Alan Moore speaks

I was kept very busy this week finishing editing and setting up my mate Pádraig's incredibly Massive Mega Moore Marathon - its a new (15, 000 words or so, phew!) interview with Britain's Wizard in Extraordinary, Mr Alan Moore. In fact its so big I had to break it into three sections across three days on the Forbidden Planet blog - part one is mostly concerned with the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, especially the new third volume Century, the first volume of which comes out this month (Century 1910), the second next year (Century 1969) and a final part which is set in the present day after that.

It will surprise no-one who knows Alan's work to learn that the subjects and themes and references covered are diverse, from the Threepenny Opera to Jack the Ripper and Monty Python. Part two is where Alan talks about future projects and other works (including doing some work for a local youth culture mag which included Alan telling the kids the truth about drugs! Brilliant), taking in magic and James Joyce along the way, with the third and final part, which I posted up yesterday, is where Alan graciously agreed to take some selected questions sent in by readers of the FP blog. Its enormous but fascinating reading - many thanks again to Alan and for it.

On a related note, earlier this week we found out that media analysts Cision had posted a list of the top fifty blogs in the UK. As you might expect its dominated by politics blogs and blogs from established traditional media like the BBC and the Guardian. And in there at number 31 a solitary entry from the worlds of comics and science fiction - the Forbidden Planet blog. Needless to say I am surprised and delighted - I started that blog just over four years ago, now we have several contributors and its grown a lot (so much so that its a real juggling act for me to balance keeping the blog fires stoked and working on the main webstore; usually that means I end up doing a lot in my own time to keepit going, as do some of the contributors). And its nice that its grown so much since I started it and that a lot of folks in comics and SF communities check it out, but to see that its in the top 50 of all UK blogs? That its up there with Guardian blogs? Wow. Just goes to show that if its done correctly (and honestly) a good blog presence can be more effective (and cheaper and more enjoyable for you and your readers) than huge amounts of advertising. That's the sort of thing that can happen when you embrace blogging culture as a company instead of screaming hysterically at it.

Happy 4th birthday, Forbidden Planet blog

The Forbidden Planet International blog I set up a few days after starting work there turned four years old today.

Happy 4th birthday, Forbidden Planet blog

The Forbidden Planet International blog I set up a few days after starting work there turned four years old today. Its vastly jumped up the Technorati rankings since it started, had some nice things said about it by a lot of folks, we've posted a ton of reviews on all sorts of comics, graphic novels and SF&F books, news and interviews with authors and artists from those who create in their spare time at home right up to the giants of the medium like Alan Moore, and hopefully we've done something I've always enjoyed doing and that's introducing readers to books and graphic novels they might not have picked up otherwise. I've been a bookseller for years and written about books and comics (and movies for that matter) for about as long but that's still one of the best feelings, when someone tells you they picked up something new that they might not have read because the saw it mentioned and as a result they found something new that they discovered they loved. I still get a buzz from that.

Best of the Year - some faves from 2008

While I was off last week I managed to grab a few hours to pick out some of my favourite graphic novels and books (and a handful of movies) for my annual best of the year feature for the FP blog (there are a number of other Best of Year picks up from several other contributors I asked/harassed into sharing some of their faves too) and thought I would repeat it on here. Of course, I'm sure I missed out several I meant to mention but the list was getting too long and taking up too much time already so I had to draw the line:

I meant to post my own Best of the Year choices before the end of 2008, but Christmas, birthday and New Year all got in the way, as did my own propensity to keep adding to the list so it just kept getting longer and longer… (I couldn’t help it, everytime I looked at my bookshelves I kept realising there was another book or comic I had to mention). Still, finally here it is with apologies to anyone who I meant to include and simply forgot to get in there (a lot of 2008 went past in a bit of a blur for me):

Books

The Steel Remains, Richard Morgan, Gollancz

I’ve been a huge fan of Richard’s work right from the start (with the powerhouse Noir-SF Altered Carbon) and have been eager to see what resulted when he put aside science fiction for his first foray into fantasy - especially as he intended to bring his hard-boiled Noir edge to the genre. I wasn’t disappointed - some damned good action contrasted with the horror of the actual combat, giving the reader the thrill of the combat and action mixed with guilt at the disturbing consequences of it all. Add in some clever commentary about racism, sexism and religious intolerance, not to mention a very sexually active gay lead hero and you have an intoxicating combination.

