August 27, 2005

Great Book Reviews of our time

dave

11:25 AM

Reviewing someone's first novel, it is customary to be polite about it, to find things to praise in it. So let me say straight away that James Thackara's The Book Of Kings is printed on very nice paper; the typeface is clear and readable, and Samantha Nundy's photograph of the author is in focus

http://books.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4061538-99930,00.html

June 21, 2004

Fragrant Harbour

dave

12:59 AM

Fragrant Harbour, by John Lanchester, purports to be an epic novel of Hong Kong. Sadly, it doesn't quite have that spark, and just seems to lurch along in a pedestrian fashion.

It certainly has a somewhat epic scope, spanning most of the 20th century, with wars and revolutions. It doesn't feel like an epic though — it feels more like a gentle look at a few lives, rather than an epic like TaiPan

I found the tale of Dawn Stone to be utterly uninteresting, except in a "I know a few people like that and I don't like them" sort of way. People who skate across the surface of Hong Kong in a whirl of Junk trips, Mid-levels and Peak apartments and jobs with huge housing allowances. (Not that there's anything wrong with each of those individually, but together they tend to insulate people from the reality of Hong Kong.)

Matthew Ho seems to be painted in very broad strokes. He does a lot of very generic Hong Kong Businessman things, which aren't very engaging. And, to be honest, I was more interested in what Tom Stewart was doing than Matthew.

Tom Stewart is the real protagonist, and I'd have read a few hundred more pages about his time in Hong Kong easily. That's where Lanchester really did his research, and it shows. Little details of life in Hong Kong since the thirties abound, and really help the story feel real. If you're reading with no experience of Hong Kong, you won't notice these details, but to me it read like a pretty straight historical piece. I felt that I could have gone down to Deep Water Bay and picked out the hotel from the description given.

I found the ending to be quite abrupt, however, and I did wonder if my edition had a few pages missing. Should the last line be "I did it because I am a refugee."?

March 31, 2004

On Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ"

dave

02:05 PM

ahem...

There once was an actor named Mel,
Who's beliefs were known to be, well,
Bizarre, crackpot and Mad,
(Just like his dad)
And loathsome as well, you can tell.

Ahem

An actor named James Caviezel,
Suspects he's going to hell.
As he stood for a shot,
The Heavens spake: ZOT!
That's a thumbs down, you can tell.

January 20, 2004

New Trailer

dave

12:32 PM

Van Helsing looks like it's going to be good.

More QuickTime Trailers from http://www.apple.com/trailers/.

December 26, 2003

Return of the King

dave

09:49 PM

I woke up this morning and blearily shuffled into the computer room to check something. The 11:30 showing of Return of the King in Pacific Place had seats available which were acceptably far back from the front. I saw the first movie from the front row. Man, did those hobbits have big feet!

I arrived at the cinema just in time to get a drink — a small one, it's a loooong movie — and got to my seat. Some slouching Neanderthal was blubbering on his phone next to me, but mercifully didn't use it during the movie. He inexplicably left about an hour and a half before the end too, which seems a bit strange. Maybe it was the way I'd growl whenever he took his phone out...

Hot Damn, that is one fine movie.

The large scale open air shots are truly glorious, as are the battle scenes. Jackson and Weta have truly raised the bar on large scale battles.

Minas Tirith is absolutely stunning - it's just like the image I had in my head. The tree is perfect too, but it should have been explained why it was lifeless before and was flowering after the victory. I guess (and hope) that this will be in the Extended edition, as well as the Houses of Healing and some explanation of just why everyone decides to follow Aragorn.

Vertiginuous angles - my ankles are still twitching. Why are cavalry perched halfway up a mountain? Why do people in middle Earth build without regard for actual flat land?

Arachnophobes - I'm very arachnophobic, but I wasn't grossed out by Shelob at all — I though it was a very convincing giant spider.

Gollum - Andy Serkis is truly amazing.

Some Other reviews:

December 05, 2003

Monstrous Regiment

dave

02:01 PM

Some time back, I mentioned that I'd picked up a copy of the latest Terry Pratchett book, Monstrous Regiment.

On first reading, I didn't like it very much.

