The Savage Words Review Round Up

Books

As ever with me, much of my reading matter so far has been of a fantastical nature. Before I come to that though, a quick word for Mark Kermode, of whose books I have read two in the last few months. It’s Only a Movie, Kermode’s mostly autobiographical book about his time in the film critic business, is a brilliantly entertaining read, as anyone more than passingly familiar with Kermode’s writing might expect. A particular highlight is the tale of his hellish journey across Russia to interview the director of a film that is looking increasingly likely to never see the light of day, in the world’s most uncomfortable car, being a perfect showcase of Kermode’s ability to be creatively rude about almost anything, although the details about the actual working life of a film critic are intriguing too. This is a theme made much more central in Hatchet Job, a more straight-forward critical work about the role and future of the professional film critic in today’s more open world. In fact, a major concern of the book is the sort of blog I’m writing this for, albeit ones with a far, far wider reach. In a world where twitter posts are deemed usable reviews for promotional posters, what’s the point in paying someone to write about the films they’ve just watched? It’s an interesting and valid question, with one mild drawback; if you don’t think there’s a point to film critics, then you’re not going to have any interest in the book. If you do think there’s a point, then chances are you’re going to more or less automatically agree with the vast majority if not all of Kermode’s points, which arguably makes it a fairly redundant work. Still, Kermode has a well-deserved reputation for writing that is both intelligent and entertaining, so it still comes recommended.

Moving onto the fiction, and I’ll begin with Scott Lynch’s long-awaited Republic of Thieves, the third instalment of the Gentleman Bastards series. The previous book, Red Seas under Red Skies, was published in 2007, leaving nearly a seven year gap between books (which must be said, is the sort of gap George R.R. Martin would kill to have). Expectation was therefore high even before details of the book came out. For those unfamiliar with the series, the books are set in a fantasy world broadly resembling Renaissance Europe, especially Venice, and the titular Bastards are a group of highly skilled and sarcastic thieves. Essentially, it’s Ocean’s Eleven filtered through a low fantasy filter, and the first two books were enormous fun. Republic of Thieves teased a reunion and professional clash between the central character, Locke Lamora, and his long lost love Sabetha, as they try to fix opposing sides in an election. And not just any election. The parties involved are wizards, and they’re not the kindly old men familiar from Tolkien; they’re given to murder, maiming, and wiping out entire cities if not given what they feel is appropriate respect. Two criminal masterminds with enough witty dialogue between them to put Joss Whedon out of work trying to rig the election of a bunch of psychotic wizards? It couldn’t fail! In practice, half the book takes place in flashback as the thieves in training spend a summer posing as actors for some reason, while the main plot is squandered in favour of childish if amusing pranks rather than elaborate plots. Perhaps if there hadn’t been a seven year wait for it, it might not have been as disappointing. As it is though, the underwhelming plot and some rather bizarre revelations about Locke’s heritage, which are either going to prove to be sheer genius or a complete derailing of the character, leave it an unsatisfying read. There’s fun to be had, but not enough.

More enjoyable, or at least less disappointing, was David Weber’s On Basilisk Station, the first book in his Honor Harrington series. They’re books I’ve been aware of for a while and never quite got round to reading, but on learning that the first two can be downloaded completely free of charge for Kindle, I decided to give them a go. The writing is solid rather than spectacular, particularly when Weber decides to drop an infodump of facts and figures about the setting into the middle of a chase sequence, but overall it’s rather fun. Honor Harrington herself is a winning character, roughly 90% cunning hero with just enough depth and vulnerability to make her relatable, while the plot is a shamelessly cheesy romp that would once have been a classic matinee storyline, but here gets put into space. If hardcore science-fiction puts you off, then you’ll hate the whole thing, but otherwise it’s worth picking up.

Of a similar standard was Brandon Sanderson’s Steelheart. You can find more detail here, but essentially it was a fun summer blockbuster in literary rather than cinematic form, with many of the pros and cons you might expect from that label. There’s room for something more special in sequels though, so it’s worth a read now.

