Month: October 2017

Elite

  By

★★½
“Because Mediocre  wouldn’t sell as well.”

A mission in central America against drug cartel boss Reynaldo Benitez (Garza) goes wrong, leaving eight Special Ops soldiers dead. This includes the husband of Naval Covert Operations Command agent, Abbey Vaughn (Gregory), who is intent on discovering the truth about what happened to her spouse. She links up with the only survivor of the operation, Lt. Sam Harrigan (Scarbrough), now living in a trailer, and spending his time drinking and practicing golf. Together with the rest of their team, they investigate the case, only to find the tentacles of organized crime are deeper embedded than they appear, and their inquiries put not only themselves, but Abbey’s family in serious danger.

The performances here aren’t the problem. Gregory and Scarbrough are both effective enough, and the supporting cast are equally watchable – special credit to Rousseau as team hacker Jazz, a character of whom I’d have liked to have seen more. The hand-to-hand combat scenes are also better staged than I was expecting. It appears a lot of the performers have MMA experience, along with indie wrestler Mike Dell, and this gives the fights a solid amount of credibility, with the punches appearing to have an impact on their recipients.

If only the same could be said for other aspects, which outweigh the positives overall. First, and largest, is the bane of many low-budget movies: bad audio. I had to sit with my finger on the remote control, perpetually adjusting the volume – one scene too loud, the next inaudibly quiet. The foley work on the gun-battles was simply laughable, using electronic bleeps and chirps that made bursts of semi-automatic fire sound more like birdsong. In general, anything involving armaments was problematic and unconvincing, with the production able to afford little or nothing in the way of collateral damage, to people or property.

The other main problem for me was the script, consisting of a collection of clichés and by-the-number plot points, without any genuine surprises to be found. It might have passed muster for a less discerning audience in the mid-eighties. Though unless they found the basic concept of moving pictures novel enough to be a distraction, I’m not even sure they would be satisfied. For example, immediately we saw the heroine’s father and daughter, I could guess exactly what their role in the film was going to be, and went 2-for-2 in my expectations.

It was particularly disappointing, because story-line is an area where resources shouldn’t be a problem. Yes, it will limit the scenarios open to the film-maker; however, you should still be able to do more than trot out hackneyed elements, arranged in a way that alternately bores and confuses (quite why an NCOC agent was conducting an investigation of a drug cartel escapes me, and I’m still uncertain whether a major character ended the film alive or dead). Even with a higher tolerance for small-budget cinema than most, this was still more chore than pleasure.

Dir: Mark Cantu
Star: Allison Gregory, Jason Scarbrough, Ione Rousseau, Larry Garza

M.F.A.

  By

★★★★
“Like father, like daughter”

I say the above, since the father of the star here is Clint Eastwood, possibly the most famous vigilante in cinematic history. He gave us Dirty Harry, who memorably spat out lines such as, “When an adult male is chasing a female with intent to commit rape, I shoot the bastard – that’s my policy.” This apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Though Noelle, the art student who becomes an avenging force after being raped at a party by a fellow student, takes a little longer to get to that point of unrepentant street justice. Her first victim is purely accidental, her attacker falling over a balcony after she confronts him, in the hope of getting some kind of apology. Doesn’t happen, and his death doesn’t exactly cause her sorrow. When she realizes she is also far from alone in what she has gone through, she decides that active retaliation is the best approach.

There’s something particularly timely about watching this, the same week that the truth about Harvey Weinstein finally came out. For it’s clear that the film world is far from the sole province of jackasses who use their power to abuse women: the music business, for example, is no better, and colleges appear to be another rat-fest. Yet despite this, the script here is considerably more measured than it could have been. Given the current climate, I certainly wouldn’t have blamed writer McKendrick (who plays Noelle’s room-mate Skye too) for going off on a misanthropic rant about #AllMen. It’s to her credit she doesn’t, adopting instead a laudably nuanced approach. The men here run the gamut from good to bad – perhaps more surprisingly, so do  the women. The campus victim support group is entirely useless; the college psychiatrist is worse still, actively engaged in suppressing incidents so they don’t enter the public record.

Even the vigilantism at the film’s core is not portrayed as universally the right thing. The film suggests it may do more harm than good when you carry it out on behalf of other people – perhaps doing more damage by re-opening wounds they are trying to heal. For some victims would rather forget it and move on, writing off their experience as “one shitty night,” and refusing to let it define who they are. Noelle’s action robs them of the ability to do that, arguably an abuse of power in another way. It’s all remarkably complex, and the film doesn’t shy away from any of the mess. I haven’t even discussed how Noelle takes her experience and transforms it through her (initially mediocre) art, truly a case of the Nietzschean aphorism, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

It’s all far more thought-provoking than I expected, and it helps there’s something of a young Angelina Jolie about Eastwood, between her high cheekbones and expressive eyes. Though it did take me virtually the entire movie to figure out what the title meant; I’ll spare the torment and let you know it’s a peculiarly American phrase, being an abbreviation for “Master of Fine Arts.” In the UK, there’s nothing “fine” about those degrees, they’re just M.A’s. Never let it be said we don’t educate as well as entertain here…

Dir: Natalia Leite
Star: Francesca Eastwood, Leah McKendrick, Clifton Collins Jr., Michael Welch

I Spit On Your Grave 2

  By

★★★
“Model prisoner.”

This sequel is almost entirely unrelated to the original, beginning with a new, fresh character who will be tortured within an inch of her life, before escaping and roaring back for revenge. However, it manages to be a little more coherent, even as it replaces the redneckophobia of the original, with much more straightforward xenophobia.

