strange and random happenstance

If you are a fan of British comedy if I were to randomly yell at you "Yes, I can hear you Clem Fandango!" you would hopefully laugh and then become my new best friend. The name Clem Fandango brings joy into the world. And the echoes of Matt Berry as Steven Toast screaming. Shazad Latif is Clem Fandango. Because, while he has been wonderful in so many shows, big shout-out to Penny Dreadful, I will forever refer to him as Clem Fandango. And yes, it has to be his full name. First and last, not just Clem not just Fandango. The whole Clem Fandango. Anyway, for this I will try to refer to Shazad Latif by his real name and even if I didn't I could totally cut and paste his name over my typing Clem Fandango before I posted this and you would never know the difference. What all this is in aid of is that because of my love for Shazad Latif I have been waiting for Nautilus for what seems like forever. This was a show in limbo. They finished filming over two years ago when it was going to be on Disney+. Dinsney+ shelved it because apparently that's what you do to make a buck these days, look to The Spiderwick Chronicles. A tax write-off is more valuable than quality entertainment. Then Amazon bought it and I was excited, because that meant to was totally, finally going to be released, and then nope. They weren't going to be distributing it. Finally it was announced that AMC+ had acquired it and that it would totally be coming out soon. Like the beginning of 2025 at the latest. January came and went, winter turned to spring and finally, FINALLY Sunday, June 29th, 2025 could be marked on my calendar as the day I could finally see this show I've waited for for so long. And, I don't know what I was expecting, perhaps something along the lines of The Librarians, a cheesy but fun show that had a stacked list of guest stars but was overall just a nice way to spend an evening. In other words, due to other recent H.G. Wells adaptations, yes, I'm looking at you Around the World in 80 Days with your white savior complex, and PTSD from seeing The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in theaters, TWICE, over twenty years ago, I mentally set the bar very low. Which means I wasn't just impressed, I was blown away. I don't know if such a thrilling and modern adventure series with such high production values and incredible acting has ever been made like this. I didn't just enjoy the show, the weekly cliffhangers that reminded me of the best in serial storytelling made me wait with baited breath for each new installment. What's more, this is for an audience with modern sensibilities, IE, there is no white savior complex here. The cast made up of characters who were literally slaves and are almost exclusively minorities, save themselves and then set about to destroy their oppressors. And who were historically the worst oppressors? The East India Company! Down with that sort of thing! Bonus points if you know which British comedy that comes from. Nautilus is just such a wonderful show about survival versus domination and exploration versus destruction. It also examines what riches mean to those who were oppressed; freedom, safety, and, in the end, it can mean vengeance. There are so many levels on which this show works, but what I was left with most was wonder. There was a childlike wonder this show brought about in me. Dare I say that this show gave me hope? I dare say it did. It also brought me joy. Or, as others might say, Clem Fandango!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Adventure, And the Emmy Goes To, Around the World in Eighty Days, Clem Fandango, East India Company, H.G. Wells, Nautilus, Penny Dreadful, Shazad Latif, Steven Toast, Submarine, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Wonder

Does everyone else remember in 2014 when Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See was released and it was like everywhere? It won the Pulitzer, it won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence, it was the choice for book clubs everywhere, even my Mom's! It was THE BOOK of the moment. And, because of the society we live in which doesn't see a book as an end product, everyone was talking about the adaptation to come as a future darling of the Oscars. The buzz was literally up there with Killers of the Flower Moon and The Devil in the White City, and I just realized that those were both optioned by Martin Scorsese. And then we finally got an adaptation of All the Light We Cannot See, with multiple Oscars nominees no less, and like nobody talked about it. At all. James Newton Howard did the freakin' music and we're just not going to talk about it!?! I just don't understand this. It somehow fell through the cracks between Killers of the Flower Moon and The Devil in the White City, it didn't go to the Oscars and it didn't get bogged down in developmental hell. It came and it was forgotten and I am here to say, it's not that bad. Personally, I really don't like reading or watching anything to do with WWII, or Mark Ruffalo for that matter, but I'm a sucker for Hugh Laurie. In other words, I am in no way the target audience for this and yet I found it enjoyable. You could see what it wanted to be and how it fell just short. Like not everyone was the first choice. Which can really be seen with the character of Standartenführer Reinhold von Rumpel played by Lars Eidinger. This role was written for Rory Kinnear. How do I know this? Just watch the show, it's glaringly obvious. In fact I have a whole scenario written in my head where they approached Rory and he was like, naw, already did that. And then they'd be all, when the hell did you do this? To which he'd say, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels... And then it would get very awkward because that show was so so bad and I don't even really want to admit I watched it myself and these imaginary suits obviously had never even heard of it. So, that's when they hired Lars Eidinger and said, can you give us your best Rory Kinnear? I mean, even his weirdly long forelock was so like Rory's in the original Penny Dreadful I just can't not see this... But I have to say that one thing that really impressed me about this production, aside from the Mark Ruffalo stunt casting, is that the Germans were played by Germans, Marie-Laure LeBlanc, a blind girl, is shockingly played by an actress with low vision. Representation matters and Aria Mia Loberti made the character and the show feel authentic. You weren't thinking, wow, I really believe this character is blind, good for this totally sighted actress for pulling it off. You we thinking Aria Mia Loberti IS Marie-Laure. As others have said, this was her first ever acting job, and she brings something special, something genuine to the role. As more productions think about inclusion I'm sure she will get plenty of roles. I mean, she's already popped up on The Spiderwick Chronicles.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: All the Light We Cannot See, And the Emmy Goes To, Aria Mia Loberti, Blindness, Hugh Laurie, James Newton Howard, Marie-Laure LeBlanc, Mark Ruffalo, Oscars, Penny Dreadful, Representation, Rory Kinnear, WWII

