Previously: “Transported, somehow, from the place where EON-1 was supposed to be, we found ourselves in strange company - and in Unity City. Our quest to learn about the Sky Spiders seemed to have come to a premature end – and to make matters worse, I learned that my close companion Lady Una was dying.”
Part 36: Kissing Una
We stood on the balcony, watching the last red rays of the setting sun colour the marble rooftops of Unity City. Lady Una – just Una now, we'd decided – leant over the railing, the wind snatching at a few strands of hair that had slipped from her bun.
“Had you been much to Unity City before all this happened?” she asked.
I shook my head. “To parliament at times. But they didn't like me much there. A few meetings with the Minister for Science, when she wasn't in Kingchester, General Cass as well, the bastard...”
“Always business.”
“Yes, unfortunately. Has it changed much?”
She looked around at the various rooftops and spires and domes. “No. Except it didn't used to all be white. It was grimy and sooty, like you always assume a city is. I grew up here, with my mother. I was always getting on the train to go visit my uncle in Circhester, or on the tram to visit disreputable characters in districts I shan't name. Do you remember me from before? You knew my uncle, didn't you?”
“He was a lesser evil. I never cared for weapons research, but with the Danegeld war, and then the Sky Spider seeding, I could never really get away from the military. Your uncle I didn't mind so much, although I suppose his war machines had killed more than any of his peers'. Do I remember you? I know he always had family around, but I never noticed anyone in particular.”
She pivoted around, turning her back to the view. “I'm sure we must have been in the mansion at the same time. Probably more than once.”
I said nothing. It was getting dark.
“It's for the best though,” she said. “If I'd been able to get close to you, I'd only have used you.”
“In what way?”
She smiled wryly. “Blasted title. I could never do anything by myself. I was always looking for ways to get into lectures, exhibits, dissections... I'd have hit the jackpot with you.”
“Honestly,” I said, “I didn't do all that much until the Sky Spiders came along. And then I only came to prominence because all the scientists better qualified to investigate wound up dying. Were you really such a minx?”
She looked down at her hoop skirt. “It's academic now. I'm not even human any more.”
“That's very academic,” I agreed. “Almost philosophical.”
The last sliver of sun disappeared behind the city skyline. Everything became dull and grey.
“I thought we might save the world,” Una said. “Instead there's only three of us left alive, and we're no use to anyone.”
“Saving the world,” I mused. “Would you think me a traitor if I said that I was only ever interested in finding out what the Sky Spiders are really up to?”
She scoffed. “I would, as a matter of fact. Peregrine...”
“Yes?”
She looked away from me. “Sometimes I forget who you are. There's the person I've spent all this time with, confided in, grown fond of... And then there's your place in history. Your role. Not a hereditary title, but things you've done of your own volition.”
“You mean the Select Committee.”
“You went to chat with the creatures that destroyed my body. To offer our unconditional surrender.”
“And you want, what, revenge?”
An angry expression flashed across her face before she quashed it. “You know what: maybe I do. Maybe I don't care why they've done what they've done. They have no right to cause such misery and suffering. Look around you. This was a city of millions of people. And now it's completely silent. Everyone is dead or forcibly subdued. These aren't actions that you try to understand and appease. This was an attack that we had to repel or die trying.”
I tried to keep my voice level. “Was it really, though? General Cass decided that it was, and he did die trying, along with a million other people who might well still be alive right now if he'd kept his anger and his arrogance in check.”
“Or maybe, if Cass hadn't given John Kirkham the change to steal Prometheus, everybody in Fortress City would be dead now as well.”
It was a good point. I struggled to think of a riposte for a little while, and then sighed. “I don't want to argue with you, Una.”
“Well perhaps I want to argue with you.”
I laughed. “Okay. I won't argue with that.”
Una touched a gloved thumb and forefinger to the bridge of her nose and laughed with me. “You bastard. I think I'd prefer it if I didn't find you so agreeable.”
I pushed her hand aside and leaned over to kiss her. She placed her hand on my shoulder and kissed back, then broke away and let her forehead rest against mine.
“You idiot,” she said. “There are still plenty of women left in the world who haven't been rebuilt with machinery.”
“Do you remember kissing me when you thought I might die? I've been alive some time since, so I just thought I should repay you.”
“With interest, it seems,” she said - then pulled away from me suddenly. “Remus. How long have you been there?”
Remus, standing just inside the door to the balcony, bowed with a flourish. “I was waiting for a suitable moment to interject.”
Una slipped her arm in mine. “There's no time like the present.”
Remus smiled. “I said that I would answer what questions I could. If you would step inside, perhaps we can begin.”
TO BE CONTINUED...
Next week: Questions? Most certainly! Answers? Well, I guess you'll just have to check back in a week's time for the next instalment of Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders!
10.3.09
Small Potato (Martian)
Image source with more informationCredit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
Deimos, the smaller of Mars' two moons, doesn't get nearly enough love, it has to be said. Time, then, for Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to turn its amazingly powerful camera on this little rock and show it to us in unprecedented detail.
Deimos is also the better behaved moon. Phobos (which MRO photographed last year), orbiting Mars fast and close, is expected to break up in the Martian atmosphere within the next hundred million years.
8.3.09
Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders: Part 35
Previously: “Transported, somehow, from the place where EON-1 was supposed to be, we found ourselves in strange company - and in Unity City.”
Part 35: Remus
Lady Una folded her arms. “Do you know this person, Peregrine?”
I shook my head.
With a swoosh of silk robes, our new friend bowed. “You may call me Remus. There's no need to be formal. I already know of you, Peregrine, and the Select Committee. When we found you, I'm afraid you'd experienced a fatal level of exposure to the toxins that result from our work in that area. We found it necessary to retrieve you and perform a mild restitution.”
“Necessary?” I asked. The servants, their heads bound with glowing Sky Spider machinery, silently placed trays of food on the room's single low table. I was hungry, I realised suddenly.
“Morally necessary,” Remus said. “It was within our power to help you.”
Lady Una swirled about in her hoop skirt, trying to avoid the servants and keep a careful watch on Remus at the same time. “And you brought me along too, because I seemed to be attached to the doctor?”
Remus turned to her, ignoring her question. “And you: Viscountess Una of Circhester. You're quite a peculiar case. No immediate danger, but we thought that we could at least discuss your condition with you.”
“I'm certain I will discuss no such thing with you.”
Remus' delicate features assumed a sympathetic expression. “But is the pain bearable?”
Lady Una flushed red. “There's no pain. What are you talking about?”
“You're an appalling liar. Even if I hadn't seen your organs for myself, I wouldn't believe you. Without drastic improvement - or replacement - that primitive machinery will kill you just as certainly as if your body had never been repaired. It would be remarkable if you lived another two years. Fortunately, we can help in that regard.”
Lady Una spoke very carefully. “You damn well keep away from me.”
“If that is your wish.”
Remus turned to me. “I am sure that you have many questions. I may not have answers for all of them, but I will be happy to hear them. In the meantime, perhaps you would care to eat. You must have questions for Una as well.”
The servants filed out - silently, orderly. Remus followed close behind. The double doors to the room closed with a heavy click.
I looked at Lady Una. She was as angry as I'd ever seen her.
“When he used the plural,” she said, “when he said 'we' or 'our', did he- or she- Was that referring to-?”
“I don't know,” I said. I turned to the food on the low table. “I'm hungry.”
“Were they uncertain what to feed us?” she said. “They seem to have prepared a little of everything. Does lobster really go with cheese?”
“Are you in pain?” I asked
“And I suppose they expect us to sit on the floor as well. Although, since my backside is made of metal, it's actually quite a comfortable position for me.”
We sat down on the floor either side of the table. Utensils had been laid out for us in long, silver rows. Spoons, forks, knives, chopsticks - and items I'd never seen before.
“Are you in pain?” I repeated.
She speared a potato with a fork. “My vital organs are crammed into bottles connected by rubber hoses. I might have become used to it over time, but I suppose there is a constant... discomfort. I certainly wouldn't suggest making yourself into a half-machine creature like me without very good reason.”
“And 'viscountess'?”
She turned the fork around, spinning the potato on her plate. “Didn't you think it strange that my uncle didn't want to see or speak to any of you after we arrived back from the Twisted Forests? He was like you in that respect. Always curious and eager for knowledge.”
“You said he'd taken a turn for the worse.”
She avoided my eye. “Yes, about as worse as it gets. He was already dead by the time I arrived.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Don't be. It's not like it was a surprise. Anyway, the title's hereditary. I'm his only surviving relative. But I'm sure you'd be the first to point out that it all seems so pointless and arbitrary. It's not like I earned it. I'd sooner be a doctor than a viscountess or a lady.”
“Maybe it'll suffice to be a Una.”
She smiled. “I'd like to think so.”
I looked down at my empty plate. “If... If they - whoever 'they' are, can help you - could end your discomfort and prolong your life, would you let them?”
She kept smiling. “If 'they' are the Sky Spiders, then I'd rather die.”
TO BE CONTINUED...
Next week: What do the Sky Spiders want with our world? To what end have they caused a billion deaths? Who or what is Remus? There may not be any answers to these questions, but still check back in a week's time for the next instalment of Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders!
Part 35: Remus
Lady Una folded her arms. “Do you know this person, Peregrine?”
I shook my head.
With a swoosh of silk robes, our new friend bowed. “You may call me Remus. There's no need to be formal. I already know of you, Peregrine, and the Select Committee. When we found you, I'm afraid you'd experienced a fatal level of exposure to the toxins that result from our work in that area. We found it necessary to retrieve you and perform a mild restitution.”
“Necessary?” I asked. The servants, their heads bound with glowing Sky Spider machinery, silently placed trays of food on the room's single low table. I was hungry, I realised suddenly.
“Morally necessary,” Remus said. “It was within our power to help you.”
Lady Una swirled about in her hoop skirt, trying to avoid the servants and keep a careful watch on Remus at the same time. “And you brought me along too, because I seemed to be attached to the doctor?”
Remus turned to her, ignoring her question. “And you: Viscountess Una of Circhester. You're quite a peculiar case. No immediate danger, but we thought that we could at least discuss your condition with you.”
“I'm certain I will discuss no such thing with you.”
Remus' delicate features assumed a sympathetic expression. “But is the pain bearable?”
Lady Una flushed red. “There's no pain. What are you talking about?”
“You're an appalling liar. Even if I hadn't seen your organs for myself, I wouldn't believe you. Without drastic improvement - or replacement - that primitive machinery will kill you just as certainly as if your body had never been repaired. It would be remarkable if you lived another two years. Fortunately, we can help in that regard.”
Lady Una spoke very carefully. “You damn well keep away from me.”
“If that is your wish.”
Remus turned to me. “I am sure that you have many questions. I may not have answers for all of them, but I will be happy to hear them. In the meantime, perhaps you would care to eat. You must have questions for Una as well.”
The servants filed out - silently, orderly. Remus followed close behind. The double doors to the room closed with a heavy click.
