New Author Talks episode; the Time Travel discussion

 Another year, another attempt to do something vaguely entertaining. I previously noted that it was planned, but things ended up being...dragged out. This time for the first episode, it's an exploration through the medium of Author Talks focuses on time travel, and its use in one particular cult series. A series I kinda liked but also kinda didn't like but then liked again then really didn't like and then appreciated for what it tried to do and-- If you want more coherent thoughts and analysis, the episode's down below. Enjoy!

YouTube version

Spotify Version

My Anime Life: The Apothecary Diaries

 Today's the start of a new article series: me, an anime lover, talking about anime I've watched and my opinions. Today, one of those that will doubtless become a modern classic. The Apothecary Diaries, produced by Toho and OLM and based on a novel series by Natsu Hyuga, is set in an alternate world based on Tang Dynasty China and follows Maomao, a woman trained in apothecary and medicine, who ends up working in the Imperial Palace and collaborates with the mysterious official Jinshi on a number of cases.

The premise of The Apothecary Diaries seems...mundane? Almost rote. But the way the setting has been constructed is incredible. There are so many complex relationships within this series that it can make your head spin. But if you know even a little about how complex and fraught Imperial Chinese clan and dynastic politics were, you will soon realise this is a surprisingly faithful interpretation. Schemes within schemes, long games, subtle one-upmanship, and the dynamite of not having a designated successor. It also doesn't shy away from the brutality of Imperial law and how the dynasties stayed in power: it doesn't show overt violence very often, but it makes clear the penalties of that era which have been carried over into this fictionalised version.

But it's the writing and characters that truly make this world so engaging. Maomao is one of the most engaging and down-to-earth protagonists I've met in a long time, regardless of gender. She's also one of the best-written female characters I've seen not just in Japanese media, but in general media. She doesn't feel like the shrinking flower many other non-warrior Asian women are in media. Indeed, most of the women in this series are a joy to watch, either for their personality and interactions up front, or their growth. Yes, some fall back on stereotypes, but they are the minority rather than the majority. Across the two seasons it's figures like Consort Gyokuyou and her attendants, the other consorts and concubines, the many maid servants, the bouncy and enigmatic Shisui, the aloof and tragic Suirei, the women of the Verdigris House, and the greater majority of the antagonists that really hold your attention. Despite being set in a patriarchal society, or perhaps because of it, it's refreshingly focused on the roles and limitations of women.

Of course I can't not talk about Jinshi, Maomao's superior and would-be love interest. I love how he is initially portrayed as frivolous and infuriatingly serene, but the more we learn about him and his role within the Imperial Court, the more his mask of the beautiful youth slips away. There is the big red flag of the fact Jinshi outranks Maomao in social status many times over, and there were a few times he edged towards overstepping a line with Maomao before fate or someone else intervened and made him look and feel foolish. I don't know how this relationship will go before it starts becoming properly toxic, but I can only hope that there is a way it can be resolved. There are a few other male characters like the attendant Gaoshun and the dog-like Lihaku, but it's telling and charming that their primary purpose in many sequences is comedic relief or as an extra official arm for Maomao.

I've recently finished watching the first two seasons of its anime adaptation, which cover the first four volumes of the light novel series. I'd seen clips of it through Crunchyrole's YouTube channel, and been intrigued. I have a soft spot for very well written court intrigue. Not your standard fluffy fare, but one where it really feels like there are stakes. And if you like political drama with real heart, and without gratuitous violence, then this is absolutely a must-watch. It's one of the few series set in this culture that doesn't focus on a hyper-masculine wuxia overtone, instead staying grounded in the actions of one woman whose low status means her life is worth less than nothing to almost everyone in the court. And it's also a refreshing fictional world that creates an alternate Imperial China without falling back on magic, instead creating an original grounded story inspired by true history.

An Author's retrospective: Sapphire & Steel

Image source: David McCallum’s X Files: how Sapphire & Steel chilled the nation (Telegraph)

Yes, I know it's the Sunday after my second book's release, but I felt the need to talk about this series. A forgotten sci-fi relic from an age long past.

All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension. Transuranic heavy elements may not be used where there is life. Medium atomic weights are available: Gold, Lead, Copper, Jet, Diamond, Radium, Sapphire, Silver and Steel.

With this intro...nothing really happened. But I ran into it by accident, and I've decided to write about it. This is one that I'm almost certain no-one will remember outside of niche sci-fi fans. A series broadcast by ITV between 1979 and 1982, Sapphire & Steel is basically a high-concept science fiction where interdimensional beings represented by atomic "elements" investigate violations of the flow of time and reality. Due to low budget and ratings, production struggles, scheduling mishaps, executive shifts, and the lead actors moving on to other things, the series ended on a cliffhanger, and remains something of a lost oddity. Not as much as that K9 spin-off that didn't happen.

