My Fantasia Festival, Day 1: Ghost in the Shell

My Fantasia Festival, Day 1: Ghost in the Shell

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Fantasia 2014Last night’s opening film at the seventeenth Fantasia International Film Festival was a 6:30 showing of Jacky au royaume des filles [Jacky in the Kingdom of Women], a French comedy about an oppressive matriarchal country. I decided to give it a pass, opting instead for a 7:45 showing of Mamoru Oshii’s classic anime Ghost in the Shell. Oshii was going to be present, one of two recipients this year of Fantasia’s Lifetime Achievement Award along with Tobe Hooper, whose The Texas Chainsaw Massacre screens on July 30.

Oshii and Hooper are an odd pairing, but the festival thrives on eclecticism. For 18 years — it skipped a year just after the turn of the century — Fantasia’s been bringing Montrealers the best of genre cinema. This year it’ll be showing more than 160 feature films and 300 shorts over three weeks, including a number of Canadian, North American, and world premieres. I’ll be covering it for Black Gate. I’m planning to post two or three times a week, keeping a running diary of the films I see and adding an occasional longer piece when I see a particularly interesting movie.

Called “The most important and prestigious genre film festival on this continent” by Quentin Tarantino, Fantasia’s become a Montreal institution. I haven’t gone to every installment of the festival, but I was there for the showing of its very first film, My Father Is a Hero, in 1996. It seems to have grown steadily over the years, from wuxia and kaiju and giallo branching out to include films of all sorts from around the world: crime films, horror films, children’s movies, experimental cinema. A look at this year’s selections show the range of offerings, from art-house cinema to a special screening of a Hollywood superhero science-fiction blockbuster. It looks like genre film worldwide is in a healthy state. (Feel free to let me know in comments what films look interesting to you!)

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The Series Series: The Night of the Swarm by Robert V.S. Redick

The Series Series: The Night of the Swarm by Robert V.S. Redick

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The Night of the Swarm Robert VS RedickIt’s one of the classic dilemmas all fantasy readers face: When the last volume in a series finally comes out, do you go back and reread from the start so you can reach the end with all the grace notes and loose ends fresh in memory as the author ties them off? Or do you dive in immediately because you’ve been longing to resolve the suspense of the last volume’s cliffhangers?

If you’ve been reading Robert V.S. Redick’s delightful series, The Chathrand Voyage, you face this decision again with the arrival of the final book, The Night of the Swarm. The opening volume, The Red Wolf Conspiracy, was Redick’s debut novel, so we’ve never seen him bring a series to closure before. The first three books were delicious, but will he pull off the conclusion well enough to justify the time it takes you to reread the whole set?

Yes. Do it. Go find your copy of The Red Wolf Conspiracy, or buy a new one if you’ve mislaid it. I’ve just finished The Night of the Swarm, which I dove into without reacquainting myself with the earlier books, and though it was immensely satisfying, I will definitely be rereading the whole series.

And if you’re a newcomer to The Chathrand Voyage, oh, you are in for such a treat. Get all four books at once, turn the ringer off on your phone for a few weeks, and set up an auto-response for your email, because you won’t want to leave the battered, glorious world of Alifros until you’ve seen its struggles through.

Our young heroes Pazel, Thasha, and Neeps — along with a ship’s company of fanciful, and sometimes frightening, supporting characters that Charles Dickens might have come up with if he’d been trying to adapt his favorite techniques from George R.R. Martin — have only been at sea for a year, but what perils they have weathered! They have resisted a madman whose army of followers worship him as a god, rescued Thasha from political assassination, fled by sailing ship across an almost unimaginably large and wild ocean, and rediscovered civilizations no one from their continent has seen in centuries.

