Clarke RIP

Arthur C. Clarke was one of 20th century literature's three giants of science fiction. (The other two were Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein.) Clarke died, at the grand age of 90, on Wednesday 19th March (though news reached UK while it was still Tuesday) and it's a very saddening thought for genre fans reflecting on how the author of classic novels - like 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Childhood's End, produced such powerfully imaginative books that he was largely responsible for introducing them to SF in the first place, and making his readers life-long fans and followers of the genre's unique sense-of-wonder. (When I was a kid, it was Clarke's Earthlight which got me hooked on reading SF!)

When reading (and reviewing for Starburst #171), Odyssey, Neil McAleer's authorised biography of Clarke, I noted that it presented an essentially positive view of Clarke, without any muck-raking (Clarke's autobiography Astounding Days paints a similarly rosy picture), but that did not - and still doesn't - suggest that any negative comments were due, anyway. And it's worth remembering it was Clarke who attained a "cosmic eloquence" in his SF books and lectures that still remains unequalled in the field and the genre canon. With that in mind, I think that any number of human flaws and character faults should be overlooked. Clarke's single-volume Collected Stories is a treasure house of imaginative SF lore and it's changing focus over decades, and it reveals much about the genre's development as fantastic literature.

I've always found it fascinating to compare the film 2001 with the novel version, one being a genuine work of art by Stanley Kubrick (see here), and the other being a kind of distillation of Clarke's views on some of the big questions (about life-as-we-know-it, the ever-surprising universe, and everything..?), some of which remain unanswered in 21st century. Although it's obviously a great shame that so little of Clarke's boundless optimism has survived the various social changes of the millennium, there can be no doubt that his visionary input into SF is a vital guiding light as we lurch towards whatever future state (or complete mess?) the world gets into next.

MindFlesh

Revelatory sequences concerning the protagonist’s boyhood underscore the incandescent psycho-eroticism of MindFlesh by Robert Pratten (the maker of London Voodoo, interviewed for The ZONE). Any précis probably sounds laughable, incomprehensible, or worse… London taxi driver, Chris (Peter Bramhill, ‘bugboy’ in LovecraCked!), inexplicably magicks up his own dream goddess (Carole Derrien), and incurs the wrath of nasty aliens policing dimensional rifts. The demons start killing Chris’ friends. Enthralment. Kinky sex. Body-horror. Explicit pleasure/ pain, and blah. See?

Adapted from William Scheinman’s novel White Light, this is a double-sleaze Hellraiser dish with a side order of Society madness. Cronenberg weirdness? Ah, yes, old Crony might well be proud of his obvious influence here. He might even drool. Not too many horror films are daring enough to prompt fans to wonder, however briefly, about the sanity of the filmmakers. Even fewer new auteurs manage to hit the ground running with only their second feature. Writer-director Pratten allows his imagination free rein here (breaking with good taste like a bulldozer in a china shop), and the mature cast play along, bravely.

If you want to experience a raft of darkly whimsical surprises, acid-head flavoured grotesquery and perversion, in a mere 75 minutes of jaw-dropping fun and crazy sense-twisting games, here’s a 21st century brand of SF atrocity exhibit X that contrasts pretence with honesty, balances delight and disgust, exposes the shadowy aspects of human souls, and opens up the head of its main character with unflinching surgical precision.

Checkout the maker's website at zenfilms.com for more info, trailer, and latest updates.

flame on/off

Posted comments on some forums today, but managed to avoid getting drawn into latest random flame wars. Usually somewhat bemused by such online arguments because, generally, I don't want people to agree with me. At least, not too often. Well, yes, it's good to find busy communities with common fandom interests, where board members can enjoy all the pros & cons/ back & forth of various topical discussions. Indeed, this can be great fun, and it's very satisfying to join in some informed debates, but why do some opinionated people fail to accept that contrary views may be just as valid as their own?

There's no reason that fans - of whatever, in particular - should have to agree about everything or anything, really. I'd strongly suggest that a little bit of respect for other people's thoughts wouldn't go amiss. However, my opinions are just mine... So get your own!

new collections

Skimming off the cream? Mopping up the scum? Either way, the 13 stories in Andrew Humphrey’s second collection of short fiction, Other Voices (Elastic Press), are a fine collection of literary SF, urban terror, weird crime, melancholy noir, and bloody pessimism. It’s an engaging sampler of whatever sorrows float in the deep vats of cross-genre slipstream. There are dramas of cruelty and candour, sociopathic affairs and broken marriages, but the various characters’ estrangements might actually be from reality, and some protagonists find their sense of identity is undermined by curious events. Just like the urgent messiness of real life, happenings are frequently beyond explanation let alone human control.

When this volume came along I was partway through reading Joe Hill’s expansive collection 20th Century Ghosts (Gollancz), and must admit that the American author’s constant engagement with wraparound sentimentality was just starting to bore me (a little bit!), so the unexpected opportunity to review Other Voices for Starburst #360 provided a welcome relief. Okay, so maybe there’s a little too much of Norwich in Humphrey’s work, but this book frames an ample dose of satisfyingly British doom and gloom, with an appealing minimum of the mushy, the woolly, and the tritely condescending. Actually, there's nearly as much 'hope' in Humphrey's fiction as there is in Joe Hill's, but whereas hope seems like an essential ingredient in most of Hill's work, Humphrey's hope is fleeting at best or plays really hard to get. If you’re after dark fiction that quietly stockpiles optimism and settles happily into maudlin comforts after a hard day’s night practicing survival tactics, shop elsewhere.

Published by Serpent’s Tale books, Old Devil Moon is Christopher Fowler’s 10th collection of short fiction, exploring an impressive range of themes and styles from urban horror to whimsical fantasy, packing in much contemporary wit, literary flair and satirical insight. Compared to Humphrey’s finely-honed accounts of domestic disaster and laments for wrecked psyches, the grumbling quality of Fowler’s high-contrast offerings might be somewhat variable, but the sheer diversity of material reaches levels of pure astonishment, perhaps to the extent that readers might be left questioning whether all these disparate chillers and comedies were indeed composed by just one mind (latent evidence of Fowler’s um, apparently well-managed, multiple-personality disorder?).

Ringing the changes from knockabout Sherlock Holmes case histories and catalogues of absurdity (certainly, Fowler’s The Night Museum is a lot more fun than any dozen books by Tom Holt!) to cautionary tales about foreign travel, guiding us through yet another set of fascinatingly twisted and macabre tropes which, like the chillingly primal classic Sharper Knives (1992), sagely warns readers about whatever’s probably lurking down both familiar dimly-lit alleys and the cheerfully unknown back roads of cosmopolitan landscapes.

Invasion

Not to be confused with the sci-fi TV series (shown a while back on Channel Four, and out now on DVD), or Armand Mastroianni's 1997 TV film (based on a Robin Cook story) starring Luke Perry and Kim Cattrall, or the latest version of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (also on DVD now), this low-budget movie from David Michael Latt is actually a cheap version of H.G. Wells' classic War Of The Worlds re-titled for a UK region 2 DVD release.

Just like Spielberg's blockbuster, it's a contemporary adaptation, transplanted to USA, but because modern visual effects are outrageously expensive (assuming that filmmakers aim for quality, anyway), low-budget SF cinema in a serious mode such as this is forced to rely heavily upon the actors for its principal dramatic moments. B-movie veterans like C. Thomas Howell and Jake Busey deliver their best, and yet, it's still not enough to save this production from abject mediocrity. The ending is wholly predictable, and it's a film only suitable for SF completists.

Final score: 4/10