From Hell: Master Edition by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell
Published by: Top Shelf Productions
Publication Date: 1999
Format: Kindle, 582 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Queen Victoria's eldest son Eddy has been a bad boy. He's been slumming in the East End with his tutor Walter Sickert. There Eddy met and secretly married a shop girl, Annie Crook. This will not do for the future King of England and his mother decides to set it right. She separates the couple, bringing Eddy home and sending the wife to Bedlam, unaware that there was a child in the care of one Mary Kelly. This is when Sir William Withey Gull enters the picture. He is a respected doctor, an esteemed and high ranking freemason, who saved the Prince's life when he was ill years previously. For his services he was promoted to Physician-in-Ordinary to Queen Victoria. The Queen calls on him to deal with her son's wife and he operates on Annie Crook's thyroid gland impairing her sanity. The Queen and her doctor believe the threat is past when Mary Kelly realizes that she and her friends have a meal ticket thanks to her knowledge of the marriage and the baby named Alice. Prostitutes Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Liz Stride, and Mary Kelly would never resort to blackmail if not for the fact their very lives are in danger by the Old Nichol Gang unless they pay up. So Mary sends Walter Sickert a letter. Walter goes to Princess Alix, Eddy's mother. After what happened previously she says this matter must be taken to Victoria immediately and Victoria calls in Sir William. Sir William has recently recovered from a stroke and approaches this undertaking in the name of the Queen as his great work. With the help of his driver Netley they identify the four women and Sir William goes about plotting their deaths. He has informed his fellow Masons at the police that murders are about to commence, but neither realize how significant they will be or how they will terrorize London. Sir William's knowledge of anatomy allows him to be brutal and precise with his work, though at least the first death is as painless as he can make it. The fear that grips London after the death of Polly Nichols means that all the prostitutes are steeped in terror. The newspapers make a sensation of the cases, dubbing the killer "Jack the Ripper." And Jack is here to usher in the future no matter the body count.

Alan Moore is the grand old wizard of graphic novels and it would not be an understatement to say that he created the genre as we know it today. But for all that he is divisive. You either love his work or you hate it, or you're one of those weird people who is really into Watchmen and when they released a totally credible and faithful adaptation you say it's not "your" Watchmen. I sometimes just don't get people. But I'm starting to get the Alan Moore fantascism, despite my hatred of Watchmen and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, whose adaptation everyone should be complaining about. And I somehow saw that twice in theaters. For me From Hell is his magnum opus, his great work. And being an armchair Ripperologist I was able to enjoy it without believing anything that he wrote about the crimes. Because for all the theories out there on who Jack the Ripper is I have never once found it even slightly plausible that it was a Freemason cover-up at the behest of Queen Victoria. And no matter how fun they made the film Murder by Decree with a camp James Mason and a psychic Donald Sutherland flailing through the streets of London if they couldn't make me believe the theories spouted by Stephen Knight in Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution, I'm sorry, but Alan Moore didn't stand a chance. And while I could blame my dislike of the theory for avoiding the graphic novel for so many years, I didn't know that this was the theory espoused, the only knowledge I really had of the comic was that it was loosely, and I say very loosely, the inspiration for the 2001 Johnny Depp film. Which, well, the less said the better. Except for this, they tried to combine Abberline and Lees into one character to have a psychic cop. Yeah. They did that. So why did I finally decide to pick up the book after all this time? Honestly, I'm not sure. I was just feeling in a gloomy Victorian mood and was rewatching Penny Dreadful and just thought, you know what, now's the time. And here's the thing, if I had known it was more about the world the murders happened in I would have picked it up so much sooner, though I'm glad I didn't because the colorization by Eddie Campbell gave the artwork more depth and definition. The way that Sir William discusses the history of London reminded me of what I love so much about the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch. There's a depth and richness to the history of London with it constantly building and reinventing itself on the remnants of history. Always moving forward into the future. And if this book shows one thing it's that these murders were a force that would move London inexorably forward into a whole new world.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alan Moore, Eddie Campbell, For the Love of Book Clubs, Freemasons, From Hell, Jack the Ripper, Murder by Decree, Penny Dreadful, Queen Victoria, Ripperologist, Rivers of London, Sir William Withey Gull, Watchmen

