Rivers of London by: Ben Aaronovitch

 

For those reading this without knowing who I am, Ben Aaronovitch is the writer of my favorite Doctor Who television story; Remembrance of the Daleks, its novelization; the equally interesting if not a bit too long Battlefield; and several amazing installments in the Virgin New Adventures line of books.  He is an author whom I was already familiar with when approaching Rivers of London, or as it was known in the United States when I purchased my copy Midnight Riot.  His work on Doctor Who is unabashedly left wing so it is a bit surprising when the main series he has been publishing in both novel and graphic novel form, the Peter Grant series, is clearly based in a love for the police procedural.  Rivers of London follows the format of a police procedural though not without Aaronovitch’s understanding of left wing politics and modern society: Peter Grant is a person of color who has joined the Metropolitan Police because it was one path generally available to him and is seen by his coworkers, especially his white superiors, as less capable.  The reader first meets Peter as he finds out he is to be resigned to filling out paperwork for a stretch of his career while close friend Lesley May is expected to progress onto casework.  Aaronovitch is straddling a very fine line here, being aware of systemic racism and how it affects the lives of people of color while not telling a story of a person of color having to prove themselves.  There is a clear understanding, at least with the first novel, that there are some stories that while Aaronovitch certainly could tell and make work, he should not be the one telling them due to them being perhaps too far outside of his lived experiences.

 

Rivers of London is squarely in the genre of urban fantasy, Peter Grant accidentally having an encounter with a ghost that leads him to become apprentice to wizard Detetctive Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale.  While some upon hearing the premise of magic detectives investigating a brutal murder while working with the local police department as close to the early novels of The Dresden Files, Rivers of London is quite different.  Peter as a character is intensely skeptical, while not passing his A levels with flying colors in science he has a logical mind and attempts to apply the scientific method to the magic and mythical.  Nightingale is our wise mentor figure, and Aaronovitch mainly uses him as a guide before largely writing him out of this first novel so Peter can use his training on his own, though Aaronovitch is smart to not have Peter immediately become an expert in magic.  In terms of a magic system, Aaronovitch takes plenty of time to Peter’s training, sometimes to the detriment of the pace of the novel itself, while the main case splits into two distinct plot threads.  The way the plot threads interconnect are serviceable, if a bit too scattershot in the way it treats some of the supporting characters.  Lesley as a character especially doesn’t come out of Rivers of London very well, being turned into a damsel in distress in what easily could have become a case of fridging despite a lack of a romantic connection.

 

The titular rivers are perhaps the most interesting characters, despite many of them being minor characters.  Mama Thames is the goddess of the Thames, with her many children being other rivers and tributaries of the city.  London itself is almost a character with Aaronovitch using the setting to ground the novel in something he knows like the back of his hand.  The goddesses of the rivers are also interesting as Aaronovitch uses them to continually diversify his characters, reflecting the multicultural nature of London historically and in the present which makes a nice change.  Thames is a delight when she appears and Beverly Brook is used as Peter’s sidekick/love interest to a mostly nice effect.  Rivers of London may not be Aaronovitch’s best work, but it’s a book that feels alive with its setting and character while laying the groundwork for what might be another of the great modern fantasy series.  The start is slow, it takes right until the very end for the threads to come together and your mileage may vary on the clear sequel hook included in the final chapter, but it’s a book that I had a very good time with.  7/10.

Arcanum Unbounded Part IV: Edgedancer by: Brandon Sanderson

 

Arcanum Unbounded is a 2017 collection from Brandon Sanderson collecting all of the short fiction that had been written and published for the Cosmere to that point.  This means there are short stories, novellas, and novelettes featured, all generally longer than one may expect from a typical piece of short fiction.  As such I have decided to split the review for the collection into four separate reviews, generally splitting up by systems, three connected to previously released series and one covering the miscellaneous pieces of standalone short fiction.  This fourth covers ‘The Rosharan System’ section of the collection, containing the novella Edgedancer.

 

Edgedancer is the only piece of original fiction placed in Arcanum Unbounded, written to bridge the gap between Words of Radiance and Oathbringer while exploring a different order of the Knights Radiant.  There’s a sense when reading Edgedancer that Sanderson adores the character of Lift and wanted to use her in a major capacity despite her only appearance being in one interlude in Words of Radiance.  As a character, she is interesting if a bit polarizing.  A young girl of 13, though insisting she’s only 10 and has been 10 for three years, Lift has this generally positive if very aloof outlook to the world.  She’s a girl who is easily distracted by her love of food and is convinced her spren, Wyndle, is actually a Voidbringer coming to bring about the end of the world.  This outlook is polarizing since several readers have found her annoying, however I think there’s less of a realization that Lift as a character is a child, and a rather care free child at that.  This is perhaps the most readers of The Stormlight Archive will get of Lift in one go, and as a novella it is quite long, clocking in at about 270 pages, so those who are already predisposed to disliking Lift won’t necessarily see her redeemed.  I wouldn’t be surprised if this novella was responsible for some disliking Lift even more.

 

What is genuinely wonderful about Edgedancer is the opportunity to really get into Lift as a character and tell a story that’s clearly occurring in the background on Roshar, but wouldn’t fit in the normal The Stormlight Archive sequence.  While food is something that motivates Lift, the main thrust of Edgedancer is an attempt to find another Radiant in the city of Yeddaw because she knows there must be something there.  As a character, Lift is portrayed as being very much on the outside of events but able to use her abilities as a Radiant to get what she wants.  The identity of the Radiant is a twist and if you’ve read the books in the series up to this point the rug pull at the end of the novella is fascinating.  However, as this is a midquel while the worldbuilding is great and there’s a genuine chance to see more of Roshar, this one does have a slight issue of coming down to an ending that doesn’t feel like a proper end to a novel, sending Lift off again towards the events of the next novel.  Edgedancer is honestly the crown of the collection, going back to Sanderson’s best series and world and letting a minor character get a real chance to shine.  9/10.