I looked at Lady Una. She was as angry as I'd ever seen her.
“When he used the plural,” she said, “when he said 'we' or 'our', did he- or she- Was that referring to-?”
“I don't know,” I said. I turned to the food on the low table. “I'm hungry.”
“Were they uncertain what to feed us?” she said. “They seem to have prepared a little of everything. Does lobster really go with cheese?”
“Are you in pain?” I asked
“And I suppose they expect us to sit on the floor as well. Although, since my backside is made of metal, it's actually quite a comfortable position for me.”
We sat down on the floor either side of the table. Utensils had been laid out for us in long, silver rows. Spoons, forks, knives, chopsticks - and items I'd never seen before.
“Are you in pain?” I repeated.
She speared a potato with a fork. “My vital organs are crammed into bottles connected by rubber hoses. I might have become used to it over time, but I suppose there is a constant... discomfort. I certainly wouldn't suggest making yourself into a half-machine creature like me without very good reason.”
“And 'viscountess'?”
She turned the fork around, spinning the potato on her plate. “Didn't you think it strange that my uncle didn't want to see or speak to any of you after we arrived back from the Twisted Forests? He was like you in that respect. Always curious and eager for knowledge.”
“You said he'd taken a turn for the worse.”
She avoided my eye. “Yes, about as worse as it gets. He was already dead by the time I arrived.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Don't be. It's not like it was a surprise. Anyway, the title's hereditary. I'm his only surviving relative. But I'm sure you'd be the first to point out that it all seems so pointless and arbitrary. It's not like I earned it. I'd sooner be a doctor than a viscountess or a lady.”
“Maybe it'll suffice to be a Una.”
She smiled. “I'd like to think so.”
I looked down at my empty plate. “If... If they - whoever 'they' are, can help you - could end your discomfort and prolong your life, would you let them?”
She kept smiling. “If 'they' are the Sky Spiders, then I'd rather die.”
TO BE CONTINUED...
Next week: What do the Sky Spiders want with our world? To what end have they caused a billion deaths? Who or what is Remus? There may not be any answers to these questions, but still check back in a week's time for the next instalment of Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders!
6.3.09
5.3.09
Thursday Comic
The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite - Gerard Way, Gabriel Bá et al.
Thirty years ago, forty-three women - most of them single, and none of them showing any signs of pregnancy - spontaneously and inexplicably gave birth to extraordinary children. Sir Reginald Hargreeves, a.k.a. the Monocle, world renowned scientist and secret space alien, sought out these children, succeeding in finding and adopting seven. When asked why, he simply replied, “To save the world.”
The Umbrella Academy is the kind of story where the writer - Gerard Way, apparently a well-known musician* - has clearly let his imagination run away with him. At a lightning fast sprint. Creating a book with talking chimps, the zombie-robot Gustave Eiffel and a violinist so talented she can cut you in half (lengthways) with a single note is quite a feat in itself - but more than unchained imagination, what‘s impressive here is how well this all hangs together, how all these disparate and impossible elements are melded into a cohesive whole.
I suppose that, since it’s about super-powered people trying to save the world, this is really a superhero comic. But it doesn’t feel like one. It feels like a story about a dysfunctional adoptive family trying to live and love in a world where pretty much anything can happen. A world that looks set to end in only a few days as a direct result of their own bitter in-fighting. It pleases me that the next story arc featuring these characters is already underway. If Apocalypse Suite doesn’t quite manage to find the time (in between flights of fancy) to fully flesh them out, that’s only to say that it left me wanting more.
*I don't really follow music.
3.3.09
Big Glossy Books of Joy
So I finally got fed up with sifting through the superhero comics in my local bookshops and decided to make an order from Amazon. I value the range of choice that you get from ordering things over the Internet, but I still like being able to pick up a book before I buy it, flick through the pages, check there are no surprises.
The surprises I got with these latest books from Amazon, however, were all pleasant. For a start, I didn't realise two of them were hardback, although they're both recently published so maybe I should have expected that (or just, you know, read the descriptions more carefully).
And there's also a lot of pages between these three. Honestly, I don't know where I'm going to put them. All my bookshelves are full as it is. Still, if finally reorganising things is the price I have to pay for hundreds of pages of gorgeous artwork (well, that and the money), then I think it's worth it.
1.3.09
Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders: Part 34
Previously: “We had found the outpost of EON-1 to be manned only by an automated wireless transmitter, patched into the network of Sky Spider machinery that grows through the soil of the Poison Wastes. Unfortunately, our activities drew the attentions of a Sky Spider automaton.”
Part 34: Commute
It steamed fast towards us, crawling bat-like over the ruined soil, moving with impossible grace, as if it didn't even touch the ground. It was transparent. Barely visible, except where the thick, smoky air curled around it.
Sigrid fired her rifle at point blank range.
The automaton breezed passed her as if it hadn't even noticed.
I grabbed Lady Una's wrist, feeling the steel beneath her sleeve. She lowered the barrel of her automatic pistol, rolling back just in time to get out of the thing's path.
It stopped in front of the ragged tent and, without even pausing, tore it away from its moorings with huge, inhuman hands. The small bundle of equipment within lay exposed.
A glassy hand lowered over the antennae of the transmitter, fingers multiplying and growing to spread out over the cylinder of the analytical engine and the hoses that bound them to the throbbing black machinery in the soil. And then EON-1's equipment was gone - fading to darkness, silhouette, non-existence. The hole in the soil sealed up in the blink of an eye, closing like an earthy iris.
Lady Una swore again, the curse muffled by her face mask.
The automaton turned around. Something vaguely resembling a head turned from Sigrid, to Una, to myself. Stayed fixed on me.
Its hand shot out again - smaller now, with fewer fingers, almost human. It closed around my throat before I could even think about trying to get away. The grip was like iron. No, worse, like the grip of an ancient oak, infused with the strength of aeons. Lady Una shouted something.
It lifted me up off my feet. Another hand grabbed my gas mask and tore it away from face. I screamed with pain. The thick, toxic smoke in the air burned my eyes. Through my tears I could see the Sky Spider automaton looking at me, face to face.
I gasped for air, but nothing could get past the choking grip of its fingers. The air was poison anyway, without my mask. Lady Una was firing her gun, but it seemed very distant. Blood thumped insistently in my ears.
I could feel myself starting to faint. It was with a strange detachment that I noticed Sigrid had pulled a characteristic disappearing act. Small wonder, I thought, that she had survived so-
An elegant sitting room, the walls lined with books. Double windows stood open onto the balcony, providing a narrow view of a marble-white city, tinged orange by the sunset.
Lady Una stood up from her chair with a swoosh of skirts. “Wait,” she said, “what just happened?”
I looked down at myself. I was wearing a new suit. I felt clean and healthy. The pain of breathing that I'd grown used to over the past days was gone. “We were in the Poison Wastes,” I said. “There was a Sky Spider machine.”
Lady Una suddenly patted the sides of her dress. “My pistol. I assembled it myself. It's one of a kind.”
I shrugged. “I've lost two and counting so far.”
She fixed her aristocratic gaze on me. “Oh, don't you delight in being unsurprised. I suppose this kind of thing is all old hat to you, isn't it?”
I started to speak.
“I'm not interested in your wit, Peregrine,” she interrupted, before I'd even got a syllable out. “I just want to know where we are. And perhaps some minimal understanding of how we got here wouldn't go astray either.”
I pointed out the open window. “I recognise that skyline. Don't you?”
She rotated perfectly on her hoop skirt and stared out at the sunset, her hands on her hips. After a moment, she sighed deeply. “I suppose it would have to be, wouldn't it?”
“Unity City.”
The voice came from the door to the room, now thrown wide open.
Servants entered: human and immaculately dressed, their heads encased in bright white knots of Sky Spider machinery. Following close behind them was a tall, slender person: androgynous and impossibly beautiful.
“Dr Peregrine Gleve,” the person said. “I'm sure there must be some disorientation, but please allow me to explain. I brought you here from the brink of death.”
TO BE CONTINUED...
Next week: Unity City. Everybody speaks badly of it, but is it such a bad place? Then again, surely some things are too good to be true... Check back in a week's time for the next instalment of Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders!
Part 34: Commute
It steamed fast towards us, crawling bat-like over the ruined soil, moving with impossible grace, as if it didn't even touch the ground. It was transparent. Barely visible, except where the thick, smoky air curled around it.
Sigrid fired her rifle at point blank range.
The automaton breezed passed her as if it hadn't even noticed.
I grabbed Lady Una's wrist, feeling the steel beneath her sleeve. She lowered the barrel of her automatic pistol, rolling back just in time to get out of the thing's path.
It stopped in front of the ragged tent and, without even pausing, tore it away from its moorings with huge, inhuman hands. The small bundle of equipment within lay exposed.
A glassy hand lowered over the antennae of the transmitter, fingers multiplying and growing to spread out over the cylinder of the analytical engine and the hoses that bound them to the throbbing black machinery in the soil. And then EON-1's equipment was gone - fading to darkness, silhouette, non-existence. The hole in the soil sealed up in the blink of an eye, closing like an earthy iris.
Lady Una swore again, the curse muffled by her face mask.
The automaton turned around. Something vaguely resembling a head turned from Sigrid, to Una, to myself. Stayed fixed on me.
Its hand shot out again - smaller now, with fewer fingers, almost human. It closed around my throat before I could even think about trying to get away. The grip was like iron. No, worse, like the grip of an ancient oak, infused with the strength of aeons. Lady Una shouted something.
It lifted me up off my feet. Another hand grabbed my gas mask and tore it away from face. I screamed with pain. The thick, toxic smoke in the air burned my eyes. Through my tears I could see the Sky Spider automaton looking at me, face to face.
I gasped for air, but nothing could get past the choking grip of its fingers. The air was poison anyway, without my mask. Lady Una was firing her gun, but it seemed very distant. Blood thumped insistently in my ears.
I could feel myself starting to faint. It was with a strange detachment that I noticed Sigrid had pulled a characteristic disappearing act. Small wonder, I thought, that she had survived so-
*
An elegant sitting room, the walls lined with books. Double windows stood open onto the balcony, providing a narrow view of a marble-white city, tinged orange by the sunset.
Lady Una stood up from her chair with a swoosh of skirts. “Wait,” she said, “what just happened?”
I looked down at myself. I was wearing a new suit. I felt clean and healthy. The pain of breathing that I'd grown used to over the past days was gone. “We were in the Poison Wastes,” I said. “There was a Sky Spider machine.”
Lady Una suddenly patted the sides of her dress. “My pistol. I assembled it myself. It's one of a kind.”
I shrugged. “I've lost two and counting so far.”
She fixed her aristocratic gaze on me. “Oh, don't you delight in being unsurprised. I suppose this kind of thing is all old hat to you, isn't it?”
I started to speak.
