Finished reading The Translated Man by Chris Braak yesterday. Since I’m being regularly e-mailed by a web site who’ve taken to including my posts tagged reviews are included in their review listings where the reviews are in turn reviewed I’m going to do a bit of a Corbett first. While I may tag this as a review it is in fact more of a loose collection of ideas and opinion strung together without any proper, formal review process being undertaken. Nothing that follows is rigorous or properly thought about and in fact its just my opinion in the end. If it were a review (like the ones I wrote for Valkyrie a long time ago) I’d put a lot more effort in even though I know that in the end it is just my opinion and is fairly meaningless after all that.

But to get back to my (not) review…

The Translated Man is a novel available from Lulu running just short of 240 pages in length laid out at a size that means two pages comfortably print to a side of A4. That was a good thing as I was enjoying it so much that I printed the whole of it out so I could read it away from my computer. Thats a first for an ebook I’ve bought of this length. It was a real page turner so I had to have pages to turn.

The story is an atmospheric police procedural tale that could be said to be steam punk or perhaps victorian fantasy in genre. Its set, mostly, in a city. A city where everything, including the architecture, has been shaped by various power struggles between wealthy families. A city which is struggling under the burden of war and with racial tension waiting to boil over.

The main characters work for one of a number of police organisations in the city, the Coroners. Their specific area is hunting down criminals who comitt heresy including such acts as reanimating the dead. Their colourful staff include a hard bitten detective a the young, foppish junior detective, a clairaudient and the only reanimate ever declared not to be a heresy. All the characters are interesting. Even when at first glance they might have been detective genre or fantasy standards are more than two dimensional cliches.

The story itself has an excellent plot which twists and turns from its in medias res opening to its dramatic finale. It cuts back and forth amongst the investigators. Even though the setting is fantasy it holds together logically and provides enough information to allow the reader to leap to the right (or wrong) conclusions as the events unfold.

It isn’t a perfect work. A bit more proof reading would have picked up the handful of places where typos slip through, robe for rope at a dramatic moment springs to mind because it distracted me at a crucial moment in the plot. A few sections where none of the view point characters are present are described in a slightly awkward tell rather than show kind of way. After a fair amount of thought I wonder if might have been avoided by adding a character of a lowly gendarme from a competing police force who could easily have been on the scene at a couple of points in the story and who could have acted as our eyes. Early on in the story there is also a two page info dump about the city’s architecture which I can’t think of an easy way round. While later in the story dates are given for historical events early on years relative to the main detectives time are give. Not a huge problem but as a reader of detective stories it pulled me out of the story as I started to try and look for clues hidden by the slightly awkward writing when there were none.

Those however are my only criticims of the story. I can’t go into a lot of what I enjoyed about it without risking spoiling the story. I did have a small laugh when the characters attend The Bone-Collector’s Daughter given Kim wrote The Bone Magician’s Daughter. As I said already – a real page turner. All in all very good.

Today’s story to get my goat comes from the BBC: Hordes greet Warcraft expansion followed by ‘Addicted’ to Warcraft?. What follows is an amended version of my comment on that post.

From Jazz to Horror Comics through Rock and Roll to Dungeons and Dragons then Computer Games and now Online Gaming the press has found an ideal target for writing stories like this one. They appeal to a wide readership either horrified by the harm to kid or kids who are offended by the inaccuracies and broad brush descriptions. I sometimes wonder if such accusations were leveled even earlier against the Waltz, Orchestral music, printing or maybe cave painting?

Yes I’m one of the people who’s enjoyed some (not all) of these and for 20 years found the claims made about them to have little in common with my experience of any of the activities.

Over the years professionals in various fields and concerned pressure groups (some eventually shown to have hidden agendas to push, political campaigns to start rolling or books to promote) have provided studies of the damage figures are quoted levels of addiction, cost or suicide. I wouldn’t mind so much but usually the figures start to fall apart when a back of the envelope calculation is carried out.

Take this story as an example: 11 million registered players for World of Warcraft. 10-15% become addicted. That equates to 1.1-1.65million addicts worldwide. I’ll leave it to others to draw their own conclusions from those figures. If this were a real addiction on a par with the addiction to, say Cocaine, wouldn’t there have been more than 2000 people waiting for the midnight sale? I don’t see a horde of Warcraft destroyed souls wandering the streets begging for the £8.99 a month subscription. Nor do I see a large number of older people whose lives have been ruined by their rock and roll habit from their youth.

Maybe an interesting article would consider the widespread use by journalists of the word addiction. Then place this addiction in the context of a spectrum of addictions from illegal drug use through alcohol and tobacco on to football and people who regularly buy books, magazines and go to their local library. Finally you could look at how journalists are addicts to writing articles about addictions.

I’m leaning on a lamp, maybe you think, I look a tramp,

Or you may think I’m hanging ’round to steal a modo-car.

But no I’m not a crook, And if you think, that’s what I look,

I’ll tell you why I’m here, And what my motives are.

(Tempo Change)

I’m leaning on a (virtual) lamppost

At the corner of e-on street

In case Vue Seven comes by.

Oh me! Oh my!

I hope the Vue Seven comes by.

I don’t know if Vue7′ll get away,

Vue7 doesn’t always get away,

But anyhow I know that Vue7′ll try.

Oh me, oh my!

I hope the Vue Seven comes by.

There’s no other renderer I’d wait for,

But this one I’d break any date for.

I don’t want to ask what Vue7′s late for.

Vue7 wouldn’t leave me flat;

Not with procedural terrains like that.

