The Lives of Tao - Book Review

The Lives of Tao
by Wesley Chu

When out-of-shape IT technician Roen woke up and started hearing voices in his head, he naturally assumed he was losing it.

He wasn’t.

He now has a passenger in his brain – an ancient alien life-form called Tao, whose race crash-landed on Earth before the first fish crawled out of the oceans. Now split into two opposing factions – the peace-loving, but under-represented Prophus, and the savage, powerful Genjix – the aliens have been in a state of civil war for centuries. Both sides are searching for a way off-planet, and the Genjix will sacrifice the entire human race, if that’s what it takes.

Meanwhile, Roen is having to train to be the ultimate secret agent. Like that’s going to end up well… (Synopsis from Goodreads)

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This was one of the Fantasy Faction science fiction book club picks, and I’m glad it was chosen. I enjoyed it, and it seemed to go down well with the book club too.

Tao is an alien life form that needs to live inside a human host to survive. Its species is trying to use humans to help return them to their planet, but there are two factions that violently disagree on their methods in doing so. The aliens usually merge with humans who have military/secret-agent training and are aware of the aliens and their secret war, but circumstances force Tao to choose Roen as a host instead. Roen is an out-of-shape IT technician and a very unlikely secret agent. Tao has a lot of work to do to get him ready for his new life.

This is a really fun book. In many ways it reminded me of the TV series Chuck, but with aliens instead of the Intersect. There are some fantastic action scenes and the book is generally fast-paced, and though the plot is predictable at points, it does exactly what you want it to. There are plenty of funny moments, an easily likeable main character, and even a training montage that worked very well! Sometimes protagonists gain skills too quickly or easily in fiction; here, you can really see and feel how hard Roen has had to work for it.

What makes this book work so well is the interaction between Tao and Roen. Both characters are written so well that each maintains a distinct personality, even though Roen is effectively talking to himself inside his own head. Their conversations provide great background and comic relief, and I enjoyed finding out more about Tao’s past hosts, and about his regrets. Tao seems to care a great deal about each one of his hosts, even the ones who defied him, feeling personally responsible for all failures. He’s an astute and interesting observer of Roen’s life, helping him to see that he needs to stop dreaming and actually change things. Tao genuinely changes Roen’s life for the better, and becomes the best friend that Roen could ask for.

I think that last point is important because there is also a slightly creepy element to Tao and Roen’s relationship. Tao entered Roen’s body and mind without permission. He is using Roen, and there is no way to get around that fact. Tao needs Roen to train and to join in his cause, and at first it doesn’t seem like he’s giving Roen much choice. He sees everything Roen does and has access to his thoughts, and Roen will now never have a private moment again. He can even control Roen’s body while he sleeps. There were times when I thought Tao was not taking this into account enough and was a bit pushy with Roen. But, this is really the difference between the good guys and the bad guys here. Tao really does care about Roen, and Roen really does benefit from having Tao with him. Tao might be using Roen, but he gives back and lets Roen use him too.

Having said that, not all the good guys seem to act this way. The Prophus claim to be better than the Genjix, but both sides seem to value their alien lives over their human ones, and while the Genjix encourage an almost religious awe, this isn’t exactly discouraged amongst the good guys. Even Tao sometimes reveals this attitude a little – the Genjix can kill as many humans as they like, but the conflict does not become truly horrifying to him until the aliens themselves begin dying. I thought these issues of agency and the value of human life were explored well, particularly in one scene involving a hospitalised host, and it added a nice thoughtful note to an otherwise action-focussed plot. This is a fun book, but also one with plenty of interesting things to discuss!

There were some bits that disappointed me a little. I really loved the character of Sonja and wished that she could have featured more than she did, and I would also have liked to learn just a little more about one of Tao’s previous lives (his big regret). I also wasn’t entirely sure about certain aspects of the ending, in particular the ‘save the princesses’ element, though I did like that this was referenced as exactly that. Having said that, the ending was dramatic and moving, and I’m definitely looking forward to finding out what happens next.

