culture so readily? But perhaps I shouldn't be surprised. You've never proven good at organised, constructive thinking. Anything beyond the strictures of your most short-sighted of instincts.”

“Kirkham,” I began, surprised.

But Una interrupted me, gliding over to the lavish couch. “Each time I've been here, you've always offered your visitors drinks, Kirkham. Surely you're not losing your touch as a host? I'm in the mood for wine. Something older than five years.”

“I rest my case,” Kirkham said. But he still stalked over to the drinks cabinet.

Una patted the couch and I sat down beside her. “What are you playing at?” I asked under my breath.

But Una just watched as Kirkham opened the cabinet, pulled out a green bottle and worked an elegant silver corkscrew. “What better way to welcome back those who have seen the world,” he muttered, “than to destroy a fraction more of our irreplaceable history.”

“Come now,” Una said, “Circhester may yet see its vineyards reformed.”

Kirkham filled a glass for Una, then turned his mask towards me. “Any for you doctor? Enjoy it while you still can.”

I shook my head.

Una said suddenly, “I lost my hands five years ago. It was the Sky Spider machine they called 'the swan' - immense and graceful - enormously destructive. Not vicious, I realise now, but oblivious to all the suffering it caused. The way you don't notice the bugs you maim and kill when you're planting seeds.”

She took the wine glass from Kirkham in her gloved fingers. “I have the hands of an EON unit now. They can be strong, or they can be dexterous, but not really both at the same time. I've never been able to work a corkscrew, for example.”

“I'm very sorry about your hands,” Kirkham said, “but is there a point to all this?”

“Just that your hands must be an upgraded version of the ones I have. And I thought my uncle had access to the latest technology. They're still similar, though. I'm surprised I never noticed until now.”

Kirkham threw himself into a high-backed chair opposite us and laughed. It was a dry, mirthless laughter, but he seemed to revel in it all the same. “Why oh why, viscountess, should technology be forever stuck five years in the past? Haven't we had the chance to study machines of unimaginable power and complexity?”

“Some of us more than others,” Una said, “EON-1.”

Kirkham raised his hands to his face and pushed back his golden mask. Beneath it was smooth, cylindrical steel. His single glassy eye regarded us with implacable calm.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Next week: So John Kirkham was EON-1 all along! But what trickery is this? What secret aims is he serving? And should he be stopped or helped? Check back in a week's time for the next instalment of Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders!

Friday Earth Man on Venus Blogging

Everyone knows that Venus is inhabited by nubile, scantily-clad women. Otherwise, why call it that?