I read it again this week, however, and my opinion's changed somewhat

On the second reading, I found the gradual revelations about the cast of characters to be less contrived than before. The realisation that they all have their little secrets and the constant wondering about who else might be aware of those secrets runs throughout the first two thirds of the book, until the somewhat heavy handed climax blows the whole thing open.

As for the Ankh-Morpork characters who show up, I suppose it's consistent with The Fifth Elephant to have Vimes show up as an ambassador, but I wouldn't have throught Lord Rust would go along with him.

It's not one of the all-time great Discworld books, like Reaper Man, The Fifth Elephant or Night Watch, but it's ok. Enjoyable, well written, and thought-provoking.

Updates: spelling corrections.


Disclaimer: Amazon links use my affiliate scheme. Go here, if you want to go to Amazon, but avoid my affiliate scheme.

November 25, 2003

Polytropos: The Two Towers

dave

10:47 PM

There's an excellent review of The Two Towers - Extended Edition over on Polytropos. Link via Electrolite.

November 23, 2003

The Two Towers

dave

10:39 PM

Thanks to the wonders of Multi-screen display, I'm currently watching the extended edition of 'The Two Towers' on one display with a vim window to the webserver open on the other screen.

It's a surprisingly different movie from the original, which never gripped me as much as 'Fellowship' did. There are a lot of extra scenes and extended scenes, which give much more of the back-story and flesh out the characters a lot. Especially Treebeard and the Rohirrim. The Lady's gifts, as in the first movie, are shown and used.

I think that Jackson has kept a very keen eye on the extended editions, and viewed the theatrical releases as a necessary evil to get his vision out. I also think that he's shot one heck of a lot of footage. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see an 'extended-extended edition' released in a few years with even more extra footage.

Not Tom Bombadil, though. There were enough of Tom's lines uttered by Treebeard in Scene 19. Bombadil's not a particularly relevant part of the story anyway.

Also, the acceptance speed by Gollum as the Easter Egg is good. Go to Scene Selection, go to the last chapters and press Down until a ring appears, then press Play.

Once again, I'm struck by the absolute perfection of the casting. Could anyone other than Viggo Mortensen be Aragorn? Is Orlando Bloom not the perfect Legolas? Could any other country have provided such magnificent scenery? This is a movie starring New Zealand, and co-starring some actors.

I do have a tendency to add "Mr. Ander-son", to the end of every one of Hugo Weaving's speeches, however.

October 15, 2003

"To Say Nothing of the Dog"

dave

09:13 PM

I just finished To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis. It's a great read, combining time travel, messing about in boats, cats, dogs and a Bishop's Bird Stump. Excellent fun - highly recommended.

October 05, 2003

The Road To Wellville

dave

02:34 AM

Right now I'm watching "The Road To Wellville", the story of Dr. Kellogs Battle Creek Sanatorium and Corn Flakes. I'm very impressed. It's quirky, silly and thoroughly weird. It's the sort of movie you'd expect from British Film makers, or maybe a French director. It's certainly not what you'd expect from a thoroughly American production.

It's well worth checking out.

October 01, 2003

Movies

dave

12:23 AM

When I first got broadband, I spent lots of time at the Apple.com Movie Trailers Site. It needs quicktime, so I have to power up the Windows box to watch them, but there's usually some great stuff on there.

September 21, 2003

Monstrous Regiment

dave

10:22 PM

I just happened to stroll into my local Dymocks Bookstore today and was greeted by a very welcome sight. Terry Pratchett's latest oeuvre, Monstrous Regiment, along with a sticker saying "Not to be sold until Nov 1". Naturally I bought a copy straight away. I thought about telling them that they shouldn't be selling it, but, what the heck, new good books are not the easiest of things to get here, so I just kept mum.

I haven't started it yet - I was in the middle of re-reading Thief of Time by the same author, the only "Buy on sight in Hardback" author I know of.

September 14, 2003

Tomb Raider - Cradle of Life

dave

05:58 PM

It's a great old tradition of adventure movies to make stupid mistakes in the portrayal of Hong Kong on the silver screen. Classics include "The Man With The Golden Gun", where Bond has an altercation outside a club in Kowloon, is driven to Queen's Pier in Central (Hong Kong side) before the cross harbour tunnel was open, then hops in a boat back to Kowloon.