The Lives of Tao is an entertaining, action-packed book, with some interesting questions beneath the surface, as well as great characters and humour.

Glitter and Mayhem - Book Review

Glitter and Mayhem
Edited by John Klima, Lynne M. Thomas, and Michael Damian Thomas

Welcome to Glitter & Mayhem, the most glamorous party in the multiverse.

Step behind the velvet rope of these fabulous Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror tales of roller rinks, nightclubs, glam aliens, party monsters, drugs, sex, glitter, and debauchery.

Dance through nightclubs, roller derby with cryptids and aliens, be seduced by otherworldly creatures, and ingest cocktails that will alter your existence forever. Your hosts are the Hugo Award-winning editors John Klima (Electric Velocipede) and Lynne M. Thomas (Apex Magazine), and the Hugo-nominated editor Michael Damian Thomas (Apex Magazine). (Synopsis from Goodreads)

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Glitter and Mayhem is a short story anthology with the theme of glamour, parties, nightclubs, drugs, sex and rollerskating, all with a science fiction or fantasy element. The stories are all odd, some more so than others, and there’s a wonderful mix of fun, tongue-in-cheek, scary, thoughtful and sad. An anthology with this kind of theme could have suffered from stories that are all too similar in style and feel, but here this is not the case at all; the editors have managed to collect a really interesting mix.

This collection is a huge amount of fun, but it’s also refreshingly diverse in the characters, lifestyles, relationships and sex it explores. The most obvious theme of the anthology might be glamour and parties, but I think its strongest themes are acceptance, identity, and loving yourself for who you are.

As always with anthologies, there were some stories that didn’t grab me as much as others, but overall it’s a really strong collection. There are funny stories and straightforward stories and some with very clever twists. There are fairytale themes, aliens, the supernatural, the fae, and plenty of rollerskating!

Some of my favourite stories were:

Sooner Than Gold, by Cory Skerry, in which a door could lead to anywhere, but you might not like what’s on the other side.

Subterraneans, by William Shunn and Laura Chavoen, an interesting take on body-swapping.

Such & Such Said to So & So, by Maria Dahvana Headley, which plays with language in a clever little story about drinking and addiction.

Bess, the Landlord’s Daughter, Goes for Drinks with the Green Girl, by Sofia Samatar, a very weird and well-written story.

Blood and Sequins, by Diana Rowland, an unconventional approach to the cops-take-out-the-bad-guys story.

Inside Hides the Monster, by Damien Walters Grintalis, which explores how a siren might have difficulty adapting to modern music tastes.

Bad Dream Girl, by Seanan McGuire, a really fun story about roller derby teams with some unusual members.

A Hollow Play, by Amal El-Mohtar, which asks what people might be willing to give up for what they love, and how much they really value those things.

A really enjoyable anthology with a good variety of stories and styles!


Thank you to Apex Publications for providing a review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Humans - Book Review

The Humans
by Matt Haig

Amazon (UK) (USA)

The narrator of this tale is no ordinary human—in fact, he’s not human at all. Before he was sent away from the distant planet he calls home, precision and perfection governed his life. He lived in a utopian society where mathematics transformed a people, creating limitless knowledge and immortality.

But all of this is suddenly threatened when an earthly being opens the doorway to the same technology that the alien planet possesses. Cambridge University professor Andrew Martin cracks the Reimann Hypothesis and unknowingly puts himself and his family in grave danger when the narrator is sent to Earth to erase all evidence of the solution and kill anyone who has seen the proof. The only catch: the alien has no idea what he’s up against.

