Elizabeth and the Box of Colours by Katherine Woodfine - Book Review

 

'Elisabeth loves to paint, just like her papa. She spends hours making her own pictures of everything she sees - and the more colourful, the better!

'But when she goes away to school, she finds herself in a world of grey: grey buildings, grey uniforms, grey rooms. She misses Papa and all the colours of home. And one winter morning, she gets some terrible news that makes her days darker than ever before. Will Elisabeth be able to find the colour and joy in her life again?

'A touching tale about friendship, family and finding joy in the darkest of times. Inspired by the childhood of French portrait artist Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun.'

The Barrington Stoke line of short reads labelled Little Gems have been really great reads so far. Short, punchy, and filled with gorgeous illustrations, these young reader books have been a delight to read every time; and Elizabeth and the Box of Colours is no exception to this rule.

The story follows the real world figure of Elizaeth Louise Vigée Le Brun in a fictionalised account of her childhood in France in the 1700's. Born to a loving family in a large home in Paris, Elizabeth is exposed to art from a young age thanks to her father, who is himself an artist. He allows the young Elizabeth to play in his studio, using his pencils, his pains, and anything she might wish, to practice her own drawing skills. Straight away it's clear that Elizabeth has a strong connection to art, not just because of her father, but because it's the best way she has to express herself.

One day, her life if forever changed when Elizabeth is sent away to school, far from her family home. This school, run by nuns, sees to be the exact opposite of what Elizabeth needs in order to survive. The buildings, the decor, and even the clothing, is drab and grey and without colour. When Elizabeth has her art supplies taken away from her she's left with no choice but to sneak and steal, practising her art in private, lest it be taken away by the nuns.

Her fellow students discover her artistic skill, and encourage her to make art for them all, helping to keep her hobby a secret. But when Elizabeth is given the terrible news that her father has died, she suddenly feels unable to make any more art. With the colour having gone out of her world, Elizabeth isn't sure how to go on.

Despite being slightly fictionalised, with notes in the back of the book informing readers how the real Elizabeth's story differed from this one, the central story of Elizabeth and the Box of Colours is still really important. You see, the book isn't just teaching young readers about one of France's greatest portrait artists, but is giving them a valuable lesson about always pursuing the things you love. Throughout the story Elizabeth is told that art is a wast of her time, that it isn't allowed, and that she should stop what she's doing. And each and every time Elizabeth refuses.

The book is showing children that sometimes you'll be told that the thing you're passionate about is a waste, that it's frivolous and unimportant, and that sometimes you need to tell those people 'no'. It's a lesson that I think we often forget to give our children, that when they've been told time and time again to always listen to adults, to obey authority, it can sometimes be the better thing to turn your back on those who would try to stop you living your dream, simply because it's something they don't quite understand.

Being a book about art, the nook is filled with wonderful illustrations by Rebecca Cobb. Cobb has a very simple style, one that feels like it could have been illustrated by a young artist, and as such it really fits the story being told here. It feels like Elizabeth could have been the one illustration her own story, and the bright, vibrant colours help the images to leap off the page.

Elizabeth and the Box of Colours is a wonderful short story, one that has a good message inside its pages, and one that I think a lot of children are going to enjoy.

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Resident Evil: Revelations – Throwback 10

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Come 2012, Resident Evil was a franchise that had not only come to be the most successful survival horror series of all time, but was also firmly entrenched as part of the ‘family friendly’ Nintendo brand, thanks to it being the first place that games like the 2002 Resident Evil remake, Resident Evil 0, and Resident Evil 4 debuted. But in 2012 the series made its first real leap onto handheld consoles with the release of Resident Evil: Revelations.

Whilst the series had featured some handheld games in the past, with the completely original Resident Evil Gaiden on the Gameboy Color and a port of Resident Evil on the Nintendo DS, these had been either unsuccessful side games, or just re-releases of past games with a slightly new polish. However, thanks to the new technology of the Nintendo 3DS, Capcom finally felt that the time had come to make a completely original portable entry in the series that would be worth playing.

Recent entries in the series had begun to shift towards a more action approach, with Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 5 both receiving some praise for this; though the lacklustre Resident Evil 6 that would come out later that same year would receive critical panning for its focus on action over horror. Wanting to offer players something different, game director Koushi Nakanishi decided that Resident Evil: Revelations would have a much bigger focus on the horror roots that the series was known for.

To this end the story was crafted to take place on a huge, deserted cruise ship, essentially a floating mansion at sea. The players get put in control of series mainstay Jill Valentine, who has since left the iconic STARS group and joined the BSAA, a global organisation responsible for combating bio-weapons around the world. Having travelled to the Queen Zenobia after her former partner Chris Redfield goes missing, Jill begins to uncover a conspiracy that could see a deadly new virus spread through the oceans of the world unless she’s able to find a way to stop it.