Arena by: Gene L. Coon, from a story by: Frederic Brown, and directed by: Joseph Pevney

 

“Arena” is written by Gene L. Coon, from a story by Fredric Brown, and is directed by Joseph Pevney.  It was filmed under production code 19, was the 18^th episode of Star Trek Season 1, and was broadcast on January 19, 1967.

 

“Arena” is perhaps the episode of Star Trek that has lasted the longest in terms of pop culture.  Often referenced and parodied is the main thrust of the episode, Captain Kirk fighting the reptilian Gorn on Vasquez Rocks.  The Gorn is a man in a rubber suit obviously, but this certainly isn’t a bad thing as it isn’t a cheap looking rubber suit.  Okay, perhaps the skin is a bit smooth and there isn’t really an attempt to emulate the scales or skin of a reptile, but it’s certainly more interesting than the standard Star Trek alien to just be a human with forehead ridges or special eyebrows and ears.  It’s also more than just a simple monster, the species is intelligent and a species of hunters in general which is used by the episode to explore a lot of ideas of colonialism in a world that is clearly set up to be after humanity has left behind their colonial ways.  The actual sequence of Kirk and the Gorn fighting is only the back half of the episode, after the Enterprise has found a destroyed outpost and pursues a ship that had been firing down on Kirk and company along with the Enterprise.  The fight to the death is set up by the Metrons, another of the seemingly many advanced godlike races that Star Trek has to offer.

 

This is an episode that builds itself up on the genuinely great twist that it ends with, the fact that Kirk and humanity are really the villains of the piece due to humanity’s often violent history.  Frederic Brown gets a story credit on this episode due to Gene L. Coon adapting Brown’s science fiction short story of the same name from 1944.  The original short story reflects the height of World War II which is something that Coon’s script does an excellent job at updating for the Cold War of the late 1960s, continuing to uphold the general idea that Star Trek is a good vehicle to subtly criticize the state of the world.  This has produced Star Trek’s best episodes of its first season and “Arena” is really a script that should be seen as such.  There are some issues, Joseph Pevney makes his Star Trek debut in the director’s chair and will come back for a further thirteen episodes across the original series, but sadly the actual fight between Kirk and the Gorn often feels lacking.  It’s an action sequence that often involves more lingering shot and a slower pace, even slow by the standards for fight choreography of the time when the script is working overtime to portray the situation as one of extreme desperation.  The idea is that Kirk is about to fall into committing genuinely monstrous acts and while he is not the one to kill the Gorn in the end, the episode does end with the Gorn and its ship completely destroyed.  The messaging gets muddled because of the format of Star Trek but this is a genuinely dark ending with the reveal that humanity were the invaders, something not in the original short story (at least based on the summary of the short story on Wikipedia).  The first half of the episode is also perfectly acted and directed, splitting between the Enterprise and destroyed colony which is the only point in the episode where the supporting cast, especially Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, George Takei, and Nichelle Nichols, get the chance tot shine.

 

Overall, “Arena” is an episode whose reputation as rather camp due to the special effects is blocking a genuinely dramatic and harrowing episode that geos into some very dark and interesting places without losing sight of its main goal.  William Shatner is the one who ties the episode together and Pevney’s ability to reign in the lead actor is marvelous.  The ending doesn’t quite work with its message, but it’s one of those episodes that deserves to be in the public consciousness.  9/10.

The Body in the Library by: Agatha Christie

 

Whenever you pick up an Agatha Christie novel that opens with a foreward from the author, you know you’re in for a good time.  The Body in the Library is one of her novels whose title is at least well known enough to be a murder mystery trope, bolstered by two television adaptations starring Joan Hickson and Geraldine McEwan in the role of Miss Marple.  Interestingly enough, the trope of the body in the library was one that was old when Christie was writing this book she intentionally uses the trope to deconstruct detective fiction as a whole.  The opening pages of The Body in the Library establish the madness of a dead body being found by Col. Bantry’s maid in his personal library when going in to draw the curtains for the day.  Christie also doesn’t play this farcical situation entirely for farce, going for a more serious murder mystery route as with The Murder at the Vicarage before it, The Body in the Library is a Miss Marple story.  The characters within the story believe this must be an open and shut, unsolvable case since it’s clear the colonel and his wife clearly couldn’t have done it but British society says they must be shunned.  They’re both characters who garner quite a bit of sympathy although Christie does not do anything to examine the role of class, the servants in the story are never suspects though the police are ineffective and it’s Miss Marple who puts things together.  There’s this sense that the Bantry’s are genuinely suffering from the ‘scandal’ of a beautiful young woman turning up dead.  What’s especially nice is that Col. Bantry and his wife genuinely love each other and don’t have some big twist about how the colonel is having an affair with a much younger woman.

 

The setup of The Body in the Library is also interesting as the victim, Ruby Keene, is a dancer and a platinum blonde, heavily drugged before she was found strangled in the library.  It’s a setup that’s utterly ridiculous and only gets more ridiculous.  Another body is found in a car that has been burned with gasoline, the car being the most popular model of the time so while it’s owner is identified, once again it’s someone who could not have possibly done the murder.  This is the second novel to feature Miss Marple, although she had appeared in short stories in between, which has helped as she feels less of a minor character here as she did in The Murder at the Vicarage.  Christie does have this very interesting style where the reader feels like everyone else in the novel should just shut up and let Miss Marple work through the issues regarding the murders.  The characters are also just wonderfully portrayed, despite a rather short length only clocking in at about 200 pages, including a child who’s a fan of detective fiction especially Agatha Christie, an older gentleman who has left 50,000 to the murder victim, a young man who works in film who’s incredibly sardonic and womanizing, and the general inspectors who cannot believe a body would be found in Col. Bantry’s library.

 

Overall, The Body in the Library is a cracking murder mystery despite being quite short on the whole.  It manages to straddle the line between genuine drama and farce, deconstructing the murder mystery to take its characters incredibly seriously in an over the top murder which works quite well for Miss Marple.  8/10.

