Book Review - Luther: The Calling by Neil Cross

I'm a huge fan of the BBC crime drama Luther, starring Idris Elba as the eponymous hardbitten London cop, so I was eager to read the prequel novel written by series creator Neil Cross. It reveals the investigation of which John Luther is still feeling the fall-out when the show began, both professionally (via internal affairs) and personally (his wife left him for another man during the case). You don't need to know anything of the show to enjoy the book, though picturing Elba's imposing form will help you get into the character (indeed, Cross reveals in author's notes that the character wasn't complete until Elba was cast). As a novelist, Cross has a gripping, no-nonsense style that propels the plot forwards while still finding time for character moments and black humour. It's everything I'd hoped for... but this review does come with one warning.

Luther is a dark and extremely violent show. Likewise, the book pulls no punches - yet I've always found violence on the page to be far more affecting / disturbing than on the screen. You use your imagination more as a reader... and there are some extremely horrific scenes here. There's also a recurring theme of cruelty to animals which I always find harder to stomach than violence against humans. And when even Luther gets involved, dangling a dog from a balcony while trying to extract information from a its lowlife owner, Cross almost lost my sympathy for his hero. Desperate times call for desperate measures, but even anti-heroes need to know where to draw the line...

Top Ten Astronaut Songs

Leftover from my collection of Spacemen and Spacewomen Songs, I realised I had enough tracks to make an Astronauts' Top Ten too. And I think it's gonna be a long, long list...



(Sadly no Sleeper in this list, but their debut album cover seemed appropriate.)

10. Clint Boon Experience - Andy Gill Astronaut / Tiger Woods Astronaut

I couldn't find either of the above tracks from Clint Boon's seminal 1999 album The Compact Guide to Pop Music & Space Travel anywhere on youtube, but I did find this, an alternate version with Phillip Glass as its inspiration.

9. Cloud Atlas - Even Astronauts

A Welsh band named after David Mitchell's insanely enjoyable novel (soon to be desecrated at a cinema near you with Tom Hanks... presumably he'll play one of the clouds... or an atlas... or a plank). Cloud Atlas have a chunky indie guitar sound and interesting lyrics. Sadly, it looks like they gave up the fight a couple of years back. Unless you know differently... (I've stopped saying bands have split up because someone always ends up telling me they recently got back together.)

8. Guns 'n' Roses - Rocket Queen

A song about a girl Axl knew who was going to call her band Rocket Queen (and therefore nothing to do with actual astronauts), this sneaks into the Top Ten by being from the very best GNR album and rocking like a chair.

7. Suede - Astrogirl

Because it's high time we had some Brett Anderson in one of these top tens. Even a track from the least popular Suede album is better than nothing.

6. Amanda Palmer - Astronaut

This, on the other hand, is one of many stand out tracks from the very best Amanda Palmer album (thus far - there's a new one promised later this year from the prolific Mrs. Gaiman), Who Killed Amanda Palmer. Also, if you're looking for a rhyme with 'astronaut', 'after-thought' takes some beating...

5. Frigid Vinegar - Dogmonaut 2000 (Is There Anyone Out There?)

A lost classic from the 90s about a YTS Jedi who steals the wheels off abandoned spaceships. You can't make it up.

4. The National - Looking For Astronauts

The National are a great example of a band whose lyrics sound like they mean a lot more than they actually do. That's not a bad thing. Not always, anyway.

3. Riff Raff - I Wanna Be A Cosmonaut

Before he was Billy Bragg, he was just one half of Riff Raff (with Wiggy). They made a delightful punk noise... but his best tunes lay ahead of him.

2. The Divine Comedy - Laika's Theme / Absent Friends

Laika, if you're scratching your head, was a pioneering astronaut: the first dog to successfully orbit the earth. Sadly, she died up there, but Neil Hannon paid eulogy to her twice on the album Absent Friends, firstly on the instrumental theme named after her, and secondly in the title track...

Laika flew through inky blue
'Til Laika neared the atmosphere
And Laika knew
Laika's life was through.
Here's to absent friends...

1. Elton John - Rocket Man

I'm surprised nobody's asked me about the absence of this track from previous lists - it could easily have fit the Spacemen, Countdown, Spaceship or Mars Top Tens ("Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids," after all). I've been saving it up, because whatever you might think of Elton's crimes against sanity in recent times... there's no denying this is a stone cold John/Taupin classic.

"I'm not the man they think I am at home..."

Indeed.



Those were my favourite astronaut songs... but which one gets you high as a kite?

Comic Review: The Rainbow Orchid Volume 3

And so we finally reach the end of the road, the finale of Garen Ewing's epic Rainbow Orchid trilogy, a book I've been both breathlessly anticipating... and quietly dreading. Could this really be the last we see of Julius Chancer and co?