The choice of setting for the game was actually a pretty good one, with the cruise ship feeling both familiar and completely new in many ways. Large sections of the ship felt like you were back in the Spencer Mansion or the Raccoon City Police building, with the fancy hallways and elegant bedrooms that would have been home to guest. But it was also able to incorporate areas that felt more industrial and mechanical without having to explain away secret labs hidden away (though the game does have those too). It was also a nice nod to the very first handheld Resident Evil game, Resident Evil Gaiden, which also took place on a cruise ship.

Alongside the new setting the game also brought a number of new creatures with it too, thanks to the T-Abyss Virus, a new strain of the Progenitor Virus that combined the T-Virus from the series past with a new virus found in deep-sea creatures. The result are monsters that look like horrible under-water creatures. They have fleshy, grey skin, mouths that open up and extend like eels and worms, and can squeeze through pipes and move through water with frightening speed. A lot of the monsters from this game have yet to actually make a return to the series too, making this the only place that players are able to confront some of the more interesting creatures in the series.

The game made good use of the 3DS technology, releasing a game that pushed a lot of the hardware and presented a gaming experience that felt like a console game in many ways. Added into this, the game incorporated the 3D effects of the console to create the first 3D entry in the series. The graphics were praised upon the game’s release, with many finding it to be one of the best looking games on the console, as well as one of the more exciting entries in the franchise in recent years.

Only a few years after its handheld release, where it received huge sales and positive reviews, a HD version of the game was brought out onto Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, where it spent a number of weeks at the top of the chart. Thanks to the added hardware specifications of the consoles, this edition was able to push the game-play and graphics of the game even further, with new game modes and updated graphics added. Though these versions didn’t prove to be as popular as the original 3DS release they still did well for the series, and a further re-release would come to the Nintendo Switch, keeping the game on the latest generation of Nintendo portable consoles.

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Promethee 13:13 Volume One by John Diggle and Christophe Beck - Book Review

 

'What if you knew the world was about to end? What would you be willing to do, to save the people you love?

'Darla Clemenceau has been plagued by apocalyptic visions, ever since she was abducted by a UFO as a child. Now, she's ready to put it all behind her and move on with her life. But what if it's all true? A dangerous cult militia is prepping for the end of the world, and they see Darla as the key to their survival...

'Meanwhile, something alien is awakening on the dark side of the Moon, and the crew of the space shuttle Atlantis have a rendezvous with destiny...'

Promethee 13:13 begins by following alien abductee Darla Clemenceau as she prepares to go on stage at a UFO conference to talk to fellow believers about her experience, as well as the strange visions of a future apocalypse that her abduction left her with. However, whilst the audience are expecting her to tell that that aliens are real, she does the exact opposite, and tells the room full of believers that she was never taken by aliens, that her experience must have been a hallucination, and that she's been taking anti-psychotic medication ever since. The crowd reacts poorly, and Darla passes out from the stress.

Waking up some time later in the back of an ambulance, Darla is expecting to be able to go home, but when the man who invited her to speak at the event kills the two paramedics and takes Darla hostage at gunpoint things go off the rails. The man tells Darla that her experiences were real, and that the visions she has been having are connected to a very real threat that will soon come to pass. 

As Darla is being taken to meet with the man's fellow believers NASA is busy sending up a new space shuttle. The mission is officially heading up to restock the International Space Station, but the astronauts will be secretly deploying a satellite able to detect gravitational disturbances. As the crew prepare to deploy the satellite some unseen force takes hold of the shuttle and drags it across space to the dark side of the moon. Here, the crew are shocked to find a huge, alien structure awaiting them. Their shuttle is taken inside, and the crew begins to ponder what their best course of action is going to be.

Back on Earth, Darla is taken to a secret location where she meets a group who believe that her visions are not only real, but that they're connected to a vast conspiracy that could be leading to the end of the world. She's told that not only was she abducted by aliens, and altered in order to survive seeing them, but that the visions she is having are connected to a series of events where disasters will occur at 13:13 over the next few days, until an apocalypse takes place. With the end of the world looming on the horizon, the group wants Darla to use her visions to help find them a road to safety.

I'd been familiar with the name Andy Diggle for a few years, due in large part to being a fan of DC's Green Arrow, and the television adaptation series Arrow. Outside of his Green Arrow Year One book the only work of his that'd I've read was Judge Dread vs. Aliens, an absolutely brilliant read with some gorgeous artwork; and thanks to how well written and entertaining that book was I felt pretty confident that he'd deliver an engaging and interesting science fiction story. I'd no experience with Christophe Beck's work before this, but just looking at his back catalogue of titles, and the type of stories he's written, I was pretty sure that I was going to like what he does.

I liked how the story wasn't afraid to keep the reader in the dark for a good while, slowly unfolding the story over the course of the hundred pages. It would have been easy to lay a lot of things out early on, to provide the audience with big info dumps from the characters that were in the know, but instead Diggle and Beck teases things out, drip feeding the important information; and this makes for a much more entertaining mystery, as you're never really given any more information than the character on the page who has the least information. This leads to some great moments where we get shocking reveals, or the plot goes in a direction I wasn't expecting.