Disgusted by the excess of disease, violence, and family strife he encounters, the narrator struggles to pass undetected long enough to gain access to Andrew’s research. But in picking up the pieces of the professor’s shattered personal life, the narrator sees hope and redemption in the humans’ imperfections and begins to question the very mission that brought him there. (Synopsis from Goodreads)

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There’s a lot to like about this book. It’s well written, clever and funny, and the characters all feel incredibly real. The main character (and narrator) is an alien in the form of a human man, taking the identity of the professor who has solved a critical maths problem, and so must be eliminated along with his family before the other humans can become aware of his breakthrough. At first he is repulsed by everything human, then begins to change and to eventually empathise with them. This journey is subtle yet surprisingly quick, as the narrator is first won over by small things, and then by the incredible depths of human feeling. His observations about human life are often funny, and sometimes quite revealing. The people the alien comes into contact with are part of what makes this book so successful; Andrew’s wife and son (and the family dog), in particular, are wonderful characters.

The aliens themselves are extremely advanced compared to humans, and clearly feel themselves superior. They prize logic above emotion, and yet act a little irrationally when it comes to humans, insisting on extreme measures and worrying constantly about a kind of contamination, that their agent among the humans may become corrupted and begin to sympathise with them. This leads to a lot of tension as the main character does indeed begin to care for the humans. There’s an air of menace running under the surface of the whole book, even in the most mundane scenes such as sitting on a sofa and sharing peanut butter with a dog. There is also an interesting question running through. The aliens believe humans to be monsters, but in their cold methods and intervention, are the aliens any better?

Unfortunately, I did have a few issues with the book. The story and the science fictional elements are almost background to the true theme, which is exploring what it means to be human. There were some elements that were almost forgotten about because they were not useful to the theme, such as the simple matter of how the narrator intends to get his words to the aliens, or why there are not more repercussions after a certain event at the end (being vague on purpose to avoid spoilers). I also found the fact that the original Andrew has been killed to make way for alien-Andrew to be more than a little disturbing, and breezed over a bit too easily to be anywhere near realistic. Andrew may not have been a good person, but he does not deserve to have his entire personality and identity replaced with another version of himself who chooses different paths while posing as him, and who becomes what is clearly shown to be a 'better' version of him. The more you think about it, the more horrific it is, really. I think I would have liked it if this had been touched on a little more.

There were also times where the story became lost entirely in reflection, which was good at points and a little tiresome at others, and the slightly triumphal tone of how special humans are did sometimes become annoying. This may be because the ‘humans are special’ trope is vastly overdone in the kinds of science fiction stories I read and play. On the other hand, there were some genuinely beautiful parts of the novel where we are reminded of what’s really important in life, and to appreciate what we have, and overall the message was a good one.

Choosing an alien point of view to show us a new perspective on what it means to be human is obviously useful, but does also present certain problems. The first is that it has been done many times, and though this book was enjoyable and clever, I didn’t feel that it added anything really new. The second issue is that the alien has come to a very tiny, specific part of the world – the UK – and into a very particular kind of experience – British, male, white, academic, wealthy. This isn’t so much about what it means to be human as what it means to be those things, and when the narrator is constantly telling us about how humans believe or do certain things, this niggled at me a bit. The alien also knows enough about Earth to accuse humans of being cruel in their lack of care for the people on their planet who are starving and suffering, yet does not care about them at all himself or even consider them in his ponderings on what it means to be human. But then, perhaps that’s actually a very astute comment on what it means to be human after all!

The greatest strength of the novel was in the characterisation of Andrew. And by that, I mean both Andrews. There’s the original Andrew, the self-obsessed and arrogant professor who is taking his family for granted and in very real danger of losing it. And then there’s the alien Andrew, who desperately tries to fit in and then, against all his expectations, actually does begin to fit in. We see the original Andrew in the gaps he’s left, and in the ways characters react to the imposter Andrew, and we begin to see a little of the man this Andrew must have been, long ago. This is perhaps the deepest and most honest examination of a character that I have ever seen in fiction.

So, there’s a lot to like about The Humans, and also some elements that I thought let the book down a bit. It’s a reflective story without much action, and on the whole this is a very good thing. The characters are what’s important here, and these are all extremely well written. Thoughtful, clever and funny, I enjoyed the book, and despite a few issues, overall I found its message to be both moving and uplifting.


