TV: Doctor Who, Season Ten and Beyond.

I've been reluctant to admit it, but the last few years my interest in Doctor Who has started to wane. I can trace the decline in fanaticism to the first mid-season break in season six. The series had its most ambitious, complex narrative arc to date, but splitting the season in half stalled the momentum, and giving us just a few episodes at a time for two or three years did not give me the chance to really become invested. There came a change in companion, then in Doctor. I did not warm to Clara at all; she was primarily a mystery to be solved, and her characterisation followed the narrative's requirements instead of shaping the plot.

I've rewatched the first five and a half seasons enough times that it probably wouldn't be too hard to give you a rundown of the episodes, but after that first mid-season cliffhanger, everything starts to blur together in my memory, and only the odd episodes, characters and ideas stand out: the War Doctor, Missy, the immortal girl-woman Ashildir, and the chilling puzzle-box episode "Heaven-Sent." There was still some great material, but it just did not come together as it might.

Season ten is a return to form. With a new companion comes a fresh start, and Bill's first episode was the closest thing to an introduction to the series since Matt Smith's first episode. The danger with telling the story of a man who goes here and there throughout all of space and time is that the narrative risks being untethered. This year, the writers introduced a simple yet radical new element into the mix: stability. The Doctor has a profession, a purpose, for the first time since his brief stint living as John Smith. Ostensibly, he works as a university professor, and this shapes his relationship with his newest companion into that of teacher and student. Bill Potts is a breath of fresh air into the series: being the first openly gay companion (although there has been some bisexual representation in Jack Harkness, River Song, and probably Clara Oswald) means that there are none of the messy romantic feelings that have crept across the edges of Doctor-companion relations since the 1995 film. Bill catches the Doctor's eye because of her curiosity. "Most people, when they don't understand something, they frown," he tells her. "You smile." That line gives us a better understanding of Bill than the show gave us of Clara in three years. I loved Bill instantly; she is bright, curious, good-humoured and big-hearted - and a big old nerd. She brings her savviness of science fiction into the very science-fictional world she inhabits, and she wants to know everything. Who better to learn from than a tutor whose expertise spans all of time and space?

But The Doctor's real reason for the change in lifestyle, the real reason he has settled down to academic domesticity, is what's at the heart of this series, for he has sworn an oath to guard a locked vault for a thousand years. The Doctor goes on his adventures, as ever, but always he comes back to guard the vault, assisted by his assistant Nardole. A lesser series would have dragged out the mystery of what, or who, is in the vault until the finale. The story would stand or fall by the surprise factor - and if Doctor Who had done that this year, it would have fallen, as the mystery was easily deduced by the knowledge of which guest stars were returning. Instead, it was a story all about the characters. I don't think it's a great strength to say that it was a love story of sorts, a story of hope, loyalty, and redemption.

It's a shame that Doctor Who only returned to its former glories in Peter Capaldi's - and head writer Stephen Moffat's - final year with the series, but it's best to end the era on a high. The reason Doctor Who has kept going all this time is because it is not afraid of change; there is no more sure way of killing a TV show than to keep trying to satisfy the audience's desire for more of the same. Capaldi has one more episode, the Christmas special, and next year we can expect another fresh start with Chris Chibnall in charge of the writing and Jodie Whittaker playing the Doctor. I don't know much about either of these names, but they have worked together on Broadchurch, whose first and third series seem to have done very well, and I'm excited to see what they can do given the keys to the Tardis. There are limitless possibilities; my wish is for the Thirteenth Doctor to travel with more than one companion, in a practical outfit, with pockets aplenty!

The Book of Strange New Things - Michel Faber

Peter Leigh is a man with a mission - literally! For this mild-mannered Christian minister to be selected to cross the galaxy to preach to and live among an alien race, this is the opportunity of a lifetime. But Peter leaves behind his beloved wife, Beatrice, and while he's out living the dream, Bea is trapped in a nightmare. How can a marriage survive such a distance?

In a literary culture saturated with dystopian futures, Oasis is aptly named as a seeming Utopia. It takes Peter a while to adjust to its days that are three times as long as an earth day, the peculiar regularity of the rains, and the crops and creatures that grow on the planet. The people themselves are difficult for him to connect with, at first; the way they look is hard to picture, the way they speak impossible to translate onto the page, and some of their words and consonants are pictured in symbols the reader has no frame of reference for. I was reminded of last year's film Arrival, where the linguist has to try to communicate with an alien race without any way of translating their language.

But that doesn't really matter. The Oasans are reserved, but kind-hearted, open and eager to hear Peter's message, and the work he puts in to translating the Bible into language they can understand and words they can pronounce is truly a labour of love. They open their hearts and homes to Peter; building a church together and working at the harvest. Probably this is the easiest missionary work ever. It all seems too good to be true. For the pages and chapters where Peter is alone among the Oasans, there seemed to be no conflict at all. And as someone who has studied the craft of writing, this made me uneasy. You just can't have a story without conflict. When, and how, was it going to go wrong?

That question is answered when Peter gets back to the base and reads his messages from Bea. All is not well on Earth. Every message from home brings news of some great catastrophe, whether a natural disaster, economical collapse or political chaos. And it is this dissonance that is the emotional heart of the novel. Like Peter, at first, you can compartmentalise what is happening on Earth, and on Oasis. The events are shocking, but you only hear about them from Bea, and the story you see first-hand is Peter's. And then Peter goes back to the Oasans, and you can relax a while and just enjoy the headway he is making with getting to know these people. That's what feels real.

But you just can't put your spouse to one side like packing a toy away in a cupboard until the next time you want them. They have their own lives, and a relationship must become strained if both parties are living in different realities. Tensions grow between them, as back at home Bea is overwhelmed by personal tragedy, professional struggles, social unrest and religious doubt, all things that Peter can't be whole-heartedly part of. It is devastating to read their messages (conveyed by a primitive email system called The Shoot) as they try to reach out for each other.

The Book of Strange New Things is powerful because of its authenticity. I don't know if Faber's writing was informed by any personal religious faith but Peter and Bea felt real, presented with compassion and with no impression of being seen from the outside. Both have overcome painful pasts to become a strong, supportive team at the heart of their community. Their love for each other quite literally spans the universe. And yet a love story does not end with the "happily ever after." The best relationships have their downs as well as their ups, and require a lot of work. Love is a choice, not just a feeling, and a choice that a couple has to make day after day after day. The Book of Strange New Things ends in one way just as you might hope, and yet there is a bittersweetness to the ending because it is not neat, it is not easy, and it is not over yet. But such is life. Faber has taken a gentle, quite simple tale and made of it an extraordinary examination of humanity, of what is worth living for, of faith, hope and love.

Sci Fi Month: Science Fiction in 2016... and beyond

Find out all about Lisa and Rinn's Sci Fi Month here.

Hi friends old and new. Apologies for falling off the radar last week; I had a family wedding to go to at the weekend, which fell during a time when I wasn't allowed to take holiday from work, so I ended up swapping shifts with a colleague and working for nine consecutive days. Good old retail(!) But I'm back just in time to wrap up November by having a look back on just a few highlights from 2016's science fiction films.