The victim here is Katie Carter (Dallender), a wannabe model who takes advantage of a free photography portfolio session, offered by sleazy, Eastern European cameraman Ivan (Absolom) and his assistant, Georgy (Baharov). The latter becomes obsessed with her, and won’t take no for an answer. When Katie’s screams alert her apartment building’s caretaker, he’s stabbed by Georgy, leaving Ivan to clean up the mess. Still, it’s nothing that a large crate, stamped “Bulgaria”, can’t solve… When Katie discovers what’s awaiting her in Sofia, she’ll wish she’d been the one left in a pool of blood.

The narrative here is a bit more coherent. For instance, an early scene establishes that Carter is no shrinking violet, being a Midwest girl who knows a thing or two about hunting vermin. We also get to see more of the period between her escape, and her returning to take action – she survives with the help of a kindly local priest. He’s about the only Eastern European character here who is not an utter scumball, and in that aspect, I was reminded a fair amount of the first Hotel movie.

Initially, I thought it was going to spend the entire film in New York, and that might not have been a bad thing. Monroe is good at capturing the “urban jungle” aspect of the city, in much the same way as Abel Ferrara. There are a number of elements early on that brought Ms. 45 to mind, with that classic of the rape-revenge genre also having a sequence in a photographer’s studio. Dallender has the kind of willowy steel look as Zoe Tamerlis, too. It’s a shame it didn’t retain that approach, instead of becoming some kind of cautionary tale about foreign travel.

Once it leaves that setting, however, and scurries off to Sofia, the film becomes less interesting, more or less going down the same path as the original. Indeed, some of the beats are exactly the same, e.g. the heroine appears to find sanctuary in an authority figure, only to have that yanked away from her. Some of the resulting unpleasantness is hard to watch – please note, I’ve seen more than my fair share of cinematic nastiness, so I do not squirm easily – and that applies on both sides of the brutality. But its impact is never more than a visceral shudder. To be truly effective, it needs to pack an emotional punch as well, and in the main, that’s not present. It’s technically solid, and that may be part of the problem; it perhaps should be a little less polished, and rougher around the edges, in line with the content.

Dir: Steven R. Monroe
Star: Jemma Dallender, Yavor Baharov, Joe Absolom, Aleksandar Aleksiev

I Spit On Your Grave

  By

★★½
“The Hills have thighs.”

Having been pleasantly surprised by I Spit on Your Grave 3: Vengeance is Mine, I thought I should rewind and catch the first two films in the series, see if they were also above expectations. Sadly, the answer is “not really”. The first, in particular, suffers as a direct remake of the notorious original, directed in 1978 by Meir Zarchi (originally released, to little attention, as Day of the Woman). It fails from our perspective for much the same reasons, mostly through being more interested in the rape than the revenge. Though there is a certain, nasty inventiveness to the latter, which salvages the final third.

Writer Jennifer Hills (Butler) moves into to a remote cabin she has rented, in order to have peace and quiet while she pens her next book. Before she has even arrived there, she has crossed paths with the local rednecks, a trio led by Johnny (Branson). Things escalate from there, until the trio – along with the “developmentally-challenged” local plumber, burst into Jennifer’s house, and brutally assault her. She manages to flee, seeking sanctuary, only for things to go from bad to worse. But she is just able to escape with her life, falling into a creek and vanishing from her assailants.

At this point, she effectively vanishes from the film as well, which is part of the problem. There’s a logical gap here, in need of explanation. Who takes care of her? And if she’s working on her own, how is a skinny little thing like Jennifer, whose background is entirely in writing (rather than – oh, I dunno – construction), capable of dragging around the unconscious bodies of the men as she takes her revenge? I mean, she suspends one of them up in the air, dangling over a bathtub like a trussed chicken. That’s not trivial. I did enjoy the imagination in the savage vengeance, which does surpass that of the original. We get a face dissolving, fish-hooks and the ol’ rape by shotgun. Jennifer is not messing around, shall we say.

It’s a shame the film didn’t emphasize the intellectual angle a bit more. Initially, it seems that Hills’s brain is the threat to the locals, who have no idea how to handle or even interact with someone who is clearly their mental superior. However, any efforts in this direction are rapidly abandoned, in preference for her simply being physically attractive. Post-attack, too, it doesn’t really appear she’s using her brain, so much as feral cunning. It certainly does go a long way to explaining how royally screwed-up Jennifer is by the time Butler revisited the character (under a different director) in Part 3. Yet, it’s also clear that the lengthy depiction of the abuse suffered by the character does as much to detract from as emphasize the reasons for that damage.

Dir: Steven R. Monroe
Star: Sarah Butler, Jeff Branson, Daniel Franzese, Rodney Eastman

The Dominion Rising collection

  By

I am a sucker for bulk-buying. Regular readers will know this, since one of the first things reviewed here was the Women Who Kick Butt DVD box-set, which was a mixed bag, to say the least. But it did introduce me to Sister Street Fighter, so I consider the effort well-spent. Naturally, when an offer popped up on my Kindle app, giving me the chance to purchase no less than twenty-three novels for the low, low pre-purchase price of 99 cents, it didn’t take me long to click on ‘Buy Now’.

Kinda regretting that decision. Not due to quality (at least, not so far), and not due to a lack of action heroine content. It’s just that there is an insane amount of content in the Dominion Rising collection. Amazon lists it at 5,563 pages, which at my low rate of reading (it’s a good day if I get 25 minutes in) is probably close to a year before it’d be finished. Rather than waiting for that, I’ve opted to review the individual items as I finish them – as long as they meet the usual site criteria, and I can find some kind of artwork with which to illustrate the piece. They’ll appear both as stand-alone reviews, and below.