I watched Tomb Raider - Cradle of Life last night. It wasn't as bad as I expected. Although, since I expected it to be significantly worse than watching paint dry, I suppose that's not much of a boost. Anyway, here's what they got wrong about Hong Kong:

  • Chai Wan Private Airport - and the picture showed the plane landing just in front of the Bank of China Tower, which you can't even see from Chai Wai. Both of my children were born in the Pamela Youde Nethersole hospital in Chai Wan, I know what you can see from there and what you can't. It's around the eastern coast of Hong Kong Island.
  • Times Square - Yep, they are in Times Square, Causeway Bay -it's got those transparent elevators and those balconies. The one thing it hasn't got is Two IFC directly overhead. (, An article about it by the owners.) The Times Square building is a few miles away from Two IFC, which is in Central, not Causeway Bay.
  • Gliding - shortly after apparently going a few miles horizontally in an elevator, then 88 stories vertically, Lara and Terry don gliding suits and leap from the top. Lara says that they have to glide about 2.5 miles to get to their ship. Instead, they go to a ship in the middle of the harbour, not more than a kilometre away. Still, nice action sequence.
  • Aberdeen - After they split up, Lara turns up on a fishing boat in Aberdeen, Hong Kong. It's very obvious that it's Aberdeen as there are several very distinctive landmarks and of course there's the fleets of fishing boats which you will find there. A fishing family living on a junk? That's quite likely, although they might not have the large plasma TV Lara uses. Then again they might, they're saving on rent by living in a junk, after all. What's really implausible about this scene is that Lara speaks to them in Mandarin. They're rather unlikely to speak Mandarin, being fishermen. Although there's a chance the little girl might be learning it in school. Cantonese would be their language. Also, I really don't think we have Spongebob Squarepants in Mandarin on TV here, just in English or Cantonese.

That last is a really strange mistake to make - presumably Spongebob in Cantonese would just be as foreign for an American audience as having it in Mandarin would be, and I guess that the actors could learn enough Cantonese to ask some simple questions. Also, in the other Hong Kong sequences, there are no crowd noises beyond an occasional shout. Very strange. Any crowd of people in Hong Kong is a noisy affair, with people talking all the time. It's as if the film-makers wanted to have no Cantonese at all in the movie.

September 13, 2003

Ride On

dave

02:42 AM

It's been a frustrating day. We planned to drop my brother's bags at the In-Town Check-in then go out for a few pints, before sending him off back home. On arrival, we found that Singapore Airlines close up their in-town check in at 8pm, even though they have early morning flights (8am!) the next day. Clearly Singaporeans believe in nobody staying up past the bedtime of a small child.

Anyway, so we had to come home with all the bags, then go out for a last pint. We headed for the Wanch, where I had been assured that The Bastards were playing. These guys are the quintessential Hong Kong Pub Band. Loud, punk and in yer face. Unless, of course, they couldn't be bothered turning up. We rolled up outside the Wanch at about 2230, and there was no sign of the band. They had made not attempt to inform the Wanch that they weren't going to be there, so there was nothing happening in the Wanch, just the usual desperate Filipinas looking for drunk gwailos.

After some debate, we decided to have a quiet pint in Carnegies. Luckily for us, it was Power Hour (10-100pm Fri, Sat), with beers (and ciders) being $10 per pint. This is cheaper than drinking at home, when you're drinking cider, so we had a few rounds there and came home.

The brother elected to watch a Bond movie from my collection of VCDs of the same, while I made some bread in anticipation of an early start. Of course, watching movies and making bread all consume so amounts of time. It may be that certain among us get no sleep until after the little brother is safely place upon his aircraft (or at least upon the airport express).

After watching the movie, and testing the bread (Wholemeal bread with garlic baked in, slathered with butter and peppered mozarella, MMMMMMMM), I grabbed a book to read whilst falling asleep. Unfortunately for me, it was Jimmy MacCarthy's "Ride On".