Star Trek Beyond: I'll try to keep this brief, as I still haven't got around to reviewing Star Trek Into Darkness, and I'd eventually like to have the set of full-length reviews. Star Trek Beyond coincided with the franchise's fiftieth anniversary, and in many ways the latest film went back to its roots. Into Darkness was, as suggested by the title, a rather gritty tale, with terrorism, revenge and moral ambiguities (mixed in with a lot of borrowing from The Wrath of Khan and the episode "Space Seed.) Beyond returns to the more hopeful Utopia that Gene Roddenberry conceived - even if all is not as it seems beneath the surface. The plot is fairly standard Star Trek fare; there are too many explosions and action sequences, but it is a wonderful celebration of the characters, who spend a decent chunk of the film separated and working in pairs. After a rather irritating start in the prequel films, Chris Pine has settled well into the role of Captain Kirk, away from the popular perception of the character as a cocky womaniser, and closer to how he actually was. Bones and Spock's bickering friendship is a thing of beauty; their scenes together were the highlight of the film. There was also a moving tribute to the original Spock, Leonard Nimoy, who passed away last spring. And of course there was a double-whammy this time around with the death of Anton Yelchin this year; his Chekov played only a small part in the proceedings, but lit up the screen whenever he appeared, and we finally got to hear what was "inwented in Russia." A talented actor and an endearing character; he is irreplaceable and will be sadly missed.

Ghostbusters (2016 reboot): To be quite honest I wasn't sure whether to include this as science fiction, or whether it would be more strictly classified as supernatural horror. Ghosts aren't usually a feature of sci-fi, but, like the 1980s original, the team use science and technology instead of excorcism and magic in order to defeat the forces of darkness, so I'll include it anyway.

The new film attracted a lot of criticism when it was release, particularly from die-hard fans of the original cult classic. Remaking something so beloved is always a risky move. Although I've enjoyed the original, I must confess that I don't have a particular attachment to it (it is dryly amusing but I really don't see it as a comedy) and so I was happy enough to see what the new cast had to offer. It is more overtly comedic than the original, with varying levels of humour - some jokes were not to my taste, while others made me giggle like a schoolgirl in the cinema. On a repeat viewing, I wasn't sure it held up to my memory of it; perhaps being in a room full of laughing people made it seem funnier than watching alone at home. But the ghostbusting quartet (Kirsten Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones and the amazing Kate McKinnon) form a formidable team. The film does not make a point of the team being remarkable despite or because of being women, they just get on with the job in hand without a mention of their gender - just like their male predecessors do! It's a rare movie not to have even a whiff of romance, unless you include Kirsten Wiig's character finding Chris Hemsworth to be pretty, or Kate McKinnon's Holtzmann finding her pretty. It's all about strong friendships and fighting the apocolypse.

Perhaps there is a pointed lack of subtlety in the villain being a marginalised geek who has been bullied and sneered at all his life, and has taken to sneering at the rest of the world. I can see why he might upset Ghostbusters fanboys. But he has his foil in the Ghostbusters themselves. They too have lived with being the outsiders, the geeks, the "ghost girl" and the freak. It's no excuse, the movie says. You get to choose how your experiences shape you. Use your weirdness for good or for ill.

I suspect the new Ghostbusters will not join its predecessor in the cinematic history books as a classic; there are no plans for a sequel, but that's okay. The last thing we need is another never-ending franchise outstaying its welcome. As a stand-alone, it is fun and enjoyable, and a good example to little girls who want representation in the world beyond princesses and fairies.

Arrival: Most of the films I've seen in cinemas in recent years have either been based upon books I've read, or part of an ongoing franchise. Arrival is the exception; it was originally a short story, but not one I've read, so I went in knowing hardly anything about it. This is the best way to experience Arrtival, and I can't say very much without spoilers. It is the tale of a linguist (Amy Adams) who is tasked with communicating with aliens whose vessels appear above twelve spots around the world. Arrival is a quiet, gently paced film with a small main cast, balancing a deeply personal, bittersweet story with the big implications of extraterrestrial life, the links between language and understanding the universe. It is an intelligent movie, thought-provoking and hushing, combining sadness and hope, and it was very satisfying to my geeky heart and mind.

I've found it interesting to notice that the stand-out sci-fi of this year has been rather more optimistic than of late. How many dystopian futures have we seen in the twentieth century? How many darker and edgier remakes? (Battlestar Galactica, I'm looking at you!) Arrival is bittersweet but ultimately optimistic about humanity. Star Trek turned its back on the "grimdark" and returned to its hopeful vision of teamwork. And I've absolutely fallen in love with Becky Chambers' novels, with their vision of a far-distant future with good intergalactic relationships and alliances.

But science fiction inevitably is influenced by the time it was written, and 2016 has been a time of great change - and not for the better. The dark spectres of humanity have crept out of the shadows; people begin to forget the lessons learned from history's shames. The new year will bring with it a very different understanding of the world than many people held as we entered 2016. So I wonder how science fiction creators are going to respond to this changing world. Will we be deluged once more with dystopian warnings? There is a valuable place for this, but also for hope. Remember that Star Trek first aired in the 1960s, during the Cold War, in a time and place of great racial and gender inequality, and the show helped pave the way for social change. And I think we need that now as much as ever.

What were your science fiction highlights of 2016? Where do you think the genre will take us in the next few years? I'd love to hear your thoughts below.

Sci Fi Month: A Closed And Common Orbit - Becky Chambers (book review)

Read all about Rinn and Lisa's Sci Fi Month here.

Did I ever mention how much I enjoyed Becky Chambers' debut novel The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet? (Chorus: "Yes Katie, you did.") More often than not I prefer reading stand-alone novels to series, but I reached the end of Small Angry Planet utterly engrossed in Chambers' world-building and in love with her characters. One book just wasn't enough to skim the surface of the universe she had built, so I was thrilled to discover that there was to be another book in the autumn - if simultaneously somewhat apprehensive. Could any sequel possibly live up to the memory of the first masterpiece? Surely it couldn't?

Well, for once I can tell you that YES, I loved A Closed and Common Orbit just as much as the Small Angry Planet, or as near as makes no real difference. But although it follows on from the events of the first novel, it is not a sequel as such, and focuses on two characters who have only briefly been introduced: Pepper, a good friend of the Wayfarer's technician Jenks, and Sidra, who is sort of brand-new, but also sort of familiar under a different name. The narrative is told in alternating chapters; Sidra's tale in the present day, and Pepper's backstory, starting from twenty years earlier when she was known as Jane 23.

Sidra was formerly a ship's Artificial Intelligence (AI) responsible for monitoring and running all systems on a spacecraft, while having access to any information required at any time through the Linkings (or interstellar internet.) But due to events beyond her control, she has been housed in an illegal human-appearing body kit, and she struggles to adjust to this very different, and to her mind much more limited, sort of existence. Helping her through the process is Pepper, whose life as a mechanic at the busy and diverse Port Coriol is worlds away from where she started as a genetically engineered slave on a fringe planet. But as she works to help Sidra learn what it means to be alive and live like a human, she is reminded of her own journey of discovery years before.

Although I was a little sorry not to spend the course of another book aboard the Wayfarer with Ashby, Rosemary, Sissix and the others, once more Becky Chambers creates a cosy cast and warm friendships that it is a joy to be a part of. It is a celebration of love and self-made families, of curiosity, and a re-examination of what we take for granted, what it means to be alive. It flows beautifully on from The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, and I instantly found myself immersed in the universe; before long it feels as though I've known Sidra, Pepper, Blue, Tak and Owl a lot longer than just a few days. Reading one of Chambers' novels already feels like coming home, as cosy and satisfying as a big mug of hot chocolate on a winter's evening (with a sprinkling of cinnamon and dollops of cream and marshmallows.) I'm pleased to know that Ms Chambers is writing a third book in the series, again, not a direct sequel, but set in a different part of the galaxy. I will be eagerly watching this space. 

Sci Fi Month: Creating Life - Artificial Intelligence in A Closed And Common Orbit and Channel 4's Humans.