Arcanum Unbounded Part III: Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell and Sixth of the Dusk by: Brandon Sanderson

 

Arcanum Unbounded is a 2017 collection from Brandon Sanderson collecting all of the short fiction that had been written and published for the Cosmere to that point.  This means there are short stories, novellas, and novelettes featured, all generally longer than one may expect from a typical piece of short fiction.  As such I have decided to split the review for the collection into four separate reviews, generally splitting up by systems, three connected to previously released series and one covering the miscellaneous pieces of standalone short fiction.  This third covers ‘The Threnodite System’ and ‘The Drominad System’ sections of the collection, containing the short stories “Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell” and “Sixth of the Dusk”.  The excerpts from White Sand are being skipped as I intend to write a review for the omnibus edition of that story once it is released.

 

“Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell” is an amazing long title that sounds like something that wouldn’t be written by Brandon Sanderson.  Because of this readers perhaps should temper expectations based on the title alone since it really does fall into a lot of similar ideas that Sanderson generally falls into.  It’s also perhaps the weakest short story from this collection, not really fulfilling a lot of what it sets out to do nor really having the chance to explore its setting like the others.  It is also quite short, at least in terms of a Sanderson story, exploring the planet of Threnody very little nor really explaining a lot of what the planet has to offer.  The plot should be interesting, Silence is secretly a bounty hunter and is protecting the waystation she owns one night which becomes complicated when the shades of the dead rise.  Yet, this almost feels like Sanderson didn’t really have a completely fully formed idea when the opportunity to write this story came about from George R.R. Martin.  It’s one of those short stories that just didn’t really gel for me as Sanderson is clearly attempting to write a horror story that becomes tense, but something ends up lacking the tension that would have been the desired result in a short story like this.  There’s just a failure to really come together and the sakes while high don’t feel great since the supporting characters clearly have complexities to be explored that can’t be done in a short story like this.  5/10.

 

“Sixth of the Dusk” is described as both a short story and a novella at various points which is interesting because it kind of feels like a blend between the both.  This is one of the few pieces from Sanderson that genuinely feels like characters are from vastly different cultures that have grown independently on a planet, something that is a bit of a problem with a lot of fantasy and science fiction stories that make its setting one homogenous culture, often called the planet of hats.  “Sixth of the Dusk” takes place on the First of the Sun, a planet that has a mainland civilization and an island civilization, the mainland being seen as technologically advanced while the islands are seen as primitive.  Sixth of the Dusk is our main character, named so due to the naming system of his people, named for the time at which he was born.  He is tasked with stopping some great catastrophe that he does not know and comes into contact with Vathi, a clerk, and the story explores their manipulations due to the Ones Above exploiting them and their culture.  The Ones Above are a space faring civilization and it is clear Sanderson wants to explore colonialism, something that he does in The Stormlight Archive in depth, but hadn’t fully done at the point this novella was written so it doesn’t quite fall as well.  “Sixth of the Dusk” does, however, excel at character interactions and at feeling as if the First of the Sun is a great world.  It’s a simple story, but the plot keeps moving and the central mystery unravels quite easily as Dusk continues his travels.  8/10.

Cards on the Table by: Agatha Christie

 

Agatha Christie has the epithet the “Queen of Mystery,” but perhaps she should be called the “Queen of Mystery Titles.”  From classics such as The Body in the Library and And Then There Were None to her more subtle affairs like Nemesis or Sparkling Cyanide.  Cards on the Table is another of those wonderful titles with double and triple meanings and is yet one of Christie’s lower key affairs.  A man is murdered at a dinner party while his eight guests play bridge, four of the guests are detectives, four of the guests are suspects, and one of them is the murderer.  Like many Christie’s, our victim is killed early on, but Mr. Shaitana may be one of her absolute best victims, if not a problematic character.  He’s described as oriental, remember this was the mid-1930s, with absolutely no truth given as to his country of origin.  His name is linguistically related to Satan and the character is often described as a Mephistophelian figure which is at least partially playing into certain yellow fever tropes.  There are the foreign eccentricities as well as a very clear amount of coding.  Especially close readers will notice certain aspects of coding that may or may not have been intentional or just influenced by pop culture of the time that Christie would have been consuming.  Yet with all of these aspects the character is fascinating to watch in the early portions of the novel and discover quite a bit of his character through how our suspects react throughout the novel.

 

The title of Cards on the Table refers to the two games of bridge and the fact that each suspect has their own hand.  Our four detectives are characters Christie has used before: Superintendent Battle from The Secret of Chimneys, Colonel Race from The Man in the Brown Suit, Ariadne Oliver from the short story “The Case of the Discontented Soldier,” and Hercule Poirot.  While this is labeled as a Poirot novel, the other three sleuths share equal screen time and work together to solve the case, each fitting a stereotype of the time.  Poirot, of course, is the careful and anal detective you would have come to expect from the character, but his observations are nevertheless welcome and perhaps the most down to Earth since by this point he was Christie’s most popular character.  Ariadne Oliver is the standout character.  A clear pastiche of Christie herself, there’s something so assuring that Christie understands her flaws and foibles as well as the idea that as a novelist she would be a terrible detective is genuinely hilarious.  Of course Oliver ends up giving Poirot and the other sleuths runs for their money accidentally but also bares her issues in detection on her sleeves.  She still discusses motives directly with suspects which allows them to gain her trust and she’s the best part of the novel.  Battle and Race are standard policeman and spy characters in particular, Race being a spy without the James Bond charm.  The suspects are also archetypes: a doctor, a major, a widow, and an ingénue and going into who they are may give the game away as Christie’s forward to the novel is clear that the reader can figure things out.

 

Overall, Cards on the Table may be out of the norm for a Hercule Poirot mystery, but that often means Christie is on top form in playing out the game.  The characters are honestly some of her best, so much so Ariadne Oliver finds herself reappearing in several Poirot novels (and one novel on her own).  The final twist to reveal the murder and subsequent deaths that occur are also nothing to scoff at that it’s kind of a shame it hasn’t had its time in the spotlight.  10/10.