Night Sessions, Ken MacLeod, Orbit

Edinburgh, Scotland, the near future. The Faith Wars are years past with religion not exactly banned but highly frowned upon by public and governments alike, being blamed by most for the rash of wars and troubles which extended out from Iraq on into the 21st century. When a priest operating out of a normal house in the city if found dead is it a straight murder or the start of a new faith (or anti-faith) series of atrocities? Ken, one of the smartest commentators on contemporary politics and society in modern SF, draws in conflicts from the Middle East, religious zealotry, secularism and politics and along the way manages to throw in a Creationist park with robot cavemen in New Zealand, nods to Scottish history, hints of the future (like the Space Elevator) and also gets to indulge himself in a proper Edinburgh detective novel too. Bloody brilliant.

Halting State, Charles Stross, Orbit

Charlie continues to carve out a hugely impressive name for himself in SF&F. Like Ken’s Night Sessions this too involves detectives in a near-future, independent Scottish Republic, but there the similarity ends. Called to investigate a bank robbery the police arrive at what turns out to be an old nuclear bunker (coincidentally a real location, right across from my old college). The bank job was carried out by orcs; the bank is a virtual one in an online game. The detectives are about to charge the company with wasting police time before they are informed just how much ‘real’ money the virtual items are worth and how much these games contribute to the economy (which means political friends to lean on the cops). From there Charlie, with much dark humour, mixes in reality, virtuality and even some hi-tech possible espionage. Genius.

The Wall of America, Thomas M Disch (Tachyon)

Disch is one of those authors that everyone in SF&F respects and yet few have actually read (I’ll confess to only having read a fraction of his work myself). This is a posthumously published short story collection following his suicide on July 4th of this year. In most short story collections, even by the best writers, there are always a few tales you just don’t care for as much as the others. This is the rare exception: each of the tales - some only a few paragraphs, others several pages - are clever, intricate jewels, from an unusual take on vampires and immigrant culture to family life post-Rapture to a cunning visit to the court of Oedipus and Jocasta (the cleverest I’ve read since the great Brian Aldiss tackled those famous characters a few years ago), a seductive water sprite, why the Christian God doesn’t have a wife, extreme performance art and the eponymous Wall of America itself, a Homeland Security construction across the northern border to keep those troublesome Cannucks out which artists turn into the world’s largest outdoor gallery. It’s a wonderfully diverse selection of intelligent works, elegantly written, clever and sometimes rather biting.

There were a lot of other damned fine SF&F books I picked up in 2008; it was another very good year for some seriously high quality writing in the genre. There isn’t enough room to list every one I enjoyed this year, but I’ll just briefly have to give special mentions to the Temporal Void by Peter F Hamilton (the second of his current trilogy and like many of his other books a massively thick tome and yet one that still flies past at a great pace), The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi (following on from the excellent Old Man‘s War; what seems like pulp Starship Troopers boy‘s space war yarn turns out to be clever and bloody gripping), Bloodheir by Brian Ruckley (the second part of his Godless World, some damned fine hard heroic fantasy), Small Favour by Jim Butcher (I don’t know how but Jim makes each successive Dresden Files novel better and better; I am addicted to them now) and Half the Blood of Brooklyn by Charlie Huston (short, sharp and nasty, Charlie continues to mix 70s era Scorcese with vampires; like shooting heroin with a .357 instead of a needle).

And also on the SF&F front I need to give an extra special mention to Interzone (and sister publication Black Static) which continues to fly the flag for short, new SF from established writers and new talent, as well as the usual mix of interviews, reviews and features (the December issue is available now and has some terrific short stories; Aliette de Bodard‘s Butterfly Falling at Dawn is particularly intoxicating and Gord Sellar‘s Country of the Young was one of the most interesting angles on aging versus artificial eternal youth I‘ve read since Jack Deighton‘s thoughtful Son of the Rock).

Movies

Paris (directed by Cédric Klapisch)

I can’t resist a good French film with Juliette Binoche; this multi-character flick may have the Queen of French Cinema as the sister to a dancer lamenting the turn of his life as his health deteriorates while awaiting a transplant but around this Klapisch weaves several different tales and characters all overlapping one another (think the excellent and intricate Short Cuts), life, love, death, regret and hope all set in the beautiful City of Light.