Sci Fi Month is hosted by Rinn at Rinn Reads
and Lisa at OverThe Effing Rainbow

What was the difference between strung-together neurons and a simple bundle of if/then code, if the outward actions were the same? Could you say for certain that there wasn't a tiny mind in that bot, looking back at the world like a beetle might?

 - A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

It was quite by chance that I found myself reading Becky Chambers' second novel A Closed and Common Orbit at the same time that I finally got around to watching season one of Humans this month. Both works are based around artificial intelligence beings in humanoid bodies. As such, the book and TV series explore similar themes, although they go about it in very different ways.

Humans is set in a Britain that is superficially identical to that of today, but for one exception: the existence of Synths. Synths, or Synthetic people, are machines, created to help around the house, whether as domestic servants or care workers. They look like beautiful people, are capable of responding to a wide variety of conversations, but are not capable of independent thought outside their area of purpose. Nor do they have feelings like humans do - at least, that is the popular belief. However, early on, we learn that there are a few synths out there who have been programmed to have emotions, to think for themselves, and are nearly indistinguishable from humans. Only their green eyes and some of their stilted mannerisms give them away as synthetic. But it is that emotion that worries people, because where synths can have feelings and opinions, then they cannot be controlled. The scientists studying these enhanced synths have difficult decisions to make. If they destroy a being that looks, thinks and feels like themselves, where is the line between recycling technology and murder? But if the enhanced synths can go about unchecked, what does it mean for the human race? Even more complicated is the man who is being kept alive by synth technology, many of his memories recorded as audio and visual data. There are such advances in medical technology being made all the time, but at what point does the technology overtake the humanity?

A Closed and Common Orbit, by contrast, is a "far-future fiction" set in space, in a galaxy where humans mingle with diverse alien races: the Harmagians, Aandrisks, Aeluons, and many others. Artificial intelligence is a part of everyday life; there are AIs in the ships, delivery drones, artificial pet-bots and so on. But it is illegal to house an AI in a human-appearing (or other species) body-kit. One of the novel's two protagonists is one of those illegal AIs. Sidra is a ship's AI computer system installed into a body kit, and it is a huge struggle for her to adjust to this limited (to her) way of life. She is used to being able to process multitudes of information at once; see every view from the ship's cameras, be connected to the "linkings" (like our internet) at all times so that she can instantly access anything she needs to know. Now she's trapped in a perfectly lifelike body kit that can only see what is before her eyes, only process one thing at a time, only know what is stored in her memory files. Becky Chambers does an excellent job of helping us understand how limiting a human body must be to a computer, and consistently emphasises that the body kit is not really Sidra. She is the code installation, and would be herself whether she was in a ship, a body kit, or any other technological device. Because as a computer installation she cannot experience touch, smell and taste, these are translated into associated images - a soothing beverage triggers an image of a sleeping cat in sunlight, for example. It's an awesome exploration of how an AI being made of code, though they may be indistinguishable from a human to the eye, would experience the world very differently.

The fear of being replaced is a recurring theme in Humans, from the genius schoolgirl who worries about her future career options being eroded away and all positions being filled by the efficient Synths, to the husband whose disabled wife relies more on their live-in Synth assistant and doesn't seem to need him any more. And throughout the series, conscious Synths are viewed as a threat, by scientists and by some of the people who come into contact with them. Some are indeed dangerous, in particular Niska, full of cold fury. Others, such as wide-eyed Max and motherly Mia, are all goodness. They are formed by their experiences and their temperaments, but ultimately all they want to do is to be left alone and live their lives.

When the subject of AI body kits is first introduced in The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, the prequel to A Closed and Common Orbit, the character making the enquiry is sternly warned off. He doesn't know the risks, he is told. Quite aside from the danger of being caught, arrested, the "kit" destroyed and the installation erased, this is untested technology, and you just don't know what might happen if you start meddling with what it means to be a person. But in A Closed and Common Orbit, we don't really get to see the reasons behind the ban. It takes Sidra the course of the novel to adjust to her new life in a humanoid body kit, but the other dangers are not really explored. Of course, in a universe where humans are small, humble dwellers of a diverse interplanetary community, one more kind of life form isn't going to make many waves. In a setting such as the Britain of Humans, our position at the top of the food chain comes under threat, and we don't like it. But by the time of Becky Chambers' books, we have learned to take our place alongside others. It can surely only be a good thing to learn a bit of humility, that perhaps we will not always be the dominant species and to take care of how we treat the universe and other beings.

My review of A Closed And Common Orbit is due to go online Friday.

Sci Fi Month: Confessions of a Reluctant Trekkie - in celebration of 50 years of Star Trek

Find out more about Sci Fi Month here.

Confessions of a Reluctant Trekkie

I've long been at peace with my identity as a geek. I was never one of the popular kids at school; I read too much, took things too much to heart, and just didn't seem to live in the same world as most children growing up in the 1990s. Whatever I was interested in - whether that be volcanoes, the Titanic, early 20th century girls' boarding school stories, or a particular Irish boyband, that would take over all my waking thoughts. Although I had friends who could share my interest to a certain extent, I don't think these obsessions of mine quite gave me common ground with other people until the films of Lord of the Rings, and, to a lesser extent, Harry Potter came out in the early 2000s. At last my interests were current and topical, and I was even able to talk to the cool kids at school. These films coincided with entering the sixth form. Once the classmates who had given me such a hard time for all those years had left school, I came to realise that the line between cool and nerd was finer than I had realised. With my friends, we'd spend our free periods in the comfy chairs in the school library and geek out about Lord of the Rings, or discuss theories of what might happen in the next Harry Potter book.

By university, I was more comfortable with my identity as a weird kid, and I left behind my struggles to fit in and impress people. I found My People on the English and Creative Writing courses and settled into writing my own particular brand of fantasy fiction. But I had lines I wasn't going to cross. I wasn't going to get into Dungeons and Dragons, and I wasn't going to watch Star Trek. I had my ideas about what Star Trek was all about and that was boring grey futuristic corridors, deep and dull philosophical ramblings, Patrick Stewart being all inspiring and Patrick Stewartish, Leonard Nimoy being a logical (and therefore cold) Vulcan called Spock, Scotty doing some beaming up, and Klingons, whatever they were.

Never mind that on the maybe two occasions I'd seen a couple of minutes of a Star Trek episode I had been intrigued even though I didn't know what was going on. Over the early 2010s, I started softening to science fiction, mostly thanks to my best friend introducing me to Firefly and awakening a long-dormant desire to explore the universe. By the time 2013 came around with the trailer for Star Trek: Into Darkness, I realised that the film looked a lot more interesting, human, and exciting than I had given the franchise credit for. And so I settled down in front of the TV when the 2009 remake came on, and after a bit of confusion about which Captain Kirk was which (little baby James Tiberious, not his father George, is the Captain Kirk) I got drawn in. From my first impressions of Spock the Younger ("wow, he's kind of a jerk!") I grew to find the character to be (if you'll excuse me) fascinating, with his conflict between his logical Vulcan side and his human emotions. By the time Spock the Elder made his appearance, and the alternative-universe nature of the reboot was explained in the context of the story, I was hooked, and I was still thinking about the film several days later. I wanted to know more about these characters - especially that pointy-eared character. 

50 Years of Star Trek

Star Trek celebrated its fifthieth anniversary earlier this year. There have been five series (with at between three and seven seasons of each) and thirteen films. It has influenced scientific discovery, technological advancements, and is still going strong. There is another film planned for the reboot cast, and the new Star Trek: Discovery will be airing on Netflix in the new year. And yet it started off as quite a small series that was almost cancelled after two seasons, and was cancelled after the third. The quality of the stories varies vastly, the acting strikes a balance between restrained and ridiculous, and there is a great deal to mock from the special effects, to the fight scenes, to the fates of the away team members. And yet it is one of the most beloved science fiction franchises of all time.