One thing I am noticing already – and it’s rather annoying – is the tendency for the stories here to be incomplete, frequently ending on cliff-hangers, rather than offering a fully-formed and finished tale. It may seem churlish to complain, when I paid less than a nickel per book. But the discount box-sets of DVDs that I’ve bought, don’t cut off the movies after 60 minutes, and then require you to buy the last reel at a higher price. Even if I’m somewhat enjoying a story, an abrupt ending followed by an exhortation to buy volume two, is not likely to have the desired impact. Finish off telling a good story, and the odds of me buying more from you are significantly better.

Below, find the full list of contents, which will (eventually!) be read in order – titles struck through are ones that didn’t qualify for the site, and will be skipped.

  • Reign of Steel and Bone by Erin St Pierre and Gwynn White
  • Mind Raider by S.M. Blooding & P.K. Tyler
  • Sorcery & Science by Ella Summers
  • Spectral Shift by Daniel Arthur Smith
  • Petra: Immortal Codex, Book 1 by Cheri Lasota
  • Infinite Waste by Dean F. Wilson
  • Girard The Guardian by Ann Christy
  • Flicker by Rebecca Rode
  • Star Compass by Anthea Sharp
  • Vengeance: Warships of the Spire by S. M. Schmitz & Lisa Blackwood
  • Touching Infinity by Erin Hayes
  • Death Plague by K. J. Colt
  • Curiouser and Curiouser by Melanie Karsak
  • Ultras by Timothy C. Ward
  • Maze: The Waking of Grey Grimm by Tony Bertauski
  • Blood for Stone by Logan T. Snyder
  • The Incurables by Felix R. Savage
  • Ferromancer by Becca Andre
  • The Other by Marilyn Peake
  • New York by J.C. Andrijeski
  • Rift Cursed by Margo Bond Collins
  • The Zoo at the End of the World by Samuel Peralta
  • Iron Tamer by Tom Shutt (incomplete)

Authors: Various
Publisher: Pronoun, though the collection appears to be no longer available through Amazon as an e-book. Some entries may also be available individually, as noted in their entries below.

Reign of Bone and Steel by Erin St Pierre and Gwynn White

By Jim McLennan

Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆½

This certainly doesn’t waste any time, starting in the middle of a brutal pitched battle between the kingdom of Yatres, and their mortal enemies, the Nyhans. Among the Fae – basically, elves – in the former army is the warrior Caeda, and it’s her side that emerges victorious. But the price paid by the fallen on both sides is an ugly one. Their souls are absorbed through a magical sword, wielded by the Fae known as the Soul-Reaper, and fed to an artifact called the Bone. The trinity of Bone, sword and Reaper have helped sustain Yatres’s power down the centuries.

But while the nation is celebrating its victory, the Soul-Reaper is killed and the Bone stolen. Worst of all, for Caeda, the sword – which is intelligent, telepathic and very chatty – chooses her as the new Soul-Reaper. Caeda and her new pointy pal have to figure out who was responsible, before the power in the Bone can be wielded by the state’s enemies. Yet the more she interacts with the sword, the more she realizes that the soul energy powering Yatres is morally indefensible. Caeda comes to realize, the only legitimate thing she can do, is ensure the Bone is not returned to the service of her king either.

It’s an unusual mix of fantasy and whodunnit, with no small helping of romance. Caeda falls for Dominik, the scion of a the King’s closest advisor (who may, or may not, be involved in the Bone theft); unfortunate, since he is already engaged to be married to the Princess Taliesin. To be honest – and, let’s face it, as usual – this is likely the weakest element in my eyes. The heroine is a supposedly kick-ass warrioress, and certainly proves capable on that front, when necessary: in a world ripe with magic, it’s a nice touch that she doesn’t have any such skills. Given her apparent self-reliance, the speed with which Caeda melts into making moist, googly eyes at Dominik is almost embarrassing. The book also ends painfully abruptly, as if the authors had reached a predetermined word-count, though this is more likely a misguided effort to flog volume two.

It’s a shame, as this wasn’t bad until the cliffhanger which serves no purpose other than commercial. Pierre and White do a nice job of world-building, and the borderline insanity of the intelligent sword, a result of the unfortunate circumstances surrounding its creation, was particularly effective. Imagine having Gollum inside your head 24/7, and you’ll understand why the usual fate of Soul-Reapers involves being driven to insanity. Indeed, there’s a little from Lord of the Rings in the overall concept, with the hero(ine) seeking to destroy a powerful device which could be used for evil. However, the undercover nature of Caeda’s mission, which she can only share with a trusted few, is a good twist, and there’s enough fresh here to make for an enjoyable read.

Author: Erin St Pierre and Gwynn White
Publisher: CreateSpace, available through Amazon as a printed book. It also forms part of the Dominion Rising collection for Kindle.

Mind Raider by S.M. Blooding & P.K. Tyler

By Jim McLennan

Literary rating: ★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆

I’m not sure if the problems here are a result of there being two authors credited on this story. It could certainly explain them. For rather than providing a single coherent vision, this feels like both its universe and characters are being pulled in too many different directions. It’s overstuffed with ideas and, instead of them being developed fully, scurries from one to the next, as if the writers were competing to have the final word. This comes to an end in a rather ludicrous finale. There, the entire plot takes a right turn, with the biological weapon which has formed much of the early focus all but discarded.

The heroine is Keva Duste, an “engineered human,” who was originally pod-grown for use as a super soldier. However, she proved able to over-ride her programming so was discarded after refusing an order. And by “discarded”, I mean tossed into space. From there, she was fortuitously rescued, and began a new life as an agent working for the Syndicate. This is one of a number of murky groups, including the Elite and the Families, who are waging a proxy war for power around the network of planets and space stations which are the setting here. None of them seem to have the population’s interests at heart.