The Dark Knight (directed by Christopher Nolan)

Hard to say any more than others have already said - Nolan (who I’ve admired since the brilliant Memento), free in this second film from having the handicap of needing to include an origin story, creates a more complete and satisfying work here, the dark anti-hero hero and Heath Ledger’s psychotic Joker.

Waltz With Bashir (directed by Ari Folman)

Folman’s unusual animated documentary has rightly created a buzz on the film festival circuit and finally got its UK and US release just a few weeks ago. Exploring memories and dreams Folman talks to former comrades about their time in the Israeli army during the war in the Lebanon in the early 80s, with the animation allowing the viewers to move into the nightmares and dreams that have haunted many of them since then; I won’t go into it again since I posted a review of it recently here.

Man on Wire (directed by James Marsh)

Another documentary and another flick which established its reputation first on the film festival circuit, acrobat and tightrope walker Philippe Petit, following a stunt involving walking a high wire strung between the towers of Notre Dame in Paris, reads about a massive new structure being built in New York - the Twin Towers and determines to break in covertly just as it is finished and walk a tightrope between the roofs of these colossal structures. Rightly, I think, the film avoids discussion of the eventual fate of those now iconic buildings on 9/11, although archive footage of the early construction showing the massive foundations and the ‘basin’ have eerie echoes of what we saw after their destruction. Petit comes across as arrogant and selfish quite often, but if he wasn’t he’d never have managed such a magnificently mad but astonishing feat. It isn’t for those who suffer vertigo, but it is amazing; a man, on a wire suspended above New York.

Idiots and Angels (directed by Bill Plympton)

I love Bill’s work and was delighted when the Edinburgh Film Festival announced that it would be screening this, just a few weeks after it debuted at a festival in New York. Even better Bill was there in person to chat with the audience before and after the film, then he created little thumbnail sketches for each and everyone present on the way out; there’s a longer review I posted to be found back here on the blog.

Honourable mentions also go to Elegy, Le Voyage de Ballon Rouge, Hellboy II: the Golden Army, the belting piece of hi-octane that was Quantum of Solace and the animation anthology Peur(s) du Noir.

Graphic Novels

Stickleback, Ian Edginton and D’Israeli (Rebellion)

Whenever we hear that Edginton and D’Israeli are collaborating on a new project we tend to get pretty excited - they are firm favourites with a number of the FP crew. Stickleback collects two recent related stories from 2000 AD concerning the eponymous mis-shapen master criminal. Richard reviewed it recently so I won’t go on about it too much now - suffice to say I thought it was a superb bit of Victorian Steampunk (love those giant robotic tanks which look like a cross between 19th century robots and Fred Dibnah’s steam traction engine), magical fantasy, horror (a demonic Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley complete with zombie cowboys and Indians) and crime, its Lovecraft meets Charles Dickens, with multiple references to spot throughout (including even one from Carry On Screaming!) while D’Israeli’s new style of art is brilliantly atmospheric. Even better than their Leviathan outing; here’s hoping we see more of Stickleback.

Swallow Me Whole, Nate Powell (Top Shelf)

I wasn’t familiar with Nate’s work prior to reading this, but I was quickly taken in by it. Using a lot of black and some scratchy inks his art conjures up the worlds of a brother and sister with mental health problems (in addition to family problems and the usual high school teen problems); the way they see and interpret the world is quite different from others around them, which can be alienating for them, especially in a conformist world that demands we all see things the same way or else be judged to be abnormal. Swallow Me Whole doesn’t judge, doesn’t preach, it shows different ways people can see their world and who is to say which version is right? And although we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover I think I have to also mention that Top Shelf have printed Swallow Me Whole in a small hardback format that is rather lovely.

The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, Alison Bechdel (Jonathan Cape)

Alison rightly won many plaudits last year for Fun Home; this collection of several year’s worth of her Dykes to Watch Out For strip is a different kettle of fish though, an ongoing, multi-character, open-ended series, almost like a soap opera (but in a good way - I normally hate soaps, but I loved this). I’ve read some of Dykes before, but this was my first really concentrated burst of them and it made a huge difference to read so many back to back. With our lesbian leads and their friends aging in real time its very easy to get sucked into their lives and for anyone past the age of 30 who remembers some of the real world events going on as we pass through the years here there’s a real touch of empathy with the characters, with the ‘I remember that’ factor and also the emotional empathy as we see the characters getting older and having to deal with exactly the same things we all have to, from losing beloved pets to losing family members and welcoming (and worrying about) new ones, health, jobs, wondering what happened to the groundbreaking neighbourhood bookstore as the relentless march of the chain bookstores threatens them, wondering, as they get older, what happened to their youthful fire (one day street activists fighting for equality, another day they are worrying about mortgages and weeding the yard) and why the younger generation of lesbians are often so different from them (good lord, some even vote Republican!).