This book is very clearly based on Christy Moore's biography. Christy Moore highlights the stages of his life through the songs he was singing and what was happening to him at the time. "This is the first song I sang in public, and I actually remember getting stuck into the drink after performing." His autobiography shows an awakening of musical talent running parallel with an appetite for the drink and the effects thereof. He brings you into the world of a man whose drinking is out of control: "I remember singing this song at a festival, but I can't remember what festival that was", and eventually brings you, the reader, along on his personal journey of salvation, which involved some very spiritual decisions. While I'm not religious like Christy is, having been dragged through his memories, his route to a normal life makes a lot of sense. It's clearly right for him, and he explains how he arrived at that place, and the consequences and effects of his decision.

Jimmy MacCarthy, on the other hand, beats you over the head with "You must accept God and the 12 Step Program of Alcoholics Anonymous", with the implication that, if you have ever taken a drink, you're an alcoholic. This is an intolerant attitude, often found amongst reformed drinkers who feel they have a mission to save the rest of us from a lifetime of servitude to alcohol.

The thing is, you can be a drinker who feels no compulsion to drink. You can even be a heavy drinker without being an alcoholic. Sometimes you go out for a few pints and end having a few more that 'a few' without it being a serious problem. OK, it might feel like a serious problem the next day, when your head is throbbing, or you may have enough of a tolerance that you don't get hangovers, but you spend the next morning thinking: "Two bottles of wine? Why don't I feel worse?"

I have known real alcoholics. They don't drink too much beer. They don't have a little too much wine. They have Gin and Tonic for breakfast. They can't eat lunch because they're hands shake too much. They don't eat anything, because they get all their calories from alcohol. They die from kidney failure, or renal failure, or malnutrition because their liquid diet is missing somethings. I know at least two people who have died like this.

Abstinence is a poor philosophy in these cases. Moderation is the key. Did you know that a glass of red wine per day is good for you? That having a few beers every now and then with your workmates strengthens bonds with them and is good for your career? That many of the greatest works of art of all time were made by people who liked to have a drink? How about that the worst governments in the world are those extremist Muslim regimes who enforce Shar'ia (Muslim fundamentalist law) which outlaws any consumption of alcohol?

September 08, 2003

Warren Zevon Dies

dave

09:32 PM

The BBC reports that Warren Zevon has died of cancer.

September 07, 2003

Irish Culture

dave

02:49 AM

I was watching the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen earlier on tonight and, while it's only a so-so movie (with very bad special effects), it made me think.

The premise is, like the comic-books it's based on, various adventurers from the Victorian era (*cough* more or less) get together to Fight Eeeee-vil. It's cheesy, and corny and hackneyed, but it's not a bad idea for a story. When you have an action movie, and the only star who looks like he ever threw a punch in his life is the 73 year old star (Sean Connery), you know the movie needs work.

Anyway, the thing I though of was that, supposing you wanted to write a story with other groups of roughly contemporary characters being heroes, what group is left to write about? Holmes has been revisited, as have the Greek Gods and the ancient Irish heroes (Cuchullain, Fionn MacCool, etc). So who's left?

I had an idea that the Irish playwrights of the 20th Century could have been an elite special forces team, but the image that kept springing to mind was Brendan Behan jumping up and shouting "The power of this whiskey makes me Borstal Boy!"

And, as if that wasn't bad enough, I've just had a flash of a mustachioed Padraig Pearse gesturing at some vast piece of steaming, hissing, rumbling machinery and saying "Behold! This is my Murder Machine! Muahahahaha!" (He'd probably be played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, and he'd still have a better Irish accent than Richard Gere did in the Jackal.)

September 06, 2003

Doubleback!

dave

03:51 AM

So there we are, sitting around at home, watching the movie on the TV (Snake Eyes, Gary Sinise and Nicholas Cage), when my little brother disappeared for a few minutes. "Oy!", he says. "Do you know that you have all three Back To The Future movies here?"

"I am familiar with that fact, yes. Would you like to indulge in 80's movie nostalgia?"

"Do we have enough wine?"

"Yep."

"Hit it."

We were just going to watch BTTF 2, (the original having been indelibly imprinted on our genes as we grew up in the 1980's), but the ending segues into BTTF 3 in such a way that you can't stop watching, and need to roll movie 3 straight away.