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Blogging Sax Rohmer… In the Beginning, Part Two

Blogging Sax Rohmer… In the Beginning, Part Two

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illo-Sax Rohmerrohmer2“The Green Spider” marked Sax Rohmer’s third foray into short fiction. Still writing under the pen name of A. Sarsfield Ward, the story first appeared in the October 1904 issue of Pearson’s Magazine. It was not reprinted until 65 years later in Issue #3 of The Rohmer Review in 1969. Subsequently, a corrupted version, with an altered ending courtesy of the editor, appeared in the May 1973 issue of Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine. The restored text was included in the 1979 anthology, Science Fiction Rivals of H. G. Wells. More recently, the story has appeared in the 1992 anthology, Victorian Tales of Mystery and Detection, the September 2005 issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, and as the title story in the first volume of Black Dog Books’ Sax Rohmer Library, The Green Spider and Other Forgotten Tales of Mystery and Suspense (2011).

The story itself shares in common with Rohmer’s first effort, “The Mysterious Mummy” the presentation of a seemingly supernatural mystery that has a rational explanation. In the nine months that elapsed between the publication of “The Leopard Couch” and “The Green Spider,” Rohmer honed his writing skills and became a more devoted student of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and deductive reasoning. “The Green Spider” concerns the disappearance of the celebrated Professor Brayme-Skepley on the eve of an important scientific presentation. It appears to onlookers and Scotland Yard that the Professor has been murdered by a giant green spider that apparently made off with his corpse. The unraveling of the mystery reveals the green spider is no more authentic a threat than the phantom Hound of the Baskervilles. While a minor effort, the story retains its charm more than a century on and shows that the mysterious A. Sarsfield Ward was steadily improving as an author.

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Goth Chick News: Movie Release Hell; The Suspense is Killing Me

Goth Chick News: Movie Release Hell; The Suspense is Killing Me

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image002Is it possible to wait for something for a very long time and still find it lives up to your expectations? If you’re like me, you probably have some pretty profound examples on both sides of the argument, especially where movies or books are concerned.

This week, there are (finally) updates on two movies that I have personally been anticipating for over a year, with news on one being somewhat of a disappointment.

To start, in January, 2013 I reported Disney had tapped Guillermo del Toro to reboot the Haunted Mansion. In case you haven’t been keeping track, there had been a 2003 attempt to bring the backstory of the popular theme park attraction to the big screen starring Eddie Murphy.

But if you don’t remember it, consider yourself lucky.

Needless to say, the idea that the man behind Mama and Pan’s Labyrinth was taking what could potentially be an R-rated swing at Haunted Mansion gave me chills (in a good way).

However, del Toro had and continues to have quite a lot of irons in the fire, including Pacific Rim 2, Kung Fu Panda 3, and a creepy, animated version of Pinocchio, among others. All this makes me ever-so-slightly worried that del Toro is spread too thin to give Haunted Mansion the attention it deserves.

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Sylvia Townsend Warner and Lolly Willowes

Sylvia Townsend Warner and Lolly Willowes

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Lolly WillowesSylvia Townsend Warner is probably best known in fantasy circles for The Kingdoms of Elfin, her collection of linked short stories from 1977. I’ve been looking for a copy of that book, but have yet to locate one (using the Internet, I firmly feel, is cheating). But I did recently come across her debut novel, 1926’s Lolly Willowes, or the Loving Huntsman. It’s been described as a deal-with-the-devil story in which a middle-aged Englishwoman makes a Satanic pact and becomes a witch. That’s accurate, but not necessarily the best description.

It’s a story about an upper-class woman in 1920s England, Laura Willowes, and in wry third-person narration describes the outward details of her life and her search for imaginative freedom. Laura, or ‘Lolly’ to her family, is a vivid character who grows more fascinating as the book goes along. The first third of the book tells us about her childhood and family and how she lived with her father until he died and then moved in with her older brother to help him and his wife look after their children; the second part follows her in her late 40s, when she (seemingly) abruptly chooses to leave her brother’s London home to live on her own in a small town in South East England; the third sees her newfound independence threatened when her loving nephew comes to live in the same small town. At which time she turns to Satan — or thinks she does.

