X-MEN: FIRST CLASS

The Rees family took a break from revising for A-levels and editing books to take in a movie yesterday. The vote on what to see was split but finally on a minority vote we opted for 'X-Men: First Class'.

Mistake.

Now I'm getting to think that I shouldn't be reviewing superhero movies as I seem to be genetically inclined to loath them but that's not always the case: I loved 'Kick Ass', 'Batman Begins' and am probably the only person on the planet that liked 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.'

I think my problem is that I appraoch superhero films expecting them to aspire to the same emotional content and the same 'suspend disbelief' rigor I demand of every movie I watch. And this is where First Class comes up short.

What underpins the movie's story is the relationship between Charles Xavier (rich American) and Erik Lehnsherr (Jewish auschwitz survivor) who are both possessed of amazing mutant powers. Erik's outlook on life is deformed by his experiences at the hands of the Nazis especially those suffered as a result of him falling into the clutches of a despicable item named Sebastian Shaw. As might be expected, Xavier's attitudes are much more middle-class and liberal. This is an excellent and intriguing premise for the movie and the reason why I wanted to see it in the first place.

So far, so good and the first quarter of the movie (though a trifle long and exposition heavy) augers well. Then we slip into familiar 'superhero origins' territory and the mutants come at us thick, fast and increasingly superficial. With most of the action set in the early 60's it's almost inevitable that the Cuban missile crisis should be the centrepiece of the story (tho' Kennedy's assassination might have been more resonant) and here things start to become unravelled, the killer question being why would Shaw be inclined to precipitate WWIII when as many mutants will die as Normals?

And while the plot is flimsy so unfortunately is the casting. Michael Fasbender as Lehnsherr/Magneto is good, but James McAvoy/Xavier is both too old (Xavier is portraited as a 12 year old in 1944 which makes him only 30 in 1962, not McAvoy's 40)  and too British. But while the male characters are bearable the female ones are awful. Coming after the class turn of Rebecca Romijin as Mystique in the first three X-Men films why oh why did they think that Jennifer Lawrence could fill her ... whatever. And January Jones as Emma Frost is nondescript to say the least.

In all the film is too long, too predicatable, has zero emotional heft, has all the characterisational depth of a puddle, has some surprisingly ropey effects (Beast's make-up was appauling) and the historical accuracy is suspect (it was the USSR in 1962 boys, not Russia).

A boring disappointment.

Score: 4/10

eBOOK SPECIAL EDITION

Being of the opinion that the eBook revolution sweeping thru the publishing world is a Good Thing and that in future books will need to be written to accommodate the abilities of eBooks I was delighted that Quercus were up for giving me a shot at showing what an eBook really can do.

I had written the Demi-Monde so that it would be a submersive experience but unfortunately this is  impossible to communicate in print but with eBooks ... the sky is as high as your imagination. The one thing I didn't want is for these features to look tacked on, to be an afterthought. They had to add to the suspension of disbelied by the reader.

Quercus obviously feel the same way so Nelli, Nigel and I went to Quercus on Friday to meet with their new eBook Technician, a chap named Nick Barreto and his boss Iain Millar.

Good meeting.

What has been decided is that there will be a ‘Special Edition’ of the DM Winter eBook, which will take full advantage of all the features available on eBooks to create something unique in the fantasy/SF canon, with a tentative launch date around that of ‘The Demi-Monde: Spring’ hardback (27th December 2011). The extra features to be include are, inter alia:

 

1. Deleted chapters (totalling about 20,000 words) including

• A scene in the White House introducing all the major players in the ForthRight;
• A scene showing how Vanka Maykov fell foul of General Skobelev;
• A scene showing how Trixie Dashwood met Dabrowski;
• An extended scene at Dashwood Manor.

 2. 'Woodcut’ pictures illustrating five key incidents in the book. These in the style of the ones used in ‘The Strand’ to illustrate the Sherlock Holmes stories. Ideas we're thinking about include:

• The hounders tracking down Norma;
• The battle of the barges;
• Ella dancing in front of the hounfo;
• Terror Incognita seen from the balloon;
• Atop ExterSteine.