Back on the fantasy side of things was Return of the Crimson Guard, by Ian C. Esslemont, the second in his companion series to Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen. The main series is one of my favourite reads of the last few years, and in fact much of my reading time so far this year has been devoted to a re-read, but Esslemont’s books haven’t quite hit the same spark. I can’t quite put my finger on why, as all the obvious potential problems with the books (sprawling plots, and I do mean sprawling, a wide range of characters, the links with books in another series entirely that you may not have read at all, and in my case read a year or so ago) were all present in the main Malazan books too; I suspect it’s simply a matter of Erikson being a better writer, better able to keep all the plates spinning and memorable. Still, it was a significant improvement over the previous book in the series, and once I settled into it rattled along thrillingly enough. Hopefully the next book will be more satisfying.

Film

I started the year off by catching up with a few of the Oscar big-hitters, naturally released later in the UK. 12 Years A Slave was every bit as good as you’ve heard. Chiwetel Ejiofor delivered a majestic and powerful performance as the illegally enslaved Solomon Northrup, surrounded by equally strong performances from Michael Fassbender and Lupita Nyong'o (particularly impressive as a first time actress, albeit one with fairly extensive behind the scenes experience), while the film itself was a veritable work of art; not simply a brutal indictment of slavery, although there was plenty of that, but a marvellous character study of an incredible individual. Perhaps most impressively, there was a quiet beauty to the film which made the harrowing events stand out even more starkly.

Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street was a hypnotically chaotic and revolting experience, which in any other year would have guaranteed Leonardo DiCaprio an Oscar (although to my mind, the award ought to have gone to Ejiofor for 12 Years a Slave, not Matthew Mcconaughey for Dallas Buyers Club, as good as he was). More detail here.

On the subject of Mcconaughey, Dallas Buyers Club was another outstanding film. A testament to human determination and outrage in the face of (apparent) callousness, it tells the true (or at least heavily based on truth) story of Ron Woodroof, an all-round scoundrel living a contented life of drinks, drugs, sex and gambling hustles until he’s diagnosed with AIDS. Determined to outlast his deadline of a month to live, he travels the globe in search of better drugs to stave off the effects of the disease, and in the process, becomes a better person and changes the attitude of if not a country, then at the very least a big part of an organisation. On paper, it’s the sort of thing that gets classed as award bait – serious real world issues, an inspiring story of courage in the face of tragedy and human growth. It’s even got the old classics of severely changed appearance; Mcconaughey left himself practically emaciated to properly capture the appearance of someone dying from AIDS, while Jared Leto is blindingly convincing as the similarly afflicted trans woman Rayon. It’s also a textbook example that an apparently classic story (even if you’re not familiar with the details of Woodroof’s life, there’s little that will shock you in the film) can be devastatingly good if executed well, and Dallas Buyers Club was very, very good indeed.

It was certainly a hell of a lot better than the similarly based on history American Hustle, a film largely notable for its impressive cast list and seventies dress sense and hair styles. It’s perhaps unfair to criticise the story, given that any flaws in that are presumably a result of a messy series of events in reality; pretty much every other aspect of it can legitimately be criticised though, and if I hadn’t already gone into detail over it here, I would do so now.

Glossing over Captain America: the Winter Soldier (good but slightly disappointing, with more detail here), more recently there has been Darren Aronofsky’s take on the story of Noah. Controversial for a whole host of reasons – for not being a simple recreation of the flood story we’re familiar with from Sunday school, for not mentioning God in a Christian story (a criticism which ignores the existence of dozens, perhaps hundreds of non-Christian stories that are pretty much the same, not to mention the fact that God explicitly exists in the film, he’s just called the Creator), and for not addressing the clear issue of incest – it was pretty much what you might expect from Aronofsky; baffling, unsettling and disturbing, but with moments of great power and beauty. In particular, the creation story was awesome in the truest sense of the word, as was the reappearance of water on the scorched, almost post-apocalyptic Earth the film features. Russell Crowe was excellent in the title role, but whether through the strength of his performance or lacklustre writing/direction/editing, other characters felt thin, although all involved acted their hearts out.