Arcanum Unbounded Part II: The Eleventh Metal, Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania, and Mistborn: Secret History by: Brandon Sanderson

 

Arcanum Unbounded is a 2017 collection from Brandon Sanderson collecting all of the short fiction that had been written and published for the Cosmere to that point.  This means there are short stories, novellas, and novelettes featured, all generally longer than one may expect from a typical piece of short fiction.  As such I have decided to split the review for the collection into four separate reviews, generally splitting up by systems, three connected to previously released series and one covering the miscellaneous pieces of standalone short fiction.  This second covers ‘The Scadrian System’ section of the collection, containing the short stories “The Eleventh Metal” and “Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania” and the novella Mistborn: Secret History.

 

This section opens with two short stories included with the Mistborn role playing game and its expansion for The Alloy of Law.  This is interesting as it means neither of these stories will be essential for understanding something from the original Mistborn trilogy or the second quartet.  “The Eleventh Metal” is a character piece, focusing in on Kelsier before the trilogy really begins, training to understand Allomancy.  The postscript included in the collection explains that Sanderson believed that he had a duty of care for those playing the game because of friends and would never actually pick up Mistborn.  It’s mainly Kelsier and his mentor Gemmel exploring the full length of Allomancy, with Kelsier learning how tot ravel by air and freeing several skaa foreshadowing his actions in the trilogy proper.  Seeing a younger Kelsier is fascinating since Sanderson implies Kelsier is suffering through his grief incredibly well without actually really being able to explore it to the fullest since there’s the general audience to think of.  Kelsier’s still characterized well and seeing him essentially in Vin’s role from the early portions of Mistborn.  Gemmel feels like the classic old, wise mentor from fantasy which while a trope that won’t appeal to everyone, is one that works really well here for me.  It makes “The Eleventh Metal” a very nice little story.  7/10.

 

“Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania” is the other short story and since it was part of the supplement to the Mistborn role playing game there wasn’t the pressure from Sanderson to explain the magic system.  Since it’s set during The Alloy of Law and was written before the rest of the second quartet of the novels, it is an oddity for these short stories since it isn’t really one with a plot.  The story’s full title is actually “Allomanceer Jak and the Pits of Eltania, Episodes Twenty-Eight to Thirty.”  Instead of a standard short story, it is three installments of an in universe broadsheets serial with annotations from the compiler which are often humorous in nature.  Sanderson uses this as a way to indulge himself in classic pulp style fantasy with a lot of trappings of that story which once again will not be for everyone and it doesn’t entirely work since it’s the middle installments of a larger story that doesn’t exist, though it’s serviceable for what it is.  6/10.

 

Mistborn: Secret History is the bulk of this section and works as an epilogue to the original Mistborn trilogy.  Like “The Eleventh Metal” it’s from the perspective of Kelsier, though this point after the original trilogy.  Kelsier wakes up dead and refuses to pass on to whatever afterlife awaits him, meaning that throughout The Well of Ascension and The Hero of Ages he had been actively observing events.  That is much of the store behind Mistborn: Secret History is Kelsier exploring what influence he can exert on Scadriel after his death, which is not a lot.  Sanderson really paints Kelsier early in this novella as full of this despair and stubbornness.  While the stubbornness is to be expected from the character, the despair is something that he cannot really come to take himself out of until he understands what he is.  His early interactions with Preservation are fascinating, giving him the name Fuzz which you do genuinely care for once Preservation expires due to Ruin’s influence.

 

Sanderson’s great achievement with Mistborn: Secret History is really giving readers their first chance to explore the history of the Cosmere as well as the magic system.  Kelsier is initially trapped in the Well of Ascension, but that allows him to understand what Ruin is planning which occurs at the end of The Well of Ascension, so Kelsier is able to leave across the ocean on Preservation’s orders once the well is opened.  This brings him into contact with two worldhoppers where we explain that Adonalsium is the dead god of the Cosmere, splintered into 16 shards, Ruin and Preservation being two of them. This gives Kelsier the understanding of the Physical vs Cognitive Realms and a plan to be able to eventually influence the Physical Realm once again.  This does also lead to Kelsier understanding how Ruin may be defeated leading to the rather touching ending of the novella where Elend and Vin reunite with Kelsier as Sazed becomes Harmony.  This is also the point where Kelsier is able to really get in touch to the Physical Realm once again teasing something that is yet to come.  Mistborn: Secret History is genuinely a great little novella and character study that has the time to breathe and gives Sanderson enough space for a plot.  One thing I’ve noticed while reading Arcanum Unbounded is that he isn’t quite effective when it comes to building a plot for shorter fiction.  This is almost the perfect length for a novella like this and still isn’t the longest installment in the collection.  9/10.

Delta and the Bannermen by: Malcolm Kohll and directed by: Chris Clough - A Re-Review

 

Delta and the Bannermen stars Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor and Bonnie Langford as Melanie with Belinda Mayne as Delta, Don Henderson as Gavrok, and Sara Griffiths as Ray.  It was written by: Malcolm Kholl and directed by: Chris Clough with Andrew Cartmel as Script Editor and John Nathan-Turner as Producer.  It was originally broadcast on Mondays from 2 to 16 November 1987 on BBC1.

 

Since these reviews generally open with a little information on the production of these serials and the source I am using claims that originally Alan Moore was approached for a potential slot in Season 24, heavily implying it would have been this slot but he was too busy writing Batman: The Killing Joke.  He never even got a story submitted but to think there was an iota of a chance for Alan Moore to write a story for Sylvester McCoy and I am very sad that Delta and the Bannermen came to be.  Andrew Cartmel instead approached Malcolm Kohll who proposed several stories until Cartmel and John Nathan-Turner allocated Kohll three episodes when the final six episodes of the season were split into two stories, one shot on location and one in studio.  Looking into the production is fascinating since it doesn’t actually seem as if Kohll had any idea as to what he should have written until Nathan-Turner gave the brief involving a 20^th century recent historical setting, the location shooting requirements, and South Wales.

