Movie of the Week: Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1

This is a really difficult film to review, firstly because it's only half a story and secondly because it's the weakest half of the final book in the Hunger Games Trilogy. Pretty much like the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter) and the final Twilght movie (the title of which has blessedly slipped from my mind) it has the difficult task of making a complete story out of... well, not very much really. My gripe with the book (though I did think it worth reading) was that in the third instalment Katniss doesn't have much agency. She's been a pawn of President Snow for two movies, but managed to show remarkable resiliance, skill and initiative, but now she's broken. She's been rescued and taken to the safety of District 13, but Peta has been left behind in the Capital and Katniss is, quite frankly, broken. She's not the subject of this story any more, but the object. Forces act upon her, but she's reactive, not taking the initiatuve. She knows what she wants, but President Coyne and the powers-that-be in District 13 are not going to take much notice of her wishes as long as she can be of use to them as the figurehead.

While this is entirely consistent with Katniss' story so far, it makes for a difficult movie. I think the movie has managed to beef up Katniss' agency a little bit, and it certainly delivered plenty of explosions and danger, but ultimately the whole thing hinges on what they'll do with the finale when it's released (next summer?).

That's not to say that I didn't enjoy this movie. Now that I'm invested in Katniss' story I want and need to see how it ends. (Yes, OK, I have read the books and I don't expect major changes.) It was nice to see Gale back in the picture and to see how the embryonic romance, is playing out. A three-way emotional triangle is always difficult when one of the members is not actually present.

It's also probably the last thing Philip Seymour Hoffman filmed before his  untimely death.

Book Log 15/2014 - Terry Pratchett: Dodger

I'm a big fan of Pratchett's discworld and although this book is set in London in the early years of Victoria's reign, the feeling is very Ankh-Morporkian, or maybe that should be that Ankh Morpork is very much based on London. Dodger lives in the Seven Dials and makes his living as a tosher, i.e. trawling through the city's sewers, true Roman relics, for valuables that have been washed away down the city's drains (at this stage more for rain water and detritus than personal waste). He's a geezer, known by and knowing all the likely coves in his orbit and he's not above finding the odd item that the owner didn't know was lost, however, Solomon, his landlord, friend and mentor, far from being a Fagin character, strives to keep the lad on the straight and narrow.

And indeed, Dodger's not a bad lad, though he's no soft touch, except perhaps where the vulnerable are concerned. Emerging from his sewer one night he sees a scuffle, an attempted murder maybe, and rescues a young lady who has been severely beaten up, possibly a young lady of quality by the ring on her finger (which amazingly Dodger leaves there). Close by, a certain journalist named Charlie Dickens grows interested in the happening and thus begins an adventure to rival anything the Discworld has to offer. The stews of London, the Peelers, nobby gentry, Solomon's wisdom, Onan the (very) smelly dog, a lethal assassin, Benjamin Disraeli and even Queen Victoria herself are all in the mix, plus Dodger's attempts to find out who is trying to harm the young lady that he's rapidly falling for, and a plan - which doesn't go entirely... err... to plan. Dodger's wry voice is appealing and his view of his surroundings and the people who inhabit them is amusing if not laugh out loud funny. A lively read. Highly recommended.

Book Log 16/2014 - Steven Erikson: Willful Child

I really *really* wanted to like this book. The blurb was superb and it sounded like immense fun, especially  "bravely going where they really shouldn't...". As it turned out there was much to recommend it, with Captain Hadrian Sawback plunging into a series of ever more improbable and impossible Trekkie-type situations and trying to sleep his way around every female member of his crew. (This guy has no concept of what constitutes sexual harassment.)  It was, however, relentless, and I found I could only read it in small chunks. It works excellently on the level of a Star Trek spoof, but less well in its own right. I know I'm not comparing apples with apples, but as Star Trek spoofs go it doesn't generate the affection that Galaxy Quest manages so effortlessly.

Book Log 17/2014 - Karen Traviss: View of a Remote Country

I really admire Karen Traviss' writing and so the opportunity to revisit some of her early short stories in this book was not to be missed. Thirteen short stories including some classics such as 'Suitable for the Orient' and 'Does he take Blood?', and my personal favourite, 'Evidence' which is the powerful tale of how an  archaeologist interprets/misinterprets the evidence in the find of an alien burial on a remote planet, with particularly devastating consequences. All the pieces have speculative fiction content, mostly science fiction, some of it social, some of it alt-historical, some of it alien/extra-terrestrial and (unusual for Traviss) a smattering of fantasy. All of it speculative in the widest sense of the term.

Highly recommended.