For anyone as yet unacquainted with Garen's masterpiece, The Rainbow Orchid follows Chancer's quest to seek out the legendary flower of the title so his employer can win a wager with the nefarious Urkaz Grope, a truly hissable villain we're all hoping will finally get his come-uppance in this final chapter (you may be surprised!). As always, it's a witty, action-packed mix of Tin Tin and Indiana Jones that looks like no other comic out there... truly, the level of detail Garen puts into his artwork is staggering: you could easily stare at any of his panels for a week and never get bored... if only you weren't wanting to race through the book to find out what happens next. Definitely a comic to read more than once, then - the first time for the excitement of the story, the second to wallow in the beauty of the artwork.

The three volumes of The Rainbow Orchid are available from all good booksellers, and you can read a huge preview - and go behind the scenes for a wealth of extra fun - at Garen's website. Get over there and find out why this book was recently named The Observer's Graphic Novel Of The Month!

Top Ten Space Alien Songs

I know, I promised you my Top Ten Astronaut songs this week... but with the release of Prometheus, this one seemed too good an opportunity to miss.

This Top Ten is also dedicated to the late Ray Bradbury, one of my favourite authors. Something Wicked This Way Comes is among the greatest novels ever written.



10. Arctic Monkeys - Space Invaders

A Monkeys rarity. Can't remember where it came from. It's an Unidentified Playing Object.

9. Magnetic Fields - Alien Being

You talk a lot about nothing at all
Watch TV shows about nothing at all
Think a lot about nothing at all
Listen to songs about nothing at all

You write the laws about nothing at all
Make 3D films about nothing at all
Stage happenings about nothing at all
Sound and light shows about nothing at all

You complain about nothing at all
Go insane about nothing at all

You have no feelings
I think you are an alien being

8. Neil Hannon - Aliens

Another rarity: it's not often you hear Neil Hannon releasing a song under his real name. This was part of an Oxfam charity album called The Cake Sale. It's really quite lovely.

7. Dweeb - Chart Raider Space Invader

Dweeb were a late 90s indie band who sounded quite a lot like Ash and had most success with their excellent single Scooby Doo. This was their debut record... good luck in tracking it down!

6. Soko - I Thought I Was An Alien

Kind of a French Bjork, Soko transfixed me a couple of years back with her superb stalker anthem I'll Kill Her. Apparently she hates it now she's grown up a bit. Because I haven't grown up, I still love it. I Thought I Was An Alien is the title track of her latest album.

5. Dan Bern - Talkin' Alien Abduction Blues

In which Dan Bern gets abducted by aliens who strap him down, stick a probe up his nose... and start critiquing his songwriting.

Then they waved this wand around my head
Said, "Now we're reading your thoughts, you see
You got an awful lot of songs in there
Though it seems they're all in the key of G"

I said "What about Marilyn? That's in D"
They said "D flat, actually"
I said, "Yeah, because I tune it down a half step
What about Hannibal?"
They said "What about Hannibal?"
I said "Well, technically, it's in G
But it's really a dropped D tuning capo'd up"

They said "How come you don't play the harmonica more?"
I said "How come I'm in a space ship
Talking to aliens about my act?"
They said, "We'd rather talk physics
But you're illiterate there"

Couldn't argue.

4. Fountains Of Wayne - I Want An Alien For Christmas

Top of the FOWs Xmas list: a little green guy about three feet high with 17 eyes who knows how to fly. Who wouldn't want one?

3. David Bowie - Starman / Loving The Alien

Can you believe it's 40 years since the release of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars? I could easily have filled a Top Ten just from the Bowie back catalogue, but Starman is undoubtedly his greatest alien moment (and not just because it gave its name to the John Carpenter / Jeff Bridges movie). Loving The Alien can't compete, but it does feature one of crazy Davey's maddest videos.

2. Radiohead - Subterranean Homesick Alien

Like Bowie, Thom Yorke could easily have fallen to earth with a bump. Could this be his most autobiographical song?

I wish that they'd swoop down, in a country lane
Late at night when I'm driving
Take me on board their beautiful ship, show me the world as I'd love to see it
I'd tell all my friends but they'd never believe me
They'd think that I'd finally lost it completely
I'd show them the stars, and the meaning of life
They'd shut me away, but I'd be alright
Alright

1. The Carpenters - Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Crafts (The Recognized Anthem of World Contact Day)

Originally recorded by Klaatu, who score an extra point for naming themselves after the alien hero of The Day The Earth Stood Still... but it's Karen Carpenter's version I consider definitive.



Those were my favourite alien anthems... but which one will you take to your leader?

Movie Review: Prometheus

The lukewarm reviews did Prometheus a favour. They helped puncture the biggest bubble of hype to surround any movie in recent memory. It's been impossible to take a breath over the last few weeks without someone trying to ram Prometheus down your throat. Complete three minute TV ad breaks devoted to one monster trailer. "Special cinema featurettes" interviewing the entire crew, right down to the big stone head's cleaning lady. You couldn't go out in the street without being accosted by Ridley Scott, desperate to tell you about his "creation myth" and how "this was much more than just an Alien prequel".

Like many people, I'm wary of too much hype. When Hollywood throws so much money at a film before it opens (and refuses critics access till the very last second), I start to smell turkey. And then, late last week... I started to hear the reviews. Ho-hum three starrers that complained of a poor script, a lack of suspense, anticlimax and 'meh'. One former colleague, possibly the world's biggest Alien fan, whose excitement over this movie has been bubbling over for months, broke down in soppy wet tears on Facebook and blew his brains out with a bicycle pump.