Is it a fantasy? Well, it’s a lovely book, filled not only with a dry and reserved wit, but also fine descriptions of nature and of dreams. It’s a gentle but devastating satire of gender roles, as well as a statement about love and freedom. It’s a leisurely-paced character study in elegant language. And then there’s also some stuff in it about witches and Satan. It’s possible to read it as a realistic novel in which the supernatural is hallucinated, but perhaps easier to read as a fantasy. Still, to say it’s a book ‘about’ witchcraft or Satan is untrue. The fantastic elements come in late and grow out of the mimetic elements. The book is ‘about’ Laura Willowes. Fantasy’s just a part of who she is.

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Vintage Treasures: H.P. Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space

Vintage Treasures: H.P. Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space

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Lovecraft The Colour Out of Space-smallThe first Arkham House books I ever bought were the 3-volume 1964 edition of the complete stories of H.P. Lovecraft (The Dunwich Horror and Others, Dagon, and At The Mountains of Madness). It was a beautiful set, and one of the best purchases I’ve ever made.

On the other hand, having the complete Lovecraft at an early age robbed me of the joy of tracking down and collecting his fiction in paperback. I’ve been trying to rectify that over the years, starting with the marvelous Ballantine Adult Fantasy editions.

In the comments section of a recent post, John H. noted his first encounter with Lovecraft was:

Colour Out of Space… the title story scared the bejeebers out of me (and to this day still creeps me out)… it was actually the Jove edition; the one with the Rowena painting of a Great Old One from “Shadow Out of Time” on the cover. Needless to say, it was the cover that drew me.

The Jove edition of The Colour Out of Space was one of two paperback Lovecraft volumes Jove published in 1978; the other was The Dunwich Horror. That’s it at right.

Joe’s comments intrigued me… I vaguely remembered a gorgeous set of Rowena covers on a pair of slender Lovecraft paperbacks in the late 70s but, like all Lovecraft paperbacks at the time, I scorned them because I had a complete set at home in hardback.

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Balance of Power

Balance of Power

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People of the Black Circle-smallFantasy is generally about power. Who wields it, who wants it, and the price they pay for it. Magic (the supernatural world) is often the metaphor used for power in fantasy lit. But there are plenty of other kinds, such as fighting prowess, political power, and so on, that can also be incorporated.

In fact, what a fantasy story says about power is usually one of the most important elements to me.

In Robert E. Howard’s Conan series, Conan represents the superiority of the barbarism over decadent civilization, and also the power of the individual against society. He is the fulcrum that swings the balance of power away from the rich nations by the force of his will and the strength of his arm. Until, of course, he eventually comes to rule one of those soft civilized nations….

In The Black Company, Glen Cook creates an epic saga about a company of grunts trying to survive during a massive war between supercharged sorcerers. Not only do the soldiers of the Black Company survive, they manage to thwart the wizards and witches who try to use them, showing that the common man and woman are the true shapers of history.

Steven Erikson’s The Malazan Book of the Fallen features a stunning array of factions and individuals across many levels of society, many of them jostling for power and some just trying to stay out of the way.

My own Book of the Black Earth series has only just begun, but already in the first book I’ve laid down the underlying conflict of rival powers. Religious cults vie with secular government. City-states compete for regional power. Individuals strive against the institutions of slavery and caste in a world where sorcery is the province of the ruling class.

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Medieval Marvels at the Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid

Medieval Marvels at the Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid

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Reccesvinth's crown from the Guarrazar Hoard. A collection of gold crowns and crosses dating between 621 and 672 AD, these masterpieces of Visigothic art show Late Roman and Byzantine influences. This crown, for example, has a reused Byzantine pectoral cross. It was popular for royalty, clergy, and leading civilians to donate crowns and crosses as votive offerings.
Reccesvinth’s crown from the Guarrazar Hoard. A collection of gold crowns and crosses dating between 621 and 672 AD, these masterpieces of Visigothic art show Late Roman and Byzantine influences. This crown, for example, has a reused Byzantine pectoral cross. It was popular for royalty, clergy, and leading civilians to donate crowns and crosses as votive offerings.