It’s a substantial collection covering a number of years and I found the best way was to read a little chunk at a time, moving through the 90s and into the 2000s; after a little while the cast became like old friends and I found myself eager to read another batch. I should also mention the cartoon intro Alison created for the collection which had me laughing my arse off and showed that while she’ll handle heavy subjects as well as humorous she’s also quite happy to poke fun at her own and her character’s foibles too.

Too Cool To Be Forgotten, Alex Robinson (Top Shelf)

I’ve been a huge fan of Alex Robinson for years, not least for Box Office Poison (the BOP scenes set in the bookstore made him a particular hero to the bookseller community), so I was really looking forward to this. When the central character is persuaded to try hypo-therapy to give up smoking he wakes up in his teens, reliving his high school years. What starts off as a bit of a humorous trip with a warm touch of nostalgia (the sort of feeling I get from watching an 80s movie like The Breakfast Club these days) starts to bring in the whiff of regret than any reader over the age of 35 will probably empathise with - was that really our youth, did we do that, why didn’t we do the other, where did it go and how did it lead to us being what we are now? Then the final reel takes us into a very emotional space, bringing a real lump to the throat…

Absolute Sandman Volume 3, Neil Gaiman et al (DC/Vertigo)

Okay, technically this is a reprint so perhaps I shouldn’t have it in my main list, but dammit I love this series and have shelled out now for all four volumes (I’m currently reading the fourth and final one over the holidays) and I think Neil’s work often benefits from re-visiting it to see little details and layers missed on previous reading while the over-sized pages of restored artwork let you feast visually on the numerous contributing artists, most especially the Ramadan chapter with art from P Craig Russell, a mix of the Arabian Nights and wonderful, colourful fantasies like The Thief of Baghdad. The linkage between the Golden Baghdad of flying carpets and genies and the modern, war-torn city still gets me. The only problem I have with these volumes is that because they are so damned huge its like trying to hold a Times Atlas up and its pretty strenuous on the wrists - these really need a home with a proper library room and a large lectern to rest it on (when I finish book 4 I think I should get a piece of tempered glass, lay it on top of them and used them as a coffee table).

Britten & Brülightly, Hannah Berry (Jonathan Cape)

I loved Hannah’s debut work, a detective tale with lovely, painted artwork, with a damaged shamus and his partner, who at first seems like a voice in his head, making the reader think perhaps he’s dead and Britten just thinks he still talks to him, but actually he turns out to be a teabag (“a teabag with needs”) advising and chastising his lonely partner as he accepts a case of possible society murder from a beautiful and rich widow. I loved the story and its old-fashioned British setting, perfectly realised by the lovely art. I was lucky enough to meet Hannah in person at the Edinburgh Book Festival in August and I’m really looking forward to seeing more work from her in the future; you can read an interview with Hannah here on the blog.

The Sands of Sarasvati, Petri Tolppanen and Jussi Kaakinen, based on the novel by Risto Isomäki, (Tammi Publishers)

I only posted a review of this a couple of weeks ago so won’t say too much again here, except to say this was my first ever graphic novel from Finland and I really enjoyed this near-future piece of science fiction, mixing ancient civilisations, contemporary environmental concerns and geology, all executed in a style reminiscent of the better adult BD from Europe; here’s hoping Tammi make a deal with a UK or US publisher or distributor so it can be made more easily available in 2009.

That Salty Air, Tim Sievert (Top Shelf)

Another artist who was new to me, I thought Tim’s work had a deceptively simple charm which starts as very all-ages friendly before moving into a very dark place as the fisherman’s straightforward life which he is perfectly content with is destroyed by loss and grief and the self-destructive actions they drive him towards which could cost him and those around him everything. I think anyone who’s lost someone important to them will recognise his mix of utter despair infused with a fire of anger at the world for what its done to him, what its taken away and how awfully easy it is for that combination to drown your soul and blind you to the love still around you.