Each story follows Sapphire and Steel, and potentially a third operative, during investigations where malevolent forces attempt to break into or disrupt reality, which can be something related to "Time" or some other non-physical being which can fatally disrupt reality. The first and seemingly most iconic for some reason sees a family disappear in a house full of clocks. The second adventure, my personal favourite, focuses on the ghosts of people who died unfairly being exploited by a dark entity. The third is a pretty bleak one about travellers from the 35th Century. The fourth is a chiller about photographs coming alive. The fifth, my second favourite, is a very interesting time-bending tale where a fancy dress party begins replaying events from thirty years before. The sixth features a diner where time has stopped, and a final trap for the protagonists.

This series treads an interesting and fine line between sci-fi and fantasy. If we're being strictly scientific here, it definitely falls into the fantasy camp. I mean, we're following two non-humans with telepathy, teleportation, and other powers as they face extra-dimensional threats which can cling to the dead, revive memories, and bend the flow of time and history among others. But then you get small obfuscations of these events, pseudoscientific explanations such as it not being an actual "ghost" ghost, but an after-image like an emotional imprint, which is something vaguely tied into the fact that pheromones exist. Plus almost every non-human character could fall into the category of being an alien. It's similar to how Lovecraft's works are technically sci-fi, but fall apart under any kind of scientific scrutiny. But the show's biggest pro is that it inhabits this liminal space, and so it can use these haunting ghost story-like set-ups to create compelling slow-burn mysteries about the intrusion of greater powers into the living world.

The major cons of this series are its active cliffhanger, which was supposed to be resolved in the next series, and its clear lack of budget. Not that this is much of an issue as suspension of disbelief exists. It actually puts a lot more on the sound design and cast to carry the series, which they do. The soundtrack and sound effects are genuinely unsettling, and the acting as a whole is very good. Joanna Lumley and David McCallum are standouts throughout as the otherworldly agents Sapphire and Steel.

There isn't a lot to say about the series, and it's become rare. It's available on ITV, there are commercial releases floating around, and there was a Big Finish sequel series for CD/audio that I haven't experienced myself. But there's nothing like the originals. Those odd, creepy originals.

Sapphire and Steel have been assigned.

On Lost Stories

In April of this year, a story will become lost forever after ending. Originally releasing in 2021, Nier Reincarnation was created for mobiles, which in the gaming scene are notorious for leaving little to nothing behind them. This got me thinking about lost stories. Not just "lost media" in the modern sense of mobile games going offline and programs being removed or edited on streaming services without a physical equivalent to compare it to, or film print originals being altered (looking at you, Star Wars Original Trilogy). I have encountered some elements of this, pieces of the history of narrative that are either in danger of being lost, or have been lost.

The most obvious examples, and the ones with no recourse for recovery, are the plays and poetry of Grecians and Romans from antiquity. The lost tragic plays of Euripides, the vast number of comic plays that have been lost apart from the dozen or so surviving from Aristophanes, the Roman historical accounts and poetry that wasn't preserved for whatever reason, and most prominently the lyric poetic writings of Sappho and her contemporaries. In Sappho's case, the loss is particularly painful and tantalising as we have some fragments from her work. Despite her being highly regarded in her day and in the immediate aftermath in Classical times we have...drum roll please...a whole four debatably complete poems, and somewhere around six fragments. But oh my, those pieces are so evocative.

Those are the biggies, the ones that are the most obvious examples of lost stories. They were lost due to the passage of time, the archaic style of writing, and the already shaky ability for historical manuscripts to be preserved. It's sad, but sadly unavoidable, and not without hope. Many of the Sappho we do have was rediscovered through recent archaeological and scholarly work. Originally it was only one or two bits that we had. But there are cases where the reason for loss is...less misty and nostalgic. During the early television days, video tape was expensive and so television networks and stations had a policy of reusing video tape. Or they were broadcast live, so no recording happened in-house. Many surviving programs we have exist because of copies onto 16mm film. Many people will point to Doctor Who, but there we actually have the entire run intact as audio recordings, not something that can be said for most of the Paul Temple TV series, a lot of early Avengers, the first Quatermass serial, the original A for Andromeda, and so many others. All we have are tantalising glimpses through stills, clips, script fragments.

These were, for a long time, the most painful, but also quite understandable. There wasn't a strict policy or atmosphere of preservation for future generations. This was semi-disposable material, very understandable. But there is another type of lost media that's more insidious, and I think should be treated with the utmost caution. Following the scandals surrounding Savile and Harris, programs featuring or referencing them went through a session with a pair of scissors. That didn't just mean programs hosted by them were culled (completely understandable), but spoofs of them were also removed. I completely understand this approach, as what those men and others like them did is unforgivable. And then some pieces of media have been removed/disappeared because of offensive stereotypes. Again, understandable. But if you just remove them without leaving a suitably signposted way of finding them again for curiosity or serious research, where are you? You enter the realm of historical revisionism, which...you know...is what Stalin was doing. Being cautious and considerate is commendable, but clumsy damage control which harms media preservation and sets a precedent of sweeping away the unhelpful and unhealthy as 'it didn't happen' is...wrong.