She’s sent undercover to an Elite planet, to find out information about the bio-weapon mentioned, which will shortly be tested on an unsuspecting batch of subjects. However, troubled by an increasing moral compass, she goes off-mission and also rescues Dothylian, the new wife of the not very nice Elite (to put it mildly) on whom Keva is spying. This causes problems all its own, partly because of Dot not being fit for the harsh world of the “Black”, where Keva operates. And partly due to the increasingly self-aware AI she brings with her, which has an agenda of its own.

I found it all kinda annoying. Ideas and concepts like the “slip drive” are hurled at the reader, without adequate explanation, and the focus bounces around, to diminishing effect. There is some a bit of decent tension built up when Keva is on the Elite planet, because her undercover identity is that of a dead woman. Anyone who knows that will be understandably surprised to see the corpse walking around, so it’s a very risky situation. For a genetically-engineered super-soldier though, especially one with a permanent connection to a high-powered AI in her head, she doesn’t seem to make much use of her talents. There’s rather more of Keva moping around her spaceship, and unresolved sexual tension with Captain Hale.

From reading interviews with the authors, it appears one wrote and the other edited, so my theory about competing pages doesn’t seem to be valid (much though it’d explain the deficiencies). I’ll split the blame here, with perhaps a little more going to the editor, Tyler. She should perhaps have spotted and corrected the structural issues that rendered this more chore than pleasure at about the half-way point, and turned into a real slog in the final stretch.

Authors: S.M. Blooding & P.K. Tyler
Publisher: Macmillan, available through Amazon as an e-book only. It also forms part of the Dominion Rising collection for Kindle.

Sorcery and Science, by Ella Summers

By Jim McLennan

Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆

The blurb for this one reads, “Terra Cross is just your typical paranormal princess. She plays poker with goblins and leprechauns. She savors her morning muffin from the Pacific Sunrise Bakery in suburban California. She solves galactic crime cases. And on a particularly wild day, she can even see into the future.” It is somewhat inaccurate, at least as far as this novel goes. I don’t recall any poker at all, muffins appear once, and as for the crime-solving… Well, sorta but not really. There is, however, likely good reason, since the novel is a prequel to Summers’s “Sorcery and Science” series, in which I presume Terra does more of the above.

This is both a blessing and a curse. It allows this book to stand on its own: you reach the end, and there’s a fairly well-defined line drawn beneath the fates of most characters. On the other hand, it does require a clunky jump in the epilogue to tie into the body of the series. Not much more than, “we moved to the other end of the galaxy and started a private-eye business.” Wait, what? It almost works better if you skip that, and treat it as the first volume in its own, standalone series. The paranormal princess aspect makes more sense this way, in a universe where advanced technology and magic co-exist, and Earth is being carefully blocked from knowledge of both. Vampires, witches, elves, etc. all have their own realms, making varying use of the “sorcery and science” from the title.

Cross is the daughter of the mage’s king, but likes to sneak off on adventures with her best friend and mage enforcer, Jason. However, they bite off more than they can chew when chasing after a renegade scientist-wizard, Vib. He is creating an advanced breed of super-mages, with multiple, shared talents instead of the standard limit of one type of magic per person. Needless to say, this research – despite being way beyond the pale – is of great interest to the competing races. Terra and Jason find themselves not just fending off Vib’s creations; they also becomes pawns in the political battle for dominance between the various forces that seek to control the galaxy.

I generally enjoyed this, once I got past Summers’s fondness for prose which tends toward the over-descriptive, it seems especially when it comes to colours, for some reason. The world she crafts is quite an interesting one, and the techno-pagan blend of SF and fantasy is intriguing. While Jason is the more action-minded of the duo, Terra becomes more active later on, especially after taking one of Vib’s experimental concoctions, out of desperation. It allows her to use some of Jason’s talents, which are significant;y more combat-oriented than her precognitive ones. 

The sudden right turn at the end, to tie it into the main body of the series, leaves me uncertain whether I would want to continue, since it appears potentially rather different in tone. Not least, I get the horrible feeling there’s going to be one of “those” love triangles, putting the heroine between Jason and the dark, brooding vampire commander she encounters. Fortunately, that was only hinted at in the prequel, and what’s here was, overall, pleasant enough.

Author: Ella Summers
Publisher: Currently only available as part of the Dominion Rising collection for Kindle.

Petra by Cheri Lasota

By Jim McLennan

Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆

Petra is a teenage Roman slave at around the birth of Christ. She is completely under the thumb of her sadistic master, Clarius, until a strange conjunction of events and a poisonous herb with mystical qualities changes the power dynamic entirely. Both of them, together with her lover, Lucius, attain immortality. But it’s an immortality which requires the two men to drink from Petra annually, or they will degenerate into sub-human monsters. Neither is happy with the arrangement: Clarius is not used to being reliant on anyone, least of all his former property, and Lucius hates the fact Petra agreed to submit to their ex-master, in order to save him. As the centuries stretch into millennia, Petra begins, slowly, to put together a group people who will be capable of defeating Lucius and the immortals he has recruited, allowing her to live in eternal peace with Lucius.

If you’re getting a bit of an Interview With The Vampire vibe here, you are not far off the mark, with the story spanning multiple human lifetimes. Fortunately, it largely stays clear of the vampiric cliches, and what could have been little more than Twilight with delusions of historical significance becomes a little more. It’s recounted in flashback from the 18th century, though there are huge gaps in the narrative, where you’re left to wonder what Petra was doing during the 1,300+ intervening years. I’m still a little vague on the specific mechanism of the immortality, too: it is based on Petra’s blood, the herb, or is it the combination? But my major problem was the overpowering emphasis on the romantic angles. Look, we get it: Petra and Clarius are super in love. Now, can we move on to interesting anecdotes about life everlasting?