The characters are at the heart of the show, especially the central trio: Captain Kirk, Commander Spock and Doctor "Bones" McCoy are a formidable  team, who can rarely agree on anything, and yet who have a powerful bond of friendship, whose skills and character traits complement each other and bring out the best in one another, with a warm supporting cast.

I think we're all very familiar with the use of science fiction to predict a dismal future; it is often used as a warning to humanity about where we could end up if we continue down certain paths. Star Trek is a vision of hope for the future, something to aspire to, not to avoid. If its scripts seem a little heavy-handed with a moral at times, or fall short of the mark for contemporary standards, it is important to remember how groundbreaking the show was for its time. Written at a time of racial segregation, it depicts a future where war, poverty and prejudice are things of the past, where people from all backgrounds, races and even planets can put aside the differences and work together for the betterment of all. It is a universe where people understand the ways they can learn from each other. The Enterprise's senior crew include men and women working together as equals, a black woman and a Japanese-American man, and later a Russian (remember this was during the cold war.) It was a remarkable message especially in the sixties, and is as important in the turbulent and divisive 2016 as it has ever been.

Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura, was encouraged by Martin Luther King to stay with the show, to prove that there was an important place for her standing alongside white men: important not just as a symbol on a television programme but as an example for life off-screen too. Whoopi Goldberg cites Nicholls as the reason she took up acting (and later appeared as a recurring character in Star Trek: The Next Generation.) Nichols also played a part in recruiting astronauts of colour to the real-life space programme.

The series was revived in the form of the films in the '70s and '80s, and followed up with Star Trek: The Next Generation with Patrick Stewart as Captain Picard. For many, The Next Generation is quintessential Star Trek, and it was certainly what I pictured before I ever thought of becoming interested in the series. It is solid science-fiction, it looks better and expands upon the original show's mythology, developing the Federation's relations with the Klingon Empire and showing us more of the other cultures introduced in the original series and films, as well as introducing the dreaded Borg, the hive-mind that destroys individuality in the ultimate quest for universal domination.

I'm probably in the minority for this, but I don't like TNG half as much as the original, for all that it is objectively a more consistently good show. I don't like the holodeck stories, I don't think a starship is a good place to raise a family, and Wesley Crusher, Q, Deanna Troi and her mother Lwaxana are just plain annoying. I like most of the characters, there are some excellent stories, but The Next Generation will always live in the shadow of its predecessor for me.

I am less familiar with the spin-offs of the 1990s and early 2000s. I've seen a few episodes of Voyager and none at all of Enterprise, so will not write about these, but I am working my way through Deep Space Nine, which moves away from the formula of a star ship exploring strange new worlds and seeking out new life and new civilisations. Instead, Deep Space Nine is a space station, not Federation-run at all, but belonging to the Bajoran people, reclaiming it after a long war and occupation by Cardassia. The Federation has come to help the Bajoran people get back onto their feet, but there are many clashes between cultures, and being in a stationary setting, the series is strongly driven by character and more of a series-long overarching plot. It is perhaps more of a morally grey area than the other Star Trek series, going into more depth about the dilemmas faced by the characters, and for that reason it is rather divisive among Trekkies. But I like it better than The Next Generation, because although we need the optimism of Star Trek's universe, one can't afford to grow complacent; actions have consequences and the right way forward is not always obvious.

I've been late to the party on this one, but here's to many more years of boldly going where no man (or no one) has gone before. Live Long and Prosper.

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Sci Fi Month: The Race - Nina Allan (book review)

Find out more about Sci Fi Month here.

I admit it, I bought this book without any knowledge of what it was about because the cover was pretty! That worked out pretty well for The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet earlier this year, which I still can't shut up. It seems that I have a weakness for pictures of starry skies. (Just look at my blog background for further proof of this.)

The Race is a book in five parts, each one focusing on a different character, but these five parts make up two stories which are linked in some way. The first part, "Jenna" is set in a bleak future, a place recognisable as the South East of England, but in a dismal landscape that has been ruined and poisoned by fracking. Jenna and her brother Del try to make their way in that world, in a town whose main attraction is the illegal racing of smartdogs - greyhounds which have been genetically modified with human DNA. Del is an angry, bitter young man, only softened by the birth of his daughter Luz Maree (known as Lumey.) But when Lumey is kidnapped, everything changes.

Nina Allan creates a convincing society in the first part of The Race, a world that draws you in. The narrator, Jenna, is smart and endearing, but I felt that her brother Del's characterisation did not ring true. He just didn't seem all that bothered about his beloved daughter's safety, and as he focuses on raising the ransom money by winning a smartdog race, his priorities shift towards the winning; he seems to almost forget about why he's doing it. If the end goal was anything else, I could accept him being sidetracked, but not when the life of his little girl is at stake!

The second part, "Christy" switches to our own world, or something very like it. I was warned by Ellie's review that if I was expecting the book to be all about fracking and smartdogs, I'd be disappointed, so I went into The Race without any particular expectations. Yet as I engrossed myself in part one, I still got drawn into Jenna's world and story, then felt a little bit cheated as Allan revealed how the stories fitted together. When you read a sci-fi novel, you know it's fiction, and yet you trust the author to let you suspend your disbelief for a while. But within the "Christy" segment, Allan gave a new context to "Jenna," and it felt like a cop-out, at first. If she'd given us the stories in a different order, there may not have been that feeling of betrayal - but also, the novel would be less remarkable. And there are one or two hints that the link between the two settings is not as straight-forward as it initially appears.

The third part, "Alex" follows on from Christy's story from a different perspective, giving a sort of commentary on the novel the characters are in, where different timelines and lives bleed into each other in ways that they shouldn't. Then for the last two parts we return to Jenna's world, several years after Lumey's induction. Yet there are inconsistencies here too. Place names, spellings have changes since the first part, and we seem to have travelled further away from the real-world setting than would be likely in the time that passed since "Jenna." It's almost as though every character has not only a slightly different perception of reality, but that reality itself is different for everybody. What if everyone lives in intersecting but subtly different worlds?

The Race is an intellectually fascinating read, full of deep ideas about communication, about perception of the world, and with a bit of meta-commentary on the writing of a novel. It takes the familiar and makes it strange. The plot is a bit sprawling and untidy, but full of twists and revelations, and I appreciated that Allan does not spoon-feed the reader with all the answers, but leaves you to draw your own conclusions. But unfortunately, after being lured in by an incredible first segment, then having the rug pulled out from under my feet, I lost a bit of my emotional investment in the actual story. Still, it is a book with a lot to say, and I think it would benefit from a second reading to see what I missed first time around.

I really hate "looking into the mirror" descriptions but this is
actually an important moment in the book.

Shelve next to:

• Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
• The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick
• The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing

Sci Fi Month: Introduction and Top Ten SF Books.

Hello and welcome, whether you're one of  my handful of regular readers or if you've come to this blog because of Rinn's event. This is the fourth year of Rinn's Sci-Fi month, but it's my first time taking part. A month-long inter-blog celebration of all things science fiction? I couldn't resist, despite it clashing with National Novel-Writing Month, so I'm having to be very organised for a change and these posts written and scheduled ahead of time.