Now we come to a very modern type of "lost story". Those who could release it have it in good quality, they have the means of releasing it...but they don't, for whatever reason. This is particularly noticeable with children's television like The Basil Brush Show, The Magician's House, The Worst Witch, and others. They might receive small releases, or be rebroadcast, but they seldom get a release in any form that allows preservation. Documentaries are also beset by this issue, but the one that stands out is the series that may have been serviceable, but doesn't get any kind of later attention because it didn't really take off. One I caught by chance just on the cusp of its age demographic was Galidor. Basically designed as a tie-in with Lego's action figure line of the same name, it had an interesting sci-fi premise, and did what it could on a smallish budget with a goal of using a combination of live actors, puppetry and CGI--not a common combination at the time it was made in the early 2000s. But both series and toy line flopped, and outside a repeat in 2004 which I happened to catch, and a cancelled game that got released through Lego Game bundles, it's only accessible through legally grey online recordings. Is it a series worth preserving? Maybe, maybe not, it's not the best thing around. But it's a unique concept, and you'd be surprised how many notable directors and writers cut their teeth on it.

I feel torn about this concept of stories, whether they be books or films or shows or games, being lost or altered. It feels, particularly when the change comes from a modern moral mandate, like a slap in the face. "You're too delicate to have this, so we're taking it away, neh-neh!" It makes cases where these elements are kept with suitable warnings more noticeable, and in many ways laudable. They release the media as is, but they still acknowledge elements that would offend or upset. But when it's a case of Sappho's poetry lost to the ages, a mobile game vanishing, physical media degrading with no digital equivalent, then it's sad. All the sadder when the only means of actively preserving them treads into a legal grey area and can have publishers and distributors coming down with the ban hammer and leaving their audience with literally nothing.

If this was rambling, I don't apologise. This is a topic that can't be covered easily in a single post. Lost media, lost stories, are something that's been with us for millennia. And when they happen in the present day, it can be anything from sad to unsettling. Because whatever people say, those are still stories. And if we're kept from experiencing them and learning from them and more specifically what to avoid in them with suitable context, then how can we learn at all?

Image credit: Nier Reincarnation Season 3 - The People and the World key art - alterations done by me to illustrate the article's theme.

What's Missing?: Doctor Who

This is the beginning of a new blog series I've decided to dub "What's Missing?". Here, I look at stories from multiple media and look at how, over time, those stories may have lost something that originally made them iconic or helped them stand out from the crowd. This week, it's a classic of the science fiction genre: Doctor Who.

For those not in the know, Doctor Who is a science fiction series following the adventures of the Doctor, an alien being whose TARDIS machine is capable of space-time travel. Together with a changing roster of companions (human, alien and otherwise) and a changing set of actors (and now actresses) taking on the role, the Doctor becomes mixed up in more conflicts than any one world's history could comfortably accommodate. Originally running from 1963 to 1989, then successfully reviving in 2005 to the present day, the series is one of the longest (continuous and extant) drama series in television history.

The series' biggest shift, arguably, was with its 2005 revival. It saw classic monsters revived in new ways, and for its first series experimentation with monster and alien concepts comparable with the era of Philip Hinchcliff during the mid-1970s. But as the series has continued and gone from strength to strength, something's become apparent. While it still has moral messages and complex characters at its core, something else Doctor Who once reveled in is gone; commentary. For these comparisons, I'm taking three stories from the series' original run and comparing them with the revived series; The Daleks, The Green Death, and The Talons of Weng Chiang.

The Daleks (1963-64) is notable for introducing the series' most recognisable alien nemesis, the titular menace which has endured multiple exterminations and a temporal war. But what were they actually about? Their writer Terry Nation created the Daleks out of two prevalent ideas in the 1960s; the threat of nuclear war, and the legacy of the Nazi regime in Europe. The setting of The Daleks, where neutron bombs have turned most of the planet into a petrified wasteland. The Daleks' own attitudes, seeing all other races as either a threat or inferior and thus disposable, reflect the core Nazi ideologies of superiority and racial purity. Even without knowledge of these, The Daleks makes bleak watching for a modern viewer.