“I'm not interested in your wit, Peregrine,” she interrupted, before I'd even got a syllable out. “I just want to know where we are. And perhaps some minimal understanding of how we got here wouldn't go astray either.”
I pointed out the open window. “I recognise that skyline. Don't you?”
She rotated perfectly on her hoop skirt and stared out at the sunset, her hands on her hips. After a moment, she sighed deeply. “I suppose it would have to be, wouldn't it?”
“Unity City.”
The voice came from the door to the room, now thrown wide open.
Servants entered: human and immaculately dressed, their heads encased in bright white knots of Sky Spider machinery. Following close behind them was a tall, slender person: androgynous and impossibly beautiful.
“Dr Peregrine Gleve,” the person said. “I'm sure there must be some disorientation, but please allow me to explain. I brought you here from the brink of death.”
TO BE CONTINUED...
Next week: Unity City. Everybody speaks badly of it, but is it such a bad place? Then again, surely some things are too good to be true... Check back in a week's time for the next instalment of Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders!
27.2.09
26.2.09
Thursday Comic
Batman: Hush (Volume 1) - Jeph Loeb, Jim Lee et al.
Okay, deep breath. At the start of Hush, Batman is rescuing a Harry Potter look-alike who's been abducted by Killer Croc - only for Catwoman to swoop in and steel the ransom, under the orders (and noxious influence) of Poison Ivy. Pursuing her across the rooftops of Gotham, Batman's rope is mysteriously cut, and he lands head first in the appropriately named Crime Alley. Fortunately, Oracle is paying attention, and she's able to get Huntress (above) to rescue him from the local thugs and stick his broken body into the Batmobile. And inhale.
You might well expect a book to involve some kind of fast-paced opening - introducing the characters and setting up the conflicts and so forth. Hush, however, starts the way it means to go on. Namely by flitting around like a hummingbird and cramming in loads of well-known characters. The dialogue is pretty much exactly what you'd expect from a comic book if you'd never read one before and had low expectations, the motivations are paper-thin, and the story provides no real mystery or insight.
Perhaps it's unfair to judge, though. DC Comics' probable aim in publishing this book was also the reason that I bought it - to see acclaimed artist Jim Lee draw many of Gotham City's most popular characters within the confines of one glossy paperback. To that end, Loeb's writing definitely serves its purpose. Here a stern Batman punches people. There a sultry Catwoman performs acrobatics. And here Superman turns up and pushes out his lantern jaw. If all you want is to own a Batman book full of pretty pictures, then this is a very good bet, and that's certainly the chief reason that I'll probably pick up Volume 2.
Although, that's maybe not the only reason I'll buy it. Perhaps this underpins the whole reason why I thought this book was so shallow, but I liked the bit with Huntress, and I want to see where her chilly relationship with Batman and Oracle goes in the rest of the story. Is that just because Huntress is a main character in Birds of Prey - one of the few superhero comics other than this that I've read? If I was more entangled in the superhero monopoly that has a stranglehold over western comics, would all the other characters seem deeper to me through familiarity? I'm not inclined to think so.
I think that maybe the thing that stands out about Huntress' little sequence is that it's one of the few parts of the book with recognisably human elements to it. The tension doesn't stem from whether or not she can beat up half a dozen reprobates - of course she can - the real drama in this sequence is about how Huntress doesn't fit in with the other darkly costumed vigilantes of Gotham City, and whether she's even going to get credit for saving the most important of their number. It makes me slightly interested in reading some of Loeb's more humanistic works - as opposed to the pretty but unfocused cash-in that we have here.
24.2.09
At once, if not sooner...
Apparently made for the measely sum of $500, this short film set in the universe of Valve's acclaimed Half Life video game shows how the digital age can allow dedicated amateurs to create professional-quality productions. It's intended to be the first of a multi-part series.
23.2.09
Law and Order: UK
British police shows are almost without exception rubbish. They're soapy, melodramatic, unrealistic, slow paced and humourless - everything, basically, that US import Law and Order and its spin offs are not. Except now one of the Law and Order spin offs is British. How 'bout that.
The tried and tested formula has remarkably remained pretty much intact: we start out with two matey cops investigating crime in grimy London locales, before they pass the case on to a prim and be-wigged pair of prosecutors. The fat and fluff of your usual ITV crime drama has been ruthlessly pared away, leaving a lean core of procedural law and underplayed acting. Of course, at the moment it's easy to worry that this is only because the first episode directly ripped off the plot of an existing American episode. Only when the writers are forced to stand on their own two feet will we really know how much they've shed the bad habits of British TV.
Then again, that may all be a moot point. As the credits began to roll (really not sure about that theme tune), my most prominent thought was, “This is too good for us.” Nobody in the UK will watch this show. We may not even get to the end of the first season before it's been shuffled to ITV2, and then ITV will begin the tortuous process of washing their hands of the whole thing.
22.2.09
Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders: Part 33
Previously: “Deep in the Poison Wastes, we finally reached the small and derelict outpost of EON-1.”
Part 33: The Turk
Lady Una threw open the tent flap, and we peered eagerly inside. Sitting on the bare ground inside the tent was a stained wooden box with diamond-shaped metal antlers protruding from the top. Thick rubber hoses connected it to a small stainless steel cylinder.
Sigrid looked from Lady Una to me, her eyes just visible behind her protective mask. “I hope you two know what you're looking at, because I ain't got a clue.”
Lady Una stooped to get a better view. “It's a wireless transmitter,” she said. “And the cylinder is a small analytical engine.”
“I think the machine is trying to disguise the signal as natural white noise,” I said. “We had some success at hiding things from the Sky Spiders that way.”
Sigrid shrugged. “But hiding what? What kind of transmission?”
“There are two antennae, facing south-east and north,” Lady Una said. “North is towards EON-2. South-east is towards, well...”
Sigrid said, “A lot of things.”
“EON-2 was in contact with EON-1, we know that much,” I said. “And it thought that EON-1 was near here - just because of the direction of the signal?”
Lady Una pulled a small electric lamp from her pack and held it at arm's length inside the tent. “No, I think it had a better reason.”
Sigrid unslung her rifle. “What the hell is that?”
Something slick and black moved inside the tent, bulging and throbbing out of the sickly soil. I could recognise its otherworldly texture in an instant. “Sky Spider machinery,” I said. “It's in the ground. Growing like the roots of a tree, spreading out from that.”
I turned to point at the fiery rend in the world that split the horizon, spilling black smoke into the sky.
“Let's think about this a moment,” Lady Una said. “If we assume that EON-2 is telling the truth, EON-1 has clearly been lying to it.”
“Or they're both lying,” Sigrid chipped in.
“We're told to expect to find it here,” Lady Una continued, “but in fact it could be anywhere to the south-east.”
“Anywhere at all,” I suggested, “if there's another one of these things out there. A whole relay, perhaps.”
She seemed unconvinced. “Perhaps. But would EON-1 expect to need to go to such great lengths? How many people have passed this way in five years? How many have even left Fortress City?”
“Fortress City,” Sigrid said. “Which is to the south-east.”
Lady Una sighed. “Along with Unity City.”
Sigrid nodded, her breathing apparatus bobbing. “My money being on the latter.”
“But EON-3 is in Unity City.”
“Maybe EON-3 is behind this,” Sigrid suggested. “Maybe One and Three are in it together. Duping poor old Two. Four was probably in on it as well.”
“This is baseless conjecture. Are you okay, doctor?”
I had sat down on the ground, suddenly overcome with dizziness. “I've been better.”
Without getting up from her knees, Lady Una glided over to my side. Sigrid was too distracted by the contents of the tent to be surprised by the manoeuvre.
“We need to leave these accursed Wastes,” Lady Una said.
Sigrid closed the flap of the tent. “I'm with you there. Wait... Look out!”
Lady Una grabbed my arm and pulled me bodily to my feet. “Fuck.”
As smoke swirled around the barren and rocky ground, it parted in a wake, dragging around a sleek, near-transparent figure. It prowled forwards on reversed knees, clawing at the earth with ghostly, inhuman hands.
I coughed into my gas mask. “Disguising the signal as white noise... We had a lot of success with it, but when the Sky Spiders realised that we'd tricked them, they always reacted pretty strongly.”
Sigrid drew back the bolt on her rifle. The Sky Spider automaton didn't seem to notice or care.
“There's no point,” I shouted hoarsely. “Drop the rifle.”
She didn't hear, or wasn't prepared to listen. Worse still, Lady Una had drawn her automatic pistol. The automaton approached us unperturbed - the result of millions of years of technological advancement. Implacable and without mercy.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Next week: Can a surly soldier and a staid tank-woman defeat a sophisticated machine from beyond the sky? Check back in a week's time for the next instalment of Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders!
Part 33: The Turk
Lady Una threw open the tent flap, and we peered eagerly inside. Sitting on the bare ground inside the tent was a stained wooden box with diamond-shaped metal antlers protruding from the top. Thick rubber hoses connected it to a small stainless steel cylinder.
Sigrid looked from Lady Una to me, her eyes just visible behind her protective mask. “I hope you two know what you're looking at, because I ain't got a clue.”
Lady Una stooped to get a better view. “It's a wireless transmitter,” she said. “And the cylinder is a small analytical engine.”
“I think the machine is trying to disguise the signal as natural white noise,” I said. “We had some success at hiding things from the Sky Spiders that way.”
Sigrid shrugged. “But hiding what? What kind of transmission?”
“There are two antennae, facing south-east and north,” Lady Una said. “North is towards EON-2. South-east is towards, well...”
Sigrid said, “A lot of things.”
“EON-2 was in contact with EON-1, we know that much,” I said. “And it thought that EON-1 was near here - just because of the direction of the signal?”
Lady Una pulled a small electric lamp from her pack and held it at arm's length inside the tent. “No, I think it had a better reason.”
Sigrid unslung her rifle. “What the hell is that?”
Something slick and black moved inside the tent, bulging and throbbing out of the sickly soil. I could recognise its otherworldly texture in an instant. “Sky Spider machinery,” I said. “It's in the ground. Growing like the roots of a tree, spreading out from that.”
I turned to point at the fiery rend in the world that split the horizon, spilling black smoke into the sky.
“Let's think about this a moment,” Lady Una said. “If we assume that EON-2 is telling the truth, EON-1 has clearly been lying to it.”
“Or they're both lying,” Sigrid chipped in.
“We're told to expect to find it here,” Lady Una continued, “but in fact it could be anywhere to the south-east.”
“Anywhere at all,” I suggested, “if there's another one of these things out there. A whole relay, perhaps.”
She seemed unconvinced. “Perhaps. But would EON-1 expect to need to go to such great lengths? How many people have passed this way in five years? How many have even left Fortress City?”
“Fortress City,” Sigrid said. “Which is to the south-east.”
Lady Una sighed. “Along with Unity City.”
Sigrid nodded, her breathing apparatus bobbing. “My money being on the latter.”
“But EON-3 is in Unity City.”