I also loved how this was a science fiction story where the person who holds the only hope to survival isn't a traditional hero. Darla is a middle-aged, large Black woman. She's not some pretty, young, white person who's able to pick up a weapon and beat the bad guys; she's an average every person, and this works so much better. She doesn't have all the answers, she doesn't have special training. She's unsure of herself. She felt like a very real person in over their heads and it made her so much more relatable because of this. All to often these kinds of stories make their leads into big, bolder than life heroes who are able to perform impossible deeds, and whilst it might be entertaining from a visual sense, it never really feels believable.

The artwork on the book is provided by Shawn Martinbrough, whose work suits the book well. For the most part, there's nothing really big or extraordinary in the pages of Promethee 13:13, it's not the kind of story with wild visuals; as such, the artist on the book needs to be someone who can take the mundane and ordinary and make them look interesting. It's one thing drawing super heroes flying through the air, this is always going to look striking, but drawing two regular looking people sitting in a room talking and still making it dynamic takes a lot of skill, and Martinbrough does this time and time again here. Not that there's not some great visual moments though, as when things get weird Martinbrough is able to bring a level of scope and dynamic flare to proceedings.

With this being the first of three volumes we don't get every answer that we might be hoping for here, there's still a ton of mysteries to unpack come the end; but I honestly found myself eager to jump straight into the very next book as soon as I was done. I wanted to know more about these alien visitors. I wanted to find out about the huge conspiracy. And I wanted to see what happens to Darla next. Diggle and Beck have done a great job of crafting a story that really managed to hook me and get me invested in the world and the characters in a relatively small amount of time. I'm very much looking forward to the next entry in this series.

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Arks #2 – Comic Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

The second issue of the independent, fan funded comic series Arks has arrived, and it begins to give readers a lot more insight into what’s happening on this strange new planet, as well as raising the stakes for our two protagonists.

The first issue of the series was one that spent most of its time shrouded in mystery, keeping the details of who this man we were following was, and what was happening, pretty close to its chest. It was only really at the end that where things began to get clear; in contrast, this issue gives readers a lot of information and begins to reveal a larger plot at play.

With the two leads, Joseph and Lilith, now reunited we start to learn more about them. Lilith spends a great deal of the issue quizzing Joseph about who he is, what he remembers, and what he’s been doing. This is down to Joseph clearly having some kind of trouble going on, some kind of trauma or medical issue that’s been causing him to act strange, and Lilith wanting to figure out how his mind is. It’s a neat little conceit to get the two characters talking about things that wouldn’t naturally come up in conversation.

We get to learn about where the two of them met, their favourite foods, their pets, bits and pieces about their childhoods. We discover things that begin to give us insight into who they are as people and how their relationship works that we wouldn’t otherwise know. After all, people who’ve been in a relationship for decades don’t tend to list off facts about their lives. Possibly the biggest surprise in these revelations is that Joseph and Lilith aren’t as young as they look, and that when their minds were uploaded into the device that recreated them on this new world they were in their eighties, revealing a further startling feature of this strange technology.

The issue isn’t all about getting to know only the humans, however, as the two of them explore their new world and discover dangers waiting for them. There’s a big sense of mystery as they find strange things, animal corpses in strange conditions that hint that there might be something wrong with this world.

Once all the drama of the issue is over, ending on a pretty scary cliff-hanger, we get some extra pages at the back of the book that give us some insight into the amazing technology that R.J. Collins has created for this story. We’re given information about the nano-technology that’s being used to transform this primordial alien world into a replica of Earth. We also get an explanation as to why some of the birds look weird and have extra eyes, because they’re cybernetic drones designed to search and scan areas to help with the terraforming. These pages are great, because they explain small details that have been scattered throughout the issues, and give a breakdown of things like the rapid synthesiser which we probably wouldn’t get in the story itself.

The art follows the same style that we had in the first issue, though it feels like perhaps it’s gotten better in some ways. I get the sense that the artist has become more comfortable and confident with the process, this odd combination of traditional looking and digital art, and has been trying new things. The pack of wolves that appear in the book in particular look really good, and they come across as particularly dynamic and menacing.

The second issue of Arks builds on the sense of strange mystery that the first issue had, introducing new, bizarre things for the readers and characters to discover, whilst also managing to bring us up to speed on things that were left something of a secret in the first issue. I feel like we’ve actually begun to understand who Joseph and Lilith are now, and now that we’ve begun to connect with them we can start delving into the bigger mystery at play.

Issues #1 and #2 of Arks are available now from Clicky Sprout Wife. Issue #3 will launch on Kickstarter on 24th February.

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Maneater - Game Review

 

The beauty of the Xbox Gamepass is that you can try out games that you think look good, but that you'd probably not pick up in a shop. There are some games where the very concept of them sounds cool, but thanks to lack of funds you just can't justify buying them. Maneater is one of these games for me. I'd seen it on the Xbox store, saw the trailer for it and thought 'I definitely need to try this one out'; and I am so glad that I had that opportunity to.