Similarly weird was Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin, a film that will probably forever be known as the one in which Scarlett Johansson seduces Glaswegians before killing them. On the one hand, such a description is a major dis-service; there’s a lot going on in the film, and I can see it being a staple of literary and film theory classes for years to come. Is it a critique of modern rape culture? A warped parody of a nature documentary (Johansson has described her character as a lioness out hunting)? Or simply a horror film without many of the more obvious trappings of the genre? It’s certainly unsettling. The first few minutes of the film play out rather like you imagine Stanley Kubrick’s version of the cursed videotape from Ringu might appear, while Johansson, in a simply outstanding performance, manages to convey a whole host of subtle characteristics and thought processes in a person who barely speaks, never mind emotes. The stubborn refusal to explain anything about what may or may not be going on will doubtless frustrate some viewers, and could be just as easily seen as a lack of thought rather than encouragement to speculate, but for me the ambiguity helped the film; in the end, the unknown is always scarier.

Away from the current crop of releases, I’ve been enjoying the selection of films shown by my local Film Theatre, which brings to a small town the kind of film that would traditionally never have come within view of our tiny fleapit. Behind the Candelabra, the Liberace biopic with Michael Douglas and Matt Damon, was an unexpected treat; both actors were terrific, and the story was more interesting than I had imagined it would be. A point was lost for Damon though, who although perfectly good on screen was horribly miscast as a seventeen year old youth. Casting someone more age appropriate might have been more preferable, although I’ll concede that there would have been little the film could do from there to make Douglas’ Liberace even remotely sympathetic, something it actually managed surprisingly well. The Danish thriller A Hijacking/Kapringen was a tense affair, split between the hostages on a tanker hijacked by pirates and one of the chief executives of the company they were employed by. Watching said executive (Soren Malling, apparently a comedian for the most part, which makes his brooding performance here even more impressive) try to negotiate the hostages release without paying out too much of the companies money had me on the edge of my seat, and there were some interesting debates to be had; was Malling’s character callous and arrogant in his actions, or simply following recommended hostage negotiation protocol as guardedly as he could? Could you sympathise with the pirates – none of whom really seemed to want to be there either – or were they a motley collection of violent psychopaths?

From the same writer (Tobias Lindholm) came Jagten/The Hunt, the tale of a nursery assistant (Mads Mikkelson) falsely accused of sexually assaulting one of the children. Mikkelson is clever casting. Although he portrayed Lucas’ essential goodness excellently, he is of course mostly familiar from distinctly villainous roles, having been a Bond villain and even the most recent incarnation of Hannibal Lector. With that in mind, and especially reflected against current events, it became surprisingly easy to see the viewpoint of those who believed the accusations against him, even though the audience know that it’s complete nonsense. A powerful examination of loyalty, doubt and the power of word of mouth.

Moving to Spain, Blancanieves was a wonderful new spin on a classic: a silent, black and white take on the story of Snow White, taking place largely within the bull-fighting community. Aside from a rather bleak twist at the end, the fact that it is based on one of the more famous fairytales meant that it was rarely surprising, but it was cleverly done and extremely sweet.

Wadjda will probably be best remembered for being the first Saudi Arabian film to be directed by a woman (Haifaa Al Mansour), but the best thing for me was the wonderful performance from Reem Abdullah as the title character. A fairly classic feisty young girl, it was a role which could easily have grated, but Abdullah made her thoroughly sympathetic, bordering on adorable; I would not have expected the story of a girl trying to obtain a bicycle to be so affecting.

The other two standouts of their current season both revolved around France. Le Week-End, the story of a retired couple on a weekend break to Paris in a bid to recapture the spark of their marriage, was hysterically funny and tragic in equal measure, while Blue is the Warmest Colour proved to be much more than its reputation might lead you to believe – although yes, there is an astonishing amount of graphic sex for a mainstream release. Overall, I’d say it was artistically justified, as a passionate counterpoint to the bleaker second half, but more specifically, the seven minute long sex scene in which Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos contort themselves to positively Olympic standards could probably have been trimmed a little. Make no mistake though, this is a film worth seeing. Both actresses perfectly depict the blossoming and withering of passionate love, and if you’re not near to tears by the end then you might want to check the existence of your soul.

Television

Let’s get it out of the way right now; the televisual highlight of the first few months of 2014 was without question the third series of Sherlock. You can find more detail on that here.