The Green Death (1973) reflects a different mood. It covers several different issues of the day; the possibilities of green energy, the dangers of new and untested energy sources, concerns about corporate power and their influence on politics, and labour issues. Global Chemicals acts as the focal point for all of these; through the sci-fi veneer of Global Chemicals's new energy process creating a poisonous mutagen which turns a population of maggots into giant killers, The Green Death tells a cautionary tale about corporate power gone mad. Even as the byproducts of their "clean" energy process literally start to swarm, Global Chemicals use their political muscle to have the problem hushed up. In these days of the suspicious dealings by politicians and questions about the states of private companies, The Green Death remains relevant even after some forty years.

The Talons of Weng Chiang has an interesting twist on its otherwise fairly conventional Gothic tale in the vein of The Phantom of the Opera and multiple Hammer classics. The character of Magnus Greel, posing as the eponymous Chinese deity, acts as a parallel to a phenomenon of the time. During the mid 1970s, several high-profile Nazi members were being located and brought for trial by a dedicated group of "Nazi hunters", many survivors of the regime's concentration camps. Greel's legacy as a war criminal with thousands of deaths on his hands who escaped through time mirrors how many Nazi soldiers and elites escaped to sympathetic countries like South America to hide from the Allied powers' retribution. His horrendous experiments, hinted at and partially seen in the serial, also reflect the terrible crimes of Nazi scientists such as Josef Mengele.

Now I'm not saying that the revived series doesn't do commentary like this. It's just changed its focus, and with the concept of overarching narratives dilutes it considerably. The two-part story The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People is an example of this. Taken on its own with excess drama put to one side, it's an unsettling take on modern labour issues, in addition to the question of personal identity. But that whole concept is somewhat undermined by the plot twist at the end, which yanks the viewer out of an thought-provoking self-contained narrative to throw them into a science fiction premise that - to me at least - seemed rather trite. You could say the revived series is less obvious about it, but to be honest the original series could be quite subtle about its themes. For every Silurians, there's an Inferno. For every Mutants, there's Seeds of Doom.

Now there are a number of factors which contribute to this, but the ones that leap to mind are runtime, themes, tastes, and audience. The runtime has changed drastically, with most single 45-minute episodes from the revived series equating to half or less than half an original story's length in the original series (except in the Colin Baker era, where it was a series of two-to-three part stories with episodes of that length). The series' themes also shifted from current events and issues to people-focused drama and focusing far more on the pseudo-mythical themes previous original series stories had dabbled in. Tastes also want more people stories and seem to move further away from reality, and when it does touch on reality it causes massive controversy where before it would be seen as commentary. And the audience has also shifted; while Doctor Who was always intended for children, it now seems to aim for evoke the child in us where before it reached out to children and adults alike (more towards teens to adults as the series went on).

Let me be perfectly clear. I'm not saying either series is necessarily better than the other. There are several original series stories that are just plain bad, and I very much enjoy some of the stories and monsters the revived series has produced (the Weeping Angels being one of my all-time favourite Doctor Who creations) The "What's Missing" series seeks only to show how something may have changed without many people noticing. On the surface, the two phases of Doctor Who are basically the same. But there is a different. Something missing, for better or worse. Now, let's go and find that old copy of The Unquiet Dead, The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, 42, The Doctor's Wife, The Crimson Horror or Thin Ice...or whichever your revival favourites are, and enjoy!

Using a Genre; Straight, Satire, or Deconstruction - Part 3

In this series of blog posts, the first in some time due to a variety of factors, I've decided to focus on the three major ways people use genres in general; playing them straight, satirising them, and deconstructing them. Each has merits, and none are set in stone. That's what lovely about them!

This time, for this final post, deconstruction is the order of the day. So what is deconstruction, when not applied to Lego or philosophy that is? Well, it's generally applied to stories in various media which take the tropes of a particular genre and examine them with a critical eye and the aim of understanding its interior workings. While satire does something similar, deconstruction tends to be far darker. The word "deconstruction" has been associated most recently with anime, which has become notorious for relying on genre tropes to the point of exasperation, but many of these deconstructions don't actually count as such. They're just dark or violent takes on those same tropes without actually deconstructing them.

It's difficult to pin down what counts as deconstruction, so it may surprise you what I've picked out as fine examples of it. For books, I think one of the best examples for its time is the work of H. P. Lovecraft. Yes, his weird fiction may be a common subgenre now, but in its day it was groundbreaking. While most stories at the time focused on humans overcoming impossible odds, Lovecraft takes completely the opposite approach, using typical story beats of his time, wrapping his distinct and near-nihilistic views on humanity around them, and creating stories that can be seen as a commentary on how these stories are typically told, and how their protagonists are portrayed. Of course every book can have deconstruction in it somewhere, but there are very few which have it as a major part of their narrative.

The same can be said of movies and television, although there it seems to be spread even thinner on the ground due to...reasons. But there are plenty out there. Shrek, in between its bouts of comedy and genuinely moving romance, deconstructs multiple fairy tale tropes people take for granted, accomplished by making its lead character an ogre, a being typically portrayed as a villain or antagonistic minion. A series that I think does this well is Firefly and its movie conclusion Serenity. While it has the usual allowance of sci-fi tropes and concessions, its people are more real than most other sci-fi casts, facing its extraordinary circumstances with down-to-earth responses. A special shout-out must be given to Whedon's writing as he makes characters real even in the most outlandish situations.