As with the SF&F books there were far more good comics crossed my desk than I have space or time to write about here, so I’ll conclude this (already longer than I meant it to be) Best of the Year with a few quick, honourable mentions which have to go to the ongoing (and very welcome) reprint series of classic 2000 AD strips, especially the Complete Judge Dredd Case Files (“Chopper for Oz!”) and the total nostalgia trip I had from re-reading the Complete Ro-Busters (collecting the original Starlord then 2000 AD strips and introducing us to Hammerstein and Ro-Jaws, two of the best robot characters in comics) which I’ve been loving (and oh, Kev O’Neill, Mick McMahon and Dave Gibbons art to luxuriate in!).

Props also to Classical Comics - I’m not the target audience for these literary adaptations but I still really enjoyed them (and think they are perfect for getting younger readers into the classics and as study guides for teachers to use); Jon Haward’s Macbeth and Declan Shalvey’s Frankenstein both contained some cracking art which should excite the most reluctant reader. Sticking with the classics mention should also be made of Alan Grant and Cam Kennedy’s interpretation of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde which raised the profile of Robert Louis Stevenson (one of my favourite authors since childhood) and comics in Scotland with plenty of mainstream media coverage (not to mention being a major part of the National Library of Scotland’s comic art exhibition in the spring of 2008; how satisfying to see comics taken so seriously by the NLS).

The Galago anthology of Swedish underground comics, From the Shadow of the Northern Lights, also opened up my eyes to some new (to me and I imagine to many English language readers) artists, Jeff Lemire’s third Essex County volume drew me right back into that series (all three highly recommended), Veronique Tanaka’s ‘silent’ and unusual work Metronome was a fascinating exercise in fairly minimal storytelling with repeating similar frames which created almost a feel of animation. Andy Winters’ Septic Isle was a nice twist on the war on terror (with right wing nutters as the protagonists rather than religious zealots) and I really must give a mention for Alex Irvine’s serious effort with the Vertigo Encyclopedia as a great reference work on DC’s mature readers imprint.

Overall its been a year with some bloody good books and comics to enjoy on all sorts of subjects, from new talent and established favourites, fascinating new works and some quality reprint editions of classic material (such as the fine hardback of Bryan Talbot’s Tale of One Bad Rat). And I haven’t even touched on the seemingly always expanding range of online comics which are increasingly becoming something we all need to keep an eye on for new works and new talent - the Dean Haspiel-edited Next Door Neighbor series on Smithmag has been a real treasure trove of short works by numerous creators and Kevin Colden’s intriguing Fishtown drew me in then made the jump to print (as is one of my faves from 2007, La Muse). I’m quite sure I’m forgetting to mention some of the creators whose work I’ve enjoyed this year, but I’ve already rambled on far longer than I originally meant to. Mind you, over-long ramblings aside I think that itself can be seen a positive statement on the SF&F and comics scenes - there were simply more good books and comics than I could realistically cover here even I wrote umpteen more paragraphs and I’m sure there will be some outstanding works coming our way in 2009.

The Sands of Sarasvati

I recently read my very first graphic novel from Finland after a friend pointed it out to me and put me in touch with the publishers Tammi in Helsinki. Its adapted from a prose work, a near-future work taking in geological history, ancient human history and lost civilisations and contemporary civilisation and the impact it is having on the environment and the changing environment on our civilisation; the full piece is below, it originally appeared on the Forbidden Planet Blog:

Based on the novel by Risto Isomäki,
Adapted by Petri Tolppanen, illustrated by Jussi Kaakinen,
Translated from Finnish by Lola Rogers and Owen F Witesman,
Published by Tammi

Until recently I hadn’t exactly read an abundance of comics material from Scandinavia, apart from Jason, then I find two very different works from the northern regions of Europe arrive on my desk within a few weeks of one another. The first the Galago anthology of underground Swedish comics from Top Shelf (reviewed here), the second a very different beast, The Sands of Sarasvati. Sands, from Finnish publishers Tammi, is a graphic adaptation of an award-winning science fiction novel Sarasvatin Hiekkaa by author, science journalist and environmental activist Risto Isomäki. I’ve often found there to be a fair crossover between SF&F and the comics worlds, both in terms of readership and authors; we’ve seen SF&F writers like Harlan Ellison involved with comics for many years and recently we’ve seen more SF&F writers also becoming involved in comics, from Cory Doctorow to Richard Morgan, while I’ve found in my bookselling experience that there is a fair number of SF&F readers who also like comics and vice versa. And fantasy and science fiction elements have played a part in comics for pretty much as long as there have been comics, whether its entire SF worlds in Buck Rogers or SF elements like the clever gadgetry Batman uses.