 

Kohll would submit Flight of the Chimeron including ideas of rock and roll, bees, motorcycles, alien/human romance, and a space princess escaping the genocide of her people.  This last piece is essentially the thrust of the plot, though that plot is incredibly messy and doesn’t actually spend any time to explain things.  The title would change to Delta and the Bannermen just before casting for the serial began and director Chris Clough began casting including the character of Ray who would be a potential companion.  Now this is a serial I have actually reviewed about seven years ago and greatly dislike.  I was genuinely hopeful going into the rewatch for a re-review that there might be something that clicks this time around and sadly it didn’t.  Delta and the Bannermen is a story that is incomprehensible outside of its basic setup, mainly because there’s only the skeleton of a story present.  That doesn’t mean this is like Ghost Light where editing on episodes that overran caused a very dense script to lose most of its breathing room which had to be restored in an extended edition: the extended edition of Delta and the Bannermen certainly exists but it only restores about eight minutes of footage, most of that in the first episode, and after viewing that there isn’t much information that is lost in the cuts that were made.

 

The skeleton of the plot sees Chimeron queen Delta, played by Belinda Mayne, escaping from the Bannermen led by Gavrok, played by Don Henderson, who have just performed genocide on her people.  She finds herself with a bunch of other aliens going on holiday to Earth in the 1950s, a Soviet satellite diverting them to Wales.  She falls in love with a human Billy, the Bannermen invade, and are promptly defeated.  The main subplot of the serial are two American agents, played by Stubby Kaye and Morgan Deare, trying to find the satellite.  Honestly, there could be a great story here if you actually gave time to explore any of these characters, or even gave any motivation to any of these people.  The romance of Delta and Billy, played by David Kinder, happens with a look and suddenly they’re both in love enough for Billy to magically change his species to be a father to Delta’s child because the Chimeron are alien bees that look like humans.  Sadly, we don’t ever actually find out why the Chimeron were under attack, who the Bannermen actually are, or even who Gavrok is in the end.  The rest of the alien tourists are also background players so the characters are stuck in Wales in the 1950s and so the Doctor doesn’t just take Delta away in the TARDIS which would end the story immediately.  That’s made even worse by the fact that the Doctor and Mel don’t actually have a lot to do.  Sure, there are scenes, but since Ray, played by Sara Griffiths, doesn’t become a companion any character work there, already ancillary to the plot, doesn’t have a resolution since the Doctor and Mel just go off as normal at the end.  Each episode is padded with scenes that should be building character for the supporting cast but they don’t.  This entire serial just moves from point A to point B as the plot requires.

 

Overall, Delta and the Bannerman is a skeleton.  Chris Clough is doing the best he can with generally uninspiring location footage, it’s a holiday camp after all.  Bonnie Langford doesn’t have much to do except stand around and listen to dialogue while Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor has the serial’s one genuinely great scene near the end of Part Two where he confronts Gavrok under a white flag of truce, undercut in the way that it ends with the Doctor walking away without the direction or script really indicating the clear idea that the Doctor’s presence was enough to scare them off.  Gavrok and the Bannermen are uninteresting, there isn’t a romance, all of the characters are either bland or just lack motivation.  It also plays everything as a comedy despite opening with the genocide of the Chimeron people and includes the execution of a character played by British comic legend Ken Dodd.  Tonally inconsistent, lacking in any stakes, and especially not saying anything that aligns with Cartmel’s view for Doctor Who, Delta and the Bannermen is in my mind the worst that the original run of the show ever got for a single serial and coupled with the lackluster Time and the Rani has given Season 24 its terrible reputation.  1/10.

Paradise Towers by: Stephen Wyatt and directed by: Nicholas Mallett

 

Paradise Towers stars Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor and Bonnie Langford as Melanie with Clive Merrison as the Deputy Chief Caretaker and Richard Briers as the Chief Caretaker and Kroagnon.  It was written by: Stephen Wyatt and directed by: Nicholas Mallett with Andrew Cartmel as Script Editor and John Nathan-Turner as Producer.  It was originally broadcast on Mondays from 5 to 26 October 1987 on BBC1.

 

Andrew Cartmel took the script editor position of Doctor Who well into the production of Time and the Rani and famously had little input in terms of that script.  He also came into conflict with writers Pip and Jane Baker while searching for writers of his own to fill out the rest of the twenty-fourth season of the show.  Producer John Nathan-Turner facilitated early meetings with young scriptwriter Stephen Wyatt who had recently had his television play Claws produced.  Cartmel believed imbuing Doctor Who with further left leaning politics and discussed the possibility with Wyatt of taking inspiration from J.G. Ballard’s novel High-Rise, commissioning Paradise Tower by the end of January 1987 as the second serial of Season 24.  Nicholas Mallett, director of The Mysterious Planet the year prior, was brought on to direct and production ran smoothly until post-production, when it was deemed by Cartmel and Nathan-Turner the score by David Snell needed replacing.  Keff McCullouch was brought in last minute to rewrite the score though Snell’s original score survives and is an alternate soundtrack available on the DVD and Blu-ray.  McCulloch’s score, perhaps as it was written quickly and to a deadline, is one of his honestly weaker scores.  Much of it relies on variations on his Doctor Who theme as well as a few standard march-esque themes sprinkled throughout.  Indeed, there are several sequences that feel empty without any underscoring where there honestly should be, taking away from a genuinely great script.

 

Luckily, the direction from Nicholas Mallett is especially well done in a serial that is essentially studio bound.  Yes, there are a few establishing shots that are filmed on location as well as the scenes in the swimming pool, however, everything is either in an apartment, hallway, basement, or the pool of Paradise Towers.  Mallett as a director loves including several odd angle shots which give the viewer a really interesting view at the grubby tower block, plus the occasional point of view monster shot of this pool cleaning robot.  Immediately the direction adds to the somber nature of the serial, the color palette of the serial are greys and browns with the occasional fluorescent light to make things feel particularly run down.  Stephen Wyatt’s script is also one that is perfect for subtle worldbuilding.  This is a serial that doesn’t explain the time period it is set in (at some point in the future), the planet (possibly Earth, though probably not), or why exactly the decay has happened (lack of support from the government).  The urban decay has led to the younger inhabitants developing their own way of speaking and being placed against one another in games while the Cleaners slowly pick Kangs (a portmanteau of Kid Gangs) off one by one to feed to the monster in the basement.