In anime, deconstruction has sadly become more of a buzzword than an actual description of the anime's contents. Shows like School Days and Puella Magi Madoka Magica are labelled as deconstruction without actually understanding what a deconstruction is. In my view, they're just ultra-violent or downbeat takes on a genre's tropes without actually deconstructing them. There can be deconstructive elements there, but it's not like the whole show deconstructs the genre. One show I think is often overlooked in the deconstruction line is Neon Genesis Evangelion. It stands as both a prime example of the mecha genre, and a brutal examination of what real teenagers with real problems would do and how they would react when stuck inside a giant mech and forced to fight merciless monsters dubbed Angels.

Video games have a far richer field of view for deconstruction due to their interactive nature. But again it's an industry averse to taking risks, even more so than the movie and television industries as they focus more on high returns than art. The setting I most associated with deconstruction is Yoko Taro's seminal Drakengard/Nier franchise. On the surface a Medieval high fantasy world, its dark twist on multiple RPG-based storytelling tropes from the hero with animal companion and love interest (here a sadistic soldier with a racist dragon and a sister holding secret incestuous love) to the righteous cause of the main character (androids sent to Earth to defeat monstrous machines, only said machines aren't nearly so monstrous and their leaders not nearly so honest as they seem). One part dark fantasy, one part cautionary tales about prejudice and the nature of killing, one part deconstruction of what games are, this franchise is unique in the gaming world. And that's saying something!

Closing Note;
Playing it straight. Satire. Deconstruction. Each has merits. Each has pitfalls. I'm not telling you which to use or which to ignore, only showing what they have to offer. I hope you've enjoyed what I've shown you as examples of these three approaches.

Shameless plug time ;)
If you want a cheap sample of non-violent deconstruction, then why not take a look at When Ai Met Yu: A Modern Japanese Romance, my take on the LGBT-focused yaoi/bara genres.

Amazon UK link
Amazon US link
Kobo Score link

Review - Television Movie - The Count of Monte Cristo (1975)

Note: I’d intended this week’s post to be the third in my series on approaches to genre, but I couldn’t resist the urge to write this review of what ranks among my favorite Dumas dramatisations.

Few stories are as ingrained into popular culture as Alexander Dumas's seminal saga of revenge The Count of Monte Cristo. Wronged Marseilles sailor Edmund Dantes is falsely condemned to over a decade in the Chateau d'If, escapes with the help of friend and tutor Abbe Faria, and discovers a promised stash of unimaginable wealth on the little island of Monte Cristo. As the Count, and under a wealth of other aliases, Dantes sets about exacting a slow and calculated revenge on the men responsible for his ruin. The original book is a literal brick to read, but has spawned multiple adaptations, pastiches and parodies, and is ranked among both Dumas's (and his ghost writer partner August Maquet) greatest works and among the great works of literature.

There are over twenty separate adaptations in existence across multiple languages, including a stellar four-part BBC radio adaptation with Iain Glen taking the role of the Count. There are three notable movie adaptations, but the one I'm focusing on for this review is the Emmy award-nominated 1975 television movie with Richard Chamberlain in the lead role. This adaptation has the unenviable task of fitting the basics of a book coming in at nearly 400,000 words (the size of four standard modern books combined) into the modest span of 105 minutes, or one hour and forty-five minutes (116 minutes/nearly two hours in Europe).

The first thing to note is that this isn't a faithful transcript of the novel, but an adaptation of its salient points. This means that nearly every subplot has been cut, leaving the bare bones of the original novel's narrative. In this case, it's a plus, as many people probably need a graff to keep track of what's going on from one chapter to the next. Despite its meagre runtime, the movie does an admirable job of communicating the novel's plot, and succeeds in being more faithful to the original story than either the 1934 black and white adaptation or the more action-oriented 2002 version. There are clear influences from the 1934 version, from motifs to direct lifts for particular scenes, but the original novel's bleak tone is maintained. Dantes isn't a hero, he's a man out for revenge. And in this story, revenge is served very cold indeed. The cut subplots help keep the movie's pace at a breathless speed, and while there are multiple artistic liberties with the sequence of events, they don't stop it being an enjoyable romp through one of the great revenge plots of our time.