Proceedings take a sharp right turn in the 14th century, when Lucius has had enough of it all, and bails. This volume is, frankly, much more interesting with him not about. Petra goes in search of him, and the resulting adventure is easily the strongest section of the book. Hearing stories of an “immortal”, she heads out from Genoa, hoping that it’s her lover, and finds herself trapped in Kaffa, a port on the Crimean Peninsula, which is being besieged by the Mongol hordes. It’s a hellish landscape, made all the worse by the plague-infected corpses which the attackers lob over the walls (this actually happened – it was the first recorded case of biological warfare, and helped decimate Europe, as merchants who survived the siege brought bubonic plague with them when they returned home). This is a very well-handled meshing of historical events with fictional characters, working to good effect. I’d like to have seen more of this, and less sloppy romance.

Petra says that she’s an accomplished swordswoman – and given the hundreds of years she’s had to practice with weapons, that makes sense. There’s rather more talk than walk, in this volume, though I sense this may be a case of the author wanting to keep her powder dry for subsequent volumes and the battles against Clarius which seem destined to come. Would I read them? Hard to say. Lasota showed she has plenty of potential, but there’s still a risk this could end up collapsing into teenage mush. Probably a case where I’d borrow volume 2, or wait for a 99 cent sale on Amazon.

Author: Cheri Lasota
Publisher: CreateSpace, through Amazon – this was part of the Dominion Rising collection for Kindle.
Book 1 in the Immortal Codex series.

Infinite Waste by Dean F. Wilson

By Jim McLennan

Literary rating: ★★★½
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆

This initially seemed like a borderline entry, which I kept reading purely for entertainment. It’s about an exploratory star-ship, the Gemini, out on the very edge of known space, which comes across a giant barge, packed with nuclear waste and populated by a race of rat-humanoids, the Raetuumak. The Gemini is an appropriate name for the craft, as it’s effectively two separate ships, each with their own captain and very different approaches. Maggie Antwa, commander of Gemini Right, is a cautious scientist who abhors violence in any form, and was compelled to take on this mission after being involved in a environmentalist rebellion against the ruling Empire. Over in Gemini Left, on the other hand, Skip Sutridge is a square-jawed believer in shooting first and asking questions… well, never, to be honest. He has been sent to the fringes, probably to try and keep him out of trouble.

It doesn’t work. Skip finds himself captured by the Raetuumak, leaving Maggie to strap on the battle armour and rescue her co-captain. That’s not the end of the matter though, as they discover the barge is an interstellar weapon, aimed at the heart of the Empire. Worse still, is the creature made of pure shadow that stalks the corridor of the ship, absorbing the energy of anyone it touches: this is one of the Umbra, long since considered to be no more than the bogeymen of fairy tales. Not only is this belief incorrect, they’re now apparently returning from their exile to take on the Empire. Maggie and Skip will have to put aside their deep philosophical differences to deal with both this massive dirty bomb, and the Umbra.

It’s Maggie’s character arc which eventually qualifies this for here: she and Skip are complete opposites, who initially share only mutual loathing. Yet they eventually realize that neither one of their approaches will be sufficient to defeat this threat. As the book states, “He was sword and she was shield. Separately, they were vulnerable. Together, if they could ever find a way to really work with each other, they would be powerful beyond measure.” That’s really the core of the book here: the convergence on a middle ground which is able to make use of both their undoubted talents. It’s Maggie who drives this, with the solo rescue of Skip proving her courage and audacity, and forcing him to admit her abilities. Yet, she also finds that her long, deep-held pacifism has limits: after realizing the need to deal with the Umbra, “Perhaps for the first time in her life, the thought of killing something didn’t upset her at all.”

I have to say, the way in which it is eventually dealt with, was more than a little weak: if they’re so easily defeated, it’s hard to see how the Umbra could be any kind of threat to the galaxy. Yet, except for that moment, this was a strong page-turner. As mentioned at the start, kept me interested even in the early going, when its action heroine credentials were in doubt. Both Skip and Maggie are capable of carrying the story on their own, and the pairing of them is an effective combination. I’m intrigued to see where they go from here.

Author: Dean F. Wilson
Publisher: Currently only available as part of the Dominion Rising collection for Kindle.
Book 1 in the Infinite Worlds series.

Touching Infinity, by Erin Hayes

By Jim McLennan

Literary rating: ★★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆½

I will confess to a little post-read confusion here. Amazon calls this Volume 2 in the author’s Rogue Galaxy series – but I could find no information, there or elsewhere, regarding Volume 1. I suspect Amazon and Goodreads are wrong,  and this is actually the first entry, as stated in the Dominion Rising collection. It certainly reads like an opening work, introducing us to Clementine Jones and the rest of the crew of the Picara.

They’re freelance data pirates, taking on corporate espionage missions from the companies who rule the galaxy, with Clem the  recovery specialist. Their latest mission seems too good to be true: Syn-Tech offers a massive bounty for the simple retrieval of patent information from a derelict ship. Despite misgivings, they accept the job, and to no-one’s surprise, it is too good to be true. In addition to the patents, they end up bringing back a lethal virus – the actual target for Syn-Tech, who want to develop an anti-virus they can then monetize. The disease has the ability to infect both organic and synthetic systems, merging them. The results are… messy, to say the least, leaving Clem and her colleagues rapidly running out of options, especially ones not involving the dubious mercies of their employer.

Hayes’s other works appear more in the romance line, yet she demonstrate an impressive grasp of hard SF in this. The future depicted, corporate war by proxy, seems plausible, a universe where many opt to trade freedom for security as a “Lifer”. That makes you, basically, a company indentured servant: as Clem disparagingly puts it, “Your entire existence is owned by that corporation… even which lavatories you’re allowed to shit in.” Free Agents like her rely instead on cyborg parts to enhance and repair themselves, to such an extent she is sometimes left doubting her own humanity. A particularly interesting hook here is, the virus is self-aware, and communicates with Clem in order to come to a mutually beneficial arrangement: it gets to spread, she makes it promise to spare her crew-mates. Yet can you really trust a disease?