And yet for some reason comics and serious SF (as opposed to the more fantastical elements of the genre) don’t seem to collide as often as you might expect, so it was quite refreshing to me to see this meeting of near-future ecological SF with comics. Sands begins deep within the Earth’s oceans with the Lomonosov, a Russian deep sea exploration submersible off the coast of Norway investigating geological formations when it encounters the almost perfectly intact wreck of a recently lost freighter; suddenly the submersible loses buoyancy and begins to sink deeper towards the ocean bed. The landscape along the ocean bed is littered with huge rocks caused millennia ago by methane ice melting at the end of the last ice age leading to a landslide of colossal proportions. Methane, our intrepid explorers find out, is still leaking out into the water - causing the density of the surrounding water to decrease and so causing their craft to sink (and by implication sinking the freighter they have just found). It’s but a hint of what it to come.

After managing to safely return to Norway the Lomonosov is dispatched to much warmer oceans, off the coast of India, and Sergei Savelnikov, a scientist and explorer still mourning the death of his wife, goes with the ship. The mission is an intriguing one and at first seemingly unrelated to their earlier discovery of the methane leak and landslides in the chilly northern waters - a sunken city has been found. A very large city in the Gulf of Cambay, a city which may have been home to a hundred thousand souls, thousands of years ago; a completely unknown civilisation, once flourishing then suddenly destroyed so rapidly that until now even archaeological evidence of their existence simply didn’t exist. An Indian Atlantis, perhaps…

(a previously unknown city now submberged beneath the waves is exposed by our intrepid explorers)

I must admit I was slightly concerned at this point, as well as interested; I was interested because linking the discovery of an ancient civilisation to events in the present is fascinating and because I’ve always had more than a passing interest in archaeology and history. Concerned because I was a little worried we might vanish down the path of some of the best-selling nonsense popular in the 70s - Von Daniken or the endless books on the Bermuda Triangle by the likes of Charles Berlitz (or even some of their later pseudo-scientific successors who still sell in depressingly large numbers today). Not being familiar with Risto’s prose work I didn’t know which way this way going to go; fortunately, I am glad to say, it went to a rational route.

Sure there are a little too many handy coincidences in the flow of events - you have to accept those to allow the narrative to unfold but it can be a little niggling. I haven’t read the original prose work but I’d imagine that some of these useful coincidences and the speed of the events they connect are the result of having to compress a prose novel to a seventy-two page graphic novel rather than a lack of writing ability and to be honest it is only a niggling complaint - and as the only way round it would have been to dramatically increase the length of the book and so seriously slowing the pace (not to mention increasing the price) its something I can live with.

And I can live with it because it’s a highly enjoyable piece of science fiction; ancient human civilisations and geological phenomena intertwine into scientific investigations in the book’s present (our near future) into impending climate change and the likely effects this will have on the world. The action moves from the cold, dark depths of the northern oceans to the warm waters of India and from Finland to the Caribbean to the Greenland glaciers; this isn’t just globe-trotting for exotic effect however, its reinforcing the fact that large events in one part of the world’s ecosphere will have hugely dramatic events not just locally but globally; a lone Finnish inventor working on wind turbine pumps to combat a rise in sea levels connects to ancient landslides thousands of years ago to a lost world halfway round the globe.

The work is a lot more dialogue heavy than you’d normally expect for a graphic novel and again I think this is due largely to its roots, being adapted from a prose work, as well as the need for exposition on what our cast of characters are investigating, from the submerged city to the sudden disappearance of an ice lake in Greenland. And I’d have liked to see more of the characters - what was there was appealing (especially a touching romance blossoming between Sergei and his Indian colleague Amrita, both damaged emotionally, both finding love as the clock on ecological disaster and possible end of the world may be running out) and certainly more than sufficient to get me hooked enough to care about the characters and what happened to them, but it could have use a bit of expansion and perhaps some more character driven scenes rather than mostly being about the larger narrative events. But again that would have meant a much longer book; perhaps it might have been a bit better split into two volumes, but that would also have been pricier and more of a risk for a publisher new to the graphic novel market, so over all it was probably best to compress it into a single book.