The game begins by putting you in control of a bull shark, whose life is being narrated by a voice over like you're on a nature documentary; a voice over that some folks may recognise as Chris Parnell, well known for his roles in Rick and Morty and Archer. This immediately sets the tone for the game, telling the player that this is not a game that you're going to be taking seriously, and where you should expect to have a lot of fun. 

From here players head into a small bay, where you're introduced to the various ways to control your fishy avatar, including how to attack and eat everything in the water (humans included), before going up against a shark hunter named Scaly Pete, who captures and kills the bull shark. Thus it is revealed that we're not going to be playing as this shark, but instead the one inside her. Our new shark is born, managing to chomp of Pete's hand in the process, before being dropped into the bayou. 

Now in control of our real character, a tiny baby shark, we begin the game in earnest, exploring our environment, chomping down other fishies to level up and get bigger, and trying to avoid larger predators. This early stage of the game is actually genuinely challenging, and I found myself having to run away from large predators a number of times as I swam into range of an alligator whilst scouting out the area. The first few hours were spent carefully exploring, ticking off objectives from my map, whilst trying to gain enough experience to level up to a point where the other nasties wouldn't mean an instant death sentence for me.

After a while you're able to collect enough experience, as well as the various elements that you will need to unlock and upgrade different abilities, and the game becomes a little less challenging, and a lot more fun. By completing missions and grabbing collectables more locations begin to open up, including a polluted bay, an island golf resort, a tourist filled beach, and the deep ocean. Each new area brings with it more stuff to find and unlock, as well as new prey and challenges. Despite being the same water, with every area connected, it feels surprisingly varied, and some of the final locations are starkly different from those at the beginning. 

Simply exploring these areas is a huge part of the fun of the  game. Swimming through shoals of fish, gliding through sunken ship and over coral reefs is actually quite relaxing, and if you keep on grabbing food as you go simply swimming around taking everything in will keep you in enough elements to keep unlocking upgrades at a steady pace. Exploring also allows you to find 'locations', points of interest around the maps that grab you experience. These are always worth checking out, not just for the upgrades and to fully tick off all your tasks, but because they're usually a lot of fun to see, and contain some decent jokes. One location took me to a sea sponge home which turned out to be a pineapple, another had me discovering giant doors on the bottom of the ocean kept closed with chains that had the narrator confirming the existence of kaiju, and a bag filled with hockey stick on the golf course seemed to imply that this game takes place in the same universe as Happy Gilmore.

The humour of the game is easily one of the biggest selling points, as it means that you're never left sitting there thinking 'this thing is too silly', because the game lives on being silly. The jokes scattered around the map do this, as do the ridiculous things your shark can do, like flopping up onto land and eating people in the street. If the game didn't embrace the silliness it wouldn't be half as enjoyable as it is.

As well as unlocking locations around the map your shark will be going up against some Apex Predators, mini-bosses that will range from no problem at all to ones where you'll be taking a few attempts to beat depending on how much you level up. Early game bosses like barracuda's and alligators won't be too much of an issue f your the same level or higher, but as the game caps your level at thirty, the later game bosses like level forty killer whale, or the level sixty sperm whale will present a genuine challenge where most other things won't. But, as I was comfortably eating great white sharks at this point suddenly having to play smart and use tactics was a pleasant surprise.

The game also has some great unlockables for your shark, with mutations that allow you to customise your play style. You'll be able to equip different base bodies, tails, teeth, heads, and fins that allow you to do different attacks, and alter your speeds and bonuses. Not only do these upgrades allow you to change the way you play, but it will mean your shark will take on some interesting attributes, and come away looking like a monster from myth.

I really enjoy games where I get to explore open worlds and grab collectables; even if there are no achievements or challenges connected to going everywhere and doing everything I'll often find myself doing it anyway as I need to tick off every item and remove every marker from my map. And in some cases a lot of those kinds of games can begin to feel generic, and samey. Maneater, however, felt so different and fresh. Getting to swim through these environments, rather than just running and climbing, added a whole new feel. It felt fresh and new and unique in ways I've not experienced for a while.

As someone who doesn't get to play nearly as many video games as I used to I had an absolute blast sinking a couple of days into this game. I had fun exploring and collecting, the combat was different, and it was packed full of humour. I think this is going to be one of those games that I'll be recommending to folks for a good while to come.

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Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures: Galactic Bake-Off Spectacular – Comic Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

The Star Wars franchise is well known for its space battles, gunfights, and light sabre duels; it’s got Wars in the name for a reason. But sometimes it’s the quieter moments in the franchise that can really stand out. Whether it’s watching Boba Fett become part of a tribe of Tuskens in The Book of Boba Fett, or watching Omega bond with her siblings in The Bad Batch, the moments that aren’t about fighting and conflict can be some of the ones that not only bring a lot of joy, but shows people what’s worth fighting for in this universe. Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures: Galactic Bake-Off Spectacular is the second time we’ve got to see the Jedi of the High Republic take a break from all of the terrible things that are going on, and it’s a delight.