“Maybe EON-3 is behind this,” Sigrid suggested. “Maybe One and Three are in it together. Duping poor old Two. Four was probably in on it as well.”
“This is baseless conjecture. Are you okay, doctor?”
I had sat down on the ground, suddenly overcome with dizziness. “I've been better.”
Without getting up from her knees, Lady Una glided over to my side. Sigrid was too distracted by the contents of the tent to be surprised by the manoeuvre.
“We need to leave these accursed Wastes,” Lady Una said.
Sigrid closed the flap of the tent. “I'm with you there. Wait... Look out!”
Lady Una grabbed my arm and pulled me bodily to my feet. “Fuck.”
As smoke swirled around the barren and rocky ground, it parted in a wake, dragging around a sleek, near-transparent figure. It prowled forwards on reversed knees, clawing at the earth with ghostly, inhuman hands.
I coughed into my gas mask. “Disguising the signal as white noise... We had a lot of success with it, but when the Sky Spiders realised that we'd tricked them, they always reacted pretty strongly.”
Sigrid drew back the bolt on her rifle. The Sky Spider automaton didn't seem to notice or care.
“There's no point,” I shouted hoarsely. “Drop the rifle.”
She didn't hear, or wasn't prepared to listen. Worse still, Lady Una had drawn her automatic pistol. The automaton approached us unperturbed - the result of millions of years of technological advancement. Implacable and without mercy.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Next week: Can a surly soldier and a staid tank-woman defeat a sophisticated machine from beyond the sky? Check back in a week's time for the next instalment of Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders!
21.2.09
February is a Short Month
It's taken me a good week to add the finishing touches to my competition game, leaving me with about three weeks for external testing. It does kind of bother me that there are more judges on the panel than the number of testers I'm probably going to get, but hopefully this thing's simple enough to be pretty solid.
Barring any major developments or disasters, this'll be my last post on this project until it's released to the public.
Barring any major developments or disasters, this'll be my last post on this project until it's released to the public.
19.2.09
Let's go to Europa...
Image sourceCredit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
When Cassini was celebrating its tenth birthday, the Planetary Society Blog's Emily Lakdawalla pointed out that, as great a celebration as this was for Cassini, it also drew attention to the fact that it had been ten years since the last major interplanetary mission. Well, the waiting is over, as NASA and ESA have announced that their next 'flagship' mission will be to Europa.
But let's not look too far ahead: it'll take some time for this thing to get off the ground (metaphorically or literally), and we'll probably see interesting things from missions like Dawn, New Horizons and the as-yet un-renamed Mars Science Laboratory long before this mission is even launched.
(It's interesting to note that, due to the nature of space flight, the most powerful camera to visit Jupiter is still Cassini's. So, even when I'm writing about Jupiter, I'm still posting a Cassini image. Call it favouritism if you will. Europa is visible in front of Jupiter's turbulent clouds.)
18.2.09
Dione, Shadowed
Image source with more informationCredit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Once again, Cassini captures Dione effortlessly proving that, around Saturn, even the grey ice moons that we've found to be so common throughout the Solar System can dazzle and enchant.
17.2.09
DVD Review: JCVD
Meet Jean-Claude Van Varenberg - better known as Jean-Claude Van Damme: martial artist and estranged father, an action man doomed to star in second-rate Hollywood action flicks for the rest of his dwindling career. On a sojourn to his native Belgium, Van Damme stops to pose for some photographs with the clerks of a small video store, and then goes into the local post office - desperate to transfer funds to the American lawyers fighting his custody battle. And then, out of nowhere, the post office erupts in gunfire. Is Jean-Claude Van Damme, as a shocked police officer reports, trying to rob a bank?
When actors play themselves in films, there are two obvious routes to go. The first, and least common route, is that of vanity. No actor wants to play themselves as a good guy, because that actually makes them look like, well, a bad guy. And so the more common route is vanity wrapped up in self-deprecation. Look at me, they cry, I know that I'm rubbish! Doesn't that make me great! JCVD, thankfully, avoids either obvious pole. Instead, it just tries to depict its lead in a neutral and natural way: no ridicule, no heroics, no apologies. This is, quite simply, a movie about Jean-Claude Van Damme. It might as well be a documentary. But it's all the better as a strange hybrid of fact and fiction.
It's difficult for me to write about this film, because there are so many great little scenes and deft touches that I want to share with you, and yet actually discussing them before you've seen the film would, I really feel, diminish what's so great about them. Even discussing the film's premise (which is described in more length in most reviews than I've done here) seems like a terrible spoiler.
JCVD is part hostage drama, part art house movie - both halves working on their own and also gelling well together. As events snowballed, I found that the tense storyline really had me on the edge of my seat, while I found the more biographical portions to be evocative, witty and touching - even, in one unexpected sequence, bringing me almost to tears.
That sequence, in fact, had me thinking at first, “Holy crap, he can really act!” And then it struck me: “Wait. Maybe he's not acting.” Or maybe he's telling the truth and acting at the same time. Maybe, as in the rest of the movie, the boundaries between fiction and reality are hopelessly blurred. There's no way for the audience to know for sure, and that's an idea that JCVD quite happily embraces - plays with, even.
There are any number of reasons that you should pick up this movie. Whether it's the sheer novelty value of Jean-Claude Van Damme starring in a low-key drama made in his native country, the profound cinematography, the insightful take on being a star and a jobbing actor - or just because you want to see an interesting film that never strays too far from being about a gripping hostage situation... Well, it gets my seal of approval.
Surprising. Understated. And above all: memorable.
*One little footnote about this particular release: I'd say that 95% of this movie is in French with English subtitles, but there are no subtitles for the hearing impaired - meaning no captions for sound effects or English dialogue. And then there's the stereotypically 'Van Damme action movie' cover of the DVD, with explosions and roundhouse kicks. I can't work out if that's hopelessly cynical marketing or a very clever piece of intentional irony.
15.2.09
>down tools
Okay, this thing is at that first stage 'done' that you get with IF games. I've only played the minimal path from start to finish to check that it works in the most basic way.
Over the next few days there's some mild embellishment, spell-checking and proof-reading to do. Then, if you're on my regular rotation of testers, expect me to hit you up with an email at some point over the next month.
Today is the Day
So today is the day that I don't do anything until I've finished my damn competition game.
12.2.09
Thursday Book
How Shall I Tell the Dog? - Miles KingtonWhen I was commuting to and from university, I'd often buy the Independent to read on the journey. And sometimes, too weary to deal with the problems of the world, I'd skip straight past the national news, the world news, the columns and editorials and letters, and read Miles Kington's humour column first of all. Little in his small corner of the paper reflected the agonies and hardships of reality - only good-natured but razor-sharp wit.
After I left uni, I fell out of the paper reading habit, and it was purely by chance that last year I picked up the edition of the Independent which, past the national news, the world news, the columns and editorials and letters, carried Miles' obituary. He had died from an illness that was more sudden than some, and slower than others, and in the time between his fatal diagnosis and its eventual realisation, he wrote a number of letters to his agent pitching ideas for his last book.
His ideas were, of course, completely absurd, and How Shall I Tell the Dog? compiles these letters into a thin, heartbreakingly funny book. The eponymous letter, for example, wonders about providing the public with a book to help them break the news of their terminal illness to their pets. Miles worries that his own pampered pooch might, having no real understanding of death, burst in to demand a walk as he lies on his death bed - resulting in the unfortunate last words: "Oh, for God's sake, not now, Berry!"
Death and cancer certainly lie at the heart of this book, but Miles writes in a direct, slightly absurd fashion that avoids sounding pathetic or heroic. He's clearly unhappy to be leaving, but he expresses this in a lighthearted way that kind of makes it more palatable, and yet kind of unintentionally sucker punches you for exactly the same reason. How Shall I Tell the Dog? is, I suppose, really a rather strange little book, although I think we can forgive the author for not properly finishing it off. And I think that given all the dumb, inconsequential and sometimes quite nasty humour books that line the shelves of Waterstones, this collection of intelligent writing does us a far greater service than any book he might really have written - had he the time.
10.2.09
9.2.09
Harsh Mistress
This thing is getting done. I've set myself the deadline of this weekend, leaving me precisely a month for testing before I need to submit it.
I can do it!
Probably.
8.2.09
IF Review Too
It's been a while since my last one, so Stupid Kittens rose up from the interwebs and volunteered itself for a review over at the IFDB. I think this is one of those things where you're already either appalled or enthralled.
Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders: Part 32
Previously: “EON-4 and Major Thurlow were dead. With supplies from a dying village in the Poison Wastes, I began my trek north, into the heart of the Sky Spiders' weird schemes.”
Part 32: Glad
It was dark. The sky was almost pitch black, churning with windblown shadows. And along the horizon, bulging out at the middle as if barely contained, orange light so bright it hurt to look at and left a lingering after-image. It flickered with the long-legged silhouettes of alien machines.
Smoke coiled and flowed through the air like liquid.
I was starting to doubt the efficacy of my battered old gas mask.
The ground rumbled constantly beneath my feet, but I still just made out the crack of a rifle shot over the din. Turning to its source and wiping soot from my eyepieces, I saw two distant figures on a low crest of ruined earth: one short and aiming a long-barrelled rifle at the sky, the other tall and clad ridiculously in a hoop skirted dress.
I raised my arm to wave to them.
They wore glass-fronted face masks that connected to oxygen tanks strapped to their backs. Much more advanced and comfortable breathing apparatus than my own civilian mask, which was intended only for emergencies and instead used for years by someone long dead.
Lady Una stepped up to me so I could hear her muffled voice over the cacophony of a world being reshaped. “Is it really you?” she asked.
I nodded.
She touched my arm. “I thought you were dead.”
All I could think to say was, “I'm alive.”
Through her soot-smeared faceplate, I thought I could detect a smile. “I'm glad.”
“What about the Major?” Sigrid asked. “The tin man?”
I shook my head. “When we can talk properly, there's a lot you need to know.”
We all looked at one another, and then at the hellish vision on the horizon. Sigrid pointed at it, and we walked on together.
It seemed to step over us and the horizon in a single movement of its long, armoured legs. A Sky Spider machine like a mountainous black hand with a palm of fire. We all dropped to our knees instinctively as it passed overhead.
Lady Una shouted, “We're safe, right? As long as we don't bother them.”
“Yes,” I yelled back.
“And because we're with a member of the Select Committee.”
“I'm certain that doesn't make a difference,” I said, though I honestly wasn't too sure.
Sigrid nudged me and pointed into the smoke and shadows that surrounded us. “I'm glad you're certain, because that thing is bothering me.”
“I don't see anything.”
“That's a significant part of why I'm bothered. You have to look real careful like.”
Perhaps, in the rolling smoke, I did just make out something almost solid, a transparent stem, ghostly and jointed like an inverted knee.
I shrugged. It was ridiculous to think that they didn't know we were there, weren't poised to exterminate us as soon as we became pests. As the footsteps of the enormous black machine faded into the rest of the noise, we walked on towards the fire ahead.