The author does a fine job of painting word imagery with a cinematic eye, such as the black hole into which the derelict is tumbling. It did take a while before I even realized that “Clem” was a woman, with the story unfolding in her first-person narrative, leading to “I” rather than “she”. That’s not intended as a criticism, just an observation; similarly, there are hints at her feelings for the ship’s android, Orion, though since she’s about 50% cyborg herself, it is less creepy than you’d think. My sole complaint is its relatively light action quotient: until she teams up with the virus, this is so low-key as to be a borderline candidate for the site. Though even so, it’s never less than entertaining, tells a complete tale and sets the scene in a way that leaves you wondering where the story might go next. The “real” second book is one I’ll probably be buying.

Author: Erin Hayes
Publisher: CreateSpace, available through Amazon, currently only as a paperback, but was part of the Dominion Rising e-book collection.
Book 1 of 2 in the Rogue’s Galaxy series.

Curiouser and Curiouser by Melanie Karsak

By Jim McLennan

Literary rating: ★★★½
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆

If you thought “Alice in Wonderland was okay, but it really needed more air-ships,” then this book is for you. It’s a steampunk take on Lewis Carroll’s classic tale, set in an alternate universe version of Victorian London. Specifically, 1851, when the renowned Great Exhibition took place in Hyde Park. Though it doesn’t actually feel particularly “alternate”;  this angle lives mostly in its trappings, such as people using air-ships to get around, or clockwork cats, rather than in elements necessary to the plot. But that’s okay, because at its core, the story is strong enough to stand on its own.

The heroine is Alice Lewis, an orphan who, along with her sister Bess, was rescued from the workhouse and brought up by the Jabberwocky, one of the leaders of London’s underworld. She fell in love with William, another of the Jabberwocky’s employees, but Alice walked away from both the criminal life and William, after being morally unable to handle the actions it required from her. But several years later, she gets dragged back in, and has to re-unite with William on a job to steal the famous (and cursed) diamond, the Koh-i-Noor, which belongs to Queen Victoria, from the Great Exhibition. It’s the only way William can pay off a debt to the occultist known as the “Queen of Hearts,” who intends to use the Koh-i-Noor in a ritual to make her immortal. And that’s far from the creepiest thing about the Queen, since her role-model is Countess Bathory.

Karsak does particularly well with her world-building, to the extent that this feels like an established universe. The timeline bounces back and forth, between the present and the various incidents which brought Alice to where she is. It’s an approach which could easily be disruptive, but I felt this was admirably pulled off, and balanced nicely. I was, however, a bit disappointed that much of the book seems to be directed towards a final-act heist, to which I was quite looking forward. Only, the plot makes a left-turn in the later stages, which renders the heist superfluous. This sends the book onto somewhat thin ice in terms of believability on a couple of aspects, and an alternate method of resolution might have worked better.

All told though, this is a fun insight into a world that is both familiar and strange, with both heroine and villainess being strongly characterized and memorable. You probably need to be at least somewhat aware of the works of Lewis Carroll – otherwise some of the terms might seem more like unpleasant STDs (“I caught a bad dose of Bandersnatch”). But Alice in Wonderland is deeply enough ingrained into the collective unconscious that this isn’t likely a major issue for most potential readers. I look forward to the Guillermo del Toro adaptation in due course. Well, we can dream, can’t we?

Author: Melanie Karsak
Publisher: Clockpunk Press, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
1 of 4 in the Steampunk Fairy Tales series.

Reign of Bone and Steel by Erin St Pierre and Gwynn White

  By

Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆½

This certainly doesn’t waste any time, starting in the middle of a brutal pitched battle between the kingdom of Yatres, and their mortal enemies, the Nyhans. Among the Fae – basically, elves – in the former army is the warrior Caeda, and it’s her side that emerges victorious. But the price paid by the fallen on both sides is an ugly one. Their souls are absorbed through a magical sword, wielded by the Fae known as the Soul-Reaper, and fed to an artifact called the Bone. The trinity of Bone, sword and Reaper have helped sustain Yatres’s power down the centuries.

But while the nation is celebrating its victory, the Soul-Reaper is killed and the Bone stolen. Worst of all, for Caeda, the sword – which is intelligent, telepathic and very chatty – chooses her as the new Soul-Reaper. Caeda and her new pointy pal have to figure out who was responsible, before the power in the Bone can be wielded by the state’s enemies. Yet the more she interacts with the sword, the more she realizes that the soul energy powering Yatres is morally indefensible. Caeda comes to realize, the only legitimate thing she can do, is ensure the Bone is not returned to the service of her king either.

It’s an unusual mix of fantasy and whodunnit, with no small helping of romance. Caeda falls for Dominik, the scion of a the King’s closest advisor (who may, or may not, be involved in the Bone theft); unfortunate, since he is already engaged to be married to the Princess Taliesin. To be honest – and, let’s face it, as usual – this is likely the weakest element in my eyes. The heroine is a supposedly kick-ass warrioress, and certainly proves capable on that front, when necessary: in a world ripe with magic, it’s a nice touch that she doesn’t have any such skills. Given her apparent self-reliance, the speed with which Caeda melts into making moist, googly eyes at Dominik is almost embarrassing. The book also ends painfully abruptly, as if the authors had reached a predetermined word-count, though this is more likely a misguided effort to flog volume two.