The casting has some mixed results. The lavish direction of the production shows in the actors brought on board, but it's difficult to be entirely convinced by Tony Curtis as Count Fernand Mondego, and some of the other performances come off as over-the-top. The other leads and major supporting roles are surprisingly good despite some occasionally laughable French accents; a shoutout must be given to Louis Jourdan in the role of Gerard de Villfort, who both brings a smile to the face and makes us relish the character's downfall. Chamberlain does a good job with Dantes, both in his innocence and his life as the Count, showing a gentlemanly grace combined with his cold-hearted determination to be avenged upon his foes. Those who only know Chamberlain for his roles of Aramis in The Three/Four Muskateers and 20 Years Later and his dual role of Louis XIV/Phillipe in the 1970s version of The Man in the Iron Mask will be surprised at how dark and tragic his performance is.

The production values are unquestionable. The location shoots and costume design give a sense of authenticity regardless of any anachronisms the expert might pick up. Set design invokes the renewed decadence of France during the 19th century following Napoleon's defeat, and many of the costumes reflect the gaudy designs present among the French elite at that time. The music, composed by Allyn Ferguson, is suitable sweeping and dramatic, even though it's totally at odds with the music they were actually playing at the time. But then, we didn't complain about Dmitri Tiompkin's work on The Fall of the Roman Empire. It just works, regardless of what the era's music was actually like.

To summarise, this movie is a good adaptation of Dumas's novel, but it's not the most accurate. In fact, only the BBC radio dramatisation's come anywhere close to being an accurate adaptation, and even then it cut bits out and made alterations to some events. This movie is a good introduction to this story that's become part of the Western zeitgeist, with some fine performances, its fair share of camp, and a lavish presentation and production. A good movie for those into classic period drama or the work of Dumas, but maybe less appealing for those who prefer a purer approach to adaptation.

7/10

Using a Genre; Straight, Satire, or Deconstruction - Part 2

In this series of blog posts, the first in some time due to a variety of factors, I've decided to focus on the three major ways people use genres in general; playing them straight, satirising them, and deconstructing them. Each has merits, and none are set in stone. That's what lovely about them!

This time we're looking at satire. What is satire? According to the definition provided by Wikipedia, satire is: "a genre of literature, and sometimes graphic and performing arts, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, government, or society itself into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society". Well, that about sums it up. And by its very nature, satire can be hard to pin down as a single genre.

As with most aspects of fiction, satire is something which can be done right or wrong depending on whose reading it. Some people will of course be terribly offended, while others with clap with joy. The mixed reception is perhaps best exemplified by many works of French author and essayist Voltaire. An open critic of the then-prevalent Ancien Regime, his novella Candide provoked both support and criticism, and is considered a classic satire of the social norms of the time. Playing out as a picaresque novel, it lampoons the conventions of the adventure and saga genres while also making valid points about society in France at the time, which was heavily class divided and ruled through an absolute monarchy. I fully intend getting my own copy of Candide at some point.

Classical writers excelled at heavily critical works which can stray into the realms of satire; Horance pioneered it as popular entertainment, and later the Roman writer Juvenal (who became the inspiration for the word "juvenile" for obvious reasons) gave us. Other notable later writers include Alexander Pope with his parody of Homer The Dunciad (an attack on the society of Queen Charlotte, wife to George II thought by her critics as the monarchy's guiding hand), Jonathan Swift's novel Gulliver's Travels (in its original pre-Disney form a scathing satire of the English political system in Georgian England), and several works by Mark Twain.

In modern times, satire has taken different forms and tackled issues of the time, a theme that runs through the entire body of satire as a genre convention. A notable example is Catch 22, a novel by Joseph Heller which refers to -- quoting Gilbert and Sullivan for a moment -- "a most ingenious paradox", or a double bind if you like. An airman wishes to get out of a dangerous mission by being declared mentally unfit, but their wish to be taken off that missions shows they have a rational wish for self-preservation and so can't be classified as mentally unfit.

Leaving the realm of the written text into things like opera, we find several satires there as well. Gilbert and Sullivan for one. Well, technically it was Gilbert who did all the satires. Sullivan didn't like it, which partially led to the pair splitting up. Gilbert's plots mocked many conventions of British life during the Victorian era through unlikely and unreasonable situations. Each opera sent up something different; The Mikado focused on the English political system, H.M.S. Pinafore lampooned the rigid class system, and The Pirates of Penzance made merry with the idea of apprenticeship and a sense of duty and loyalty to one's profession -- however much it may be abhorred.

Television satire comes in many forms, but the form I'll focus on here is Yes, Minister and its sequel Yes, Prime Minister. This television series ran during the late 1980s, and acted as a ruthless satire of the governments first of Margaret Thatcher and then of John Major. Main protagonist James Hacker M.P., later elected Prime Minister in a situation similar to the recent ascension of Theresa May following Cameron's resignation, is in a battle of wits and policies with the Permanent Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby, watched and more than once engaged in on both sides by Hacker's Principle Private Secretary Bernard Woolley. The series' comedy stems from Hacker trying to make changes to the established governmental and ministerial systems, and Sir Humphrey's determined efforts to keep things static. It's wonderfully funny, but is like that because it's lampooning how the British political system actually works. Later, it goes into the role -- or perhaps lack thereof -- of the Prime Minister.