Sigrid gripped her rifle tightly, eyeing the smoke around us.
It was a small tent, now holed and ragged, but otherwise untouched. Various tools and spare parts littered the black soil, all of them badly corroded.
Sigrid grabbed my shoulder and shouted into my ear. “So we think this guy has hung around in this place for five years?”
“According to EON-2.”
Lady Una kicked at the pitted cog of an analytical engine as it protruded from the dirt. “We'll be lucky if there's anything of it left.”
With characteristic directness, she glided over to the tent and flung open the flap.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Next week: What strange secrets will EON-1 have to reveal? Will it be mad, like the Iron Queen? Hostile, like EON-4? Or will we finally find the answers we seek? Check back in a week's time for the next instalment of Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders!
Part 32: Glad
It was dark. The sky was almost pitch black, churning with windblown shadows. And along the horizon, bulging out at the middle as if barely contained, orange light so bright it hurt to look at and left a lingering after-image. It flickered with the long-legged silhouettes of alien machines.
Smoke coiled and flowed through the air like liquid.
I was starting to doubt the efficacy of my battered old gas mask.
The ground rumbled constantly beneath my feet, but I still just made out the crack of a rifle shot over the din. Turning to its source and wiping soot from my eyepieces, I saw two distant figures on a low crest of ruined earth: one short and aiming a long-barrelled rifle at the sky, the other tall and clad ridiculously in a hoop skirted dress.
I raised my arm to wave to them.
*
They wore glass-fronted face masks that connected to oxygen tanks strapped to their backs. Much more advanced and comfortable breathing apparatus than my own civilian mask, which was intended only for emergencies and instead used for years by someone long dead.
Lady Una stepped up to me so I could hear her muffled voice over the cacophony of a world being reshaped. “Is it really you?” she asked.
I nodded.
She touched my arm. “I thought you were dead.”
All I could think to say was, “I'm alive.”
Through her soot-smeared faceplate, I thought I could detect a smile. “I'm glad.”
“What about the Major?” Sigrid asked. “The tin man?”
I shook my head. “When we can talk properly, there's a lot you need to know.”
We all looked at one another, and then at the hellish vision on the horizon. Sigrid pointed at it, and we walked on together.
*
It seemed to step over us and the horizon in a single movement of its long, armoured legs. A Sky Spider machine like a mountainous black hand with a palm of fire. We all dropped to our knees instinctively as it passed overhead.
Lady Una shouted, “We're safe, right? As long as we don't bother them.”
“Yes,” I yelled back.
“And because we're with a member of the Select Committee.”
“I'm certain that doesn't make a difference,” I said, though I honestly wasn't too sure.
Sigrid nudged me and pointed into the smoke and shadows that surrounded us. “I'm glad you're certain, because that thing is bothering me.”
“I don't see anything.”
“That's a significant part of why I'm bothered. You have to look real careful like.”
Perhaps, in the rolling smoke, I did just make out something almost solid, a transparent stem, ghostly and jointed like an inverted knee.
I shrugged. It was ridiculous to think that they didn't know we were there, weren't poised to exterminate us as soon as we became pests. As the footsteps of the enormous black machine faded into the rest of the noise, we walked on towards the fire ahead.
Sigrid gripped her rifle tightly, eyeing the smoke around us.
*
It was a small tent, now holed and ragged, but otherwise untouched. Various tools and spare parts littered the black soil, all of them badly corroded.
Sigrid grabbed my shoulder and shouted into my ear. “So we think this guy has hung around in this place for five years?”
“According to EON-2.”
Lady Una kicked at the pitted cog of an analytical engine as it protruded from the dirt. “We'll be lucky if there's anything of it left.”
With characteristic directness, she glided over to the tent and flung open the flap.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Next week: What strange secrets will EON-1 have to reveal? Will it be mad, like the Iron Queen? Hostile, like EON-4? Or will we finally find the answers we seek? Check back in a week's time for the next instalment of Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders!
6.2.09
Friday Release Day Blogging
If you've been paying attention, you'll know that Chrono Trigger is one of my absolute favourite games. I love the cast of varied and vibrant characters. I love the heady mixture of upbeat optimism and apocalyptic melancholy. I love the colourful and expressive art, the absorbing music, the atmospheric locations and witty dialogue...
And if I have a smile on my face today, it's because with the first ever, much belated European release of this classic gem on the Nintendo DS, I've finally been able to pay my dues to the people who created it.
5.2.09
Thursday Comic
Thunderbolts Vol. 1: Faith in Monsters - Warren Ellis et al.
As I started to get into the first collected volume of Warren Ellis' run as writer of this super-powered Marvel comic, I stupidly found myself thinking, “Wow. This has dated pretty suddenly, now that Obama's president.” The eponymous Thunderbolts, you see, are a disparate group of supervillains hired or conscripted by the US government to hunt down those superheroes who refuse to submit to official registration and control. Every bit of collateral damage, every staged publicity stunt, every abuse of power is clearly reflective of the Bush administration - and that, at first, seems so very last year.
Which is hopelessly naïve of me, I know - and something quickly forgotten once the various threads of the story properly kick off. Okay, so none of these characters are good guys. When push comes to shove, they're all more than happy to ram a third-rate superhero's face into the sidewalk. But only two or three are really reprehensible - and even they get the odd sympathetic light thrown on them.
There's a complex, interweaving kind of involvement to Faith in Monsters. At the start of one chapter, you might find it keenly conveying the fear experienced by ordinary (if super-powered) citizens as they try to stay true to their (sometimes slightly warped) values and avoid the authorities. Then you turn the page and find yourself rooting for the people trying to blow them up live on the evening news and get applauded for it. It's a book that shows how the superhero genre is as ready to tackle heady, pertinent themes as any other sub-genre of science fiction - even if two very short stories at the end, slipped in as an appendix and neither written by Ellis, will remind you of the simple punch-and-quip formula it often adheres to.
3.2.09
Peeking
While I work on my own IF game, a few nuggets of IF news from the wider world:
Blue Lacuna is currently making waves. It's supposed to be expansive, nuanced and newbie-friendly. What little I've seen of it so far actually seems quite impressive.
And first round voting for the XYZZY Awards has begun. Here's hoping that Eric Eve's Nightfall gets some love.
1.2.09
Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders: Cast
(The main characters and what we know about them so far. SPOILERS.)
It has been five years since the Sky Spiders descended. The world has been irrevocably changed. Most of the remaining free people are huddled in poverty behind the protecting guns of Fortress City. Many others live strange, transformed lives within the Twisted Forests. And then there are those in Unity City...
In this world, five disparate heroes were seeking the one connection, the one potential source of knowledge on the Sky Spiders and their terrible reign. Five heroes hoping that they had not merely found a route to madness, quick death, or worse... Five heroes, now three in number.
The Supplicants:
Viscount Cyrus of Circhester
Once the designer of formidable war machines, he now relies entirely upon arcane life support equipment. Cyrus hopes to uncover the information learned by the EON units.
EON-2
A humanoid philosophy engine sent to investigate the Sky Spider's analytical machines. A telegram from EON-2 claims that all the EON units but EON-4 possess 'vital information' about the Sky Spiders and are still to be found in the vicinity of their old objectives.
The Five:
Dr Peregrine Gleve
A scientist of the Imperial Society, and a member of the Select Committee, a group of scientists sent to negotiate with the Sky Spiders. The other members are missing - though Peregrine has reported them dead.
Lady Una
Niece of the Viscount of Circhester, she is familiar with the science and history of these times. Mortally wounded after the arrival of the Sky Spiders, her uncle refashioned her into a hybrid of woman and tank. Una knows several of Peregrine's secrets, and his role in the Select Committee seems to be a point of tension between the two of them.
Sigrid Phenice
A soldier of the 4th Company Rifles and something of a loner. Straightforward, taciturn and a crack shot. She doesn't care too much about politics or philosophy.
Major Fabian Thurlow (deceased)
An officer of the Tropical Expeditionary Force, he has an intimate knowledge of the madness that lies in the Twisted Forests. Killed by EON-4 while en route to EON-1.
EON-4 (deceased)
The only EON unit to report failure in its objectives and return to human civilisation. Peregrine now knows that EON-4 was lying about its failure - the reasons for its deception unknown. Killed by Peregrine in self defence.
Supporting Characters:
John Kirkham
Leader of Fortress City, a man who wears a golden mask. He stole Prometheus from the Sky Spiders during the battle for Unity City.
Commander Kelson
Acting captain of the HMS Inquisitor. She provides transport for Peregrine, but shows no real commitment to his larger goals.
Professor Suzette Layling
The scientist in charge of the thunderous guns of Fortress City. Wife of Dr Frederick Layling, a member of the Select Committee.
General Cass
Architect of the battle for Unity City. His atrocious failure - leading to the death of a million soldiers - was also Kirkham's triumph. Cass is presumed dead.
EON-5/The Iron Queen
An EON unit dispatched to a Sky Spider structure in the Twisted Forests. She seems to there have lost her mind and refashioned herself as the forest dwellers' 'Iron Queen'. Her severed (but still gibbering) head is now in the possession of John Kirkham.
EON-1
The EON unit sent straight into the heart of the Sky Spiders' machinations in the Poison Wastes.
EON-3
Dispatched to Unity City. According to EON-2's telegram, it must still be located there.
It has been five years since the Sky Spiders descended. The world has been irrevocably changed. Most of the remaining free people are huddled in poverty behind the protecting guns of Fortress City. Many others live strange, transformed lives within the Twisted Forests. And then there are those in Unity City...
In this world, five disparate heroes were seeking the one connection, the one potential source of knowledge on the Sky Spiders and their terrible reign. Five heroes hoping that they had not merely found a route to madness, quick death, or worse... Five heroes, now three in number.
The Supplicants:
Viscount Cyrus of Circhester
Once the designer of formidable war machines, he now relies entirely upon arcane life support equipment. Cyrus hopes to uncover the information learned by the EON units.
EON-2
A humanoid philosophy engine sent to investigate the Sky Spider's analytical machines. A telegram from EON-2 claims that all the EON units but EON-4 possess 'vital information' about the Sky Spiders and are still to be found in the vicinity of their old objectives.
The Five:
Dr Peregrine Gleve
A scientist of the Imperial Society, and a member of the Select Committee, a group of scientists sent to negotiate with the Sky Spiders. The other members are missing - though Peregrine has reported them dead.
Lady Una
Niece of the Viscount of Circhester, she is familiar with the science and history of these times. Mortally wounded after the arrival of the Sky Spiders, her uncle refashioned her into a hybrid of woman and tank. Una knows several of Peregrine's secrets, and his role in the Select Committee seems to be a point of tension between the two of them.
Sigrid Phenice
A soldier of the 4th Company Rifles and something of a loner. Straightforward, taciturn and a crack shot. She doesn't care too much about politics or philosophy.