Mansfield Park
Based on the book by Jane Austen
Release Date: March 18th, 2007
Starring: Douglas Hodge, Jemma Redgrave, Maggie O'Neill, Julia Joyce, Zachary Elliott-Hatton, Greg Sheffield, Tara Berwin, Lucy Hurst, Billie Piper, James D'Arcy, Blake Ritson, Michelle Ryan, Rory Kinnear, Catherine Steadman, Joseph Morgan, Hayley Atwell, Joseph Beattie, and Dexter Fletcher
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Fanny Price has been sent away from home to live with wealthy relatives because her mother can no longer afford to keep her. She is scared and intimidated and only her cousin Edmund takes the time to make her feel safe and loved. As she grows up that love becomes stronger which is fortunate as it's about to be tested. Her uncle leaves to attend business in Antigua and the young people take over the house. Fanny's cousin Tom has had his fun spoiled and decides to mount a play at Mansfield Park. His sisters, Maria and Julia will obviously perform, as will Maria's fiance Mr. Rushworth. The party is greater increased by two new neighbors, the siblings Henry and Mary Crawford. Yet Edmund and Fanny will not perform. It's not seemly for a variety of reasons but especially given that the play is rather risque. Though Edmund's growing attraction for Mary makes him foolish and he eventually agrees to perform under duress. Julia soon bows out on seeing that her engaged sister is flirting with Henry. And Fanny is roped into the production to replace Julia which is brought to a crashing halt by the return of her uncle. With Sir Thomas Bertram returned the hope is life will return to normal at Mansfield Park, but little do they know that isn't the case. The arrival of the Crawfords has changed everything. When Maria still goes through with her marriage to Mr. Rushworth Henry Crawford sets his sights on Fanny. He wants to make a little hole in her heart. Yet her heart is protected at least from Henry because it already belongs to Edmund, but the pain she feels on seeing Edmund fall for Mary is excruciating. Will Fanny lose the love of her life or will tragedy lead to a happy ending?

While this adaptation is a hectic haphazard headlong rush at translating Mansfield Park for the small screen the number one thing in it's favor is that it is nothing like the horror show that was the 1999 Frances O'Connor version. I still shudder thinking of that adaptation. In this version instead of augmenting Fanny with her creator, Jane Austen, the production went in a different direction and decided that instead of letting Fanny stand on her own they'd fix all supposed defects by making her more of a Lizzy Bennet and less of a Fanny Price. But the thing is I love Fanny for being Fanny and I love Lizzy for being Lizzy. They are characters that are both loved for being themselves. The Fanny embodied by Billie Piper feels like she's spent a little too much time around The Doctor. All she does is run. Everywhere. Fanny is playing shuttle cocks with Edmund. Fanny is playing hide and seek at Maria's wedding with some unknown child. Fanny is chasing Pug through the halls of Mansfield Park, which I'm sure her Aunt Bertram wouldn't approve of. All the while she's laughing and giggling. This isn't right. Fanny is a slight sickly girl who is retiring. She can't physically take much exercise except by horse. When I first saw this adaptation I would have said it was because Billie Piper perhaps had a more limited acting range, but seriously, have you seen Penny Dreadful? Because this is all on the writer and director and not on Billie. Plus by having Mary use Fanny's horse it doesn't have the betrayal and weight that it has in the book. Fanny was just put-out, it wasn't like her horse was her only form of exercise and this slight was the first sign of Edmund's infatuation with Mary which would pain Fanny so deeply. 

But enough can not be said for the relief I feel in how this adaptation purposefully stepped away from the 1999 adaptation. This can be clearly seen when Henry and Edmund try to discuss the atrocities happening in Antigua and Edmund's mother just waves away any discussion of slavery with an oblivious line about the heat in the West Indies. To those not familiar with the earlier adaptation, which reveled in horrors and viewers had to endure Harold Pinter as Sir Thomas Betram raping his slaves, this line of Aunt Bertram might be a throwaway, but to those who know, it's a time to take a great sigh of relief. This is going to be Austen, not some social commentary on race, but social commentary on a confined society in a country house. And while I feel that of all Austen's novels Mansfield Park is the most confined to location and characters this adaptation takes it further. This is television, this is low budget, this is a small cast. They really weren't taking any risks with this adaptation. And while yes, I do think things could have been done differently, you can see why they did it this way. Mansfield Park is a tricky book to adapt and going for a smaller more intimate scale, while in keeping with the book, also made for an Austen adaptation that someone who didn't love the book could enjoy. The costumes might have felt a little dated and the fact that they never left the property might be perplexing to those who expect their period dramas to have multiple locations and lush sets, but I say so what? Smaller definitely worked better than bigger. Yes, it wasn't perfect, but Andrew Davies has yet to adapt Mansfield Park...

Yet I can not give this adaptation two thumbs up because of my love of Austen's book. The problem here is that while it still feels like Austen, which the 1999 version didn't achieve, there is still a diminishment of the story. It has been made smaller, lesser than. As I've previously stated, Fanny wasn't Fanny, but the greater truth is that none of the characters feel right. They are all slightly wrong. It's like when I tried to read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the author had the gall to not use Austen's own words, which thankfully the movie adaptation rectified. Therefore having the lines be not quite Austen's here made me feel the same bafflement when I tried to read that atrociously written parody. As Andrew Davies has said, Austen is perfect, just cut and paste. Take liberties when Austen purposefully steps back. She never goes into great details about the proposals or the happily ever afters, so here you can have free reign, and in fact in those moments of this adaptation, that's when I felt it. That deep pain in my veins that this is true love, that these emotions on screen have triggered a physical response in me. Have taken me away to a place where tears of happiness aren't far behind. While in other parts I actually found myself cheering when an actual line from the book remained intact. And let's face it, while all Austen's lines are memorable, Mansfield Park has a large share of them. So why weren't more used? Also why was Fanny in the play? There is NO way she would have been in the play. IF you have to change things to make it work in the time and format allotted why can't you at least keep the little details intact, like the theatre curtains being green not red? Because the more little things you change the more acceptable you think it to change the words of one of the greatest authors who ever lived.    