 

Yet, that’s what makes a lot of Paradise Towers actually work incredibly well as a mission statement for Doctor Who.  This is the serial where the Seventh Doctor establishes himself as who this incarnation of the Doctor is.  While the character would develop into the chessmaster version of the character, the Doctor here immediately realizes he has to get to the bottom of the destruction and overthrow the regime of the Caretakers and Cleaners so those living in Paradise Towers can take back the power they are rightfully owned.  This also serves as a stark reflection of Britain in 1987 when you really pick it apart.  Perhaps not as explicit as having a Margaret Thatcher stand in like later stories, but Paradise Towers is clearly tackling the issues of a complicit population.  McCoy takes the material he is given and runs with it, knowing exactly which buttons to push to get people to rally together and how to run circles around the evils of bureaucracy that the Caretakers enforce and represent.  As an actor he never takes the drama away while injecting the performance with quite a bit of comedy.  Clive Merrison as the Deputy Chief Caretaker is the main character the Doctor’s running circles around and Merrison reacts perfectly to McCoy’s antics as the Doctor, while Richard Briers as the Chief Caretaker is almost going too over the top.  The final episode in particular has Briers being taken over by the Great Architect, the mystery of what happened to the architect being a secondary thrust to represent conservation of society’s values by any means necessary, is where Briers perhaps needed to tone things down and is very lucky the rest of the cast understands what they are doing.

 

The Doctor is separated from Mel for much of the serial and that is honestly for the best.  Bonnie Langford is allowed to lead her own storyline really for the first time since Terror of the Vervoids and this may be the only serial where she is characterized incredibly well.  Yes, Mel is attacked by monsters at several points and screams at the top of her lungs, but as a character this is a serial where she is allowed to be proactive.  Langford is clearly enjoying herself here since Wyatt has given her a very juicy part where she has to investigate the tower on her own and in her own way.  She has to be the one that while the Doctor is teaching the Kangs to behave, she is teaching Pex, the seemingly only male character who is not a Caretaker in Paradise Towers, how to be courageous as well as how to be a man.  Pex’s introduction is bursting through the door of the apartment shared by elderly lesbians Tilda and Tabby, played by Brenda Bruce and Elizabeth Spriggs respectively, demanding to know if Mel is being bothered or bothering these old ladies.  And yes, this is as close as classic Doctor Who gets to LGBT representation in a pair of elderly lesbians who are also cannibals.  Spriggs and Bruce are delightfully camp which adds to the very dark comedy of the serial while Howard Cooke as Pex doesn’t quite fit the 1980s action film protagonist which adds to the satire and comedy of the serial.  Pex’s bravery isn’t brave, it’s bravado that really lacks a purpose or sense of identity, just masculinity acting out without any influence which adds to Pex’s ultimate sacrifice in the end.

 

Overall, Paradise Towers is a serial that for whatever reason has not been properly appreciated.  Initial reviews were incredibly negative, and while there were definitely valid points in regards to moments in the performance of Richard Briers, pay attention to the serial itself and you will see a very clear mission statement that Doctor Who is back and has something to say.  Sylvester McCoy gets the chance to truly define how he wishes to play the Doctor while Bonnie Langford is given one genuinely interesting piece of characterization which had been lacking.  It’s certainly the best serial from the generally rocky Season 24 and for those who perhaps haven’t given it a look recently should give it another chance and see the beginnings of what makes the McCoy era and the Seventh Doctor my personal favorite era of Doctor Who. 8/10.

The Squire of Gothos by: Paul Schneider and directed by: Don McDougall

 

“The Squire of Gothos” is written by Paul Schneider and is directed by Don McDougall.  It was filmed under production code 18, was the 17^th episode of Star Trek Season 1, and was broadcast on January 12, 1967.

 

While Paul Schneider’s other episode for Star Trek “Balance of Terror” was a hard science fiction tale, “The Squire of Gothos” leans more heavily into science fantasy as a genre, though not without forgetting that this is a series on a cosmic scale.  The plot sees the Enterprise travelling through a star desert only to find an oasis of sorts, a single planet which is plagued by hostile winds and acidic rain.  This is just the setting, something we don’t learn until the episode has really started moving forward.  The pre-credits sequence is great.  It’s a snappy introduction of first Sulu disappearing from the bridge, followed by Kirk and immediately after the credits we stay on the Enterprise until Spock can get some crewmen, mainly McCoy and two others, down to the planet to investigate.  The small buildup to the reveal that this planet has one inhabitant, Trelane, a mysterious being who cannot be detected as alive and has the powers to warp reality.  Escaping from the clutches of Trelane is the plot of the episode.  It’s a very simple plot that mainly runs on character interactions, the big ones being between Kirk and Trelane.  The supporting cast is there essentially to be put in danger once the episode really gets going, once the focus is away from Spock at command.  These early scenes with Spock are a great way to investigate things on the planet from the Enterprise and quickly build up mystery: Trelane sends up greetings on screen in calligraphy and several sweeps do not detect any life on the planet.

 

Once we actually meet Trelane we get director Don McDougall’s wonderful shots of this historical set which is gorgeous.  Trelane as a character is obsessed with the planet Earth, having observed it 900 years in the past due to the speed of light bringing those images to Gothos, his planet.  He stiles himself as a general, squire, and gentleman, introduced in the episode as playing the harpsichord and surrounded by classic Earth artifacts.  He does not care that the people he has captured has autonomy and just wishes to play out this fantasy of capturing people, getting increasingly annoyed as Kirk’s determination to leave.  He brings more crewmen down after invading the Enterprise leading to some genuinely uncomfortable scenes involving Uhura, whose race is directly referred to and is forced to play the harpsichord, and the yeomen of the week, who is forced to dance with Trelane.  William Campbell, a character actor, plays Trelane with this utter delight and glee, never going quite over the top and relishing the chance to put up these historical airs and graces.  William Shatner also is the perfect sparring partner, this episode being the first time, at least for me, where Shatner’s acting choices feel like William Shatner acting choices.  There is this rage bubbling to the top and there are line deliveries from Shatner with very odd pause choices.