Major Fabian Thurlow (deceased)
An officer of the Tropical Expeditionary Force, he has an intimate knowledge of the madness that lies in the Twisted Forests. Killed by EON-4 while en route to EON-1.
EON-4 (deceased)
The only EON unit to report failure in its objectives and return to human civilisation. Peregrine now knows that EON-4 was lying about its failure - the reasons for its deception unknown. Killed by Peregrine in self defence.
Supporting Characters:
John Kirkham
Leader of Fortress City, a man who wears a golden mask. He stole Prometheus from the Sky Spiders during the battle for Unity City.
Commander Kelson
Acting captain of the HMS Inquisitor. She provides transport for Peregrine, but shows no real commitment to his larger goals.
Professor Suzette Layling
The scientist in charge of the thunderous guns of Fortress City. Wife of Dr Frederick Layling, a member of the Select Committee.
General Cass
Architect of the battle for Unity City. His atrocious failure - leading to the death of a million soldiers - was also Kirkham's triumph. Cass is presumed dead.
EON-5/The Iron Queen
An EON unit dispatched to a Sky Spider structure in the Twisted Forests. She seems to there have lost her mind and refashioned herself as the forest dwellers' 'Iron Queen'. Her severed (but still gibbering) head is now in the possession of John Kirkham.
EON-1
The EON unit sent straight into the heart of the Sky Spiders' machinations in the Poison Wastes.
EON-3
Dispatched to Unity City. According to EON-2's telegram, it must still be located there.
Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders: Part 31
Previously: “Major Thurlow was dead, killed by EON-4, who was in turn killed by my own hand. I was forced to head north by foot, towards EON-1 and the secret that EON-4 had tried to hide through murder. It was a journey that would take me straight into the Poison Wastes.”
Part 31: Ghost Town
I sat up, coughing. My throat and stomach muscles hurt. Twinges flickered in my lungs with every breath. Where was I?
A room lit only dimly by what light could filter in through the filth-caked window panes. The edges of the window were packed with rags and tape. I was lying on a musty bed. My jacket was folded neatly over the back of a chair.
I reached for my revolver instinctively. My shoulder holster was gone.
I got unsteadily to my feet. The door was unlocked. As I pulled it open, its yellowed paintwork shed a small shower of flakes.
Outside was a small sitting room, its window and door both sealed with rags and tape in the same manner as the window in the room I awoke in. A man with stark white hair sat sleeping in a ratty armchair. He opened his eyes as I suppressed a cough.
“You're awake,” he said.
“Where am I?”
He stood up. His face seemed surprisingly young. “This is Plainham. Not anywhere in particular, really. No-one's passed through here in years and the telegraph cable is in tatters. We were starting to wonder if there was anyone left but us.”
“Not too far from the truth, really. Dr Peregrine Gleve.”
He shook my hand. “Dr Miles Serene. I gotta say, it's nice to have another man of medicine about.”
“I'm not a medical doctor.”
“That's a shame.” He pointed at the top of my head. “If you won't ask about my hair, I'll ask about yours. Everyone in Plainham's as bleached white as I am. The poisons in the air, the water, the animals, it bleaches the hair. You dying yours, or what?”
I sighed. I didn't have time for this. “Not everywhere is like this. In the south we call this place the Poison Wastes.”
He shook his head slowly. “Over the years people have left here. Some of them went south-”
“I wouldn't beat yourself up over it. They're probably dead anyway. Poison is the least of our worries.”
He took my tone in his stride. “I see. There's so much we don't know.”
“What's the last thing you heard about?”
“Last I heard, we were marching on Unity City. We could see the flashes and smoke from here, so I imagine it didn't go too well.”
“To put it mildly. Look, I need to head north.”
He nodded. “I'll lend you a gas mask. We have a surplus now. Where are you going, if I might ask?”
“I'm looking for a mechanical man. He was heading right into the source of these poison clouds.”
Dr Serene nodded. “The mechanical man. Our last visitor, all those years ago. And now his friend. Or enemy...”
“At this juncture, I honestly don't know which.”
“And you say that there's no poison to the south,” he mused, “but it might even be more dangerous? What kind of danger?”
“Unity City.”
“Stay a little while,” he said. “You need to eat and build up your strength.”
“What do you have to eat in this place?”
He looked a little sheepish. “Whatever the hunting parties find. Often we're not really sure what it is we're eating.”
“I think I'll go hungry. Do you have my gun?”
“Well, I suppose you seem friendly enough. You do know that your pistol is a different calibre from your spare bullets, don't you?”
I suppose I should probably have checked something like that before taking Thurlow's revolver. “No, actually, I didn't. It was my friend's gun, until he died.”
“I'm sorry. I'll show you how to put on the mask and see you out.”
In my funk, I'd made it further into the Poison Wastes than I should have had any right to. Outside, the air was thick with dust and fumes. I could only just make out the dilapidated buildings of Plainham, the gas masked forms moving furtively between them.
You might think it would be easy to lose yourself in that kind of place.
But straight ahead, visible over the thick, ground-level murk, was a great mushroom cloud of black smoke. It poured out of the unseen horizon like liquid, rising high into the sky and quickly tumbling back down as a discoloured snowfall of ash.
I wondered what it had looked like when EON-1 first set off in that direction. Smaller certainly, less pervasive, but no less frightening - and humbling. Now I was to follow in his footsteps.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Next week: The Sky Spiders are working right through the crust of the world. To do what? And for what purpose? Should any mere human try and approach such dangerous geological construction? Check back in a week's time for the next instalment of Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders!
Part 31: Ghost Town
I sat up, coughing. My throat and stomach muscles hurt. Twinges flickered in my lungs with every breath. Where was I?
A room lit only dimly by what light could filter in through the filth-caked window panes. The edges of the window were packed with rags and tape. I was lying on a musty bed. My jacket was folded neatly over the back of a chair.
I reached for my revolver instinctively. My shoulder holster was gone.
I got unsteadily to my feet. The door was unlocked. As I pulled it open, its yellowed paintwork shed a small shower of flakes.
Outside was a small sitting room, its window and door both sealed with rags and tape in the same manner as the window in the room I awoke in. A man with stark white hair sat sleeping in a ratty armchair. He opened his eyes as I suppressed a cough.
“You're awake,” he said.
“Where am I?”
He stood up. His face seemed surprisingly young. “This is Plainham. Not anywhere in particular, really. No-one's passed through here in years and the telegraph cable is in tatters. We were starting to wonder if there was anyone left but us.”
“Not too far from the truth, really. Dr Peregrine Gleve.”
He shook my hand. “Dr Miles Serene. I gotta say, it's nice to have another man of medicine about.”
“I'm not a medical doctor.”
“That's a shame.” He pointed at the top of my head. “If you won't ask about my hair, I'll ask about yours. Everyone in Plainham's as bleached white as I am. The poisons in the air, the water, the animals, it bleaches the hair. You dying yours, or what?”
I sighed. I didn't have time for this. “Not everywhere is like this. In the south we call this place the Poison Wastes.”
He shook his head slowly. “Over the years people have left here. Some of them went south-”
“I wouldn't beat yourself up over it. They're probably dead anyway. Poison is the least of our worries.”
He took my tone in his stride. “I see. There's so much we don't know.”
“What's the last thing you heard about?”
“Last I heard, we were marching on Unity City. We could see the flashes and smoke from here, so I imagine it didn't go too well.”
“To put it mildly. Look, I need to head north.”
He nodded. “I'll lend you a gas mask. We have a surplus now. Where are you going, if I might ask?”
“I'm looking for a mechanical man. He was heading right into the source of these poison clouds.”
Dr Serene nodded. “The mechanical man. Our last visitor, all those years ago. And now his friend. Or enemy...”
“At this juncture, I honestly don't know which.”
“And you say that there's no poison to the south,” he mused, “but it might even be more dangerous? What kind of danger?”
“Unity City.”
“Stay a little while,” he said. “You need to eat and build up your strength.”
“What do you have to eat in this place?”
He looked a little sheepish. “Whatever the hunting parties find. Often we're not really sure what it is we're eating.”
“I think I'll go hungry. Do you have my gun?”
“Well, I suppose you seem friendly enough. You do know that your pistol is a different calibre from your spare bullets, don't you?”
I suppose I should probably have checked something like that before taking Thurlow's revolver. “No, actually, I didn't. It was my friend's gun, until he died.”
“I'm sorry. I'll show you how to put on the mask and see you out.”
*
In my funk, I'd made it further into the Poison Wastes than I should have had any right to. Outside, the air was thick with dust and fumes. I could only just make out the dilapidated buildings of Plainham, the gas masked forms moving furtively between them.
You might think it would be easy to lose yourself in that kind of place.
But straight ahead, visible over the thick, ground-level murk, was a great mushroom cloud of black smoke. It poured out of the unseen horizon like liquid, rising high into the sky and quickly tumbling back down as a discoloured snowfall of ash.
I wondered what it had looked like when EON-1 first set off in that direction. Smaller certainly, less pervasive, but no less frightening - and humbling. Now I was to follow in his footsteps.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Next week: The Sky Spiders are working right through the crust of the world. To do what? And for what purpose? Should any mere human try and approach such dangerous geological construction? Check back in a week's time for the next instalment of Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders!
31.1.09
Let's Get it Done!
Right, time to pull my finger out, so to speak, and finish this fucker. It's not a big game at all, probably half the sections are pretty much complete. A few days of hard work should be enough to finish it off. And then we get to testing...
28.1.09
"Twenty primary feathers and the blue dome of the sky"
The idea of a genre of fiction called 'fantasy' has always appealed to me. It seems to suggest a kind of fiction with little or no basis in reality, where you can invent whatever worlds you want to, populate them with the strangest creatures you can conceive of and throw all the rules of the real world out of the window.
And yet the fantasy section of every bookshop is merely full of books about the same old dragons and knights - backwards-looking books that are obsessed with outdated notions of chivalry and social status. Well, bookshops be damned. After waiting for what seemed like forever for it to come out in paperback, I ordered the third in Steph Swainston's Fourlands novels - The Modern World - from Amazon, and, once again, I'm faced with the stark narrative power that comes from placing realistic characters in highly imaginative situations.
The Modern World opens with our dazzling anti-hero Jant - part of the Emperor's Circle of immortal paragons and the only man who can fly - in his strangest situation yet. That is: completely clean of drugs and in good health - bar a few post-traumatic flashbacks to the time he was eviscerated by giant insects. It doesn't last, of course. A new plan to rid the Fourlands of its pesky six legged monsters is being put into action, and Lightning, the Circle's archer and Jant's closest friend in every way except name, has lost touch with his teenage daughter in the grimy city where Jant first got hooked on his drug of choice.