So what else was there? The BBC also brought us a new take on Dumas’ The Three Musketeers, here simply titled Musketeers. After some initial confusion – I hadn’t quite picked up that it wasn’t supposed to be a straight adaptation, so I was baffled when the plots started to diverge from the original plot – I found myself rather enjoying it. In no way was it especially sophisticated or revolutionary material, but it served its purpose as Sunday night comfort television admirably. Peter Capaldi was the stand-out performance, as a surprisingly multi-layered Cardinal, and the show is going to miss him when it returns for the second series, due to his new medically inclined commitments. This isn’t to say that the rest of the cast are in any way bad, although I felt that Luke Pasqualino took a little while to develop D’Artagnan much beyond impetuous youth. The show as a whole was often nonsense, but it was entertaining nonsense, solidly executed.

Which brings me to the returning/continuing MARVEL: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I criticised the first ten episodes, broadcast in 2013, for…well, more or less for what I’ve just praised Musketeers for, actually. Perhaps the weight of expectation attached to it unfairly detracted from what was basically a competent bit of television, or perhaps Musketeers managed a better overall standard. Whether unfairly criticised due to hype or not, since its return the show has been operating on a much higher standard, although nowhere near the quality of the cinematic entries in the Marvel franchise. An increase in urgency of the arc plot, as Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) strives ever harder to find out how and why he returned from the dead, and hacker Skye (Chloe Bennett) tries to uncover the truth of her childhood, has helped immeasurably, with a few intriguing revelations that bode well not just for the show but for the whole of the wider franchise. In addition, there have been a few bold attempts at actual character work, which combined with some more interesting plots have resulted in a show which has finally achieved a standard higher than entertaining background noise. However, there is still work to be done; if they can keep up the improvements and build on the twists both within the show and implicitly to come in the aftermath of Captain America: The Winter Solder, then there might finally be a great show to be broadcast (since writing this section, an episode has been broadcast which absolutely lives up to all the promise, by turns thrilling, shocking, funny and moving. Fingers crossed for more of the same!)

More favourably, we have also been treated to another exemplary run of ITV’s Endeavour, a prequel show to the classic Inspector Morse. Although essentially a standard British detective show, with little to mark it out on paper beyond its sixties setting and esteemed heritage, this series – and indeed the previous series, broadcast in 2012 – has been masterful from start to finish. There are three elements to this: the writing, which brilliantly combines an evocative, sensitive portrayal of the time period with intriguing and thrilling mysteries; a warm, thumpingly decent and solid father figure in Roger Allam’s DI Fred Thursday; and, most importantly, a sensational performance from Shaun Evans as the young Endeavour Morse. It was always going to take something special to live up to John Thaw’s iconic performance, but Evans has without question managed this, pitch-perfect as the slightly awkward, too smart for his own good and achingly vulnerable young copper. Even if the stories he features in were lacklustre, the Morse/Thursday partnership is worth tuning in for all on its own. The final episode was almost too thrilling to describe, and leaves the series on a simply cruel cliffhanger. In fact, while it’s perhaps not quite the event that Sherlock was, it runs it pretty damn close in terms of quality, and may just take the top spot. It’s certainly a contender.

Finally, at least of this year’s broadcasts, there was W1A, the follow-up to 2012’s…2012, a show which spoofed the bureaucracy of the London Olympics. I didn’t see that show, to my regret, but heard such good things about it that I immediately marked the sequel as one to watch. Following Hugh Bonneville’s fish-out-of-water Ian Fletcher as he moves to the BBC as ‘Head of Values’, a job title almost as meaningless as it sounds, and tries to deal with the mind-numbing managerial mindset. The first episode was gently amusing, but by the end of the all too brief run had turned into a sparkling gem. From the staggeringly stupid intern Will (Hugh Skinner, with a typical line of dialogue: “Ah, yeah, no, like cool”) to the almost offensively agreeable Simon (Jason Watkins) via Jessica Hynes as a PR consultant with little connection to reality, characters which seemed clichéd at first soon had me howling with laughter. It wasn’t quite the biting satire I’d expected, but it was glorious nonetheless.

Review of the Year: 2013

Film:

I could go into obscene amounts of detail in this section, but I’ll confine myself to a few notable highs and lows. On the highs, and kicking the year off with surprising quality, was rom-com ‘Warm Bodies’, which retold ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in post zombie apocalypse style, and Romeo dying long before the start of the story instead of at the end. A sharp script which managed to do voice-over right, and great central performances from Nicholas Hoult and Teresa Palmer grounded the outlandish concept. An unconventional date movie, but one worth watching.