It's still good stuff. It is a classic time travel movie, where the logic behind time travel is discussed and taken care of. Paradoxes are pointed out, examined and dealt with. It has dated a bit: the 'future' antiques shop in 2015 has a Mac Classic in the window: they're pretty much antiques now in 2003. I suppose in 1985, a Mac would have almost been science-fictional.

(I saw my first computer in 1979, and then some Apple ][s a few years later on, with Macs a year or so after that. We had a computer in the house on a regular basis since about 1983 or so, and a fulltime computer in the house after 1984 or so. It was a BBC Model B, which was a great computer. You could get an office suite (word processor, spreadsheet) in ROM and still had a very powerful machine (by the standards of the time) with a very competent programming language. It even had one of the classic games available: Elite. Two video modes on screen at once, and an enormous galaxy to explore, all in 8kb!)

August 29, 2003

Tomb Raider

dave

03:01 AM

Well, I fibbed earlier on. I felt compelled to play Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness to its end. It wasn't worth it. Random characters appear, make meaningful statements and disappear. A player character turns out to have been somone else. Meanwhile, the gameplay is awful - the character control is slow and laggy, and the camera sometimes looks elewhere. Also, the character movement is usually relative to the camera, not the orientation of the camera. I.e. sometimes you have to push the 'move right' button to move Lara to the right on the screen, even though that is her left. This is bad, bad, bad. This is an awful game. Do not buy it. Do not buy Tomb Raider: angel of Darkness. Do not give Core Design the feeling that people will buy any old rubbish they send out.

August 24, 2003

Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness

dave

02:11 AM

Well, Core Design, I have to say that you all appear to have had lobotomies since you worked on Tomb Raider: The Last Revelations. Your latest game is full of puzzles requires fine control of Lara, and controls with up to one second lag. Playability-wise, the latest Tomb Raider game completely sucks. It's almost completely unplayable. Why is there a one second lag on every control? Even with a controller, it sucks. With the mouse, hello? did no one there spot that you'd mapped the mouse the wrong way around on both axes? Do you all have your mouses upside down on your desk?

I'm giving up. I'm going to wait for Half-life 2 instead.

August 17, 2003

Some Movies

dave

11:59 PM

Tonight, on the TV, Chicken Run was on. This is a great movie. A great piss-take of escape movies, with the usual charm you expect from the makers of Wallace and Grommit.

Also, there was a preview of Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of The Black Pearl, which is a bloody brilliant movie. It has the knob turned very firmly to 11, and is silly and fun. Well worth a look.

July 21, 2003

Fastlane

dave

11:03 PM

I'm just watching the first episode of Fastlane. I can't decide if it's complete and utter moronic drivel or a good parody of complete and utter moronic drivel. A cop gets thrown in jail, and the inmates play Trivial Pursuit?

Got it! It's a remake of Miami Vice with the knob turned to 11! More scantily clad chicks, faster cars and less plot.

July 20, 2003

DVD Player

dave

01:16 AM

I've just bough my first ever non-pc DVD player. HK$ 550 for a multi-region, multi-system unit which has managed to play every thing I have so far. From Region 1 to Region 3 and whatever those Chinese bootlegs are, it plays them too. Good Stuff.

July 13, 2003

His Dark Materials

dave

06:18 PM

I'm currently working my way through the Phillip Pullman trilogy: His Dark Materials, featuring: "The Golden Compass", "The Subtle Knife" and "The Amber Spyglass". I've only just finished the first one and I thought it was really good. Excellent world-building and good story-telling.

July 07, 2003

Star Trek: Nemesis

dave

12:44 AM

I reckon Hoover should name their next product the Star Trek: Nemesis, because then Everyone would know that they have a product which sucks beyond belief.

July 04, 2003

Strange Search results

dave

01:41 PM

I've just noticed a very strange referral line: someone found this page while searching for "the order of the phoenix crack download". There's a crack for the book now?