 

So if there’s so much praise I can heap on the main point of the episode, why is this not stacking up to “Balance of Terror”?  Well, that’s essentially two-fold.  First, the minor point of Don McDougall’s direction as the episode goes on just starts to feel uninspired, especially on the Enterprise itself.  The shots are by no means bad, but they aren’t doing something interesting and it is the script and performances from Nimoy, Kelley, Doohan, and Nichols in these early scenes which build the mystery.  Second, it really doesn’t help that this is an episode that doesn’t quite tie everything up nicely in the end.  Trelane as a character doesn’t actually have an arc or is forced to change and see the validity of life that he has deemed lesser, the episode ends instead with a deus ex machina of others from his people taking away his power.  While not an awful ending, it comes after this trial sequence which feels like it’s meant to lead to some sort of catharsis and as it stands we don’t actually get that.  To play devil’s advocate you do get the great sense of cosmic power and mystery in the ending since Campbell plays the role in a way that you think Kirk may genuinely die and not get out of things alive, plus his temper tantrum at the end is great, but it undercuts an otherwise great episode.

 

Overall, “The Squire of Gothos” is an episode that not only has a lot of good ideas but contains some genuinely amazing performances dialing the camp to perfect levels.  It’s sadly one that is let down by a third act that almost runs out of steam as if Schneider had more to say but the runtime would not allow it.  Plus it’s from a director who at points is meticulous while at others is a bit sloppy which is a genuine shame.  It does however excel at showing the mystery and wonder that space may hold.  7/10.

Why Didn't They Ask Evans? by: Agatha Christie

 

So, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?  It’s honestly a good title for a murder mystery and it’s the central mystery keeping all the puzzle pieces from coming together for Lady Frankie Derwent’s and Bobby Jones’s investigations into the death of a man who mysteriously fell off a cliff while Bobby was playing a game of golf.  His dying words are “Why didn’t they ask Evans?” and that’s only in the first chapter.  Agatha Christie is incredibly intelligent in how she structures the novel, as if this were a Poirot or Miss Marple story there probably would be much more investigation and the book would be at most half the length.  Since the main characters are two people who are not detectives when the denouement happens you see just where the characters ended up going wrong.  Luckily in going wrong they actually were going nearly right throughout so much of the novel but since they have no idea who Evans is, when they eventually solve it the final reveal becomes almost a punchline because it makes everything so very easy to solve.  Christie excels at executing this as a twist which is a very difficult twist to pull off, a lesser author would make it feel hollow.  It’s an eleventh hour twist as well after the murderer has revealed themselves, even gloating that the two hadn’t figured out who Evans was.

 

The first chapter of the novel is among Christie’s best.  Bobby Jones shares his name with a golfer of the time which Christie uses to juxtapose hat this Bobby Jones is more than a bit of a dope, stumbling upon a murder that he doesn’t know was a murder, and immediately trusting the first person who comes once the doctor he was with goes to get help.  It takes a while for the murder to be suspected to be a murder.  A lot of the rest of the novel keeps up the intrigue while laying out this odd humor.  Bobby and Frankie, while not dumb, have that naïve charm to them as they concoct several plans to get in the good graces of the people they are convinced must be responsible for this man’s death, accidentally coming upon a conspiracy that they really shouldn’t be wrapped up in.  Despite reading several novels by Christie before, I hadn’t really come across a book like this where there is a lot of humor baked into the text.  Some of it may be because these are two essentially upper class characters coming from an upper class perspective that’s very British.  It’s also the fact that these characters are somehow finding their way in and out of danger throughout, the humor deriving from the fact that the reader is going to be genre savvy enough to realize what the wrong decision in certain situations would be, making very logical decisions and deductions to give information to the grieving family of this man.  There’s also this sense of mistaken identity and disguises done by everyone that are played for both comedy and drama, the final third of the book turning into a very good thriller as the pieces begin to fall into place.

 

Overall, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? is a question that has a very simple answer that manages to be a final piece that explains the puzzle despite not needing to answer a mystery whose solution is explained, but once it’s revealed there’s just another layer to what makes this genuinely one of Christie’s best.  It’s genuinely a shame that this one is kind of overlooked, though I wonder why the American market retitled it The Boomerang Clue.  9/10.

Arcanum Unbounded Part I: The Emperor's Soul and The Hope of Elantris by: Brandon Sanderson

 

Arcanum Unbounded is a 2017 collection from Brandon Sanderson collecting all of the short fiction that had been written and published for the Cosmere to that point.  This means there are short stories, novellas, and novelettes featured, all generally longer than one may expect from a typical piece of short fiction.  As such I have decided to split the review for the collection into four separate reviews, generally splitting up by systems, three connected to previously released series and one covering the miscellaneous pieces of standalone short fiction.  This first covers ‘The Selish System’ section of the collection, containing the novella The Emperor’s Soul and the short story “The Hope of Elantris.”