So, for those of you who don't know me, my name is Katie and I live on the Isle of Wight. I'm a relatively new fan of science fiction, although I've been reading fantasy since I was a kid. I started watching Doctor Who when it was relaunched back in 2005, but it wasn't until my best friend showed me Joss Whedon's cult classic TV show Firefly that I really got hooked on all things in time and space. And there are no half-measures for me; if I become interested in a thing, then it takes up a lot of room in my imagination.

Over the next month, I plan to post twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, with reviews of sci-fi books, films and TV, discussion posts and general fangirling. Next week will be Star Trek week, in celebration of the franchise's fiftieth anniversary earlier this year. But today, let me start off with a top ten list of my favourite science fiction books.

10: The Girl With All The Gifts - M. R. Carey. I think it's best to read this book without knowing too much about it, although now there is a film adaptation out there, I don't know how possible that is. It's a tale of human survival in an uncertain future, of hope, and an unusual but very important little girl.

9. Terra - Mitch Benn. By comparison, Terra is a happy little book, the tale of a human girl adopted by aliens and brought up on another planet; a celebration of cultural diversity and finding similarities in apparent differences. 

8. Sleeping Giants - Sylvain Neuvel The third in a row where a novel's catalyst is a small girl. When Rose Franklin is a child, she makes a discovery that will shape not only her own future but that of the whole world, and possibly beyond. But what shape will that future take? Is every scientific discovery doomed to bring the human race closer to destroying itself, or can it be saved from itself?

7. The Time Machine - H. G. Wells. The book that started all modern time-travel stories. Written in the Victorian age, The Time Machine reads as though it were written this year; with a humorous protagonist, science that even I can make sense of, and a surprisingly spooky ending. Without this book, the worlds of science fiction would be very different.

6. 2001: A Space Odyssey - Arthur C. Clarke. I saw the film of this first; a very strange movie, slow-moving with a weird beginning and a freaky ending, and (aside from the bits of music you associate with the film) the most unearthly, terrifying soundtrack imaginable. Not one to watch at midnight in an empty house. I was on edge throughout the "Beyond the Infinte" section! But the film made a lot more sense after reading the book, which was written alongside the screenplay and explains a lot of the weird stuff you see on the screen. It also reminded me in a roundabout way about how when I was seven or so, I was obsessed with my space encyclopedia and used it almost as a travel guide, mentally planning which planets I most wanted to visit when I was grown up and space travel was as common as getting on a bus. (My inner seven-year-old is still mad we haven't even sent anyone to Mars yet.)

5. Redshirts - John Scalzi. You know in Star Trek, whenever Captain Kirk and the main characters beam down to a planet on an away mission, they always have a few unknown crew members come with them in order to die horribly and create a sense of peril for the characters who must survive? Redshirts is their story. Very tongue-in-cheek,"recursive and meta," and snort-your-drink-up-your-nose hilarious. Use caution when reading in public.

4. Ready Player One - Ernest Cline. A wonderful treasure-hunt story set almost entirely in a virtual-reality universe, a celebration of gaming and geek culture, and especially that from the 1980s. You don't have to know all the references - of which there are multitudes - although every recognition adds an extra layer of insider-enjoyment. A fabulous page-turner.

3. The Martian - Andy Weir. If an astronaut got accidentally stranded on Mars, how could he possibly survive long enough for another rocket to come back for him? Answer: with a quick-thinking scientific mind, a twisted sense of humour, and the first potatoes grown on Mars. I took my time getting into The Martian on my first reading, but by the end I was gripping the book tight, desperate to know what happens next. An intelligent, believable but often comical sci-fi novel. It has also been made into a movie, in which, once more, Matt Damon is in need of rescuing.

2. 11.22.63- Stephen King. You probably think of Stephen King as a horror writer, but he is so much more than that. 11.22.63 tells the story of a man who is shown a door that will take him back in time to 1958. The same day, every time, always resetting back as if it was the first time that day came around. His mission is live in the past for five years, in order to prevent the assassination of president John F. Kennedy, then come back and see how the world would be changed as a result. But his task is complicated when he becomes attached, and meanwhile, time itself seems to be fighting back. 11.22.63 is not a horror story, more a historical novel than anything else, with a new approach to how time-travel works. I enjoyed losing myself with Jake in the '50s and '60s, and forming a life for himself there, just as much as the suspense-filled main plot. Stephen King makes you care about his characters, and then fear for them. There was a TV adaptation earlier this year, but while it kept the shape of the story roughly the same, the details were different, and most of the little things that I loved about the book were either passed over or changed. It's a beast of a book, about 800 pages, and yet it never drags. It is a book you can enjoy spending time in.

1. The Long Way to a Small Lonely Planet - Becky Chambers. Anyone who has been book-shopping with me this year will not be surprised to see this book at number one. Just as Stephen King took a new approach to time-travel, so Becky Chambers (the only woman on this list - shocking!) has given us a fresh look at the space-opera genre. The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is, as the title suggests, the story of a small crew on a journey; not a military vessel, nor even a starship on a noble quest for knowledge (albeit heavily armed for self-defence) but an unarmed engineering ship building wormholes. The setting is a space alliance between many planetary cultures, but unlike Star Trek's Federation, Star Wars'  Empire or Firefly's Alliance, humans are a very new and insignificant addition to the Galactic Commons. The crew of the Wayfarer is vastly diverse, both among the humans (who are still the majority on this ship) and the other members. It is a story of relationships between people who have to work at close quarters together, and it's absolutely gorgeous. I've been recommending it to everyone I know with an interest in sci-fi and they've all loved it. 

Sleeping Giants - Sylvain Neuvel

When Rose Franklin was eleven years old, she fell through the earth and was found lying in the palm of an enormous metallic hand, surrounded by indecipherable glowing symbols carved into the walls of the underground chamber that opened up beneath her. This strange discovery shaped the course of this girl's life, and as an adult, she heads up a team of scientists investigating this impossible artifact. The hand lay dormant beneath the ground for millennia, but was composed of materials that just could not have come from Earth. Where did it come from? Why was it buried, and how was it that Rose should happen to stumble upon it? These are just some of the questions that Doctor Franklin wants answers to. Then other parts from the same gigantic figure start showing up, and it is no longer simply the business of scientists, but all of humanity.

The narrative of Sleeping Giants is written entirely in the form of interviews and journal entries, focusing on a few main characters connected to the discovery. Doctor Rose Franklin, of course, is one, and the "obdurate, volatile and irascible" army helicopter pilot Kara Resnik (who I am sure must have her origins in Battlestar Galactica's Kara "Starbuck" Thrace.) Then there are Kara's co-pilot Ryan Mitchell and linguist Vincent Couture, whose job is to find meaning in the glowing symbols, and the dangerously ambitious geneticist Alyssa Papantoniou. But the most interesting character of all was the unnamed interviewer. We do not know who he is - if they really are a he, that is, I can't remember if that's confirmed or assumed - what his role is, or his motivations; he clearly holds some position of power, because he knows too much about everything and is not afraid to coerce, blackmail manipulate people into doing things that go against everything they believe in. There is something off about his polite, stilted way of speaking, and I wondered whether he was connected to whichever alien race buried the pieces of the giant figure long ago. I pictured him much like the Observers in Fringe, softly-spoken, an "uncanny valley" version of human that is not quite convincing, the puppet-master behind the scenes of everything.

Sleeping Giants is a relatively short book, but epic in scope and awe. It examines the wonders of scientific discovery - but also the inevitability of its noble purposes quickly becoming corrupted and used for political and financial gain, and bigger and more devastating means of warfare. It gives a frightening picture of a human race bent on destroying itself before backing down. And yet there is a glimmer of hope there, too. It is the first part of a series, possibly a trilogy, yet it is complete in itself - though its epilogue leaves you hanging with a beast of a sequel-hook. I turned the final page and shouted "WHAT?!!"  Sleeping Giants is a compulsively readable, well-crafted masterpiece, and I await the sequel eagerly.