June 27, 2003

Yet more Potter

dave

12:46 AM

I've just finished re-reading Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix, and I've noticed a few details I missed in my first read. One of the themes is Harry as a leader. This is quite noticeable in a few scenes towards the end of the book:

  • Everyone follows Harry to the Ministry of Magic, despite doubts or not being able to perceive their mode of travel. They will follow him, because he is their leader. I think this will have serious echoes in books six and seven. Harry is now a force to be reckoned with in the Wizarding world.
  • In the Ministry of Magic, Harry's team line up behind him and draw wands together. Imagine the wedge shaped formation of the Ur-Viles from the Thomas Covenant books. Or, if you haven't read them, imagine that Harry is in front of a triangular formation of his friends. "Wands out!" *Snick*.
  • At King's Cross, Harry and Arthur Weasley lead a bunch of Harry's friends over to talk to the Dursleys. Again, the wedge thing, this time Arthur and Harry are leading it.
  • Harry leads the Dursleys out of the station.

Of course, there are other clues. I think that the Muggle world and the Wizarding world may need to come closer together, now that there are so many people with a foot in both camps. I also think that Harry and Snape have a closer connection than is previously known. And that Petunia Dursley is not what she seems.

Prediction: Petunia Dursley, nee Evans, like her sister Lily Potter, nee Evans, was also at Hogwarts. she was romantically involved with Severus Snape, but she rejected him and was expelled for some reason. This has lead to Snape's refusal to allow Lily to intercede on his behalf when required, and contributed to his hatred of Potter: his ex-girlfriend's sister has taken up with his tormentor. Meanwhile, Petunia was expelled for doing something very nasty, so she has to live as a Muggle. This explains why she knew instantly what Dementors were and where they guarded, and may explain [SPOILER]'s Howler: "Remember my last, Petunia". Last what? Line of the letter? Condition of not revealing her magical abilities to a husband who would disown her if he found out?

Petunia: "Harry, give me your wand!"

Harry: "Aunt Petunia, you want my what?"

Petunia: "Give me your wand Harry, I need it to do the Unforgivable Curse I was expelled from Hogwarts for."

Harry and Vernon together: "What?! You were at Hogwarts?!"

Petunia: "Malfoy! AVADA KEDAVRA!"

So, when's book six coming out? Next Tuesday, huh?

I'm guessing in less than two years: maybe this time next year, as Rowling's already started writing it. She does have a small baby though, and I know how hard it is to get anything done with an infant in the house.

(updated to remove a spoiler or two.)

June 22, 2003

More Potter

dave

03:55 PM

I was just thinking about the whole issue of knowing that someone was going to die in HP5 and it would be upsetting and I came to an interesting conclusion: You're meant to be afraid that anyone could die at any moment.

JK Rowling has been very public that someone was going to die, and that it was very upsetting for her to write it. This is almost the theme of all the marketing. When you read the book, you're always thinking that one of the main characters could die at any point. It creates a real tension and drags you into the story. It makes each encounter very real: every time there's a conflict you're going "Oh no! It's not *him* (or *her*) is it?" Perhaps this is to bring you, the reader, into the mindset of the Wizarding world now that Voldemort is back.

June 21, 2003

Seven Hundred and Seventy Six Pages

dave

10:24 PM

That's how long "Harry Potter and the Order Of The Phoenix" is.

I woke up early, intending to go out and get it. At six AM, I rang my parents, who were busy celebrating their Fortieth Wedding Anniversary. I must have sounded pretty bleary. I decided to not go down to Dymocks to get HP5 after all, so I slept for a while.

At about 1130, I wandered into Central to the Dymocks in Princes Building. To my small astonishment, there were no crowds there and there were plenty of books left. I had somewhat expected the books to fly off the shelves (well, not literally: "Accio HP5!"...). The manager there said that there had been a small queue at 7AM, when they opened, but there wasn't a great rush. I just strolled in, picked up a copy, chatted to the manager for a bit while paying for my copy and strolled back with my nose firmly pressed in Chapter One: Dudley Demented.

You can see the time above? I've just finished it. I did take a few breaks for eating, and other stuff, but mostly I've been ploughing my way through it all day.