It’s a shame, as this wasn’t bad until the cliffhanger which serves no purpose other than commercial. Pierre and White do a nice job of world-building, and the borderline insanity of the intelligent sword, a result of the unfortunate circumstances surrounding its creation, was particularly effective. Imagine having Gollum inside your head 24/7, and you’ll understand why the usual fate of Soul-Reapers involves being driven to insanity. Indeed, there’s a little from Lord of the Rings in the overall concept, with the hero(ine) seeking to destroy a powerful device which could be used for evil. However, the undercover nature of Caeda’s mission, which she can only share with a trusted few, is a good twist, and there’s enough fresh here to make for an enjoyable read.

Author: Erin St Pierre and Gwynn White
Publisher: CreateSpace, available through Amazon as a printed book. It also forms part of the Dominion Rising collection for Kindle.

Mind Raider by S.M. Blooding & P.K. Tyler

  By

Literary rating: ★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆

I’m not sure if the problems here are a result of there being two authors credited on this story. It could certainly explain them. For rather than providing a single coherent vision, this feels like both its universe and characters are being pulled in too many different directions. It’s overstuffed with ideas and, instead of them being developed fully, scurries from one to the next, as if the writers were competing to have the final word. This comes to an end in a rather ludicrous finale. There, the entire plot takes a right turn, with the biological weapon which has formed much of the early focus all but discarded.

The heroine is Keva Duste, an “engineered human,” who was originally pod-grown for use as a super soldier. However, she proved able to over-ride her programming so was discarded after refusing an order. And by “discarded”, I mean tossed into space. From there, she was fortuitously rescued, and began a new life as an agent working for the Syndicate. This is one of a number of murky groups, including the Elite and the Families, who are waging a proxy war for power around the network of planets and space stations which are the setting here. None of them seem to have the population’s interests at heart.

She’s sent undercover to an Elite planet, to find out information about the bio-weapon mentioned, which will shortly be tested on an unsuspecting batch of subjects. However, troubled by an increasing moral compass, she goes off-mission and also rescues Dothylian, the new wife of the not very nice Elite (to put it mildly) on whom Keva is spying. This causes problems all its own, partly because of Dot not being fit for the harsh world of the “Black”, where Keva operates. And partly due to the increasingly self-aware AI she brings with her, which has an agenda of its own.

I found it all kinda annoying. Ideas and concepts like the “slip drive” are hurled at the reader, without adequate explanation, and the focus bounces around, to diminishing effect. There is some a bit of decent tension built up when Keva is on the Elite planet, because her undercover identity is that of a dead woman. Anyone who knows that will be understandably surprised to see the corpse walking around, so it’s a very risky situation. For a genetically-engineered super-soldier though, especially one with a permanent connection to a high-powered AI in her head, she doesn’t seem to make much use of her talents. There’s rather more of Keva moping around her spaceship, and unresolved sexual tension with Captain Hale.

From reading interviews with the authors, it appears one wrote and the other edited, so my theory about competing pages doesn’t seem to be valid (much though it’d explain the deficiencies). I’ll split the blame here, with perhaps a little more going to the editor, Tyler. She should perhaps have spotted and corrected the structural issues that rendered this more chore than pleasure at about the half-way point, and turned into a real slog in the final stretch.

Authors: S.M. Blooding & P.K. Tyler
Publisher: Macmillan, available through Amazon as an e-book only. It also forms part of the Dominion Rising collection for Kindle.

Altitude

  By

★★★
“Fly the unfriendly skies.”

If you ever wanted to see Denise Richards brawl with MMA star Chuck Liddell, or even the daughter of Frasier, this film delivers. For Richards plays FBI hostage negotiator, Gretchen Blair, who is being ignominiously sent back to Washington after willfully disobeying orders during a siege. She ends up sitting next to the increasingly-nervous Terry (Barker), who offers her $50 million if she helps him get off the plane alive. For he knows it’s about to be hijacked by Matthew Sharpe (Lundgren) and his cronies, who will stop at nothing to retrieve the item which Terry took from them. It’s up to Gretchen, with the dubious help of an air marshal on his third solo flight, to stop their plan.

Far from the first film of its kind – Passenger 57, with Wesley Snipes, most obviously comes to mind – this starts off almost as a self-aware version of the genre, and is all the better for it. Witness, for example, Jonathan Lipnicki’s brief cameo as one of those super-perky flight attendants everyone hates, the cold, dead eyes of Sharpe’s lead henchwoman, Sadie (Grammer), while she has to pretend to be a stewardess, or Blair’s rant at the passenger who occupies her prized window-seat. It’s clear the writer has flown a lot. More of this, as well as further examples of Arnie-esque one-liners such as “You need to adjust your altitude, bitch!” and we could have had a cult classic.

Unfortunately, as things proceed, it loses a bit of its quirky charm and becomes just an increasingly implausible actioner. I mean, a plane taking off with the escape slides deployed is one thing; passengers escaping from the aircraft while it does so? I also wonder who, exactly, cleared and prepared the wilderness runway on which Sharpe lands the plane, surely the work of hundreds of people over a significant period. Richards is surprisingly credible here, especially if you remember her utterly unconvincing turn as Ph.D Dr Christmas Jones in The World is Not Enough. However, it’s former Miss Teen Malibu Grammer who is outstanding here among the villains for her lack of scruples, not least because Lundgren – presumably now too old for this shit – spends almost the entire time in the cockpit. Though him flying the plane through a thunderstorm, while the score plays Ride of the Valkyries, was a nice touch.

The plane on which 90% of this takes place, already lends itself to a claustrophobic setting, but Merkin seems to prefer to push the camera in too close to the action, and in half-darkness. I suspect the stand-ins may have been involved, since looking at the IMDb, even Liddell, who plays another of Sharpe’s minions, had two stunt doubles. By the time this finishes – likely no spoiler to say there’s a giant fireball involved – its welcome has just about been exhausted. Yet there has been enough wit and energy to make this qualify as a pleasant surprise, one which surpassed my (admittedly low) expectations.