Elsewhere in movies that you defied obvious expectations, Guillimero del Toro’s ‘Pacific Rim’ was a triumph of spectacle, but managed to secrete a surprising amount of substance into a film about giant robots beating up bigger monsters. It wasn’t quite as original as some would have you believe, essentially being Power Rangers versus Godzilla, but it had characters with depth, a coherently constructed universe, outstanding art design and, of course, giant robots using oil tankers as offensive weapons, which automatically makes it one of the best films ever made.

On the comic book front, Marvel’s output in 2013 was outstanding. ‘Iron Man 3’ wrapped up (maybe) that particular arc of the wider franchise, and while the Iron Man films have always had a broad streak of comedy, which was exacerbated wonderfully by Shane Black taking the helm, it was actually a surprisingly sombre, thoughtful film, and was a worthy finale to the series. “Thor: The Dark World” was perhaps even better, and definitely funnier. Christopher Ecclestone was wasted as the villainous Malekith, hidden behind too much make up and with zero characterisation, but the laugh rate, the stonking action, and first rate performances carried the day. The inevitable third film will no doubt be a must see.

They were certainly better than the other big superhero film, ‘Man of Steel’. A more controversial entry, largely due to the ending, which saw Superman break a man’s neck, I felt it for the most part a highly entertaining and surprisingly clever film, but one that was occasionally bent under the attempt to make the character ‘relevant’ to a modern audience, not to mention some appallingly heavy-handed Messianic imagery. Opinion on it will probably vary depending on how much of a fan of Superman you are, but it’s worth watching to make up your mind if nothing else.

To wrap up the blockbuster overview, and a comfortable winner of film of the year in my book, Alfonso Cuarón’s ‘Gravity’ was the single most thrilling cinematic experience I have ever had, and a welcome reminder of what Sandra Bullock can do when given a decent role. The story of one woman’s attempt to survive an appalling accident while servicing the Hubble telescope, it was all at once horrifying, awe-inspiring, heart-wrenching and visually spectacular, to the extent that even Mark Kermode, who has devoted entire swathes of his blogs, radio shows and books to the horrors of 3D, admitted that it was worth spending ninety minutes wearing silly glasses for the privilege of seeing it done so well. Whether it will have the same impact on smaller screens is subject to testing, but that’s a mild concern with an astonishing film.

If it hadn’t been for ‘Gravity’, film of the year would probably have gone to ‘The Place Beyond the Pines’, perhaps best known for Ryan Gosling’s quietly intense performance as a stunt rider turned bank robber, but worth seeing for a whole host of other reasons. Despite its reputation, it isn’t actually Gosling’s film; he’s very much part of an ensemble, and is really only in it for a third of the film or so. If you’re looking for a film of his though, go for this over the over-rated ‘Drive’. But you should also watch it for some excellent direction from Derek Cianfrance, and a couple of tender, heartbreaking performances from Bradley Cooper and Dane deHaan. Melancholic but hopeful, and unlucky to have been outshone by ‘Gravity’.

On the downside, I shall gloss over the truly terrible ‘Mortal Instruments’ to mention ‘Oz: the Great and Powerful’ and ‘Jack the Giant Slayer’, both reasonably entertaining in a fairly mindless sort of way, but falling far short of the level of quality one might expect from the source ideas and creative teams involved. ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ was great fun for eighty percent of its run time, but crippled by appallingly lazy writing, while Neill Blomkamp’s ‘Elysium’ was simply a couple of hours of being told that rich people are bastards.

Television:

I’ve probably watched too many TV shows this year, but an awful lot of them have been fantastic. Sadly, many of the best have been old(ish), and watched on DVD; ‘Breaking Bad’ is without question the best thing I’ve watched this year, but that was the first series…which I started the day after the final episode of the show ever was broadcast. Great timing. Anyway, it is absolute must-see television. Bryan Cranston is outstanding as the terminally ill, and morally misguided Walter White, and the whole show just oozes intelligence and class. A close second was ‘Community’, a very funny American comedy set in a community college, and revolving around a crowd of somewhat familiar misfits. A nice blend of laughs are to be found, ranging from slapstick to verbal banter nearly as slick as the master of the genre, Dr. Frasier Crane. Well worth checking out.