I'm not naive, I know that a lot of the culling, a lot of the diminishment of character is for the speed of the storytelling because even as a lover of Mansfield Park I can say that it's languid pace is almost stultifying, therefore it makes a good read to calm down before bed. But the downside to this dovetailing is that there is a diminishment of character in an attempt to make them better suited to the allotted time. In particular with regard to Edmund. Blake Ritson's lines have been almost completely excised because no one wants a preachy hero and Edmund really is full of himself. This means that all Blake is left with is languid gazes and pained expressions with a really horrid haircut. Mansfield Park is the first thing I remember seeing Blake in and I instantly formed an entirely erroneous opinion of him as an actor. I basically had him down as a pretty boy with no acting chops. This is so far from the truth that I urge you to seek out his other work to see his range. He's just so amazingly talented and here he's just wasted. I think he excels in bad boy roles personally, but if you're interested in sticking with Austen adaptations watch his Mr. Elton in the 2009 adaptation of Emma, which almost makes you completely forget the genius of Alan Cumming in the 1996 version. Dueling Mr. Es! My personal favorite though is his portrayal of the Duke of Kent in the reboot of Upstairs Downstairs, even if the conflicted baddie Riario in Da Vinci's Demons is melodramatic fun at it's most camp. But Blake isn't alone in this category of wonderful actors underutilized, this could be said for much of this perfectly cast adaptation. This also shows that a perfect cast can not cure defects in directing and adapting. 

But oddly enough the thing that annoyed me the most was Mr. Rushworth. If you don't know I kind of hate Rory Kinnear. This is a problematic hatred because he's literally in everything. Every once in awhile he surprises me into liking him, Penny Dreadful, The Imitation Game were good roles for him, but then along comes Women in Love and Vexed and I hate him all over again. So you'd think my hatred of Rory Kinnear would be why I was annoyed with Mr. Rushworth, yet oddly it's not. What annoys me about Mr. Rushworth is the changing of his timeline with the family. Because the changing of the timeline would have inevitably changed the outcome of events. It's freaking butterfly chaos theory time people and this wasn't taken into consideration at all in this adaptation. In the book Mrs. Norris makes the connection between Mr. Rushworth and Maria while Sir Thomas is in Antigua. It's a feather in her hat and all that. Here when Sir Thomas announces he must leave for Antigua Mr. Rushworth is already of the family party and is instructed to hold the wedding til his return from his amazingly fast and I think actually geographically impossible trip to Antigua in the time allotted. Um no. That's about it. No. Let's look at the reasons for all this "no" coming from me. The whole point of Rushworth is to show the detrimental interference of Mrs. Norris but also to show Sir Thomas's lack of fatherly concern because he quickly realized the defects in Rushworth and KNEW it wasn't going to work for Maria and even implored her to change her mind if she so wanted. But if Sir Thomas had been there since the couple did get coupled he would have stopped it before it had ever started. Then Maria would have met Henry Crawford in time and they could have gotten married and then that would have been the end of that. People sometimes just don't think that what might be one little change for expediency actual has ramifications that destroy the plot going forward. I think Austen knew what she was doing and should never be second guessed.    

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alan Cumming, Andrew Davies, Bicentenary Ball, Billie Piper, Blake Ritson, Elizabeth Bennet, Emma, Fanny Price, Frances O'Connor, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Penny Dreadful, Rory Kinnear, Upstairs Downstairs

Penny Dreadful by Krysty Wilson-Cairns and Andrew Hindraker
Published by: Titan Comics
Publication Date: December 27th, 2016
Format: Paperback, 128 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The hit Showtime TV series is presented in comics for the first time! Featuring Vanessa Ives (Eva Green), Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton) and Sembene (Danny Sapani) the story recounts the events that led up to the explosive first season of the show.

This prequel reveals the terrifying events that led Vanessa to try and find her missing childhood firend, Mina Harker, and exposes the true nature of the vampiric monsters infesting Victorian London. Beautifully realized by Louie De Martinis, and written by the show scriptwriters, this collected edition takes the reader on a heart-stopping journey into the supernatural realm."

Yeah, I might read this. But probably while still seething that the show is over. Seriously Vanessa Ives isn't the be all end all of this show! MORE! I WANT MORE!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Comics, Dracula, Eva Green, London, Mina Harker, Penny Dreadful, Sembene, Sir Malcolm Murray, Timothy Dalton, Tuesday Tomorrow, Vanessa Ives, Victorian

Lucien just might be the easiest character I have ever dream cast from Lauren Willig's oeuvre. The second I heard of this supposed prince of darkness I instantly thought of Reeve Carney who plays the mysterious Dorian Gray on the always fabulous Penny Dreadful. In fact, I'd say Dorian and Lucien might have quite a bit in common, except for the fact that one is evil and the other... well, you'll have to read The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla to know for sure.