The Modern World capitalises on the careful characterisation of the previous two books to deliver some shattering turns of plot and emotion. Giddy flights of imagination are fleshed out with down-to-earth realism; snappy dialogue provides keen observations on both the fantastic and the mundane. People we're familiar with from the first two books are shown in surprising new lights. Rayne, the Circle's doctor, is an unexpected new focus: immortalised in her old age, mild-mannered and open-minded, dedicated to advancing the cause of medicine even as other doctors dedicate themselves to stealing her place in the Circle.
Events build up to a catastrophic climax, as you'd expect. But there's still a fair few chapters left, after things have wound down to a much more serene pace. At first I thought this was the result of an authorial miscalculation, a narrative misstep. But these last chapters calmly deliver probably the most profound and heartbreaking scenes so far in the series - in the process upending one of the Fourlands' most obvious assumptions, and bringing tears to my eyes.
I've enjoyed all three of Swainston's Fourlands books so far. If more people paid attention to them, they could herald a more sophisticated, self-aware and imaginative form of fantasy. These are books that flirt with our nostalgia for bygone eras and muse about when to let go. These are books that cast the human condition in a strange new light against surreal new backdrops. And if that doesn't appeal to you, these are also books where a winged junkie dukes it out with man-sized carnivorous bugs.
26.1.09
The Turbulent North
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Image source with more information
Image source with more information
Jupiter may have a much sharper contrast to its colourful clouds, but I have a real soft spot for Saturn's pastel hues, as displayed rather nicely in this Cassini image.
Just visible towards the top, the last vestiges of Saturn's blue north. It'd be interesting to see if the south pole acquires a similar tone when it enters winter...
25.1.09
Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders: Part 30
Previously: “Major Thurlow was dead, killed by EON-4, who was in turn killed by my own hand. I was forced to head north by foot, towards EON-1 and the secret that EON-4 had tried to hide through murder. It was a journey that would take me straight into the Poison Wastes.”
Part 30: Skyscrapers
The red sun was sinking into the horizon, shining through the black skeletons of unfinished towers. Long-necked cranes stood guard over deserted scaffolds. Every construction worker in the city had probably been conscripted. Most of the skyscrapers of Kingchester - the tallest intended to reach sixty storeys - were unlikely to ever be finished.
Any lingering fear of heights I might have held had evaporated by now, by the end of my second week interred in a room on one of the highest floors of the Gilbert Spire. That said, I still had difficulty sleeping through the constant drone of airships docking with the rooftop fuel station, biplanes buzzing about them like frightened watchdogs. Something was happening, and no-one would tell me what.
Another coughing fit stopped me in my tracks. I could taste blood. Around me nothing but thick, roiling mists. Exactly why my time in Gilbert Spire resurfaced in moments like this, I never knew. I suppose that it was the only time I was ever called upon to justify myself - my actions in the Select Committee - and looking back I thought that I could have done a much better job.
I sat in my usual seat on one side of the long, mahogany table. The door opened and a portly man in army dress uniform barged in.
“General Cass,” I said. “At last. I've been answering the same questions from each of your subordinates in turn, so seeing you appear yourself makes me feel like I've made some progress.”
He sat down directly opposite me, steepled his fingers in that way he did when addressing someone he was scared might be smarter than him. “Doctor Gleve. It's been quite some time since we last met, hasn't it?”
“Yes,” I began, carefully, “the Minister for Science introduced us. In fact, I'm surprised I haven't seen her yet.”
He met my eye defiantly. “Parliament has been dissolved.”
“I see.”
“Now is the time for action. Politics have failed us, as you know more than most.”
I decided to let that statement hang in the air.
“You mentioned being repeatedly asked the same questions,” he said. “Well, I'm sorry to disappoint, but I'm not about to buck the trend. I am, however, going to stick to only those questions most important to our immediate aims.”
Again, I said nothing.
“What happened to the other members of the Select Committee?”
I answered without missing a beat. “They're dead.”
“How did they die?”
“Prolonged exposure to an environment hostile to human life.”
He smiled and spread his hands. “And yet, here you are.”
“As we anticipated, the Sky Spiders showed utter indifference to our lives. They made no move to harm us, but as our equipment failed, they made no attempt to help us either. At least, not until I was the last one alive and my pressure suit began to leak. At that point they moved to aid me, I believe only in order to protect the message they had given me.”
“That message being?”
“That they won't tolerate attempted interference of any form, but, if we leave them alone, they won't harm us intentionally.”
“Intentionally,” General Cass repeated.
“Yes. For example, responding to whatever gambit you seem to be mobilising at the moment. You don't stand a chance against them, General. We're as far behind the Sky Spiders as the other species of this world are behind us.”
He kept his voice controlled. “That's what you think is it? A lot has happened while you were away. We've observed these creatures and their automata, reverse engineered some of the underlying principles. The Viscount of Circhester has designed war machines the likes of which the world has never seen before. A million soldiers are going to march on Unity City. Alongside them: tanks, aeroplanes, machine men, air fortresses, golems born of electricity, enough artillery to level a city in a day...”
“I'm sure that chimpanzees feel just as powerful when they pick up sticks and stones.”
He laughed humourlessly. “We're moving you to Ridgeford, doctor. We want to keep you safe, naturally.”
“And out of the way.”
“Given the circumstances, can you blame us for distrusting you?”
I fell to my hands and knees, my fingers sinking into soil that burned to the touch. Instinctively, gasping for air, I pulled down my scarf. Pink froth bubbled up from my lungs. I spat. I couldn't think straight, could barely feel my surroundings. This wasn't, I realised with a sudden shock, that bad a way to die.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Next week: Surely, after all this time, this has to be it for Peregrine! Get your black armbands ready, and check back in a week's time for the next instalment of Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders!
Part 30: Skyscrapers
The red sun was sinking into the horizon, shining through the black skeletons of unfinished towers. Long-necked cranes stood guard over deserted scaffolds. Every construction worker in the city had probably been conscripted. Most of the skyscrapers of Kingchester - the tallest intended to reach sixty storeys - were unlikely to ever be finished.
Any lingering fear of heights I might have held had evaporated by now, by the end of my second week interred in a room on one of the highest floors of the Gilbert Spire. That said, I still had difficulty sleeping through the constant drone of airships docking with the rooftop fuel station, biplanes buzzing about them like frightened watchdogs. Something was happening, and no-one would tell me what.
*
Another coughing fit stopped me in my tracks. I could taste blood. Around me nothing but thick, roiling mists. Exactly why my time in Gilbert Spire resurfaced in moments like this, I never knew. I suppose that it was the only time I was ever called upon to justify myself - my actions in the Select Committee - and looking back I thought that I could have done a much better job.
*
I sat in my usual seat on one side of the long, mahogany table. The door opened and a portly man in army dress uniform barged in.
“General Cass,” I said. “At last. I've been answering the same questions from each of your subordinates in turn, so seeing you appear yourself makes me feel like I've made some progress.”
He sat down directly opposite me, steepled his fingers in that way he did when addressing someone he was scared might be smarter than him. “Doctor Gleve. It's been quite some time since we last met, hasn't it?”
“Yes,” I began, carefully, “the Minister for Science introduced us. In fact, I'm surprised I haven't seen her yet.”
He met my eye defiantly. “Parliament has been dissolved.”
“I see.”
“Now is the time for action. Politics have failed us, as you know more than most.”
I decided to let that statement hang in the air.
“You mentioned being repeatedly asked the same questions,” he said. “Well, I'm sorry to disappoint, but I'm not about to buck the trend. I am, however, going to stick to only those questions most important to our immediate aims.”
Again, I said nothing.
“What happened to the other members of the Select Committee?”
I answered without missing a beat. “They're dead.”
“How did they die?”
“Prolonged exposure to an environment hostile to human life.”
He smiled and spread his hands. “And yet, here you are.”
“As we anticipated, the Sky Spiders showed utter indifference to our lives. They made no move to harm us, but as our equipment failed, they made no attempt to help us either. At least, not until I was the last one alive and my pressure suit began to leak. At that point they moved to aid me, I believe only in order to protect the message they had given me.”
“That message being?”
“That they won't tolerate attempted interference of any form, but, if we leave them alone, they won't harm us intentionally.”
“Intentionally,” General Cass repeated.
“Yes. For example, responding to whatever gambit you seem to be mobilising at the moment. You don't stand a chance against them, General. We're as far behind the Sky Spiders as the other species of this world are behind us.”
He kept his voice controlled. “That's what you think is it? A lot has happened while you were away. We've observed these creatures and their automata, reverse engineered some of the underlying principles. The Viscount of Circhester has designed war machines the likes of which the world has never seen before. A million soldiers are going to march on Unity City. Alongside them: tanks, aeroplanes, machine men, air fortresses, golems born of electricity, enough artillery to level a city in a day...”
“I'm sure that chimpanzees feel just as powerful when they pick up sticks and stones.”
He laughed humourlessly. “We're moving you to Ridgeford, doctor. We want to keep you safe, naturally.”
“And out of the way.”
“Given the circumstances, can you blame us for distrusting you?”
*
I fell to my hands and knees, my fingers sinking into soil that burned to the touch. Instinctively, gasping for air, I pulled down my scarf. Pink froth bubbled up from my lungs. I spat. I couldn't think straight, could barely feel my surroundings. This wasn't, I realised with a sudden shock, that bad a way to die.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Next week: Surely, after all this time, this has to be it for Peregrine! Get your black armbands ready, and check back in a week's time for the next instalment of Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders!
23.1.09
Friday Lando and Nien Blogging
Remember kids: move as close as you can, and engage those Star Destroyers at point blank range.
21.1.09
Fifth Dimensional Dentist
20.1.09
Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders: Part 29
Previously: “We sought the EON units for their knowledge of the Sky Spiders - five of us, though three became separated: EON-4, the one EON unit to fail in its mission; Major Thurlow a brave and dashing soldier; and me, a scientist from the Imperial Society and a member of the Select Committee. At the edge of the Poison Wastes, EON-4 suddenly killed Thurlow, and it seemed that I was next.”
Part 29: The Happy Cat
The wind blew from the north, bearing acrid dust that stung my lungs and eyes. I blinked hard at EON-4 as he stood on the roof of a corroded shack above me, rifle stock pressed into his shoulder.
I let my revolver fall from my hand. It landed in the dust by Major Thurlow's body.
EON-4's single round eye clicked and whirred as he sighted down the barrel of his rifle at me. “We share a mutual curiosity, don't we doctor?”
I nodded. “Certainly.”
“You know what they say about the cat, don't you?”
“That he died happy.”
A slight rotation of his cylindrical head, as if laughing to one side. “Then let's trade. One question of yours, for each one of mine. Honestly answered.”
I looked down at the Major, crouched down to close his eyes. “I'll start then,” I said, straightening up. “A small one. What is this place? How did you already have it rigged with explosives?”
“An outpost assembled by Academy for Machine Intelligence automata. Something they cooked up after the battle for Unity City, when manpower was at a premium. My turn: are the other members of the Select Committee really dead, as you reported?”