The last time we saw our heroes having some fun was in issue eleven, where the teens took part in the Great Jedi Rumble Race, a competition where they dashed through the halls of the Starlight Beacon having fun and competing against each other. This issue, which seems to take place slightly before those events, sees our characters having fun in a very different way.

The issue begins with Master ‘Buckets of Blood’ Buck announcing that it’s the ‘Great Jedi Baking Day of Baking Baked Things’ as he and several others burst their way into the kitchens of the Starlight Beacon. I swear, this man can’t do anything subtly and I absolutely love it. He’s like a big blue Brian Blessed Jedi. Buck has gathered together some of the other Jedi, and a handful of Padawans, to help him to make Yoda’s recipe for Special Baked Sweet Story Custard Cakes. The cakes, which everyone is desperate to get, has a special ingredient though: you have to tell a story about cooperation whilst making them.

This leads to Buck and Kantam telling the young students a story about how the two of them had to come together and cooperate in order to make it out of the Great Disaster alive. From here the book jumps backwards and forwards between the Great Disaster and the Jedi making their sweet treats, with more and more people arriving to help and listen to the story each time we cut back to the Starlight Beacon.

The issue is written by series regular writer Daniel Jose Older, but he’s also been joined by Vita Ayala, who has been doing some fantastic work writing Nubia and the Amazons over at DC Comics. As the story is skipping between two different times I wasn’t sure if Older and Ayala would be taking one section each, or sharing the writing across all parts, and after reading it I really can’t tell. The two of them write really well together, and this is very much a comic where the creative team seem to be on the same page and crafting a great story together. With how good Ayala’s work has been on other titles I hope that we get to see more of them in future Star Wars titles, as their character work and attention to important themes and narratives fits perfectly in this universe.

Whilst the writing is pretty seamless, there are two very distinct art styles on this issue, with two different teams working on the two time periods. Toni Bruno, who has worked on the High Republic books in the past, provides the artwork for the sections that deal with the Great Disaster. Bruno’s art style uses thick lines, and messy edges to give a more gritty, lived in feel, and this works really well for a flashback to a time where everything is falling apart and breaking around our heroes, and their lives are in danger.  Jo Geyong, in contrast, has a very light art style, with thin, neat lines, and lighter, brighter colours decorating their pages.

The result is that not only are the two times visually distinct, but that they build upon the feelings the authors are trying to get across. The Great Disaster is a dangerous, awful time, so it is darker, moodier, and messier in places to help convey this without even needing the words; in contrast, things are bright and airy when the Jedi are all gathered together making food. It’s a happier time where nothing bad is happening, and the artwork not only reflects that, but makes you feel it.

Whilst not a huge amount happens in this issue to move the story forwards it’s not really about that. This issue is about taking a breather, and showing our heroes in a happier time, one where they can relax and feel some joy. But, we do also get to learn more about Buck and Kantam, and where they were during the Great Disaster too, so it does fill in some blanks for us. We also get an actual recipe in the back to make Yoda’s cakes too, and I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely going to be making those at some point.

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Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures #12 – Comic Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

The High Republic era has dealt with a number of threats since it began, with fights between the Jedi and the Hutts, and the monstrous plant-like Drengir, but the main antagonists have remained the Nihil, the roving band of space bandits. Whilst IDW‘s Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures has focused on this threat a lot of the time, rather than being grand in scope it’s taken the much more personal approach, showing the conflict through the eyes of two childhood friends on either side of the conflict. And now, that conflict comes to a head as these two friends are forced to clash once again.

The issue begins with the Jedi making plans to track-down and combat the Nihil before they’re able to launch another assault on an unsuspecting world. They’ve called in a lot of people to help with this, and are having to split their forces into different groups to do so; and one of these groups is going to be led by the Jedi padawan Lula Talisola. This news comes as something of a surprise to her, as she’s still a student, but it’s a sign of how far she’s come, how much respect she commands from her teachers, and how close she is to becoming a Jedi Knight herself.

Unfortunately, this new development puts Lula into a strange state of mind, as she contemplates her changing role in the Jedi order and what it means for her relationship to Zeen Mrala. Zeen’s been around since the first issue, and has come to live and work with the young Jedi, forming bonds with the group. But Zeen isn’t a Jedi herself, despite her force abilities. Being too old to be trained as a Jedi, she’s essentially a tag-along, though one they all care about. But both she and Lula understand that Jedi aren’t supposed to have strong attachments, and that their connection might not be able to continue on.

There’s no real explanation as to why these feelings have come to a head recently, as the two of them have been close friends throughout and there have been no issues, but connecting it to Lula being closer to graduating from Padawan to Knight makes sense, as it’s causing her to question a lot of things. One of the things that stood out about the way she and Zeen talk about this connection in the narration, however, was how they talk about love more than anything else. Whilst friends can and do love each other, and more people should acknowledge that non-romantic love is a thing, there were moments here where it felt a little more than that, and that Zeen and Lula could have a romantic relationship forming. If that’s the case, it’s definitely something I want to see explored more in later issues, especially as the other times we’ve seen Jedi form romantic relationships with non-Jedi it’s never ended well.

