A quick round-up of recent things I’ve been entertained by.
Reading
Getting back into graphic novels recently.
The Power Fantasy volume 1: Interesting setup here about a selection of random individuals who – unwittingly- are born with some kind of superpower. Sometimes one person is mega powerful, while at other times the benefit is a lot less obvious. The story then revolves around how this group relate to state authorities, as well to each other. That he supers haven’t chosen their existence gives it a distinctly human feel, while the level of power they have also manages to mirror the evolving tension between billionaires and nation states in the real world. I really like the crisp artwork with white lines picking everything out, too. Am intriguing, well-observed piece with some good mystery and tension to drive it forward.
Lip Hook: A couple escaping from the authorities find themselves in a strange place haunted by fog and insects, with a heavy mix of folk and factories thrown in. Blending Wicker Man, Hot Fuzz and League of Gentlemen together, but with the lost policeman replaced by criminals, this is darker on all sides. Ideas are at once familiar and mysterious,, leaving a great and classic tale for anyone that enjoys the wyrd stuff.
Fun fact: Liphook is a real town in Hampshire.
Batman: Zero Year – Secret City: Continuing to read the Snyder series, book 4 twists back in time to take another look at Batman’s origin (plus one or two enemies, of course). Coming into this having seen the various early-day origin tales hit across all the streams (but not had time to watch many of them, maybe half the Joker film). In a way I missed the fresh storylines of the previous Snyder books, but this one’s highly readable, though relying heavily on the reader’s knowledge of Dark Knight lore of course. With that in place, this is a great read, and there’s still more to come…
The Books of Magic: Dug these out of storage with an eye on clearing them out, and thought I’d read them properly (again? can’t remember). The first book feels like a bit of an encyclopedia of magical and fantasy ideas in some sense – I can imagine it might be good for younger readers mirroring Tim, the main character, and his discovery of magical worlds. But for me this tour doesn’t particularly convert into an exciting read – I’ll see how the plot develops in the next few books. Always nice to see Constantine though.
And a traditional book.
Sinopticon: Another tour, but this time more obviously so. Xxx selects and translates a nicely curated set of “….” shorts here, with the expressed intention of showcasing Chinese sci-fi talent and takes on the genre in recent history. On the basic level of just reading them, I enjoyed all the stories here, but especially “…” which tells a zombie film from a much more sympathetic and often very funny zombie viewpoint (including a zombie friend that lights up cigarettes even though they can’t inhale).
On a broader level, the curation works really well, with a diverse collection that often pushes away from expectations – while you’d hesitate to label all of these as ’sci-fi”, it’s actually this reflection on a different perspective of the term that comes across. It helps to have a little interest in Chinese culture and history as well as Western sci-fi tropes, as this is where the two meet and entangle, but the translation footnotes and story notes do a good job to preserve this. All-in-all, and a few typos aside, a very smart and different book.
Film
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert: Couldn’t sleep one night and noticed this is on BBC iPlayer currently, so couldn’t resist rewatching it, and it confirms it’s place as one of my top road trip movies, especially now that Hugo Weaving has done so much other stuff since. The setup – three 90s-era trans people at different stages of life, making an overly-glitzy trip from the parties of Sydney to the unwelcoming back roads of the outback – is always going to be perfect, but the unexpected and bizarre twists are held together by impeccable writing, a constant battle between landscapes and costumes, and an exploration of the never ending need to find acceptance that we all get.
Indeed, there are times you start thinking about how easily this could be converted into a film about a stag do or something “macho”, and not need to change much. Yet the outcome would never be so daring, or have half as much tension. Ahh, love it.
Mr Bean’s Holiday: Look, holidays are coming up soon so it’s all about the long trips right now, ok? And it was about time I saw this again, finding a copy in a charity shop with ease. This is at the opposite end of the spectrum to Priscilla in terms of tension and self-discovery, but does all the things a good road movie should do – blundering into strange scenes, finding and losing people, and all in the pursuit of some semi-MacGuffin of a goal.
This is comfort film territory with Rowan Atkinson’s classic characterisation, some perfect pacing, and I could watch the final walk to the beach over and over. Interestingly we watched the deleted scenes this time, and they chose to cut a lot of the scenes where Bean is ‘nasty’ to strangers – this definitely leaves it as a more upbeat film, and I’ve been told by my youngest that we need to keep the DVD…
Games
Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter story (Switch): I think I’ve worked through half of this interactive museum/gallery now – it seems a shame to rush it, so I’m fairly diligently ticking of each exhibit and playing each game as I go through. Not all get a decent play, I’ll admit – Hovver Bovver didn’t grab me and I’ll quickly check out a port just for comparison. But there are games in here that really show off Minter’s fundamental sense of fun. Gridrunner remains one of the classics of course, but there are also those at the more bonkers end of things, such as Hellgate and Ancipital.
I’m enjoying the shock of trying to work out a game in the few seconds you have before dying, but also feeling very inspired by Jeff’s whole attitude of humble dedication to the art.
Relatedly, Akka Arrh was on sale too, so I picked this up for when I want to skip forward and play some Modern Minter – and from a quick blast, it doesn’t disappoint.
Playdate Season 2 has been rolling out two new titles weekly, and I’ve been (expectedly) too busy to really keep up, but that’s ok. Life at life’s pace.
Aside from the curiosity of TV station Blippo+ which I sort of blogged about earlier, I’ve found myself focusing on two games so far. Dig, Dig Dino is a fairly simple, lightweight game in which you explore a 2D view into a 3D grid of a dig site, using a shovel, drill and other tools to go deeper into each grid space to find bones, trash and treasure. The extras let you upgrade and the bones reveal a story, but overall this is a casual, no-fail game and perfect for a few minutes of relaxation wherever I am.
Meanwhile The Whiteout is a tad more serious, in tone at least – several years after the climate has gone drastically wrong, you’re left wandering through the snow looking for survival.
(OK, I admit I wrote this post a few weeks ago. Things have moved on since then a little, but I’ll never get this posted if I try to include more.)
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