However, in terms of television actually made this year, it has been a decidedly mixed bag. ‘Doctor Who’ got off to a very shaky start, with more than a couple of duff episodes, including a surprisingly disappointing entry from Neil Gaiman. Matters weren’t helped by a lacklustre storyline revolving around Jenna Coleman’s ‘Impossible Girl’, Clara Oswald, a fine performance in desperate need of some characterisation from the production team. However, a few cracking scripts, an outstanding final twist, and Matt Smith’s always wonderful performance carried the day, and then it was time for the 50^th anniversary. ‘Day of the Doctor’ was an absolute triumph, blending comedy, time-travel, and moral debates about genocide into one of the most entertaining hours of television in a long time. And then came ‘Time of the Doctor’, which did everything ‘Day…’ had done, and did it even better, while managing to answer more or less every hanging plot thread from the last three or four years. Matt Smith’s regeneration was magnificent, and nearly had me in tears; as an unashamed fanboy, I’m going to miss him. But Peter Capaldi is looking pretty impressive already, and the prospect of a full series with him is very enticing.

On a related note, one-off drama of the year was ‘An Adventure in Space and Time’, Mark Gatiss’ dramatization of the origins of ‘Doctor Who’, which was superbly written and acted, and positively heart-wrenching.

Elsewhere, the BBC also triumphed with David Mitchell and Robert Webb’s new series, ‘Ambassadors’. The tale of two ambassadors in the fictional state of Tzbekistan, trying to walk the line between moral certainty and the demands of the malevolent POD (Matthew MacFayden, in no way inspired by Peter Mandelson), it was reminiscent of ‘Yes, Minister’ at its best, but surprisingly more focused on drama than laughs, for the most part.  

However, the show of 2013 was without question, for me, ‘Orphan Black’. Telling the story of Sarah Manning, a young woman trying to escape the mistakes of her past and reconnect with her young daughter, it was a thrilling, intelligent and twisting drama. It had me hooked from the first scene: Sarah at a train station, watching in horror as another woman throws herself in front of a train. A shocking enough thing to see, but when the dead woman is a perfect doppelganger of you…the eventual twist was fairly predictable, at least to watchers familiar with genre tropes, but the execution was more or less perfect. Particular praise must go to Tatiana Maslany as Sarah – and four or five other characters within the series, each one of them so nuanced and varied that you could have difficulty believing it’s the same person. Series two will be starting in April, and I cannot wait.

On the side of the disappointments though, there are two entries. Marvel’s ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D’ came with a lot of expectation attached, partly due to the weight of the franchise, and partly because of the Whedon name attached to it. It quickly became apparent that it wasn’t going to be the spectacular super-hero fest people had wanted, which was fair enough; most of the Marvel heroes would either be too complicated or expensive to recreate on a television budget, or would work better as their own franchise, at least initially. More serious was the lack of decent characterisation and coherent tone. Although the quality did pick up as the show progressed, it never quite rose above solidly entertaining, which isn’t quite good enough for a seemingly key development of one of the biggest franchises around. In any other year, it would likely have been the most disappointing show of the year, but fortunately for Marvel, we’ve also had series three of ‘Homeland’.

The first series was outstanding, a thrilling, engaging, morally ambiguous tour de force that gripped you by the scruff of your neck and would not let go. Series two was disappointing, reduced to a more bland spy thriller, but still had spark, and finished with an outstanding few episodes that re-ignited interest with a bang. Series three…well, it’s never a good sign when a show that has been so focused on two characters, both in terms of the plot and their developing romance, has one half of that duo off screen for two-thirds of the series. Damian Lewis’ Brody has gone from a terrorist who made you sympathise and support him to a wishy-washy drug addict with no real purpose in life, so you can understand why he was out of focus. It might not have mattered so much if Carrie’s (Claire Danes) storyline was more believable; sadly, while ‘Homeland’ has never made claims to rigorous adherence to reality, in series three it completely abandoned such concepts as common sense and logic, preferring to spend more time on the teen angst of Brody’s daughter. True, she has more reason to whine than pretty much any other teenager on television, and Morgan Sayler gave her best performances of the show so far, but that’s not why anyone is watching the show. Frankly, the majority of the series was poor, and I only kept watching in the hopes of a last minute save akin to the second series. Alas, it was not to be, and I won’t be bothering with the inevitable and seemingly pointless fourth series.