Outside of these character moments the issue manages to pack in a decent amount of action as the two sides come into conflict with each other. The action is fast paced and dynamic as always, and there are a few times when I was genuinely unsure whether the heroes were going to make it or not, as Daniel Jose Older managed to make the issue feel really tense in places.

Art on the issue is provided by Harvey Tolibao, Pow Rodrix, and Rebecca Nalty, who have worked on the series before. I really like a lot of the art on this issue, and the action scenes work very well. When things are blowing up they feel like more than just fireballs, with debris and detritus flying around and making it feel like something substantial has happened, and there are some really nicely framed panels where what could have been a pretty flat moment ends up coming across as dynamic.

My only complaint about the art is that there are a few times where the characters don’t seem to track from scene to scene with how old they look. There are moments when Zeen and Lula look to be in their very early teens, barely more than children, whilst others they look like young adults. This has always been something that seems to change across the series depending on who’s drawing it, but this felt like the first time it happened inside the same comic.

Overall this proved to be an exciting new chapter in the High Republic saga, one that begins to raise the stakes on a more personal level. It’s beginning to seem like the conflict between the Nihil and Jedi might be coming to a close in some ways, or at least for this handful of characters, but now it seems like they’re going to be facing some personal trials.

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The Last Thing Mary Saw – Film Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Historical horror is a genre that doesn’t receive that many entries, but when these films do come out they tend to do things quite different with the genre; they push into strange new directions and end up being quite memorable and talked about. I’m sure you’ll be thinking of some titles already, things like The Witch, The Woman In Black, or Hagazussa that stand out from the more conventional modern set horror films.

The Last Thing Mary Saw takes some influence from these films in the sense that it’s a very slow building story, one that’s filled with tension, long silences, and quietly paced scenes that allow the audience to linger uncomfortably. Because of this, the film manages to ramp up the sense of unease that pervades the story to the point where you’re waiting for something truly terrible to happen, even if just to end the growing unease that’s been building for the last ten minutes.

The story begins in New York state in 1840, following an awful event that the audience has not been let in on yet. We join a group of investigators as they try to get the truth of what happened from the only witness/suspect, Mary (Stefanie Scott), a young woman who has been horribly blinded; her wounded eyes slowly bleeding from behind her mask. As the men question Mary at gunpoint, afraid that the young woman may be some kind of witch or supernatural being, the story takes us backwards in time as Mary begins her tale.

We learn that Mary comes from a brutal, puritanical household, one where religion reigns supreme under the heel of the family Matriarch (Judith Roberts). It’s in this home that Mary is secretly having an illicit relationship with the household maid, Eleanor (Isabelle Fuhrman); an affair that they must keep secret at all costs or suffer literally crippling punishment for going against god’s laws. Whilst the two of them manage to keep their relationship secret, their obvious closeness keeps getting them in trouble. Unfortunately, one night the two of them are finally caught together; leading to a series of tragic events.

Whilst there are certainly subtle supernatural elements involved in The Last Thing Mary Saw these don’t really take centre stage, and it’s the horror of people’s inhumanity to ourselves that makes this such a horrific film to watch. Even before Mary and Eleanor are caught together we see the brutal hand of the Matriarch at play, forcing people to kneel on hard rice as they quote biblical verse for hours on end; a punishment that has led to the groundsman being unable to walk properly anymore. It’s a home where the ever present threat of punishment keeps the inhabitants on edge, always wary of angering the head of the family.

This approach may be too hands off for some, and the smattering of supernatural elements might not be enough to keep some horror fans happy – those who like seeing monsters and killers stalking helpless victims. But, I think that this is a much more realistic and relatable approach to horror. This is the kind of horror that people still live with to this very day, that a lot of people will have had experienced to some degree or another. It might not be to the extremes of being tortured by religious zealots (though that very much does happen), but I think most of us will have experienced being in an environment where we’ve been too scared to be ourselves, to speak out and be true to who we are for fear of some kind of punishment from a figure of authority.

This is something that I think a lot of queer people will recognise too. Being a part of the LGBTQ+ community myself, watching this relationship having to take place in secret, hidden away as much as possible because you know that the people around you will harm you, is a very real experience that I can connect with. Whilst I’m luckier than Mary in the sense of having a loving and accepting family, I grew up discovering my queer identity in a Britain under Section 28, and this film did dredge up some of those old feelings of pain and hurt that I grew up with, which certainly made the film hit a lot harder.

That being said, I’m starting to get a bit fed up with historical queer stories, or queer stories in general, that only focus on queer suffering. There is more to being queer than pain. It can be a beautiful, wonderful thing, even in a historical setting where it was much less accepted. There have been recorded queer relationships thriving in history, so I’d like to see that for once rather than a story dictated by pain. But I know this is a horror film, and that doesn’t really fit with the genre. But if you’re going into this as a queer viewer perhaps just make sure you’re in a good head-space first, because this isn’t an easy viewing experience.