Thank you to Canongate Books and NetGalley for providing a review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Zenn Scarlett - Book Review

Zenn Scarlett
by Christian Schoon

When you're studying to be exoveterinarian specializing in exotic, alien life forms, school... is a different kind of animal.

Zenn Scarlett is a resourceful, determined 17-year-old girl working hard to make it through her novice year of exovet training. That means she's learning to care for alien creatures that are mostly large, generally dangerous and profoundly fascinating. Zenn’s all-important end-of-term tests at the Ciscan Cloister Exovet Clinic on Mars are coming up, and she's feeling confident of acing the exams. But when a series of inexplicable animal escapes and other disturbing events hit the school, Zenn finds herself being blamed for the problems. As if this isn't enough to deal with, her absent father has abruptly stopped communicating with her; Liam Tucker, a local towner boy, is acting unusually, annoyingly friendly; and, strangest of all: Zenn is worried she's started sharing the thoughts of the creatures around her. Which is impossible, of course. Nonetheless, she can't deny what she's feeling.

Now, with the help of Liam and Hamish, an eight-foot sentient insectoid also training at the clinic, Zenn must learn what's happened to her father, solve the mystery of who, if anyone, is sabotaging the cloister, and determine if she's actually sensing the consciousness of her alien patients... or just losing her mind. All without failing her novice year... (synopsis from Goodreads)

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This is an interesting book to review, as it had many high points but also quite a few small lows for me. Because of this, the review might seem as though it’s leaning towards the negative, but it’s important to establish first that I actually really loved this book. It held my interest all the way through, and despite some problems I found it a fascinating and well-executed idea. I’m definitely looking forward to more books set in this universe.

So, first off, this isn’t really a story so much as a collection of episodes, like one of those TV series that follows around the local country doctor or vet. Which is funny, because this book actually is about a vet. Or rather, about exo-vets, a clinic on Mars that cares for and treats alien animals. I know, what a fantastic concept, right? The book follows Zenn Scarlett, a young exo-vet in training, as she goes through her duties at the cloister (clinic), attempts to pass her tests, and treats all kinds of weird and wonderful creatures. Almost all children want to be a vet at some point when they’re growing up so that they can work with animals, and I can really see this appealing to a younger reader. The characters, story and themes also seemed suited to the younger YA reader. Zenn can be rather naive, and a lot of the moral messages are stated very simply, repeated often, and pushed quite heavily.

This can get a little frustrating at points, as I do in fact agree with the main message, but also felt very sympathetic towards the ‘towners’. After all, the exo-vet cloister is keeping some animals that would kill humans if they were to escape, despite Zenn’s protestations otherwise. In fact, there is an incident that kinda revolves around this very point. Clearly hostility and sabotage are not the answers, but at the same time, the cloister could reach out a little better to the locals, as Otha himself realises later in the book. I felt like there was some subtlety missing from the moral messages and particularly from the reactions of the characters (particularly at the end – would this one incident be enough to overcome so much fear and suspicion?).

The book is mainly made up of episodes involving the treatment or care of different creatures, and in a sense this is quite repetitive. The animals are interesting, but many of them are similar (a lot seem to be giant versions or mixes of Earth animals), and I had hoped for a few really alien aliens. There is a mystery tying the whole thing together – who is trying to sabotage the clinic and why? – and a threat to the cloister in the upcoming council’s vote. This is kept in the background until near the end, and the larger mysteries of the novel – Zenn’s mother, Zenn’s father, the Indra incidents, Zenn’s weird mind communication with animals – are all left for future books to explore. This is a little disappointing, as the greater story doesn’t really kick in until very close to the end, meaning that the pace suddenly picks up and the drama really gets going, and then... it ends.

However, although this sounds like a major flaw, it actually really isn’t. I enjoyed this story a lot, simply following Zenn around and learning about all the animals. This first book could be seen almost entirely as a worldbuilding book, setting the scene for later novels, and yet, the worldbuilding is so good that it doesn’t matter at all. The atmosphere and setting are perfect; Mars really feels like a backroads, almost cowboy-ish world, and the societies and people felt so real. There are hints about what’s happening on Earth, and hints about other worlds and cultures beyond Mars, and a fantastic solution to FTL travel that involves alien animals, which is extremely appropriate to the story. This isn’t just a story about space vets, which is itself an interesting enough idea; it’s clearly a well thought-out universe in which exo-vets are actually completely vital, due to the method of space travel employed. This is really well done.