3. A whole bunch of appendices to include:

• The cigar cards of the main characters;
• Illustration of how the hounfo trick was done;
• ParaDigm’s ‘Product Description Manual’;
• The existing Glossary; this hyperlinked to the first use of the term in the book proper.

4. Other extras including a forward by moi (giving me a chance to explain the use of camelCased words and other idiosyncrasies of the DM) and some easter eggs which (natch) we're keeping quiet about.

It's all terrifically exciting!

HOW DID NORMA GET INTO THE DEMI-MONDE?

Slow Reader has just posted a retraction of part of his review of 'The Demi-Monde: Winter' where he had a little pop at yours truly for not explaining how Norma (my lead character) got into the Demi-Monde.

Having recovered from the shock of a critic apologising (and with my computer STILL not allowing me to post comments) I will explain.

I have written how Norma was traduced into entering the DM, but it would have dragged the pace of 'Winter' if I'd have digressed to explain so I opted instead to indulge in a little script-tease and leave it to later books. Unfortunately having got to 'Fall' (where I had intended to do the final reveal) I suspect that that book's gonna be so long I won't have room. Maybe I'll post it on the web site when all four of the books are out there. I also have to work out how to have Norma use the Ampi-Tor devices without it getting too gynaecological!

Anyway, anyone wanting to check out Slow Reader's review it's on http://slow-sf-reader.blogspot.com/search/label/book%20review

MESSAGE FOR SLOW READER

Thanks for your comment re Fall - I've been trying to reply but Blogger is playing silly buggers and won't let me.

Yeah, there is a reason why it's called 'Fall' rather than 'Autumn' but I'm afraid you're gonna have to wait until then to find out why. This isn't me being coy or playing Secret Squirrel but mainly because I ain't written the bloody thing yet (and with all this editing I ain't likely to, either!), but the clue is in the word.

Oh, and thanks for the review. Rapid!

SNEAK PEEK

Amanda at HarperCollins sent me the galleys of 'The Demi-Monde: Winter' and I have to say the Americans have done a cracking job. The book looks really slick and stylish. She also gave me permission to post a few pages for readers to sample so if you're interested here's the link.

http://www.thedemi-monde.com/downloads/Demi-Monde_taster.pdf


Enjoy!

EDIT-ITIS

I seem to be doing more editing than writing at the moment. I only just got 'The Demi-Monde: Spring' off to Jo Fletcher at Quercus, than I had to turn back to 'Summer' in order to bring the beginning of that book into line with the amended ending of 'Spring'. And no sooner had I done that than I received the galleys of 'Winter' from the Americans! So rather than hitting 'Fall' as I'd planned, I've now got to re-read 'WInter' for about the umpteenth time.

Oh hum. No one told me that editing would come to dominate my life like this. It's a bloody nightmare.

THE DEMI-MONDE: SPRING

I got the final edit of 'The Demi-Monde: Spring' from Jo Fletcher ten days ago and have been working flat out ever since knocking it into shape. Jo made some interesting observations which necessitated me doing some quite major tinkering - with a book of 150,000 words even a small change ripples through the book and care is needed to ensure consistency. She also wanted a recap of Winter at the start of the book so that had to be written and she thought that one of the new characters deserved a little more page-time. The upshot was a lot of bloody hard work.

I can though give you a sneak-peek at a bit of artwork that'll make its debut in Summer. Again this is curtesy of Nigel Robinson.

Unfortunately all this extra stuff had an inflationary effect: the book ballooned to 156K and as I'm determined it shouldn't go over 150K this required surgery. I ended up dumping one of the chapters, which had the unfortunate effect of reducing Casanova to something of a bit-player, but that's life ... or editing for you.

So, it's off to Merlin the copy-editor now which, hopefully, will be relatively painless, while I turn my attention back to Fall!