Sunday Summary: May in Review

Wow, it feels like ages since I've written anything on here! Everything's fine, I just haven't felt much like writing reviews lately; I've read plenty of books but not had all that much to say about them. But I might ramble a little about a few of them in this post, we'll see.

Some of the things I've done

My work shifts have been all over the place the last few months, although fingers crossed they'll be getting back to something like normality from now on. We've got a new girl just starting at work, doing Sundays and a couple of afternoons in the week, and my manager told me she reminded her of a younger version of me. Having met her, briefly, I sort of agree. In about a two-minute conversation we compared our to-read piles, favourite books, and I already promised to lend her one of my four copies of Anne of Green Gables. I think reading that book is a quick way to get to know me! Must find out what her equivalent book is. I'm sure she'll have one.

When I haven't been at work I've been writing; I've picked up the children's story I began for NaNoWriMo last year and am giving serious thought to submitting it to Mslexia magazine's First Children's Book competition in the autumn. I've nearly finished the first draft, but have discovered I'm already over the suggested word count for a children's book!

I had a week off a couple of weeks ago and spent a couple of days up in London, staying with my sister Jenny. While she was at work I did some exploring, and some book shopping - although only on the first day. I also went up to Camden Market, which is awesome, and as it was a lovely sunny day, I walked up the road to Primrose Hill, where I spent the afternoon sitting on the grass and reading. The Primrose Hill bookshop is one of my new favourites; it's small and cosy. While I was in there, the bookseller, Chrissie, was whizzing around the shop finding recommendations for one of her regulars who wanted some holiday reading.

By some fortuitous chance, an old friend, Anna, happened to be in London the same week, and had got in touch with Jenny suggesting meeting up for drinks. So we found a nice little pub next to the British Library, called the Rocket, and spent a lovely evening between there and Pizza Express reminiscing about our schooldays, making little confessions about being horrid teenagers (only a little horrid, as teenagers go, but I think we were all a little relieved to find the others had no memory of the wrongs we'd felt terrible for years for doing to each other.)

And the following day, as a belated birthday treat for Jenny, we went to Shoreditch to Lady Dinah's Cat Emporium for tea: a cafe where cats roam free and say hello to and play with all the visitors. The cats are very well looked after - the entry fee pays for their welfare, they get days off and all have their own members of staff, and there are all sorts of toys and climbing apparatus to keep them amused (although one of the kittens liked nothing better than a scruffy piece of string. Because cat.)

I'm back on the Island now, for the time being, and am enjoying the summer sunshine. It's a bank holiday weekend, and tomorrow I'm heading for the beach. We're nearly into June and it's been quite warm; let's see if I'm brave enough to go in  the sea yet. I've sorted through my to-read shelf and pulled my science fiction books to the front, because for some reason I've come to think of that genre as good beach reading. I've got sci-fi classics (Iain M. Banks, Bradbury, Asimov, H. G. Wells) shiny new or newish books (The Book of Strange New Things, The Peripheral, Speak) and some weird and probably dreadful old books I've found in second-hand bookshops, which I will not name and shame in case I slander unrecognised gems.


Some of the Books I've read:

Beside Myself by Ann Morgan, and When I Was Invisible by Dorothy Koomson

These were publishers' proof copies that my sister got from work, and it was interesting to read them one after the other, because they shared several themes. In Beside Myself, a set of twins swap places as a prank one day - but then one of them refuses to switch back. Towards the end, one of the characters asked something along the lines of "What does it matter? You're twins, you live the same life, what does it matter which name you are called?" But even from a very early age, different expectations are put on Ellie and Helen. One is a leader, one is a follower. One is perceived as a good girl, the other as a troublemaker. People respond to the twins' actions in different ways according to who is perceived to be doing them. It was a dark, troubling read.

Meanwhile, When I Was Invisible follows the lives of best friends Roni and Nika (Both Veronica/ka Harper) whose lives take very different directions after a shared ordeal leads to one betraying the other. Roni returns home after spending several years as a nun, while Nika is trying to rebuild her life after witnessing a terrible crime. Also a rather heavy read, but I found it much more satisfying than Beside Myself.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Sparks

What I expected: A gender-flipped, feminist Dead Poet's Society. Progressive teacher shakes up the establishment but earns undying loyalty from her best students.
What I got: Miss Brodie shakes up the establishment, all right, but she is a manipulative, capricious and sharp-tongued woman who has affairs with other members of staff and sends some of her pupils down destructive paths. The narrative is curious, flitting between past and future and casually revealing what the girls' futures hold while they are still schoolgirls. Miss Brodie is rather more interesting and unsettling than the usual inspiring, unconventional schoolteacher figure, a deconstruction of the trope - except for the fact that she pre-dates many of the iconic examples!

Anne of Avonlea by L. M. Montgomery

Being the second book in my Anne of Green Gables omnibus, I used to read the two books back-to-back as a child, and Avonlea was just as much a favourite as its predecessor. Nowadays, though, I read it less often than Green Gables and Anne of the Island. It's a very episodic book, although the romance between Miss Lavendar Lewis and Stephen Irving towards the end foreshadows Anne and Gilbert's relationship (which for many readers - not this cynical old maid, though - is the main story of Anne.) It was lovely to reread after a few years, to meet Mr Harrison, to spend time seeing the Avonlea Village Improvement Society, to just spend the time with some old friends.

But the character of Paul Irving has come to irritate me no end, although with a feeling of guilt because he is in many ways a lot like Anne. Do different expectations for boys and girls influence what traits one can allow? But then Walter Blythe, in the later books, takes after his mother too, and he is one of my favourite characters. Walter has more depth of character, though, a melancholic temperament, inner turmoil, while Paul's ongoing struggle is with eating all his porridge. He's just so sickeningly good, and the "poetic" temperament Anne sees in him reminds me of nothing so much as Madeleine Bassett from Jeeves and Wooster as an eight-year-old boy.

Currently reading: The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

The original time-travel adventure. I'm only a few chapters in so far, but it reads surprisingly fresh and contemporary, with its succinct explanation of the Fourth Dimension, and the Time Traveller's theories of the future evolution of mankind into a gentle, physically frail and unambitious race living in a paradise - or so it seems at first! This is a book that shaped science fiction as we know it: without it there would be no Doctor Who, no Back to the Future, and everything else would be quite different too!

I'm not sure when I'll get back to blogging regularly; probably not until I've finished my first draft of my work in progress, but watch this space. I will be back!

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet - Becky Chambers

When Ashby, Captain of the Wayfarer, takes on a new clerk, not all of the crew think he's made the right decision. Rosemary is young and inexperienced, and this is her first time off her home planet of Mars. But Rosemary is efficient and friendly, if reserved, and does not take long to settle in among the Wayfarer's varied crew. And if she has some secrets she'd rather keep in her past, well, doesn't everyone?

The Wayfarer is not a military ship, nor a diplomatic one, or a rag-tag bunch of crooks evading capture. It's a construction ship whose main job is to build wormholes. The latest job is the biggest yet: a tunnel from an unknown part of the galaxy, to aid an alliance between the Galactic  Commons and a somewhat volatile and dangerous tribe. But first, they have to get there...