Name: Reeve Carney

"Dream" Character Casting for the Lauren Willig Miniseries: Lucien, Duke of Belliston

First Impression: Penny Dreadful all the way. This show is so stylish and is such an interesting combination of literary characters in the demimonde. How could I not love it? Plus, Reeve brings something sexy and enigmatic to the character of Dorian Gray, something that is really lacking from Oscar Wilde's book. Yes, I said it. Dorian Gray as a book isn't very good.

Why they'd be the perfect actor for the Lauren Willig Miniseries: Firstly, just look at him! He's got the overly long hair, the mysterious air, and a smile just quirking the corner of his mouth as if he's trying to hold back from laughing at whatever Sally has just said. Also, at least in Penny Dreadful, he has an interest in botany, much like Lucien's mother. But more importantly, he feels a combination of British and other, probably because he is American, or immortal, and therefore I think an ideal candidate for Lucien; he can't be too British after spending so much time down in New Orleans! Also, the accent is totally working in his favor!

Lasting Impression: Penny Dreadful. Seriously folks, one and done for this actor. Rarely does an actor so capture me the first time I've seen him, but everyone on Penny Dreadful, including those actors, like Reeve, who I'd never seen before, were truly memorable. In other words, WATCH PENNY DREADFUL PEOPLE!

What else you've seen them in: Reeve has been more into music than acting, see the Taylor Swift "I Knew You Were Trouble" music video. Yes, I just said Taylor Swift. But he has had an interestingly varied career from a young turn on Dave's World, you all remember that show based on Dave Barry's life right, to being in Julie Taymor's The Tempest, which I was way too cowardly to watch after the memorable impression that her version of Titus made on me.

Can't believe it's them: And speaking of things that I can't believe and Julie Taymor, Reeve was the star of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark! Seriously, I will never be able to get this hilarious information into a proper place in my brain where it makes sense. He was in the most lampooned Broadway show like ever! And he was the star! Oh, I wonder how many limbs he broke...

Wish they hadn't: Seriously, I'm not getting off this Spider-Man thing ANYTIME SOON! Though it looks like he didn't break any limbs. Still, can't stop laughing.

Bio: Reeve was born in New York and from the beginning performing was in his blood seeing as his great uncle was the wonderful actor Art Carney. His family moved to California where he attended the Academy of Music at Alexander Hamilton High School where he met his future band mates. In fact by the age of fifteen he was playing guitar professionally at B.B. King's night club in L.A. Though he continued his education majoring in college in studio jazz guitar, not forsaking study for fame. His first band opened for such groups as Arcade Fire and U2. While still doing music it's his acting chops on Penny Dreadful that are really getting him noticed. Mmm, Penny Dreadful.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Broadway, Dorian Gray, Dream Casting, Julie Taymor, Lauren Willig, Lucien, Oscar Wilde, Penny Dreadful, Reeve Carney, Spiderman, Taylor Swift, The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla, The Picture of Dorian Gray

So, instead of inflicting more of my dream casting on you I thought perhaps you might want to hear a little from the author himself to whom the month of November has been dedicated. So without further ado, I bring you George Mann!

Question: The first memorable book from you childhood often extends its influence throughout your life. What is your favorite book that you re-read a million times from when you were little?

Answer: I was a very lucky child, in that I was read to extensively from an early age. I had the Hobbit, the complete Chronicles of Narania and all sorts, all before the age of 6. So I think I absorbed a lot of that, and it’s all still in here, somewhere.

A formative book for me, though, was The War of the Worlds by HG Wells. That was a real revelation. I’ve always considered it one of the first great science fiction novels, and I adore how the aliens are defeated at the end by the common cold, rather than the Victorians themselves.

Question: You have created your own vigilante superhero with The Ghost. What was your favorite superhero growing up?

Answer:  It’s always been Spider-Man, and, to be honest, is still is. There’s something about the web-crawler that’s always appealed to me. I think it might be because, at heart, he’s just a normal, geeky guy, who saves the day because he has to, and because no one else is going to do it. In many ways he’s similar to the Doctor in that (see below) – he finds himself in these perilous, fantastical situations, and although he’s handy with his fists, it’s usually through intellectual endeavour that he saves the day. At least, in my favourite stories.

Of course, I’ve always been a huge fan of Batman, too. I prefer him in his ‘dark detective’ mode, stalking the streets of Gotham to solve crimes in a way the police aren’t able.

Question: Growing up what was the television show that you most anticipated every week and why?

Answer: I think you know the answer to this one…it was definitely Doctor Who. It was just so different from everything else at the time. Weird, wonderful fantasy that had a huge and lasting impact on my psyche. I loved how the Doctor would just stumble into these amazing, colourful adventures, and always win the day through cleverness, charm, or wit. It was real fuel for the imagination.

Question: Victoriana and sensational supernatural stories are really making a comeback with shows like Ripper Street and Penny Dreadful. Why do you think people are continually drawn to these subjects?