Movies also have their fair share of satire hidden among the blockbusters and art pieces. These can range from Terry Gilliam's darker absurdist movies such as Brazil; the adaptation of Starship Troopers, which combines its summer flick action scenes with scathing satire and criticism of both the American military and the use of war propaganda; or comedic affairs such as Murder by Death, which takes apart and parodies the accepted tropes of detective stories from both the British Golden Age and the American Crime Noir movement.

Satire in video games can transcend what other media can accomplish due to the interactivity inherent to gaming. Due to the relative youth of the medium, it's also much rarer than in literature, movies and television, and also end up making more potential missteps. A notable example of video game satire is The Stanley Parable. In this game, you -- the main character -- are guided through a short story scenario by the narrator. Even the slightest deviance from the path causes the narrator to comment on the situation and do everything from gently persuade to passively abuse you. It points out the convention of a guided path through games that many take for granted. Other games that call out such conventions include Drakengard 3 (through the snarky comments and the actions of main heroine Zero and her disciples) and Danganronpa V3 (the reasons of which I won't spoil here).

Well, that's all I wanted to talk about here. Now I've covered both playing a genre straight and satirising it, I'll move on to one of my favourite approaches when done right - deconstruction. Until next week, enjoy!

Using a Genre; Straight, Satire, or Deconstruction - Part 1

In this series of blog posts, the first in some time due to a variety of factors, I've decided to focus on the three major ways people use genres in general; playing them straight, satirising them, and deconstructing them. Each has merits, and none are set in stone. That's what lovely about them!

Playing it straight is something every author that has ever existed has done at some point. Whether it's through practice writing, or their published work on any scale, they will take a particular genre and use the straight approach for its portrayal. To be clear, this doesn't mean that someone has to play this completely seriously, or just focus on a narrative. There's a difference between satirising or deconstructing a genre and using it to communicate a particular theme or point. You can do one without doing the other, as many authors have proved. All genres are subject to this, but some show the distinction more than others.

The Lord of the Rings is one of the most notable pieces of fantasy fiction that is played straight. As old readers will know, my feelings on Tolkien are somewhat mixed. But even I'm going to admit that his work is more than impressive. It has scope, intrigue, drama, and a story that has inspired generations of writers following him for good or ill. He includes elements of comedy in the first book, but otherwise the story is serious, portraying the terrible events and troubles facing all sides defying Sauron's bid for global power, much simplified but still more than evident in the movie adaptation.

Many works of science fiction also play things straight, with those who adhere to scientific principals in most of their works being clearer examples than most. Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Azimov both create set worlds which often feature rigidly realistic rules (for their time) when it comes to space travel, scientific advancement, and artificial intelligence. The Robot novels by Asimov not only focus on complicated - or at least unconventional - murder mysteries, but also look hard at the social and technological differences between Earth and colonies on other worlds, and in later books how colonial planets such as Solaria and Aurora differ from each other.

Romances on all levels can involve any amount of raucous comedy or social commentary. Jane Austin's books are full of both witty dialogue and sharp criticism of the culture of her time, the class-driven society of Georgian England when what can be recognised as the prototype middle classes were emerging. Romantic elements are also added to a large number of stories, whether it's straight or LGBT, without it going into the realms of satire or deconstruction. Agatha Christie - while principally a writer of mystery - is somewhat notorious regard to romance, sprinkling in romantic interest and occasionally making improbably, questionable or even wince-worthy matches between surviving characters.

As with any form of fiction, movies, television and video games also share the differing takes on genres, and consequently have stories that play genre conventions straight. The majority of film noir such as The Maltese Falcon, Double Jeopardy and The Big Sleep are played straight and portray a depressing reality our detective (or in some cases murderer) protagonists negotiate during their journey. Video games can end up being criticised for taking themselves to seriously with their subject matter (many Call of Duty games and their competitors/clones are tripped up by this), while in other cases such as Fire Emblem and indeed most RPGs this seriousness is taken as a genre standard.

As with most subjects people write about, there are just too many to list within a single piece or even a series of pieces on the subject. So I think we'll leave it here for now. Next week, we'll be looking at approaching a genre from the angle of satire.

Using a Genre; Straight, Satire, or Deconstruction - Introduction

Hi there, I'm back with a very long post that needs several parts to say what I want to say. This time, as I've started work on a satire of the fantasy genre, I think I'd like to examine the three major ways people use genres in general; playing them straight, satirising them, and deconstructing them. Each has merits, and none are set in stone. That's what lovely about them!