As I said at the top, all this did Prometheus a huge favour. My expectations weren't too high... and so...

I liked it.

Go in expecting another Aliens movie and you'll probably be disappointed. Because that's not what's on offer here: and that's a good thing. Indeed, the closing moneyshot seems almost shoed in to make the obligatory connection to the franchise Scott gave messy birth to back in 1979. This is a film that stands fine on its own, and may even have benefited from not being tied to the movies that went before. It has a fascinating mythology all its own, a great cast (Fassbender steals it once again) and some truly stunning visuals (note: I did not watch this film in 3D, and can only imagine what a mess that pointless "technology" would have made of many of the key moments).

Don't get me wrong, Prometheus is by no means perfect. There are some pretty huge plotholes and the last half hour feels rushed. Guy Pearce, while excellent, seems a strange choice for a role that could just as easily been filled by an older actor minus the liver-spotted war paint. But these are quibbles; I didn't have any major problems with the script, the mystery kept me engrossed, and Noomi Rapace proves a great choice for the lead, more than just a girl with a dragon tattoo... and much more than just a Ripley substitute.

It's all left wide open for a sequel, obviously, yet if they do go down that route they'll need to make damned sure not to revert to type. There are many questions still to be answered here, but the temptation to run back down a dimly lit corridor towards another crowd pleasing humans versus aliens shoot-out must be avoided at all costs.

Book Review: The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson

Reading Jon Ronson's latest book led me to conclude, with some relief and also a whiff of sadness, that I am not a psychopath. If I learnt one thing from his investigation it's that psychopaths don't care what other people think and don't suffer any remorse over the way their actions impact the lives of others. While there's a part of me that always says "I don't give a monkey's", I know deep down that the opinions of others matter greatly... that's why criticism just kills me. And despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that other people spend the majority of their time pissing me off... I also spend far too much of my own time worrying that I might be pissing other people off. Frankly, it can be exhausting. That's where the whiff of sadness comes in... there are times, I think I'd be better off a psychopath. Perhaps we all would.

Putting aside the incarcerated psychopaths whose lack of empathy has led to crimes the police can't ignore, Ronson argues that many more have actually gone on to positions of great power and wealth... exactly because they don't give a monkey's. So he meets a notorious CEO and hatchet man who shows no remorse over the many lives he's affected through ruthless business decisions. Well, why should he? Look to anyone in power and see the bodies they've climbed over to get where they are today, Ronson discovers, and chances are they'll score highly on Canadian psychologist Bob Hare's infamous Psychopath Test which identifies factors such as superficial charm, grandiose sense of self worth, proneness to boredom, callousness and impulsivity as classic traits that make up the average psychopathic personality. That's all you need to be a success... which I guess explains how I got where I am today.

However, Ronson's book offers little to reassure us about the psychiatric profession itself. From the "thud experiments" in which a group of researchers tricked their way into getting committed to various psychiatric hospitals across the US simply by telling doctors they heard a voice saying the word "thud" (my own diagnosis would have been: you read too many comics) to the many dissenting views and extreme research methods shared by mental health professionals over the years, there's a real suggestion that the lunatics are running the asylum wherever you look.

By turns hilarious and horrifying, Ronson's book ultimately left me profoundly depressed. At last I can see where I've been going wrong all these years. Forget the anti-psychotic medication - where do I get me some anti-empathy tablets?

Comic Reviews: Points West / The Whale House

My old pal Andrew Cheverton is spoiling us this month with the release of not one but two outstanding new comics.

First up, Jerusalem West returns in his latest adventure, Points West - another atmospheric shot of mystery and bloodshed in the old west, this one fleshing out a small moment from a previous adventure, adding more to our understanding of the title character, yet working as a stand-alone story too. As usual, it's packed with grim humour, sudden/shock violence and pitch perfect dialogue... and it looks a million dollars, thanks to regular artist Tim Keable, a man born to draw westerns. Once again, I can't recommend it enough.

Next, we have this...



The Whale House is a new book written by Chev and drawn by Chris Doherty of Video Nasties fame (which I'll be reviewing here soon). It's an entirely different ballgame to West, but no less gripping. A mystery begins to unravel when a young man sets out on a voyage of discovery to find the parents he's never met... but winds up taking lodging with the Whales, a creepy family who believe he's someone else entirely. I happen to know that one of Chev's favourite books is Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived In The Castle, and there's shades of that here, although the characters are ploughing their own furrow and there's absolutely no way of knowing where this story is going. I'm looking forward to finding out, particularly as Chev has once again found the perfect collaborator, another artist so good you wonder why he's not working for the big boys. (Then again, I ask myself that question about many artists in the small press... just as I ask how some of the artists who are drawing for Marvel and DC ever got their jobs in the first place. But that's a discussion for another day.)

Points West and The Whale House #1 are both available to buy from the Angry Candy website in both paper and digital versions. So get on with it...