“No. They were all alive the last time I saw them. You were sent to interface with a Sky Spider analytical engine. Did you really fail - as you reported?”
He spoke almost with pride. “Of the five of us, identical in manufacture, it would be peculiar if all succeeded but one, wouldn't it? I've touched the mind of the Sky Spiders, doctor. Do you know what they want?”
“I know what, but I don't understand why. Have you been in contact with any of the other EON units?”
“With EON-1. And EON-5, but only since we encountered her as the Iron Queen. If you could stop the Sky Spiders, doctor, would you?”
I shrugged. “I honestly don't know. Now tell me, EON-4, after all this time, why try and kill us now? What would we have found if we'd reached EON-1?”
EON-4 jumped down from the roof, landing rigidly on the dry ground with knees that bent mechanically. “I'll answer that if you'll answer this: which other Select Committee members came back?”
“Just me.”
“The game only works if you play honestly.”
“I'm telling the truth. They didn't want to leave. Sometimes I wish I hadn't left myself.”
“Unfortunately, I can't afford to believe you. Since we didn't complete our little trade, and I can't guarantee that you'll die happy, I'm going to leave you here, doctor. If you gather supplies from these buildings and head directly south, you may reach safety.”
EON-4 moved towards the monoplane, his rifle still trained on me.
“And you're going to find Lady Una and Sigrid Phenice,” I said. “To kill them too.”
“To divert them. Peacefully if I can.”
“But with bullets if you have to.”
“Needs must. Step back from the aeroplane. Far back.”
I complied, walking backwards over cracked earth until EON-4 lowered his rifle and climbed into the cockpit. As the plane's engine choked to life, the propeller threw up dust in great fits.
Naturally, when I'd crouched over Thurlow, I'd palmed his revolver. As EON-4 started to take off, I pulled it from the back of my belt and shot him through the head. No mean feat firing at a moving target a hundred paces away. More luck than skill, I'm sure.
EON-4's brain exploded into a cloud of tiny, disintegrating cogs. Inert gases puffed out from broken valves deep in his shattered, featureless face. The monoplane still accelerated forward, veering wildly to one side. When the wingtip touched the ground, the whole thing cartwheeled over, flying into pieces under the stress.
As the last piece of metal clattered to the ground, I slipped Thurlow's revolver into my shoulder holster. Burying him - either of them, seemed a pointless waste of energy. Poison carried on the wind. I was alone. My only living companions were far to the north, deeper into the toxic miasma.
I must have been dazed, or reckless, or both. I wrapped my scarf tightly over my mouth and nose, gathered what bottled water I could find in the encampment, and started to trek north, towards pollution, death and the Sky Spiders.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Next week: Alone in the Poison Wastes, inhaling alien toxins - the perfect time to think and recollect. Peregrine is haunted by surprising recollections of his past as he trudges straight up to death's door, in the next instalment of Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders!
Part 29: The Happy Cat
The wind blew from the north, bearing acrid dust that stung my lungs and eyes. I blinked hard at EON-4 as he stood on the roof of a corroded shack above me, rifle stock pressed into his shoulder.
I let my revolver fall from my hand. It landed in the dust by Major Thurlow's body.
EON-4's single round eye clicked and whirred as he sighted down the barrel of his rifle at me. “We share a mutual curiosity, don't we doctor?”
I nodded. “Certainly.”
“You know what they say about the cat, don't you?”
“That he died happy.”
A slight rotation of his cylindrical head, as if laughing to one side. “Then let's trade. One question of yours, for each one of mine. Honestly answered.”
I looked down at the Major, crouched down to close his eyes. “I'll start then,” I said, straightening up. “A small one. What is this place? How did you already have it rigged with explosives?”
“An outpost assembled by Academy for Machine Intelligence automata. Something they cooked up after the battle for Unity City, when manpower was at a premium. My turn: are the other members of the Select Committee really dead, as you reported?”
“No. They were all alive the last time I saw them. You were sent to interface with a Sky Spider analytical engine. Did you really fail - as you reported?”
He spoke almost with pride. “Of the five of us, identical in manufacture, it would be peculiar if all succeeded but one, wouldn't it? I've touched the mind of the Sky Spiders, doctor. Do you know what they want?”
“I know what, but I don't understand why. Have you been in contact with any of the other EON units?”
“With EON-1. And EON-5, but only since we encountered her as the Iron Queen. If you could stop the Sky Spiders, doctor, would you?”
I shrugged. “I honestly don't know. Now tell me, EON-4, after all this time, why try and kill us now? What would we have found if we'd reached EON-1?”
EON-4 jumped down from the roof, landing rigidly on the dry ground with knees that bent mechanically. “I'll answer that if you'll answer this: which other Select Committee members came back?”
“Just me.”
“The game only works if you play honestly.”
“I'm telling the truth. They didn't want to leave. Sometimes I wish I hadn't left myself.”
“Unfortunately, I can't afford to believe you. Since we didn't complete our little trade, and I can't guarantee that you'll die happy, I'm going to leave you here, doctor. If you gather supplies from these buildings and head directly south, you may reach safety.”
EON-4 moved towards the monoplane, his rifle still trained on me.
“And you're going to find Lady Una and Sigrid Phenice,” I said. “To kill them too.”
“To divert them. Peacefully if I can.”
“But with bullets if you have to.”
“Needs must. Step back from the aeroplane. Far back.”
I complied, walking backwards over cracked earth until EON-4 lowered his rifle and climbed into the cockpit. As the plane's engine choked to life, the propeller threw up dust in great fits.
Naturally, when I'd crouched over Thurlow, I'd palmed his revolver. As EON-4 started to take off, I pulled it from the back of my belt and shot him through the head. No mean feat firing at a moving target a hundred paces away. More luck than skill, I'm sure.
EON-4's brain exploded into a cloud of tiny, disintegrating cogs. Inert gases puffed out from broken valves deep in his shattered, featureless face. The monoplane still accelerated forward, veering wildly to one side. When the wingtip touched the ground, the whole thing cartwheeled over, flying into pieces under the stress.
As the last piece of metal clattered to the ground, I slipped Thurlow's revolver into my shoulder holster. Burying him - either of them, seemed a pointless waste of energy. Poison carried on the wind. I was alone. My only living companions were far to the north, deeper into the toxic miasma.
I must have been dazed, or reckless, or both. I wrapped my scarf tightly over my mouth and nose, gathered what bottled water I could find in the encampment, and started to trek north, towards pollution, death and the Sky Spiders.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Next week: Alone in the Poison Wastes, inhaling alien toxins - the perfect time to think and recollect. Peregrine is haunted by surprising recollections of his past as he trudges straight up to death's door, in the next instalment of Into the Mind of the Sky Spiders!
19.1.09
Further Hints and Portents
Take the Fair Face of Woman, and Gently Suspending, With Butterflies, Flowers, and Jewels Attending, Thus Your Fairy is Made of Most Beautiful Things, a painting by Sophie Anderson around about the turn of the century before last. I bet she spent as long coming up with the title as creating the image.
Which is just my way of saying that I'm going to focus on my competition game this week. I want to start beta testing in February.
And no, you still don't know what it's about. Because it's not about fairies.
Probably.
16.1.09
13.1.09
DVD Review: Resident Evil Degeneration
Well, this turned out pretty much as I expected it to. Resident Evil Degeneration is the canonical animated feature by Capcom, the makers of the Resident Evil video games themselves - an Advent Children style attempt to expand on the directorial skills that they've acquired while crafting cinematics for their games. Yep, Degeneration is basically a ninety minute Resident Evil cut-scene. I'm sure some of you have left the building already.
Rather bravely, Degeneration makes no bones about being completely for the fans. Those of us familiar with the series don't need to hear any exposition about the nature of the G and T viruses, and those unfamiliar are unlikely to particularly enjoy being subjected to it. Similarly, there's no attempt to rehash the background behind Leon and Claire's friendship, their experiences in Raccoon City during Resident Evil 2 (though there's a nice little flashback), or their adventures since. It's difficult to tell just how obscure this makes things for the uninitiated, but you can't fault the decision. The decision to still throw in a few cringe-worthy bits of emotional exposition from two new characters: tough girl Angela and Sherry Birkin substitute Rani, is a little more difficult to sympathise with.
If I ask myself what I like most about the Resident Evil games, it's their atmosphere: tense, desolate, eerie. But this atmosphere is cultivated primarily through participation - ruined environments that you explore yourself, spine-tingling vistas that you take in at your own pace, dark doorways that you enter only when you've plucked up enough courage. Necessarily, this aspect is drastically reduced in Degeneration, and instead we're left with all the other aspects of Resident Evil: the haphazard plotting, the impressive but slightly imperfect action sequences, the melodramatic moments of character.
Not that any of that is too disagreeable, or at all unexpected. If you're already engaged with this world, you'll be used to it, and consider it more than outweighed by the chance to see these strong yet paper-thin characters (who we've struggled alongside through such ordeals) battling against weird, inconsistent conspiracies once again. It's also nice that there's some attempt at creating stylish character designs beyond just making them look 'realistic' - in particular I liked the fat, rubbery senator and the nicely elfin depiction of Claire. The strangely flat-faced Leon and strong-jawed Angela, though, might be said to dip a toe or two into the uncanny valley.
Naturally, this release is tied into the upcoming arrival of Resident Evil 5. On the one hand, I think this works quite well. At first glance you might think that the idea of Leon and Claire stumbling into yet another zombie outbreak seems a bit much, but this is our introduction to a world where the collapse of Umbrella has made monster-making viruses the weapon du jour for terrorists around the world. Having two of the franchise's most popular characters experience such an incident first hand provides a nice window into this alternate history.
But on the other hand, the film inevitably leads up to an 'it's not all over yet, folks!' ending that falls rather flat. Merely referencing something not obviously sinister that will appear in RE5 is no kind of teaser or cliffhanger, and anyone who's not yet seen the trailers for the new game will probably be completely baffled.
As a fan of the Resident Evil series of games, I'm glad to own this movie, and I'll probably wind up watching it more times than are healthy. But if I ask myself honestly why any non-fan would be interested in this, I can't come up with anything. While a new game has the space to flesh out backstory and character history at a leisurely pace, a ninety minute film can only avoid it altogether or try and cram it down your throat by the fistful. Degeneration makes the right choice in that regard, but it means that if you're not sure if this movie is for you, it probably isn't.
12.1.09
That Planet - You Know Which One
Image source with more informationCredit: NASA/JPL/STScI
Uranus is a fine example of a world, with interesting moons and mysterious, pitch black rings (the above image is false colour). It was, I'm sure you'll recall, discovered by the same fellow that discovered Enceladus - our favourite geologically active snowball. Dear William Herschel wanted to call it 'George III' after the man who was then king. The French, not too fond of how George III defeated Napoleon, called it simply, 'Herschel'.
All I really want to say is, if you can read this Planetary Society blog post on the pronunciation of Uranus without so much as chuckling, well, you're a much better person than me.
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