As the title suggests, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is the story of a journey, a character study of a small cast in a confined space (with the occasional stop along the way.) I enjoyed it as a leisurely read, taking my time over the book, and enjoying getting to know the characters and the universe portrayed. The different species are really diverse, not with just one "hat" to mark each one out as different, but with a wide variety of cultures, appearances, beliefs and language styles. This is not an Earth-centric setting; the Humans (from Mars and from the Exodus Fleet outside the Solar System - Earth is all but deserted) are fairly new additions to the Galactic Commons. Dates are measured in tenday periods, which add up to Standards (and I'm pretty sure a day is not the twenty four hours of Earth. Why would it be?) The universal language is Klip. As well as five humans: the Wayfarer's crew includes Sissix, of the very tactile reptilian species Aandrisk, the ship's doctor and cook known as Dr Chef, who is Grum, a near-extinct people who change gender over the course of a lifetime, Ohan, a Sianat Pair, short-lived joined species (comparable to Star Trek's Trill) who are always described in the plural. And Lovey, the AI, who tends to get overlooked but is a much-valued and loved part of the team. 

What struck me as remarkable in Small Angry Planet was that this really is a civilian ship. When did you last see an unarmed spaceship in science fiction? Star Trek's Starfleet may claim not to be military, but follows a strong naval tradition, and its exploration starships are heavily armed with phasers and photon torpedoes, which are regularly used. Star Wars is full of lightsabers and blasters. Battlestar Galactica and her fleet are engaged in a desperate fight for survival against the Cylons. Firefly's rebels are armed and fight dirty. But the Exodan humans are pacifists, and Ashby refuses to allow weapons aboard his ship, even for self-defence. It struck me as shocking and sad to realise that violence is taken for granted even in the Utopian futures, and Small Angry Planet is revolutionary just by not arming this tunnelling ship. And it shouldn't be. But being unarmed doesn't always protect them. 

What happens when the Wayfarer reaches its destination, while tense, twisty and shocking, is not really the point. It's about the journey, both the long physical voyage in space, and the changes in each of the characters as they change and grow, confront secrets, challenges and dilemmas. They don't always make the right decisions. Some choices will reverberate past the end of the book. 

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is a really fresh, intelligent and fun science fiction novel. As Stephen King's 11.22.63 affected the way I view time-travel, so Small Angry Planet set a new standard for space-travel stories. And there is a sequel on its way later this year. I usually prefer stand-alone stories to series, but Becky Chambers' universe and characters are too vast, too rich, to be contained within 400 pages. It feels as though we've only just scratched the surface.

Star Wars, Episode VII: The Force Awakens

THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS.

You can't beat a good Star Wars film for the ultimate cinema experience. When those words flash up on-screen: "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away," and the triumphant theme music blares around you in surround sound, with the narrative crawling up the screen: this is what the movies were made for. To watch a new Star Wars movie like that: it feels a little like living through a moment in history, a nostalgia for a time before I was born. And yes, I know I have experienced this before, but those were episodes I and III, and we don't talk about them.

Admittedly, I'm not a Star Wars obsessive. I love the films - the original trilogy, that is, I have no strong feelings about the prequels which I regard as an optional extra - but I wouldn't be able to tell you the names of many character not named in script, and I haven't read any of the Expanded Universe novels. A decade ago I argued in favour of the series in a Wars vs Trek debate with one of my friends; now I have turned to the Dark Side as this blog has documented. But it doesn't have to be an either-or thing. Star Wars is magnificant, magical storytelling at its finest.

In the promotional material for The Force Awakens, fans across the world were asking the same question: "Where's Luke?" We knew that Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher were all signed up to reprise their most famous roles in the new installment, so what was the big secret? Had Luke, dear, eager, pure Luke Skywalker turned to the Dark Side? What a punch in the gut that would be. Or perhaps, almost more unthinkable, he'd actually died in the time since Return of the Jedi and would only appear as a Force ghost...

All became clear from the start of the opening crawl. "Luke Skywalker has vanished." Well played, J.J. Well played. Out-of-universe, we'd inadvertantly been asking the same questions as the characters in-universe. Where's Luke?

Luke, who turns up only at the very end, stouter and bearded and oh so sad, and Leia - now General Organa - appear really only as cameos in this film (much like Leonard Nimoy as the elder Spock in the 2009 Star Trek reboot.) Han Solo has a bigger role,but the focus is solidly on the next generation of characters. There is Poe Dameron, the star fighter pilot in Leia's Resistance to the First Order, the new baddies. Then there is Finn, formerly known as stormtrooper FN 2187, who has defected from the Dark Side and just wants to get away, but keeps on being drawn back to danger on the planet of Jakku. Finn is lovely character, fearful yet brave, with some great moments when he tries to be all chivalrous and rescue Rey, who is quite capable of saving herself, thankyouverymuch. Rey is a resourceful, rather angry young woman who was abandoned on Jakku as a child and left to fend for herself as a scavenger on a junkyard. And it is she who is at the heart of The Force Awakens; she who fills the ordinary teenager-turned-hero role originally held by Luke (and isn't it great for little girls to have a hero of their own?)

And as for the villains. Out of the ashes of the evil Empire has risen the First Order, overruled by Supreme Leader Snoke (a giant hologram of a creature) but the face of the villains is unmistakeably Kylo Ren, who proved to be a far more intriguing and multi-faceted character than I could have imagined. I saw his image in the promotional material and said, "Seriously?!" J. J. Abrams had replaced the most iconic baddies of all time, Darth Vader, with another tall dude with a cloak and a bucket on his head?

But that's the point. Kylo Ren idolises Darth Vader - conveniently ignoring the fact that he'd switched back from the Dark Side in the end - and of course he's never going to be as impressive, or live up to Vader's memory. He is powerful with the Force, but unstable, unhinged, lacking in self-control. There's a wonderful moment where one of his minions (no, not a little yellow squeaky banana-man! Despicable Me has ruined that word forever) comes to Ren with a look of terror on his face, to confess a failure to recapture the adorable droid BB8, with its map of "where to find Luke Skywalker." Being used to Darth Vader, the minion - and the viewer - is prepared for a ruthless and speedy death. Instead, Ren turns his lightsaber onto his expensive and complicated machinary. Where Vader was cold, Ren is hot-headed, immature, dangerous yes, but not fully-grown into his power.

And Kylo Ren does have a lot of power. How could he not? For before he wore the mask and took on the name Kylo Ren, he was simply Ben. Ben Solo, son of Han and Leia, nephew to Luke, grandson of Darth Vader himself. As a trainee Jedi, he turned on the rest of his class and slaughtered them all, it seems, causing a devastated Luke to disappear to an unknown planet. But what could have happened to turn the son of our heroes to the Dark Side? What kind of parents were Han and Leia? Could they have done anything to prevent his fall? Ren's commitment to the Dark is not absolute; we see him wrestle with the temptation to turn back to good, and his mother believes there is hope yet. And Han, the cynic, though he suspects Ben is lost forever, reaches out to him nonetheless. They meet on a bridge (it is always a bridge) and Han urges his son to come back with them. That would be interesting, wouldn't it? To have the bad guy in the midst of the Resistance, with his parents, striving to come back to the light. That would have been an interesting Episode Eight plot. And it looks, for a moment, as though Ren is tempted. He falters. He expresses his inner turmoil and anguish over "what must be done." And then I had another horrible dawning realisation, as Ren handed over his lightsaber. It looked awfully like he was begging Han, his own father, to kill him, to put him out of his misery. There would be a painful struggle, but I didn't believe Han could do it. He's not as hardened as he wants you to believe...

But as it happens, he was saved from having to make that agonising decision, once Ren activates his lightsaber just as it's directed at Han's heart.