Books:

As with television, I have to say that the best book I read this year was not actually written in 2013. Nonetheless, I can’t write this without mentioning ‘Wolf Hall’, by Hilary Mantel, an enthralling fictionalisation, although as far as I can tell thoroughly researched and accurate telling, of the early life of Thomas Cromwell, architect of Henry VIII’s divorce and the Break with Rome. Engaging throughout, beautifully written, and detailing a fascinating period of history through lesser known personal details (and presumably a few embellishments), it’s an outstanding book, and if you have any interest in history or simply good literature, you owe it to yourself to read it as soon as humanly possible.

However, in books actually released during 2013, the clear winner was Neil Gaiman’s ‘The Ocean at the End of the Lane’. Now, I’m a big fan of Gaiman anyway, and I’ll admit to a certain fondness for any book that results in an all too brief meeting with him, but it really is beautiful. It’s a simple story, really; a young boy meets a slightly older girl and befriends her and her family. Except slightly older is really very, very old, and her grandmother remembers the Big Bang. And then an Eldritch Abomination hitches a lift back to our world in the boy’s foot, and proceeds to try and take over the world. And then reality starts to die. Well, it is a fantasy story. For all that though, the best moments of the book are the sections that focus on the boy’s life. Gaiman perfectly captures and recreates the feeling of being a slightly lonely child, and how even the most ordinary things can inspire wonder. It might not be Gaiman’s best work – it’s always going to be hard to beat ‘The Sandman’ – but it’s probably the most accessible, and by far and away the most heartfelt. It’s already won at least one book of the year award, and if there’s any justice it will win a whole lot more.

There were others, of course. Stephen King’s rather belated sequel to ‘The Shining’, ‘Doctor Sleep’ was a pleasant surprise. Horror isn’t really my genre of choice anyway, and what I’ve read of his previous work, admittedly very little, hasn’t especially grabbed me. Having read ‘Doctor Sleep’ though, I came away feeling I may have misjudged him; it’s a much more mature, thoughtful work than I was expecting, as much about the dangers of addiction as the dangers of soul-eating, motorhome dwelling child killers. And while it didn’t quite have me scared to go to sleep with the lights off, fans of chilled spines will be more than satisfied. I also enjoyed ‘The Red House’, by Mark Haddon of ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time’ fame. A very different book to his debut, focussing on two siblings and their respective families, on a week’s holiday after a bereavement. It’s a far from cheerful book – estranged family members, unhappy marriages, teen angst of so many varieties, and at least one affair all contribute to a rather stressful holiday, and that’s really just the tip of the iceberg. However, while the distinct shortage of particularly likeable characters does somewhat hamper proceedings, the writing is spot on, and the book has an uncomfortable familiarity to it that really makes it hit home.

Returning to fantasy, Kate Griffin returned with another instalment in her urban fantasy universe, thus far comprising two series: the Matthew Swift novels and the Magicals Anonymous series. ‘The Glass God’ is the second of the latter series, and related the return of trainee shaman and social worker Sharon Li, not to mention the imminent destruction of London by an ancient plague spirit and, of course, a new divinity constructed from glass. The major strength of Griffin’s works has always been the world in which they take place; the magical additions to London are so well thought out and constructed that it never feels anything less than believable, and any subsequent visit to London is bound to feel a little disappointing afterwards. However, as yet, Sharon Li and her co-stars haven’t quite captured the imagination as much as Matthew Swift. It must be said, that would be a tall order. Swift is a sorcerer who makes his debut waking up two years after his brutal murder, and turns out to have been inhabited by the new gods of the telephone wire. His defining characteristics are a slightly schizophrenic childishness and a propensity for mass destruction on an awesome scale. Sharon Li is very much a typical young woman in modern day London – it just so happens that she can walk through walls, turn herself invisible, and commune with the spirits…and her social work tends to bring her into contact with banshees who appreciate modern art, trolls with a talent for cookery, and vampires with OCD about personal hygiene. It’s all great fun, but as yet not quite as good as the Swift series, and this isn’t helped by the fact that both books in the MA series have featured Swift as an important secondary character, and in both books things would have gone horribly wrong without his intervention. Hopefully, future instalments in the series will push Swift to the background and develop the actual protagonists a little further.