The Last Thing Mary Saw is a tense, heart-wrenching, and at times painful film to watch; one with a solid central cast who really drag you in and get you invested in their stories. If you’re looking for a creepy, subtle period horror film this is one that should definitely be given your time.

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The Chosen Twelve by James Breakwell – Book Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

'There are 22 candidates. There are 12 seats.

'The last interstellar colony ship is down to its final batch of humans after the robots in charge unhelpfully deleted the rest. But rebooting a species and training them for the arduous task of colonisation isn’t easy – especially when the planet below is filled with monsters, the humans are more interested in asking questions than learning, and the robots are all programmed to kill each other.

'But the fate of humanity rests on creating a new civilisation on the planet below, and there are twelve seats on the lander. Will manipulation or loyalty save the day?'

The Chosen Twelve tells the story of the last of humanity. Deep in space, in an ancient colony ship on a moon orbiting the planet Dion, twenty two twelve-year-old children are all that remain of the human race. The children, who thanks to the manipulations of the machines that ‘care’ for them, have been twelve for almost sixty years, their physical ageing paused as they’re trained to one day land on the planet below and build a civilisation.

Their guardian, Edubot, has been happy to teach them advance degrees and academic subjects for decades, allowing the children to practice their future task in simulations that often end in chaos as they have their people start strange religions, ride around on unicycles, and release weird plagues on each other. The children are used to this strange life, and despite having little real freedom they’re happy with their lot.

This all changes, however, when another AI arrives, one who is determined to use the humans to mine the planet for resources to help spread artificial life into the galaxy, and he wants them to begin soon. The only problem is, the ship they’ll be using to travel to Dion only has twelve seats. Now the children are being forced to prove they have what it takes to restart the human race and survive on this hostile world, or risk being left behind to age and die in the cold of space.

The Chosen Twelve is a story that does a good job at hiding the stakes. When the story begins we meet one of our twenty two children, Gamma, as he tries to reach a vending machine where he believes god lives inside, but he has to get past a murderous automatic door in order to do so. To begin with things seem very weird, and the book has this odd sense of things not being quite right, and almost bordering on silly. But after a while you begin to see that this is because our protagonists, despite having been alive for more than sixty years, are a bunch of children, and as such we see this dark, brutal future through the eyes of these immature beings.

To begin with the book manages to walk this fine line between the serious and the bizarre, and thanks to the children being given free reign to explore their creativity in their simulations and pursue whatever course of action they choose we get things like war elephants with diarrhoea, or a planet where there must be a sanctuary for geese. It feels close to the weirdness of something like a Douglas Adams book; but this doesn’t last.

As the story progresses a darkness begins to creep into things. At first there are hints that this isn’t the jovial, weird world that these kids seem to see it as, as Gamma learns when the murderous door very nearly succeeds in killing him in a painful, brutal way. But it’s only when SCASL, the chief AI arrives that the underlying darkness is revealed. His single-minded goal of using the humans for his own ends, despite the pain it will cause them allows him to push these children in brutal ways; and the bonds between them are soon tested as they begin to compete against each other for their place on the ship.

These twenty two children who have only ever had each other for their entire lives start out treating it like a game, competing to see who’s the best, but it soon devolves into a desperate fight to survive. Alliances are formed and broken, old wounds are reopened, and violence breaks out. The blurb for the book describes this as being The Hunger Games meets Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, but there’s also a lot of Lord of the Flies mixed in there too, as we see tribalism spread through the group as factions begin to form as things get desperate, leading to a book that becomes surprisingly brutal compared to how it first begins.

When I began reading The Chosen Twelve I was worried that it was going to be a bit too weird for me, that it would veer too much into the ‘wacky’ territory for me to really get invested, but by the end I was on the edge of my seat as I wanted the character I cared about to survive, as I saw friendships fall apart, and death came to this small group of humans. By the time things came to a close I was even a little angry that the book ended where it did, because I was desperate to find out what happened next, and would have been happy to stay with these characters for even longer.

I don’t know what I expected from reading the description of this book, but by the end I’d had a journey into a very different future, one that felt unique and different to a lot of other books I’d read. This would have been an interesting story with any kind of protagonists, but putting young children at the heart of it made this feel like a very different kind of survival story; one that absolutely sucked me in. If you’re looking for science fiction that feels very different this is a book that is very much worth reading, and one that I’m sure you’ll enjoy.

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Three Swords: A Marvel Legends of Asgard Novel by C.L. Werner - Book Review

 

'The Warriors Three must traverse space and time to save their realm from magical villainy, in this swashbuckling fantasy adventure from Marvel’s Legends of Asgard

'During a fierce battle to free the people of Skornheim, the valiant Warriors Three – Fandral, Volstagg, and Hogun – encounter an ancient mystic who bears ominous tidings for Asgard. Three sorcerous brothers who call themselves the Enchanters have wrought evil across the realms, and are building armies with which to conquer the Realm Eternal. It has been foreseen that only one heroic trio can end their wicked plot… But the Enchanters are scattered through time and space, each fortified by their magical Living Talisman. The Warriors Three must be cast across the cosmos, to explore strange worlds, and risk life and limb against unimaginable odds to stop these sorcerers before they can overthrow Odin’s rule.'