(Amrita’s first view of the northern icescape)

Jussi Kaakinen’s artwork is fine and clear throughout, depicting varied locations (from glaciers in Greenland to Indian cities) with equal ease and also helping to fill in some more characterisations - lovely little touches like Amrita’s delighted expression when she travels north with Sergei and sees her very first view of a large landscape of snow and ice anchor the large, global-scale and geological timescale into smaller moments of individual humans against the huge forces of the events unfolding around them.

Some scenes, such as Sergei’s colleague and friend Susan Cheng descending into a deep, icy chasm give a sense of scale, the individual human against the vastness of the world they are trying to understand (that scene reminded me very much of Luc Besson’s beautiful film The Big Blue, where a lone diver sinks from open, clear water to deeper blue to the dark depths with only a small light to illuminate the vastness of creation around him; how large the world is and how little our vaunted knowledge of it really encompasses). In other scenes it’s almost like Tintin for adults as Jussi obviously delights in revealing sunken ruins of a huge city or filling a panel with all sort of technology from airships to snowmobiles and sudden bursts of adventure. For those who try to keep up with scientific explorations there are also some nice touches - the Arctic base Susan is based at may look like it belongs to Moonbase Alpha, but actually its pretty similar to recent advanced designs being used for Antarctic scientific bases (complete with the extendable legs for the cabins); a small touch but quite satisfying. Jussi’s style would look perfectly at home in any adult graphic BD album you might find in any decent French or Belgian bookstore (which I mean as a compliment); actually I could see this doing well in those markets.

(Susan descends into the frozen abyss where only days before an entire ice lake had covered the land)

How you react to Sands of Sarasvati will, I think depend largely on your own views on the environment. If you are part of the (increasingly small - even George Bush is slowly acknowledging the threat) group who hold it’s all a natural cycle and humanity’s creations have no measurable effect on it then you will probably dismiss it. If you are more inclined to think human activity is feeding into the natural cycle then you’re more likely to accept the events unfolding here. Risto is an environmental campaigner, but to his credit I don’t think he browbeats the reader; he’s not lecturing you on your carbon footprint and the fact that huge environmental changes are a naturally occurring part of our world’s eco-system is a major part of the narrative - he’s not saying its all down to humans burning fossil fuels.

(the global community finally swings into action as the threat of ecological disaster looms; nations from around the world working together, ingenious technology, but will it be in time?)

But he is making clear that we’re adding a dangerous variable to an incredibly complicated and dynamic system that we frankly don’t fully understand, while also riffing on the notion of history repeating itself but on a global geological scale. And given the devastation caused by the Boxing Day tsunami a couple of years ago and the lingering threat of a similar wave hitting the eastern seaboard of the US should a large part of the volcanic rock of the Canary islands drop into the sea (as it is basically expected to at some point) you do have to wonder how dangerously close some of the science fiction here might be to becoming science fact. But despite the threat to the very existence of human civilisation there’s also hope in Sands; entire civilisations have been destroyed before (just like Amrita’s sunken Indian city) and yet knowledge has been preserved and passed down, sometimes as learning, sometimes as myth, but it and humanity continues.

It’s an unusual piece of ‘hard’ SF in the comics world and one that would, I think, appeal very much to those (myself included) who enjoy reading the books of Kim Stanley Robinson. It’s a fascinating series of events, both contemporary and historical, and utterly compelling (I found it hard to stop reading even late at night). Sadly at the moment it is only available to order from Finland (in English though) via Bookplus which could be pricey. I know Tammi, a respected Finnish publisher but one fairly new to the world of graphic novels, is looking to the US and UK for interested publishing partners to make it more widely available and I really hope they are successful as it’s a cracking book - big concept SF, real world contemporary concerns, some great adventure and some scenes which give that great sense of wonder I got as a child watching Jacques Cousteau’s voyages.(thanks to my friend Cheryl - who has been involved with the Finnish burgeoning SF scene - for bringing the book to my attention and to Terhi Isomäki-Blaxall and Tero Ykspetäjä for sending me a copy)

Neil Gaiman interviewed

Over on the FPI blog my good friend Pádraig Ó Méalóid has interviewed one of my favourite writers, Neil Gaiman, which we just posted up today, with them talking about Neil's comics, novels, films and those rumours about him writing for Doctor Who.