I did not see that coming. I should have seen that coming, but I did not. I fell for it. I fell for that manipulative piece of work and gaped in disbelief as Han reached out to his son, forgiving him even for his own murder, and tumbled off the bridge into the darkness. Well. That made things much more interesting! And we see that there is more to Kylo Ren than the wannabe villain emo kid with a bad temper. Can there be any coming back from this?

I'm pleased to be able to conclude that Star Wars has recovered from the disappointment that was the prequel trilogy, and is back up to a high standard. My only criticism, bringing it down to four stars instead of five, is the amount of repetition, visual and plot, from the original movie. Instead of the Empire there is the First Order. Instead of the Death Star which can destroy a planet, there is the Starkiller Base, which looks an awful lot like a planet-sized Death Star which can destroy an entire solar system in one go. And, once more, it is taken out by a fleet of ace pilots. You get the Big Bad murdering the mentor figure in front of the fledgeling Jedi. All this seems very familiar. But Han Solo highlights some of these similarities with disdain: "So, it's bigger." It's very safe ground to return Star Wars to its former glory, and if the plot takes the shape, it is a classic shape of storytelling: the hero's quest. Already it fits into the canon as if it were always part of the story (a feat the prequels never managed) and, as my friend Paul said the other day, it's good to watch a Star Wars film without knowing what was going to happen next. Roll on Episode VIII!

Rereadathon 2: part 1 - Mon 7th & Tues 8th September

Monday:

Hurrah! The long-awaited Rereadathon 2.0 is here at last. We had so much fun rediscovering old favourites back in April that Bex decided to bring back a bigger and better Rereadathon for the autumn; just the right time to settle down to a day of reading books that you know you'll love because you've read them before. Guaranteed no duds!

After a lot of deliberation, I've narrowed down my to-read list to a manageable amount (even if the resulting stack won't fit in a single pile on my shelf.) I've chosen five books I've discovered in the last two or three years: The Martian, 11.22.63, Fingersmith, American Gods and Fangirl, but interspersed with these big reads (and some of them really are doorstoppers) I've also picked out a few of my favourite school stories from childhood, to read in preparation for this November's NaNoWriMo project which will draw on that story tradition and mix it up with a bit of time travel and geekery. From my school-stories box I've selected The School at the Chalet and Jo of the Chalet School by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer First Term at Malory Towers, The Twins at St Clares and The Naughtiest Girl in the School from Enid Blyton, Anne Digby's First Term at Trebizon (a slightly more contemporary boarding school series) Charlotte Sometimes which features time-travel in a similar but different way from my project, and The Girl in the Blue Tunic by Jean Ure, which is a ghost story. So quite a variety within the genre.

But for today, I'm starting with Andy Weir's The Martian, to remind myself of it before the film is released. I've just discovered that the cinema date for the movie has been moved forward to the weekend of my 30th birthday at the beginning of October - what a treat! I've found it easier to get into this time around, as I've remembered most of the astronaut terms that befuddled me the first time around, but it's still quite a slow start, very science-heavy, and I didn't really like science at school. (More to the point, I don't think I liked science lessons. It was an all-girl class, and there was a lot of pairs work, and I was usually the odd one out having to tag on with another two people's experiments. But I quite liked physics and some chemistry, and science fiction has reignited my interest in actual science, especially if it involves space.)

Monday Stats

Books read today: The Martian

Today's page count: 230

Books finished this week: 0

Quote of the day: "Fear my botany powers!"

Tuesday

I've recently discovered that I can have good reading days and good writing days, but it is very difficult to motivate myself to start a writing session once I've got myself lost in someone else's good book. Yesterday was a prime example of that. I scheduled a mid-afternoon writing session to break up my reading day. That got shifted to after dinner... which slipped back to about ten PM before I actually got started. Whoops! So I determined that today, I would take my laptop down to my favourite local coffee shop for an hour or two before my scheduled hairdresser appointment this afternoon. But it was too early to really set out, so I picked up the first Malory Towers book... just for a chapter or two...

Oh, Katie.

First Term at Malory Towers was my introduction to the girls' school story genre, when I was about 9 years old and would read almost nothing but Enid Blyton books. I wasn't expecting a school story, and was very confused at first by the main character being called Darrell but having female pronouns. (Remind me to tell you about my primary school recorder teacher, Mr Ashley, who wore a skirt and and was referred to as "she." It wasn't until I saw her leaving card when she retired that I learned her name was actually Miss Rashley...)

Objectively, the Malory Towers books aren't very well written. The first one starts off with my most detested trope of all: the character standing in front of a mirror and telling the reader - out loud in this case - what she sees. But it has a really vivid sense of place and character, and I absolutely loved it. But there are a lot of things in the book that have always bothered me, big and little (as well as finding new things to pick holes in later on.)

• The big one: Gwendoline Lacey. She's a dreadful character: vain and spoilt, lazy, underhand and a bully. And yet I've never felt that the books treated her very well. She's written off before she ever sets foot in the school. No one really gives her the opportunity to become a better person, and she spends six years utterly unhappy. For all that people keep saying "Malory Towers will do her good," we never see this in action, and she leaves school at eighteen just as lonely and unpleasant as she started. It's probably the most grimly realistic part of Enid Blyton's school stories, but stands out because she's so keen to make morals out of most things, but never do we get the sense that the intended moral of Gwendoline's story is, "if a person is dismissed as a spoilt brat she'll never learn to be anything else." They wouldn't stand for that in the Chalet School, I'll tell you that much. And I really want to write an alternative version of events where Gwendoline does find encouragement and friendship at school, and does become a decent human being.
• What kind of school has its very own operating theatre in the sick room? When Sally Hope falls ill with appendicitis, instead of rushing her to hospital, they call in a surgeon, and because their "usual" surgeon is away, they get Darrell's father who just so happens to be in the area (despite it taking an entire day for Darrell to take the train from her home to school. They had both lunch and tea on the train.) I realise it's needed for plot purposes, but really?
• The tenth member of the North Tower dormitory is mentioned only twice: a "shy, colourless child" called Violet who no one ever noticed if she was there or not. I notice her, because I always liked the name Violet (at least since I played Violet Beauregarde in my year 4 school play of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Twenty years on, the protagonist of my novel is also called Violet.) By book two, even Enid Blyton has forgotten she ever existed. I'm hoping she got transferred into one of the other tower boarding houses and made some friends there, but I have an alternative headcanon which shows her fading away like that girl (was her name Marcie?) in Buffy, and becoming a vengeful ghost...
• There's a lot of silliness of exclusive friendships, with Darrell being so disappointed that Alicia already has a friend, because apparently at Malory Towers your best friend is your only friend...
• In what universe can a brown and orange school uniform be described as "jolly nice?" And yet the Chalet School use the same colours as Malory Towers. I've only ever seen one brown school uniform in my life. It was... pretty drab. When I was a kid, I was always designing school uniforms for my fictional boarding schools. This was never a colour scheme that appealed to me in the slightest.
• They use purple ink for school work? The climax of the first book revolves around a fountain pen with violet ink. Now I use violet ink in my pen, but for schoolwork it was strictly blue or black, and I would have thought that would have been stricter in the 1940s when this was written. (I told you some of my nitpicks are pretty small.)

I did manage to get a scene written this afternoon, which means that this evening I can concentrate on finishing The Martian. It's really getting exciting now...

Tuesday Stats:

Books read today: First Term at Malory Towers
The Martian

Pages read today: 172 so far

Books finished this week: 1

Quote of the day: "As with most of life's problems, this one can be solved by a box of pure radiation." (This quote from The Martian, not Malory Towers!)