Answer: I think it’s because the Victorian period is now distant enough to seem unknowable and strange (and therefore fertile ground for sensationalising), but at the same time close enough that it still feels half-familiar. I also think there’s something about the fact that the Victorian era feels like the borderlands between the modern world and the past, science vs superstition. There was a clear preoccupation with ‘occult science’ and superstition in that age, and a view that anything was possible, if only we could find the means to achieve it. Science would prove the existence of the spirit world, that sort of thing. So again, it’s great material for a writer to get their teeth into.

Question: You've written 34 books this year, or at least it seems that what with a new book on the shelves every few weeks. Seriously, when do you not write?

Answer: Ha! I’m always writing. At the same time, though, some of that is to do with scheduling and just a coincidence of when the books are published.

I do have trouble stopping, though. Some would say it’s an affliction. I’m not happy unless I’m working on a story of some kind, in one medium or other.

Question: With the future of traditional publishing avenues in limbo many writers are turning to self-publishing. What do you make of this trend, the advantages and the pitfalls, and how will it affect traditional publishing?

Answer: Well, first and foremost I’m a big believer in the adage ‘everyone needs an editor’. I think that editor can take many different forms, but you need someone who can cast an impartial eye over your work, who knows story and structure, and who will be honest with you about the quality of what you’ve written. That’s very important, I think. So I’d never want to dispense with that.

I think digital self-publishing has a place, though. I love the idea of serializing a Newbury and Hobbes story at some point, for example, over a number of parts, like an old story paper. And clearly people are making a great success of it. Personally, though, I find the interactions I have with my publishers very, very helpful. And it helps to have a team of salespeople and publicists working on your books – if I had to do that stuff myself it would never happen, and I wouldn’t sell any books!

Really, for me, it comes down to the fact that I’d rather be writing new stories than worrying about formatting an ebook, promoting and selling it, etc etc. But I know it’s a great tool for other people, and I’d never rule it out.

Question: When you started writing the Newbury and Hobbes series did you intentionally write them as Steampunk or did you just write what you felt and it fit perfectly in the Steampunk Genre?

Answer: I’m not even sure they are steampunk! (Shock! Horror!). I definitely didn’t set out to write in any genre. In fact, The Affinity Bridge was quite the opposite. I’d spent years trying to write a big, sprawling space opera, because I thought that was the genre I should have been writing in, and it was so depressing. I just wasn’t getting anywhere with it. I wrote The Affinity Bridge for me, and just threw in everything I was interested in or loved. They’re Victorian fantasias, really, rather than steampunk. There’s not very much punk about them. They were the aesthetics of steampunk, sometimes, but they’re at least as concerned with the supernatural.

Question: With your books being interconnected we have had glimpses of the future of many of your beloved characters. As for the Newbury and Hobbes Series specifically, do you have an end in sight or is your plan to just keep writing? And when will we see The Revenant Express?

Answer: I tend to work in story arcs, rather than planning to the end of the series. So the first big N and H story arc will end in book 6, but I have no intention of retiring them. They may have a little break, but I have lots more stories to tell, if people want to keep reading them. I might also go back and write some more stories with Newbury and Templeton Black, as I enjoyed writing ‘The Dark Path’ very much.

There’s a whole bunch of N and H stuff happening next year. I’m really excited about it. New stories in three different mediums! The Revenant Express is one of them. The others, I can’t quite reveal yet. But soon!

Question: Many authors don’t think of their characters in terms of actors, but I’ve been having a little fun doing the dream casting for the hopefully one day forthcoming miniseries (fingers crossed) and I was wondering if you’ve ever thought of who could bring your characters to life?

Answer: Ha! Yes, I’ve been watching your casting with interest. I don’t feel I can say too much about casting at the moment, for reasons that will become clear later (and it’s not a TV series, alas – at least not yet), but I will say that I originally had Tom Ward in mind when I first wrote about Newbury.

Question: With the hugely successful Engines of War you are the first writer to tackle The War Doctor. How did it feel to be basically given a Doctor with a blank slate (well, minus that stuff in “The Day of the Doctor”)?

Answer: Oh, it was amazing! A dream come true, in fact. A little daunting, but so exciting, and so inspiring. I still can’t believe what they allowed me to get away with in that book. To this day, I still can’t quite actually believe it happened.

Question: In my opinion it’s unfair to ask people who their favorite Doctor is (how can I ask someone to choose when I can’t choose between Tom Baker and Matt Smith myself), so I’ll give you a twist, who is your favorite Doctor to write for? It can be one you haven’t written for yet.

Answer:  I enjoyed writing for the Eleventh Doctor a lot, but really, it has to be the War Doctor. I had SO MUCH fun with Engines of War. I’ve always wanted to write for the Eighth Doctor too. Hopefully I’ll have the opportunity at some point.

Question: You are now showrunner for Doctor Who, we won’t go into details as to how you secured the job, there may have been a cage match to the death with Moffat and Gatiss, that is unclear, but what are the top three changes you would make?