The characters themselves are largely good too, though Liam is somewhat bland and Zenn can be a little whiny at times and preachy at others. I also think Zenn must have flunked her dice roll when it came to assigning wisdom. High intelligence, low common sense. Most readers will probably see who has been sabotaging the cloister very early on, and then begin to second guess because it’s just so obvious. However, Zenn is mostly a very likeable and sympathetic character, and many of the side-characters, such as the sheriff and Vic, are fantastic. Hamish was my favourite, and I so desperately wish rikkasets were real. I want my own Katie!

Overall, Zenn Scarlett is a very fun and enjoyable book, quite slow moving and episodic, but with enough in it that kept me engaged and interested throughout. I’m looking forward to reading more set in this fantastic universe, especially as it seems as though the plot is about to really pick up steam in the next book.


Thank you to Strange Chemistry and NetGalley for providing a review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Mass Effect 3 Endings Post Extended Cut DLC - What's the Right Choice?

So, following on from my review of the Extended Cut DLC for Mass Effect 3 (read it here), I wanted to discuss the (now four) different endings in a little more detail, taking into account how the Extended Cut has affected them. Warning – this will be a LONG post. When I mentioned all the speculation in my bio, I really wasn’t kidding. 

Obviously, massive spoiler alert! I'm going to talk about the ending to Mass Effect 3 in depth, Extended Cut DLC included, so if you haven't played it yet, get away now while you can!

Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut DLC - Game Review

It’s pretty hard to avoid spoilers while reviewing an extended cut of the ending of a major game, so if you haven’t had a chance to play the Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut DLC yet, be warned that spoilers are going to abound. Bookmark this page and come back when you’ve experienced the new ending ;-)

Mass Effect 3 had one of the most controversial endings ever, certainly in video gaming history. Many (the majority of?) fans disliked it, and the backlash was so strong even Forbes covered it. Reactions ranged from well thought out criticism, to the absurd (but funny), and even some pretty excessive hate.

Embassytown - Book Review

 Embassytown has just won the 2012 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. In his thank you message, China Miéville described the book as a homage to some of the science fiction authors he grew up with and was influenced by, including Ursula le Guin, Robert Silverberg, Gene Wolfe, Octavia Butler, Samuel Delany, Michael Moorcock, Brian Aldiss, and Joanna Russ. This is quite a lot for Embassytown to live up to, but thankfully, it really does. (And I say that as a complete unashamed fangirl of Ursula le Guin, whose review was one of the main reasons I decided to read the book.)

Embassytown, by China Miéville, is a science fiction story about human interaction with an alien race called the Ariekei, whose Language (capitalised here on purpose, as it is in the book) is very different from any human language. The Ariekei, “insect horse coral fan things,” speak with two mouths but one consciousness, and they cannot lie. In fact, they cannot speak in, or seemingly even perceive of, abstractions. This makes communication extremely difficult, sometimes all but impossible. Only specific humans – the Ambassadors – can speak Language, and so all interaction with the Ariekei must go through them. One day, sent by Embassytown’s suspicious mother-planet, a strange and impossible new Ambassador arrives to speak to the gathered Ariekei diplomats. The consequences are unexpected, and devastating.

This is a book about language and its complexities, but also about the disturbing and shattering effects one society can have on another, the clash of two very different cultures, imperialism and power politics, and a colony struggling to find its independence. Finally, it is about the breakdown of the Ariekei culture, the attempts of the humans to prevent this for various reasons of their own, the Ariekei struggle to change their often simplistic worldview in an ever-increasingly complicated world, and the resulting mix of triumph, understanding and lost innocence this brings. However, it seems some readers have fixated a little too much on what the book’s Big Message might be, forgetting that it is also (and first and foremost) a truly fantastic, gripping and emotional story. By the end I had been taken on such a spiralling journey of shifting sympathies that I felt exhausted. But in a good way. The ‘can’t put down, staying up all night to see what happens’ kind of exhausted that only comes with a really compelling read. This is easily the best book I’ve read so far this year.