Hellboy interviews

Recently I had the opportunity to conduct some short ten minute phone interviews (hey, short call is better than no call, I wasn't going to turn then down!) in the run up to the DVD release of Hellboy II: the Golden Army for the Forbidden Planet blog, which went up over the weekend - I got to talk to two of the cast, Doug Jones who plays Abe Sapien (and is also the Faun in the brilliant Pan's Labyrinth) and Anna Walton who plays Princess Nuala, then rounded it off with a brief chat with the original creator of the Hellboy comics, Mike Mignola, which was an extra special treat as I've been a huge fan of his Hellboy comics for years.

Mark Millar talks Wanted

Over on the Forbidden Planet blog my colleague Mark poses some questions to another Mark, Mark Millar, Scottish comics superstar (Civil War, Ultimates) about his comics and the movie versions of Wanted and Kick Ass. On the blog there's a second, shorter video with an excerpt from the special effects creation extras on the Wanted DVD too.

Winning Vertigo

Over at work the nice people at Dorling Kindersley publishers have given us five copies of their new hardback Vertigo Encyclopedia, a lavishly illustrated a-z reference guide to DC Comics' groundbreaking mature readers imprint for comics and graphic novels. Its an imprint which has done a huge amount to make comics with mature themed and aimed at adults popular over the last decade and a bit, with series like Garth Ennis' Preacher (violence, drugs, sex, blasphemy, conspiracy and the ghost of John Wayne - brilliant stuff), Warren Ellis' fantastic Transmetropolitan and Neil Gaiman's Sandman among but a few.




Alex Irvine's guide gives a synopsis of the main story arcs, character biographies and important notes about the beginning and development of the stories, its a pretty essential reference work and also a pretty darn good potential Christmas present. The competition runs until the end of Sunday 16th of November - I've written a brief review of the book over on the FPI blog and from there you can also find links to enter the competition where you only need to answer a very simple question to be in with a chance to win one of the copies.

Win Wyndham

Over on the FPI blog we've got a competition running just now to win five newly reprinted editions of one of the classic British SF authors' book - Penguin have given us two sets of five John Wyndham novels, Midwich Cuckoos, the Chrysalids (which we've just done recently in the Edinburgh SF Book Group I set up a few years back), Day of the Triffids, The Kraken Wakes and The Trouble With Lichen, all boasting very modern, new covers. The competition runs until the end of this coming Sunday (26th October) - you do have to log into the main FP site to enter, but there's no purchase necessary and it puts you in with a chance to win a set of novels by one of the important Brit writers of the 20th century by answering a pretty simple question.

Eagle Awards - a shameless plea for votes!

The first ballot form for voting in the annual Eagle Awards, the UK's major comics and graphic novel awards, opened the other week online - anyone can cast their votes and eventually the nominees will be narrowed down to a final shortlist with the winners revealed at the Bristol International Comics Expo in May. There are a number of categories - writers, artists, newcomers, series, best original graphic novel (that basically means one which first came out as a graphic novel rather than a book collecting a story previously issued in weekly or monthly comics form) and also favourite comics related website in which you can (if you so wish) vote for the Forbidden Planet Blog which I set up just under three years ago and work on alongside my duties on the main FPI webstore, posting comics and SF news, reviews and interviews and generally trying to draw attention to some good writers and artists. Yes, this is a shameless plea for votes!

Primeval

The penultimate episode of ITV's Primeval comes up this Saturday and its penned by the very fine novelist, screenwriter and comics scribe Paul Cornell, who was also responsible for some of the finest episodes of the new Doctor Who - "Father's Day" and "Human Nature". We were lacking time for a full-length interview but I couldn't let it go past without marking it and Paul kindly took some time out to answer a few questions for the Forbidden Planet blog, should you fancy a read before the episode airs on Saturday evening.

"God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically"

This was on an attempted spam comment to be moderated on the FPI blog this morning. A bit more creative than the usual nonsense and attempts; I thought it seemed familiar, so after a spot of Googling it turns out to be a quote from Albert Einstein. Looking around the web for some more Einstein quotes I found one which was more to my taste:

"A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty"

Eagle awards online

The leading British comics awards, the Eagles, are now online - unlike most other awards though readers get to vote for the various categories in the online nominations, including (should you wish to) best comics related website where you could pick out a number of sites and blogs who support UK (and other) comics and artists like Bugpowder, Down the Tubes or perhaps even a certain bandana-clad Forbidden Planet International Blog :-) Not that I am trying to put ideas in anyone's head...