So what did I think of it? Well, it's been obvious from about book 3 (Prisoner of Azkaban) on, that the series is growing up with Harry. It's getting darker and darker and the childlike innocence of the first two books, which are very black and white in moral terms, is replaced by the ambiguities of how the real world works. Book 4, Goblet of Fire had some dark moments, but it was a trilling canary of chirpy happiness compared to Order of the Phoenix. There's oppression and angst, thuggery and romance, misery and death in this volume.

So, who dies? Well, it's... Old Ben Kenobi. Or is that the wrong book? Page 160 got me going for a while though.

"Luke^WHarry, I am your father..."

Nope, there's nothing that cheap or hackneyed in it. There are a lot of questions answered which were raised in the last few books, and there are more questions asked of our hero. Maybe James wasn't quite the nice guy he was painted...

An excellent read, damn well written and deeply, deliciously, darkly subversive for a children's book. I would guess that JK Rowling taken a leaf out of the Terry Pratchett Guide for writing for young adults: "Never, ever be condescending. Your heroes are just regular people who happen to not be grown ups. They're not simpering innocent Enid Blytons archetypes." There are no 'lashings of ginger beer' in this world. There are lashings though, and some butterbeer.

Go buy it: Not that JK Rowling needs the money, but just to encourage good story-telling.

So, when's book 6 coming out? Next Tuesday?

June 16, 2003

HP5

dave

11:18 PM

Nope, HP5 isn't a new calculator, or a new computer from Hewlett Packard. It's a reference to the next Harry Potter book: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which is due out on Saturday, June 21, 2003. I've been waiting for this book for a few years now, so I hope it's going to be good. I really liked the third and fourth in the series, although I think the first two are quite juvenile. However, it's pretty clear that each book is written for about the age of the protagonists. I.e. "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" is written from 11 year olds.

(It's '...and the Sorcerer's Stone" for Americans, because *American* editors think American kids are too stupid to know what a Philosopher is. This is nothing to do with Brits looking down on you Americans; it's American editors who regard their own customers as ignorant morons. If you think you have it with Potter Books, go check out pTerry Pratchett for someone who writes excellent books for young people (and people of all ages), and who has some scathing comments on the way books are sold in America. (It took a long time of people actually buying his books from England, before American publishers actually figured out that people might be interested. But then they put completely *sucky* covers on them. It's almost like American publishers don't want Americans to buy pTerry's books. Are they afraid they'll go: "But these are clever, insightful, and humourous, as well as being damn well written. Whatever happened to the insipid drivel we've been used to?")

Any road up (You can tell I've lived in England for *way* too long), I'm currently reading through the first four books in the series, in preparation for snarfing the fifth one on Saturday morning. As a guide to my reading speed, I started the series on Sunday, and, reading in bed and on the MTR, have finished the first two books already. Now, I just have about 1500 pages to go through before Saturday. I may finish too early.

May 26, 2003

Wee Free Men!

dave

11:46 PM

There can be only one thousand! I spotted the newest Terry Pratchett book in Dymocks in the IFC the other day, not very far from Prêt A Manger, which is where I usually go for my sandwich at lunch. (If I have much more than a sandwich for lunch, I'll spend the afternoon asleep in the office.)

For me, pTerry has been a buy his books on sight in hardback author for quite a long time now. His most recent book Night Watch was a superb Film Noir revisit to Sam Vimes' early life.

This new book, The Wee Free Men is the tale of what growing up to be a witch is all about. Terry Pratchett doesn't write children's books where "Dick sees Jane, sees Jane run!", he writes children's books where the heroes just haven't actually finished growing up yet. I've always felt very insulted reading a children's book where the author obviously thinks that children are some sort of mentally retarded adult. pTerry doesn't do that:

'Zoology, eh? That's a big word, isn't it?'

'No, actually it isn't,' said Tiffany, 'Patronizing is a big word. Zoology is really quite short.'

And that immediately tells you plenty about young Tiffany, who's as much a witch as Esmeralda Weatherwax.

Also, it has The Gonnagle as a war poet, and if you know anything about Scottish culture at all, you'll snort beer out your nose when he does his thing.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day
of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

(For more of the un-surpassed poetry of William MacGonagall, please see http://www.taynet.co.uk/users/mcgon/).