2 Weeks of Movies -Cowboys and Aliens

Cowboys and Aliens - 5.5/10

(Warning! One fairly big spoiler and some other smaller ones!)

I chose this one hoping for a bit of really stupid fun. I was hoping, to be honest, for exactly what it said on the box – cowboys, and aliens (translation: lots of cheese). What I got was really stupid, that’s for sure, and admittedly most of the time it was quite fun. Yet, I just didn’t feel that it ever reached the potential that such an epic title suggested. It just wasn’t quite fun enough.

The cowboys element was good. I have no gripes about the cowboys. They were tough, brave, lovable rogues, and they included Harrison Ford. There were guns, horses, bandits and ‘Injuns’. There was a gruff but kind preacher, a mysterious wanted man who takes the law into his own hands, the wet son of a rich rancher who was anxious to prove himself, and various other staples of the Wild West. They reacted to the aliens in exactly the right way: ‘what are they, could they be demons, they’re a damn site more powerful than us that’s for sure, but, what the heck... let’s kill ‘em anyway. Posse time!’

It’s a shame the aliens weren’t done so well. In fact, they felt like a bit of an afterthought, which is strange considering they were the other 50% of the concept. Weird, ugly, scrabbly ape like things with big teeth... well, at least it’s nice to see the apetroll from Super 8 getting more work. Their look wasn’t inspiring or frightening, just a bit lazy and boring. They had the technology to zap the entire world into oblivion, but still prefer to run at their attackers, jump on them and claw them to death. This is when they are being attacked with guns, and in fact possess much better guns themselves. And then you have to wonder why they’re mining gold on a scouting mission, and if it is a scouting mission why they aren’t heading straight back to their planet to tell their mates what wusses we all are on Earth, and if it is in fact a mining mission why they haven’t blasted every town for hundreds of miles? Why take prisoners, burn a few houses and leave the rest? Oh right, experiments. Aliens love to experiment for some reason. To find weaknesses, the justification is. You’d think ‘die like insects when shot with giant laser guns’ would be enough of a weakness to make further testing a little redundant.

So the aliens, as is often the case, are stooopid. But clever enough to build spaceships that can presumably travel FTL. And have the war skills to destroy the homeworld of another alien being who can shapeshift, travel to Earth, work out how to manipulate an alien gun into a bomb, and blow up the whole alien spaceship with ease. So if they can obliterate such an advanced alien race, why are they having such trouble with the cowboys? And why in the name of all that is holy aren’t they just shooting them with their superior alien laser guns?

Yep, this is bang your head against the wall kind of stuff. Add to this some fairly lazy storytelling, the odd plot hole, and a baffling plot twist that needlessly only opened up further plot holes, and you can see why the movie isn’t thought very highly of. However, none of this would have been a problem for me if the film had embraced its silliness a little more and just gone for it with the full-on cheese factor. But it didn’t. The parts that were told with a twinkle in the eye were good, but the bits that were trying to be too serious just failed utterly. And while the concept was a great one, the aliens themselves were just too uninteresting and exasperating to make it work. What a shame!

2 Weeks of Movies - Thor

Thor - 6/10

(quite a lot of spoilers!)

Appropriately enough, considering all the Avengers buzz, my next film is Thor. My response and my husband’s were divided on this one. He really didn’t like it; I thought it was fairly enjoyable, though the way the plot unravelled was a little disappointing.

