This is one of the shortlisted entries for Best Graphic Story in this year's Hugo awards, and the only one supplied free to the voters. Frankly, it's pretty poor. A crew of badly drawn and poorly characterised space mercenaries try to get a profit out of capturing an old enemy, who is variously alive or dead as the plot progresses. There are some ( Read more... )

Well, I thought that was tremendous; a dark meditation on the effects of Batman's existence on his environment. The special effects are great, the direction and camera work are superb, but what carries the film is the acting, and the central commanding performance is Heath Ledger's Joker, magnetic, horrible, fascinating, makes what could have been ( Read more... )

Well, another Hugo-nominated film based on a comic that I had barely heard of. I found the politics stupid to the point of being offensive: I don't think anyone with the slightest notion about Afghanistan could find either the kidnapping plot or the Iron-Man-rescues-the-villagers scene anything other than crude and simplistic. (And bloke who's ( Read more... )

Working through the Hugo nominees is exposing me to a lot more parts of the sf world: it is a surprisingly good educational experience. I was vaguely aware of the Hellboy comics but had no idea that there had been a film version, let alone two ( Read more... )

My back has seized up, and I have been ordered to bed for the rest of the week, which was alarming at what would have been a busy time at work. But there you go. The upside is that I have been able to do some more due diligence re the Hugos, by watching the three non-Who nominees in the Best Dramatic Presentation: Short Form category. NB that these ( Read more... )

This is the second of last year's Who stories to make the Hugo shortlist (the other being Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead). I wasn't overwhelmed with it myself on first watching, but liked it a bit more this time. (I still think Midnight was the best story of the season.)

( What I liked )

Last year I wrote up the first half of Series Four of New Who, but never got around to doing the rest. We've been re-watching them over the last few days, and now have reached the first of the two Hugo nominees, the other being Turn Left.

( Hugos )

This is a compilation of Scalzi's writing from his blog, essentially a set of rants and thought pieces on various subjects. I only became aware of his blog when I featured on it myself, but his writing is entertaining (more than his fiction, for my taste). Some of his pieces are very memorable - my favourites were his funny pieces on Scooby Doo and ( Read more... )

In Rhetorics of Fantasy, Farah Mendlesohn identifies four different ways in which fantasy writers engage with their book (and their readers). First is the portal / quest fantasy, where the hero leaves his or her normality to enter a fantasy world on a heroic journey. Second, the immersive fantasy, which is entirely set within an imagined world. ( Read more... )

This being the quickest category to read, there are already a number of summaries of the entire ballot out there - Matt Hilliard, Ian Sales, Abigail Nussbaum, Steven Klotz, Rich Horton and Coderyder. There is considerable consensus about which is the best story on the list; there is universal consensus about the worst. My preferences, in reverse ( Read more... )