In previous posts, I’ve been exploring the newly renovated Museo Arqueológico Nacional in Madrid. We’ve looked at the museum’s Celtiberian and Roman collections, and now let’s see the museum’s other great collection, that of the medieval period.

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New Treasures: Resistance by Samit Basu

New Treasures: Resistance by Samit Basu

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Resistance Samit Basu-smallIs it just me, or did I miss the literary trend where superhero novels suddenly became a thing?

Sure, superhero novels were always around, but now it seems they’re a thriving sub-genre. Just recently we’ve covered Michael R. Underwood’s superheroes-in-a-fantasy-city Shield and Crocus, V.E. Schwab’s super-villainous Vicious, Andrew P. Mayer’s steampunk Society of Steam trilogy, Jacqueline Carey’s werewolf novel Santa Olivia, and After the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn, featuring the unpowered daughter of two famous superheroes, just to name a few. Maybe it’s all those billion-dollar Marvel movies, I dunno. But something’s made superheroes hot all of a sudden.

I missed Samit Basu’s first book from Titan, the well-reviewed superhero novel Turbulence. Which is a pity, because the premise sounds very intriguing: in 2009, all the passengers on flight BA142 from London to Delhi wake up the next morning to discover they have developed extraordinary abilities. His new novel Resistance picks up the tale a decade later, as a silent killer begins to pick off the supers one by one…

How would you adapt to a world full of superhumans? And how far would you go to stop them destroying it?

In 2020, eleven years after the passengers of flight BA142 from London to Delhi developed extraordinary abilities corresponding to their innermost desires, the world is overrun with supers. Some use their powers for good, others for evil, and some just want to star in their own reality show.

But now, from New York to Tokyo, someone is hunting down supers, kidnapping heroes and villains both, and it’s up to the Unit to stop them…

Resistance was published by Titan Books on July 8, 2014. It is 400 pages, priced at $14.95 in trade paperback and $7.99 for the digital edition.

Rocket Girl: Times Squared

Rocket Girl: Times Squared

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Rocket Girl volume 1One of the chief appeals of this comic, for me at least, is nostalgia. The story moves between two bygone eras: the 1980s and the future. I grew up in the 1980s and, like a lot of people my age, had almost as solid of an idea of what the future looked like as the present. In 1986, we all knew about the future. We’d been seeing it for decades on television and in the movies, after all. The future was filled with steel and plastic, robots and flying cars, bright colors and hope. Sure, there were some stories out there where the future turned out horrible, but we understood these as cautionary tales, warnings about the problems we’d avoid to guarantee that amazing era of endless innovation. We knew that 2013 would be so different from 1986 that anyone stepping through a time machine would think he’d set foot on an alien world. Even the slang would be different. But, for better or worse, that future is now past.

So, Rocket Girl starts in 1986, where a team of young quantum engineers (just run with it) are testing their Q-engine (which, for the story, is essentially a McGuffin device), when Dayoung Johansson, teen police officer from the year 2013, appears and places them all under arrest for crimes against time. Then she passes out.

As the story progresses, we get further clues to the exact nature of the “crimes” that have been perpetrated (or which will be perpetrated, given your point of view), with the implication that Dayoung’s actions in 1986 will either completely erase the 2013 she knew or unintentionally ensure that it happens. Meanwhile, as long as she’s in 1986 New York, she decides to use her futuristic technology (including her standard-issue rocketpack) to fight the crime and corruption that infests the city. Curiously, helping innocent people is not misinterpreted, she is not labeled a freak, and people treat her like a hero. It’s been a while since we’ve seen something that upbeat in a comic book.

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