The standard thing to do with superheroes is to start off with their origin story. Makes sense, especially for those with a particularly good origin story, like Spiderman. Unfortunately, the origin story can sometimes turn out to be the most interesting thing about the superhero, so that future outings with him or her fall a bit flat. Like Ironman. Like, well, everyone except the X-Men, really. Some superheroes even have a whole TV series built around their origin (Superman – Smallville, though I’ve actually never watched it). So tackling the origin story of Thor seems like a good move, and in fact, his origin story does happen to be a very good one. However, what we actually got was a bit of a muddle. The first half of the film was Norsey goodness, in Asgard (which looked FANTASTIC by the way), fighting Frost Giants, being blustery and prideful and generally like a good Viking god. Which was apparently bad... BAD Thor for wanting war. The last thing the king of the Viking gods wants is war. What are you thinking Thor? But anyway, this bit of the film was really very good.

Then Thor got cast out to Earth, and it sort of went downhill a bit from there. Which is a shame because this has the potential to be a really compelling story. Thor, aware of who he is but unable to do anything about it, powerless as a normal human, has to somehow find a place for himself in the world. Good stuff. Didn’t quite translate. What we actually got was a little too much Natalie Portman, and Thor making amusing mistakes because of not knowing how to interact socially in our world. Then a pointless bit with the hammer that felt like it was just there to shoe-horn SHIELD in. A surprisingly emotional bit where Loki visits and Thor begs to come home almost saved it, but then it meandered into more pointlessness. Thor was basically without powers for about one day (which is all it took to fall in love with Natalie Portman, despite there not being much chemistry there), and then straight back to Asgard again for the final fight. Earth was essentially meaningless except as a minor plot point. Doesn’t this miss the point a bit? It didn’t really feel like a superhero film; it felt like a fantasy/sci-fi focused on Norse-gods-as-aliens. I think I would have liked it better if it had just embraced this completely.

Apart from the slightly wonky plotting of the second half, I did enjoy the film. I thought the acting was very good, especially Thor and Loki. Costumes, effects and sets were amazing, and I loved the visualisation of Asgard. This could all have been a bit Flash-Gordon cheesy, but it actually wasn’t. The directing was good, the music was good, everything worked except the plot and the pacing. It did suffer a little, however, from the often inevitable too-much-sympathy-for-the-villain syndrome that these kinds of films produce. I liked Loki better than Thor. Sorry. Couldn’t help rooting for him. I wonder if that will be a problem for me in Avengers? I’ll have to wait and see.

So, while I wouldn’t say this was a bad film, I also wouldn’t say it’s one of the best of the superhero bunch. It would really be worth watching for the Asgard scenes alone, but thankfully there are a lot of other things that pull it up too. I do feel that it was really only the plot and pacing that let it down, mainly because of the need to cover an origin story in a couple of hours, which was perhaps better suited to serialisation. Thor’s acceptance-redemption-recovery arc needed to be slower and more believable. The director also clearly struggled with the need to include SHIELD to set up Avengers. That part really just shouldn’t have been there. If a second Thor film does get made, I’ll be interested to see what it has to offer now that his origin has been established. With the right story, I have a feeling it could be amazing.

2 Weeks of Movies - Super 8

Super 8 - 6.5/10

(potential mild spoilers)

Another movie I went into without knowing anything about it, although I gather it was quite hyped up. Thankfully I missed that – I hate hyped up things, they rarely live up to it. So, without the hype, my judgement of this movie is ‘good.’ Not amazing, but by no means bad or even average. Not disappointing, as I had no expectations to begin with. I enjoyed it. But not quite as much as The Losers. So that’s why this is sitting at 6.5 instead of 7. Good, but not quite really good.

On the surface, Super 8 looks like a kind of ‘scarier E.T.’ A group of children are filming an amateur zombie movie at a railway station when a train crashes and something emerges from the wreckage. (The kids are filming on an old Super 8 camera which gives the film its name, but this is not a found-footage movie. As far as I’m concerned that’s a good thing, but there may be some folks out there who are disappointed, thinking this is ‘Cloverfield for Kids’.) The alien then proceeds to terrorise the small town, kidnapping people and taking bits of metal with it in order to rebuild its spaceship. Everyone is afraid of it, the army is hunting it, but the alien just wants to go home.