Answer: That’s a tough question. I really don’t know! Bring in more new writers, perhaps. Introduce a new male companion, maybe someone who isn’t a love interest of one of the leads. Try to persuade the BBC to do additional Easter and Halloween specials. More two-parters. I don’t think there are any silver bullets and I think it must be one of the hardest jobs in TV.

Question: What’s next for George Mann? 

Answer: The Revenant Express! Finally! And a bunch of other exciting N and H projects, as mentioned earlier. A new Ghost novel, Ghosts of Karnak, some more Doctor Who, and maybe some new things that I’m toying with at the moment…

Question: Favorite movie you’ve seen this year?

Answer: Guardians of the Galaxy. Without a doubt.

Question: Point Break or Bad Boys 2?

Answer: Point Break. I’m not sure I’m even aware of Bad Boys 2!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Batman, Doctor Who, George Mann, H.G. Wells, Hot Fuzz, Newbury and Hobbes, Penny Dreadful, Ripper Street, The Affinity Bridge, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Ghost, The Revenant Express, The War Doctor, Tom Ward

Ghosts of War by George Mann
Published by: PYR
Publication Date: January 2011
Format: Paperback, 232 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Gabriel Cross, the erstwhile Ghost, is still in mourning from the loss of his love Celeste. She did what he would have done in her situation, but that doesn't mean his heart is so easily healed. But luckily for Gabriel New York is a city under siege. The newest devilment takes the form of winged creators, half brass, half dark magic. These raptors swoop out of the sky and kidnap people, for what evil purpose no one knows. They aren't just the bane of the police, with over fifty people missing, but Gabriel as well, they are too strong and too fierce for him to kill and too fast for him to follow back to their nest in order to rescue the captives, if they should still be alive. Gabriel's friend on the police force, Donovan, is surprised when his boss pulls him off the raptor case a puts him on the case of a missing British spy at the request of Senator Isambard Banks. Yet the more Donovan looks into things with the help of Gabriel, the more it looks like the two cases aren't so separate as the Senator would like them to appear.

The fact of life is that sometimes life itself gets in the way of a good book. This past week I've been bedeviled, luckily not by raptors, but by deadlines and holiday preparations. A few times perhaps I would have liked a raptor to swoop me away from my work, but only if it was to a cosy bed and not where the Ghost finds their victims... but alas, I don't think they'd play ball. Therefore a lot of the peril and immediacy of the book was lost due to the sad fact of setting it down. Sometimes when this happens I picture the characters in the book standing around and looking bored waiting for the story to begin again, like actors waiting for the director to shout action. Silly though this thought is it does show how attached I become to my stories. But enough about me, I'm sure that's not why you're reading this.

Ghosts of War was a solid second outing in George's Ghost series, though it might have veered a little towards a certain trope that every penny dreadful and every horror story has utilized, the big bad that everyone though vanquished returning. Yes, yes, I get that this is more a tradition of the genre then anything else, and I will admit that George gave enough of a spin on a certain evil creature's return that it didn't overly annoy me, it's just that at a certain point credulity sometimes gets strained. The villain, who definitely was totally dead, I mean 100% totally for sure dead magically goes, "but wait," can really become a really tiresome trend.

Yes, their are villains we grow to love, but lets look at Doctor Who as an example. Am I the only one who thinks that the Daleks and the Cybermen should be put on hiatus for AT LEAST five years? No! Because new is more unique then old told in a different way. Though George tells the old in a new and different way, so I will allow it this once because yes, it did work, but I don't want to see these Cephalopod-esque aliens for quite awhile now, thank you.

But what I felt was the flaw in the book was oddly it's creepy reflection of reality. A group of wealthy men and politicians war mongering. Where there is war or the possibility of war, no matter how disgusting it is to us, no matter how unpalatable, there are people looking to either make money or secure power. Even if their means are supernatural verging on the extraterrestrial, well, their motives are sadly all too common. Everyday in the news their is something like this. Or at least I feel that way. Politician's are more and more looking out for their own interests and their own pocketbooks than doing the altruistic job of helping their fellow man. I read, for the most part, to escape the real work, the news that could easily bring on a panic attack. To have the news seeping into my story... well, yes, it's realistic and shows that humans haven't changed, but it kind of puts a damper on my escapism.

That doesn't mean that I am any less enamoured of the Ghost. In fact I have kind of gotten maybe a little overly attached to him and one thing in particular is making me worried about him. What is that one thing? It's the breaking down of his identities. I don't mean breaking down as in having a break down, but as in Gabriel and the Ghost merging, coming together and accepting that they are both needed in order to become who Gabriel once was, before the war shattered him; and before he created careful facades in order to survive. I am liking that he's coming to terms with himself, growing and becoming more functional...