She’s absolutely beautiful

And marvellous and wonderful,

And anyone can understand why

I’m leaning on a (virtual) lamppost

At the corner of e-on street

In case a certain Vue Seven passes by.

(Tempo Change)

Repeat previous verse to End

Item 3 on the Agenda

"Item 3 on the agenda. Do you want to kick off?"

"How about next Tuesday?"

"Sorry can’t do next Tuesday."

"Why not?"

"Little Mary Stevenson of Chipping Norton gets her spelling test results and you know how she reacts to those nought out of tens."

"So that’s every Tuesday off for the next what?"

"Ten weeks."

"Wednesday then…"

"CERN’s turning on the LHC."

"But it won’t be operational for months."

"Doesn’t stop some nuts thinking it’s going to be Wednesday."

"So when can I launch the apocalypse?"

"Well I’ve had research run some projections and I’m not sure how to break this to you but we missed the window."

"What do you mean?"

"Well for the foreseeable future you can’t because someone has predicted the end of the world for that day and for every hour."

"But Mathew made that up not me not my right hand or for what it’s worth my left hand one either."

"Sorry boss doesn’t matter legal’s been over it and you didn’t challenge it when you had the chance. Apparently there was a thousand year window but now it’s set in stone."

"How did any of this happen? He wasn’t even there. He was just some bloke who decided to have a go at it after the siege and destruction of Jerusalem. He was bored and always thought he’d be a pretty good writer. He was just looking for something to do after the Romans knocked down his shop."

"Trouble is it got into the book and now it’s too late."

"So basically you’re telling me I’ve just got to keep waiting."

"Pretty much."

"Oh well maybe they’ll do the job for me. They’ve got enough nukes and their polluting the place so much it can only be so much longer."

"You’re really having one of your happy days aren’t you boss?"

"No. I’m blaming the lawyers."

"It’s not really their fault."

"Do you think anyone would notice if we started you know treating lawyers like we used to overly fan boyish prophets?"

"What extending their life span as long as possible."

"Something like that."

"You were saying Earth was getting too crowded these days only last week."

"Well yes…"

1. Pulp Fiction (1994)
2. The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-03)
3. Titanic (1997)
4. Blue Velvet (1986)
5. Toy Story (1995)
6. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
7. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
8. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
9. Die Hard (1988)
10. Moulin Rouge (2001)
11. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
12. The Matrix (1999)
13. GoodFellas (1990)
14. Crumb (1995)
15. Edward Scissorhands (1990)
16. Boogie Nights (1997)
17. Jerry Maguire (1996)
18. Do the Right Thing (1989)
19. Casino Royale (2006)
20. The Lion King (1994)
21. Schindler’s List (1993) [I showed this twice when I was a projectionist but I've never seen it without breaks]
22. Rushmore (1998)
23. Memento (2001)
24. A Room With a View (1986)
25. Shrek (2001)
26. Hoop Dreams (1994)
27. Aliens (1986)
28. Wings of Desire (1988)
29. The Bourne Supremacy (2004) [Why just Supremacy on the list? Identity relaunched the Eurothriller and Ultimatum has the cleverest structure of a thriller in a long time ]
30. When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
31. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
32. Fight Club (1999)
33. The Breakfast Club (1985)
34. Fargo (1996) [Seen the start but not the end]
35. The Incredibles (2004)
36. Spider-Man 2 (2004)
37. Pretty Woman (1990)
38. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
39. The Sixth Sense (1999) [Probably would but someone told me the twist]
40. Speed (1994)
41. Dazed and Confused (1993)
42. Clueless (1995)
43. Gladiator (2000)
44. The Player (1992)
45. Rain Man (1988)
46. Children of Men (2006) [Wish I hadn't though. Not convinced it should be on this list]
47. Men in Black (1997)
48. Scarface (1983)
49. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
50. The Piano (1993) [Love the sound track never seen the film]
51. There Will Be Blood (2007)
52. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad (1988)
53. The Truman Show (1998)
54. Fatal Attraction (1987)
55. Risky Business (1983)
56. The Lives of Others (2006)
57. There’s Something About Mary (1998)
58. Ghostbusters (1984)
59. L.A. Confidential (1997)
60. Scream (1996)
61. Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
62. sex, lies and videotape (1989)
63. Big (1988)
64. No Country For Old Men (2007)
65. Dirty Dancing (1987)
66. Natural Born Killers (1994)
67. Donnie Brasco (1997)
68. Witness (1985)
69. All About My Mother (1999)
70. Broadcast News (1987)
71. Unforgiven (1992)
72. Thelma & Louise (1991)
73. Office Space (1999)
74. Drugstore Cowboy (1989)
75. Out of Africa (1985)
76. The Departed (2006) [I'd rather see all three parts of Infernal Affairs with subtitles though]
77. Sid and Nancy (1986)
78. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
79. Waiting for Guffman (1996)
80. Michael Clayton (2007)
81. Moonstruck (1987)
82. Lost in Translation (2003)
83. Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn (1987)
84. Sideways (2004)
85. The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005)
86. Y Tu Mamá También (2002)
87. Swingers (1996)
88. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
89. Breaking the Waves (1996)
90. Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
91. Back to the Future (1985)
92. Menace II Society (1993)
93. Ed Wood (1994)
94. Full Metal Jacket (1987)
95. In the Mood for Love (2001)
96. Far From Heaven (2002)
97. Glory (1989)
98. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
99. The Blair Witch Project (1999)
100. South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut (1999)

A few very American choices on the list with a lack of international films that I would expect to make the list. A few big omissions