 

The Emperor’s Soul is one of those Sanderson stories that you hear quite a lot about.  It was originally published in 2012 by Tachyon Publications and has its reputation among Sanderson’s best as it won the Hugo Award for Best Novella in 2013.  Needless to say as this was the first time reading any of the works in this collection, I had some prior expectations that it would at least be very good.  This novella follows a format that I wasn’t quite expecting, acting as one of Sanderson’s more spiritual works asking questions about what it might mean to have one’s life reconstructed by magic.  The Emperor Ashravan has been left comatose due to an assassination attempt upon him and his wife, who sadly perished, but this sad circumstance buys the court 100 days to find a solution.  The solution they come to is to conscript Shai, a woman who was condemned after stealing the emperor’s scepter, to delve into the Emperor’s life and reconstruct his mind using her skills as a Forger.  This is a story that is quite simple, it clocks in at just under 200 pages in its original format, about 130 in Arcanum Unbounded, but honestly it’s the simplicity that makes it work.  Shai is our main point of view character and Sanderson explores her relationship to Forging, something that she regards as an art but in larger society it is detested.  Part of the fear is that the Emperor’s soul cannot be changed, but a simple copy of the soul wouldn’t be enough for Shai and her art.  The task seems impossible which is perfect for the stakes and as the clock ticks down, the narrative skipping several days as research progresses and the Forging begins, the tension increases.  The conclusion heavily implies that Shai’s influence changes who the Emperor has become, bringing suppressed memories and genuinely breathing new life.  Sanderson doesn’t quite delve into the harsher implications with this, but The Emperor’s Soul is brilliant at exploring the nature of art and how society often overlooks art that doesn’t fit into the confines of a certain dominant worldview which is refreshing.  As a novella, you can see why it won the Hugo Award in 2013, although there are places that are itching to be expanded upon in a way that a sequel wouldn’t necessarily be able to accomplish.  8/10.

 

“The Hope of Elantris” is an honest to goodness short story from Brandon Sanderson and is an example of some of his earlier work.  It was originally published in 2006 as an Amazon exclusive ebook.  Since this is a relatively early work it’s heavily connected to Elantris, his first novel, mainly because that was the only book he had published at this point and the way the story came about because Sanderson’s wife, Emily, had a student who excelled at a book report on Elantris not knowing that her teacher was dating the author.  Sanderson didn’t even really have the idea for the story and you can kind of tell.  It’s a very quickly paced story set during the climax of Elantris, though with a new characer, Matisse, who looks after children in Elantris.  She’s a fun character and this is a story of her building courage and standing her ground in the face of danger and honestly that’s about it.  It’s not very deep, and you can tell that it’s an early work for Sanderson as it feels more like a couple of chapters taken out of Elantris for good reason (they’d stop the narrative dead introducing new characters).  Obviously, that wasn’t the case but as it is it’s a fine enough read. 6/10.

The Galileo Seven by: Oliver Crawford and S. Bar-David, from a story by: Oliver Crawford, and directed by: Robert Gist

 

“The Galileo Seven” is written by Oliver Crawford and S. Bar-David, a pseudonym for Shimon Wincelberg, from a story by Oliver Crawford, and is directed by Robert Gist.  It was filmed under production code 14, was the 16^th episode of Star Trek Season 1, and was broadcast on January 5, 1967.

 

There have been episodes of Star Trek which excel at exploring human drama and that’s exactly what makes “The Galileo Seven” work.  Penned by Shimon Wincelberg writing as S. Bar-David, who contributed “Dagger of the Mind”, and Oliver Crawford, a prolific writer for television, it feels like an outsider from the previous 15 episodes of the series since it isn’t one that’s exploring a science fiction scenario.  It’s shockingly modern in the way it places character over plot, the plot seeing Spock, McCoy, Scotty, and four other crewmembers stranded in the shuttlecraft Galileo at the center of Murasaki 312, a quasar formation that has blocked communication with the Enterprise.  Luckily this planet has an atmosphere to support life, so it’s just a matter of time for Kirk and company to come and rescue them, or it would be if the Enterprise hadn’t been on the way Markus III with medical supplies for plague victims and this planet is inhabited by giant ape-like creatures who are out for blood.  The plague victims create a countdown clock to the point where the Enterprisie has to leave, managed by Commissioner Ferris, played by John Crawford, consistently reminding Kirk that they have to leave at this exact time and he will be taking command away from Kirk.  Crawford’s performance is earnest and genuinely interesting to watch, but it’s also a character who really doesn’t need to be there.  He creates an outright antagonist where the episode would have been better served having the decision be Kirk’s.  William Shatner as Kirk doesn’t have many scenes, but when he’s on screen here there is this intense contemplation that would only have been enhanced if he was the one to make the call and didn’t have someone taking command away.  It would have also added impact when time ran out and Kirk clawed onto leaving as slowly as possible, in the vain hope that his missing crew had survived.

 

The actual plot on the planet is simple: it’s one of desperation as Spock logically deduces any possible way to leave the planet and get everybody back to the Enterprise.  Star Trek has meticulously set up Spock’s adherence to logic over his more human side incredibly well in previous episodes and the script in this one is excellent at giving subtle bits of humanity to Spock.  This is the first time Spock has full command of a team of people and Nimoy’s performance is perfect from the beginning, showing the character’s very human flaws throughout.  There is this subtle wish for approval and belonging along with everyone else, McCoy being there to convince him to make more human decisions.  When the ape creatures start killing the crew and not acting logically, Spock essentially freezes.  Nimoy plays it as a man clearly affected by the death but suppressing that beneath the fact that he was wrong and that led to someone’s death.  Spock as a character throughout this episode should be making all the right decisions, but they each go wrong.  His final act which saves them is one of desperation when there is genuinely nothing left to do, playing it ambiguous as if it’s his human heritage showing through (as the final shot implies) or if he genuinely had no other options and was going to die with everyone else anyway.  Robert Gist’s direction also should be praised for avoiding showing the creatures in full for the majority of the episode.  Yes, they are clearly men in furry costumes, but they are rarely fully seen in the shot with their weapons seen and they are shot from behind allowing the audience to build the terror themselves.

 

Overall, “The Galileo Seven” is another more atypical episode of Star Trek which not only breaks up the monotony of the episodes in the season but also really allows several characters outside of Kirk a time in the spotlight.  It works because it’s a character drama at its core and the science fiction elements are just the trappings, something that Shimon Wincelberg did in his previous script, making this genuinely a great episode and probably overlooked since it doesn’t have any famous Star Trek imagery.  9/10.