The Marvel Legends of Asgard novel series has felt like it's had a pretty consistent style since it began. It's been telling stories about the early days of warriors who would go on to become great heroes, some of them even becoming gods as they grow older. As such, I was surprised when the latest entry, Three Swords took a slightly different approach, instead telling a story about the brave Warriors Three after they've been heroes for a while; and its a fun break to the formula.

The story begins with the Warriors Three, Fandral, Volstagg, and Hogun, helping a rebel movement in Skornheim to overthrow their new, corrupt leaders. Working from underground locations, the three legendary heroes are helping to transform the brave folks of Skorheim into warriors who can fight back for their very freedoms. When one of these bases comes under attack the Warriors Three stay behind to buy everyone else time, taking on the soldiers in a desperate fight.

Fleeing the area, hoping to meet back up with the rest of the resistance, the three of them are given shelter by an old man. The three of them soon discover, however, that he's no ordinary villager, and find themselves in the company of an old mystic. With Hogun having no love for magic users the three of them are prepared to fight, but the old wizard informs them that he's there for their help; and that all of Asgard and beyond are at stake. The Warriors Three learn that there are three brothers scattered across the nine realms, in different times and places, who have in their control artefacts that would make them a powerful threat to all life. The old wizard begs the Warriors Three to travel to these places, to fight these magic users, and to secure the artefacts in order to save every realm. Never ones to back down from a noble cause, the three of them set out to save the universe.

The Warriors Three are characters that I've encountered a few times, but usually in supporting roles for heroes such as Thor, Valkyrie, or Loki; and as such I hadn't really spent any great deal of time with these three iconic figures. Three Swords really allows the reader to do this, as not only are there no other Asgardian heroes in the book, I'm struggling to remember if they're even mentioned; as this is very much a story about these three saving the day.

The main plot of the book sees the three heroes having to travel across space and time in order to combat these evil sorcerers, and this leads to some interesting settings, and chances for the three of them to show how capable they are in vary ways. The first location is a futuristic world where alien lizard creatures have taken over, which mirrors nicely with the beginning of the book with the new regime in Skorheim, especially as the three of them have to hook up with the local resistance in order to achieve their goals. 

As with any time you combine together fantasy and science fiction this is an interesting part of the book. We have three warriors armed with swords and ancient weaponry fighting aliens flying around on hover bikes, shooting lazers. It's a big tonal whiplash; but it really works. There's something about these characters being thrown into a completely alien environment, surrounded by things they don't understand that's really entertaining.

The second place they go to couldn't be more different, however, and might be my favourite part of the book. The trio find themselves in Nottingham somewhere around the 1640's, as we learn that the British Civil War is either taking place or soon to break out. Its here where we get to explore more of Fandral's time on Earth as Robin Hood (something I knew nothing about until this book!). The pace of the adventure slows down a little here, and we have some quiet moments as Fandral spends time thinking about his past life here, the people he lost, and how much it still pains him. He gets to mourn for his wife, and this shows a side of him we don't often get to see; a more vulnerable man beneath the brave exterior. It was also delightful to have part of this huge fantasy epic take place just up the road from me; as well as in the home of Aconyte Books too!

The final location takes the three heroes to a primordial world filled with dinosaurs that have been twisted by dark magic into vicious monsters. If the Warriors Three fighting aliens and strange plant monsters wasn't cool enough we get them flying around on Pterodactyls; which is a hell of an image for sure. This part of the book might be one of the most unusual, and boldest things that we've had in a Marvel Legends of Asgard book that it might feel too over the top and ridiculous, but you'll be having so much fun with it that you'll not even care.

Over the course of this adventure we spend some time with each member of the Warriors Three, getting to see how they think, their motivations, and what drives them as heroes. Each of them also gets multiple chances to shine, proving that the three of them really are a team, and that if you didn't have all of them together the others simply wouldn't be able to survive. The only one I really felt got any significant development was Fandral, thanks in large part to the section of the book taking place in Nottingham and the exploration of his loss, and I think in some ways it's a shame I didn't feel that greater connection with the other two. 

Perhaps this is in part down to the fast paced nature of the story, as things move very quickly across the book, with the characters and readers never really being given a chance to rest and collect their thoughts before being plunged into the next challenge. Whilst I really did enjoy the book I do find myself wishing it had been longer, so that we could have gotten a few more slower paced moments where we could have connected with the characters more. 

Three Swords is a fast paced, action packed, fantasy epic that mixes in the science fiction, historical locations, and ridiculously cool concepts into one huge story that shouldn't work, but lands perfectly. It's a real testament to the writing talent of C.L. Werner that they were able to pull it off; and I think their experience in writing both fantasy and science fiction in the past really shows here, as they're able to craft the two together flawlessly. Whether you're a long time fan of the Warriors Three, or just discovering them now, Three Swords will make them a trio that you'll be keeping an eye on in the future.

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