May 11, 2003

Booksellers

dave

11:00 PM

Well, the new Terry Pratchett is out (Wee Free Men), and I've been scouring the local bookshops looking for it. So far, I've checked Dymocks, Page One, Swindon, Bookazine. They're all the most likely places to find a new book, and none of them have it.

I decided to look online, and decided to compare prices between the various online booksellers. As it's generally better, in my experience, to order a few books at a time when ordering online, I decided to do that. I priced buying and delivering three books, one of which is a new hardcover, and two are mass market paperbacks. The three books were Wee Free Men (Pratchett), King Rat (Miéville) and The Curse of Chalion (Bujold). The results were somewhat surprising:

BooksellerTotal PriceComment
Amazon.comUSD 52.31 (HKD 407.08)The basic deal, and probably the first place anyone thinks of when buying a book online.
Amazon.co.ukGBP 32.19 (HKD 402.56)Slightly cheaper and a somewhat better range of books. If you have an existing Amazon.com account, it'll work on the uk one too.
WHSmith.co.ukGBP 31.64 (HKD 395.68)Always useful for a comparison.
BarnesAndNoble.comUSD 44.88 (HKD 349.26)Never used them before, but I sure will now. The only problem is the ugly as sin covers that Pratchett books get in the US.
Dymocks.com.auAUD 108.00 (HKD 542.35)Chuffin' 'Eck! Buying books in Oz is expensive!

(The currency rates were taken from the SCMP Currency Converter.)

Now, the question is: am I willing to pay an extra fifty bucks (Hong Kong dollars) for the UK cover below? Yep, you would too, huh?

USA Cover
UK Cover

(See what I mean about ugly as sin? And that's one of the better USA covers.) Both images are, of course, copyright by the artists involved (although I use the term very loosely in the USA cover) and their use here should fall under fair use. If that's not ok, let me know and I'll sort something out. The UK cover is by Paul Kidby, more of whose work can be seen at paulkidby.com. Paul is an excellent artist and has a great view of what the characters form the Discworld really look like. Go buy his stuff! Now! (I have a set of his Hogswatch Cards (The bottom four on that page), and they are truly wonderful. Just looking at his site now, and he has t-shirts, mouse pads, mugs, everything. Check out the mousemats!

In the end, I decided to wait until the end of next month, the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix comes out. It's been a long wait for that, and the hype has been tremendous, but I realy liked the last one (Goblet of Fire) and I'm looking forward to the next one. I think it'll get very, very dark.

February 24, 2003

McCarthy's Bar

dave

12:00 AM

I've just finished reading "McCarthy's Bar", by Pete McCarthy. It's a travelogue through Ireland, showing the real country and the real people. It should be compulsory reading for anyone who thinks they know the country.

May 18, 2002

At the movies.

dave

12:00 AM

We've just come back from seeing the new Star Wars movie: Attack Of The Clones. It's really, really good. Far better than Phantom Menace. It's visually stunning. It's full of great references to the later movies and really fills out the back story very well. You tend to find your self going "Oh so *that's* why Boba Fett hates the Jedi" and "so that's what Owen Lars meant in Ep IV."

Some observations:

  • Coruscant is amazing - it's so big and complex it just couldn't have been done without the most recent technology. (and if you like it, try playing "Jedi Knight II" from Lucasarts.)
  • Jango Fett is great, as is Boba.
  • Temeura Morrison is excellent. That part of the story line is good.
  • Yoda kicks butt (or at least prods some serious buttock). Really. People started giggling when he whipped out his light-sabre, but you could almost hear jaws dropping when he started fighting. Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Jet Li and Chow Yun Fat all rolled into one three foot high package. They call him 'Master' for a very good reason. If there's one thing a Hong Kong audience will appreciate, it's good old fashioned kick-ass gong-fu. Yoda being a Jedi master is very different from Yoda being a teacher. He's great.
  • There's a reason for Jar Jar. And, no, you won't like him any better.

Watching the first film again (I've got the original trilogy on VCD), the advances in computer graphics are amazing. They could barely manage a simplified dot image of the Death Star in 1977, in 2002, several of the main characters are computer animated. The first film really resonates with references from Ep II. The initial Tatooine sequences especially are very evocative and much more meaningful when you know the background shown in Episode II.