Dir: Alex Merkin
Star: Denise Richards, Kirk Barker, Greer Grammer, Dolph Lundgren

What Happened to Monday

  By

★★★½
“Seven Noomis for the price of one!”

In the future, overpopulation becomes such a problem that strict limits are placed on children per family. You are only allowed one, with any others being taken by the authorities and put into “cryosleep”, so they will no longer consume resources until the situation has been addressed. After a woman secretly gives birth to septuplets, their grandfather, Terrence Settman (Dafoe), brings them up, rigidly schooling their actions so they remain under the radar. Each gets to go out on the day of the week corresponding to their name e.g. Monday on Monday, etc. On their return, they share with their siblings the events of the day, so the illusion can be sustained. 30 years later, with their grandfather gone, the seven women have evaded capture, though tensions between the different personalities are growing. Then, one evening, Monday simply doesn’t come back. The following day, neither does Tuesday. The remaining sisters have to try and figure out what’s going on, without exposing themselves.

There are strong hints of Orphan Black here, the TV series in which Tatiana Maslany played multiple clones, with distinct personalities, who end up working together to uncover a conspiracy. That ran for five seasons, truly flogging a dead horse into the ground, and the concept works a good deal better at the two hours for which this runs. Though even here, the third quarter does somewhat run out of steam. The main pleasure is the seven different versions of Rapace – and, indeed, the seven mini versions seen in flashblack, played by Read. Watching them bickering around the dinner table is a marvel on both technical and acting levels. Despite limited screen time, Rapace imbues them with distinguishing characteristics that mean you can tell the players without a scorecard. Though, again, the third quarter gets rather murky in this area, especially when two versions start rolling around, brawling with each other.

Wirkola is best known for Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (a film which, like the Resident Evil series, performed much better overseas), and has a similarly stylish grasp of the action here. Though not all the seven sisters are action-oriented, some of them most definitely are. The highlights are a chase through the streets of the city, and a misguided attempt by the authorities to storm the apartment where the sisters are embedded. It does not go well. These sequences likely work rather better than the plot. As well as my doubts a subterfuge like this could be sustained for three decades, despite Settman’s undeniable commitment to it, I must confess I’m with Nicolette Cayman (Glenn Close), head of the Child Allocation Bureau. She points out the grandfather’s actions are thoroughly selfish: he feels that rules for the necessary good of all, should only apply to other people, not his descendants. The story likely also needs a better antagonist: someone against whom the Noomis can directly battle. Cayman is largely absent and operating at just too much of a distance to qualify.

There’s still more than enough here to appreciate, with a well-crafted dystopian world which seems not implausible – see China’s “one child policy,” for instance. But it’s really Rapace’s show, and the actress builds on the intensity shown in the Millennium Trilogy. She seems to have both a fondness and a talent for action: Noomi likely has as good a claim to being the current Queen of European Action Heroines as anyone.

Dir: Tommy Wirkola
Star: Noomi Rapace, Clara Read, Marwan Kenzari, Willem Dafoe

If Looks Could Kill

  By

★★★
“Keeps the pot boiling energetically enough.”

I’ve been a fan of The Asylum studio for a while. They’re famous – or infamous – mainly for two things. Originally, they churned out “mockbusters”, films that rode the advertising coat-tails of larger budget and more famous movies, using titles such as (I kid you not), Snakes on a Train. More recently, they are also creators of the cult Sharknado series for SyFy. However, The Asylum can and will, make more or less anything they think will turn a profit. Their quality of output does vary, shall we say. Yet I was entertained by this slice of Lifetime fluff ‘n’ nonsense more than expected, mostly due to effective performances from the two leads.

There’s Faith Gray (Estes), whose new job as a beat cop has re-united her with Detective Paul Wagner (Kosalka), for whom she has always had a “thing.” But at an incident in a local bar, he meets and ends up beginning a relationship with, Jessica Munroe (Spiro). She’s a drop-dead blonde with aspirations of becoming a movie star – not something easily accomplished in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Before you can say “We’ll be right back after these words from our sponsors,” she’s pregnant and married to Paul. Faith, however, thinks there’s something not quite right about Jessica, though her investigation could be considered more as jealousy-induced stalking. It’s certainly painted as such by its target.

The film never tries to hide the fact that Jessica is nutty as a fruitcake. As a result, its plotting is instead very much concerned just with getting the story from Point A to B, offering few surprises. I’m not exactly convinced by the “Based on a true story” claim here. And let’s not even start with the police procedures depictede: let’s just say, Stillwater PD could use some re-training, and move on. Yet the pleasures outweighed the deficiencies; in particular, as mentioned, watching the mousy Faith and psychotic glam-girl Jessica face off. The latter gets most of the cinematic highlights, vamping it up to great effect. Witness, for example, her hyper-ventilating in order to place a convincingly panicked phone call to her lover. Guess all Jessica’s acting classes finally paid off!

I admit, there’s something fun about watching a manipulative sociopath at work: there’s a reason Dangerous Liaisons is one of the all-time greats. Spiro isn’t quite at Glenn Close standards, yet both she and Estes give it their all, and elevate the material to enjoyable nonsense. Even if we didn’t quite get the hellacious cat-fight climax for which I was hoping, it’s always good to see a film where both protagonist and antagonist are women, and there’s no doubt all the effort went into Faith and Jessica, with the male characters barely registering. Paul, in particular, is so easily deceived you wonder how he ever became a detective. Yet, as pulpy nonsense goes, this hour and a half certainly went by quickly and painlessly enough.

Dir: James Cullen Bressack
Star: Stefanie Estes, Summer Spiro, Tomek Kosalka, Brian Shoop