But at the same time I'm worried. With this acceptance of who he really is, this inclusion of both halves I'm worried that he might be in danger. By being seen with Donovan as Gabriel and not the Ghost, might people start to wonder? Is his safety at risk? His old flame Ginny shows up out of the blue and within minutes he's all, I'm the Ghost! There's a reason superheroes have secret identities. The secret is their for protection. Sure the secret might weigh on you and cause psychological issues, but wouldn't you rather be safe then sane? I guess I'll have to wait for more of his adventures to find out!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Big Bad, Cybermen, Daleks, Doctor Who, George Mann, Ghosts of War, Mann Month, New York, Penny Dreadful, Politicians, Raptors, Secret Identity, Spies, The Ghost

The Osiris Ritual by George Mann
Published by: Tor
Publication Date: August 3rd, 2010
Format: Hardcover, 319 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Newbury and Hobbes are not working in tandem. Sir Maurice is off on assignment for the Queen looking into the "return" of another agent, William Ashford, who may have gone rogue and who may be involved in a high profile killing of the Egyptologist Lord Winthrop, whose discovery and then death are front page news as written by Newbury's new protege, George Purefoy. Veronica meanwhile is concerned about a spate of disappearances of young women, all who visited a magician, The Mysterious Alfonso, and participated in his stage show. They are both so wrapped up in their own cases that they don't realize the danger they are putting themselves in by working separately. Soon Veronica is trapped and in danger deep under a theatre, while Sir Maurice is racing across rooftops, not even sure if he's chasing the right man. They need each other to put things right before it's too late, or before the Queen gets tetchy.

I have an inkling that while I had heard of George Mann and The Affinity Bridge it wasn't until I heard about the second book in the series, The Osiris Ritual, that I really sat up and took notice. I am more then a bit of an addict for anything Egyptian. Like my love of Victoriana, it's the darker side of Egyptology that I am drawn to. The plagues and curses brought down for desecrating the dead, hold me back. When you crave bedtime stories about King Tut's Curse and Lord Carnarvon's dog howling and dropping dead at the same moment his master died, well, it's not that much of a surprise that that person grows up to dwell on stories of mummies and devours the entire oeuvre of Elizabeth Peters.

I still occasionally have nightmares that the Rame Tep from The Young Sherlock Holmes might come for me. But this nightmare is tinged with a deliciousness, because sometimes it's a good thing to be scared by something you can't explain. Though of course I like my Egyptian thrills from a nice comfy armchair versus up close and personal, the time my parents took me to the King Tut exhibit and I spent the entire time crying in a stairwell at The Field Museum in Chicago because by father and brother had convinced me that the mummy would curse me is a case study in why books are best. Armchair traveler for life, stamp my passport please!

Therefore the opening of The Osiris Ritual is a dream come true. I got to sit in my comfy chair wrapped snugly against the cold and read about a mummy unwrapping ceremony. The erstwhile and eager reporter George Purefoy was my entre into this world, we stood in awe together, and who wouldn't want to be brought under the wing of Sir Maurice Newbury and listen to his insights? The lush opulence of Lord Winthrop's house with all his artifacts, the ton gathering around as the mysterious sarcophagus was placed on the table, sigh. If I could just sink into a book and live in the moment, I would have chosen this one.

At TeslaCon, where I met George a few years back now, there was a staged mummy unwrapping, and while it lacked the intimacy of a true unwrapping, I was surprised that it was able to still contain that frisson of excitement. Though at the unwrapping we attended there was no chance of a curse, or at least I assume so. Here reading the book, I was just holding my breath till the "curse" took effect, and to my heart's delight I didn't have long to wait. Like all good storytelling while we are given an answer to the "curse" the book was able to suspend our disbelief and make us believe in the magic of "what if?"

Though in other parts the magic faltered a little. This would be the magical pairing of Sir Maurice and Veronica. The problem here was that they were separated for most of the book. Yes, I do understand that the main reason for this was that they were pursuing different cases and that it narratively worked for them to be separated so that they were ignorant that their cases were linked and therefore drew out the suspense for us readers. But it just somehow didn't click. Newbury couldn't exactly hook arms with George Purefoy and go walking down the street to face the next foe, it wouldn't be the same.

Yes The Avengers occasionally went off and did their own thing, Emma taking one lead, Steed another, but it's never the same with them apart, and that's how it is here. I also realize that the growing attraction between the leads has to be drawn out in some way, you can't have them get together too early and then have them lose their chemistry and destroy the series a la Moonlighting. But just using the simple expedient of keeping them apart seems a bit too contrived. There are many more reasons for them to not get together, and it looks like in future this will work far better for George's storytelling then this move did.

Though this separation was just a niggling problem in a book with a lot going right for it. What I loved most, which was oddly not Egyptian, was the hunt for the two former agents for the Crown, William Ashford and Newbury's predecessor, Knox. Not only was George able to portray the depth of these characters, making the villains have just as much going for them as the hero and heroine, but the relationship between Ashford and Knox reminded me powerfully of another famous book that has influenced the Steampunk genre. I'm talking about Frankenstein.

The monster that Ashford has become is very much created as a result of Knox's actions. Therefore the two have this creature/creator relationship that mirrors Shelley's work in many interesting ways, most of which I can't say without screaming "spoilers" beforehand. Needless to say there are just so many layers and connections to itself and other great stories that this is a penny dreadful to be savoured and returned to again and again just to see what you missed last time.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Chicago, Egypt, Frankenstein, George Mann, King Tut, Mary Shelley, Newbury and Hobbes, Penny Dreadful, Queen Victoria, Teslacon, The Affinity Bridge, The Avengers, The Osiris Ritual, The Young Sherlock Holmes