The first part, playing it straight, is just that. Treating the genre's typical tropes, expectations and quirks as part of the standard ebb and flow of writing. In doing this, you can still do humor or going into the darker parts of the narrative, but you do so while still keeping within the bounds of a straight-laced tale in whatever genre you've chosen. You may slip into parody or satire, but in an approach like this you may end up doing so unconsciously.

Satire is one of the oldest arts in storytelling. The word itself comes from Latin, but satire goes back to Classical Greece and Ancient Egypt. For those a little fuzzy on what it is, satire is a means by which something the creator feels needs ridicule is... well, ridiculed. Be it social norms of the time, the political situation, or the particular foibles of a literary genre, satire holds them up and points them out for how ridiculous they are or can be. Satire can be dark and biting, but it also features parody, wit, and numerous other elements. Parody itself could be taken as its own standalone thing, but for the purposes of this blog post series, I'll be incorporating it as part of the body of satire.

Deconstruction is the most difficult to define, as it's the most easily abused. The term has been most recently associated with anime, and as this video ably demonstrates, it's often stuck on as a bling word rather than being a genuine description of something. To put it at its simplest, deconstruction is about taking a genre and examining its most common tropes and cliches from a real-world perspective, with the very act of deconstruction serving as a commentary on the genre. Deconstruction, when applied correctly, is most often used for more fantastic genres such as science fiction and fantasy, but can apply to action-adventure, romance, and other elements.

Now, as with anything, there is no simple line dividing these three, and there will be elements of satire or deconstruction in an otherwise serious or straightforward work, or there might be comedic elements without going into satire, or it might take the darkest or oddest approach to a story without actually deconstructing its tropes and cliches. In any case, I look forward to going through these different approaches with you over the next few weeks. Enjoy!

Reapers are a Writer's Best Friend; Part 3 - Television

Let's face it: death in all its myriad and repulsive forms is an inseparable part of life. It's the yin to the yang, the other side of the coin. Nere the twain shall meet, yet one cannot exist without the other. But the problem is that death is liable to be treated in popular media in a way that might skew its place in people's lives. Sure, there are plenty of ways in comics, movies, television, books and games that treat death with the respect and gravity it deserves, but there are just as many who treat death as an almost-trivial means of advancing the story. In this post, I'll be looking at how death is portrayed in a variety of television series.

Oh, and since we're delving into character deaths, I'll say this for the sake of formality. MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Mystery stories are too numerous to name in a single article without it turning into a list, and they all have something in common; a death provides the catalyst for the story's action and central mystery. While the most noteworthy are adaptations of the most famous works of mystery writers - whether faithful to the text or replete with creative alterations - there are several original productions of note. Silent Witness focuses on the forensic side of the crime, the surreal Collision shows more of the investigatory side a massive car crash, Colombo flips things on their head by showing the entire murder before showing how the titular detective solves the crime, Person of Interest puts a science fiction twist on investigation, and NCIS mixes the crime-solving with a strong focus on personality to prevent the show from going stale. In such long-running series, it is more shocking to see characters die - more often it is the character "retiring" or "moving on" that is used to explain the actor or actress moving on to new roles. Notable deaths in long-running series include Warrick Brown from the original CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Kaitlyn Todd and Ziva David from NCIS, and John Reese from Person of Interest.

In Doctor Who, the very long-running television series, death is actually cheated multiple times. Due to the format of the show and the creative decisions made over the years, they solved the necessity of the lead actor moving on - have each character's "death" be a transitional phase through a pseudo-magical-scientific mechanism unique to his race. Despite the main character cheating death, many supporting characters have met their ends over the course of the story, sometimes in quite unpleasant ways - the many character deaths in series as varied as The Seeds of Death back to Tomb of the Cybermen and forward to Warrior's Gate, the tragic massacres of The Curse of Fenric and Logopolis, the basic premise of The Talons of Weng Chiang, and the unexpectedly mature narratives of Inferno and The Deadly Assassin. I could go on. The thing lacking from the series is companion deaths; the first and one of the most shocking is the death of Adric in the 1982 serial Earthshock. Take into account that this was before the near-pessimistic attitude growing into the revives series of 2005 onward, when the series was still aimed squarely at a younger audience.

Death as an artistic and stylistic expression is nearly unheard of in any non-interactive medium, at least in the sense that the death of a key character forms a recurring concept. I mean, death is final. Isn't it? Well, not in the universe of Aeon Flux. The black-haired, leather-clad, acrobat assassin has been lingering in the public imagination since the 1990s, following a successful series of animated shorts on MTV, culminating in ten half-hour episodes which moved into more conventional territory. A recurring feature of the shorts was that the titular heroine would end up dying in some way. Whether shot, garroted by a cable, killed by a lethal fall, or attacked by an inhuman monster, she met an often grisly end at each short episode's climax. This makes the series stand out from the crowd - what other universe kills its titular protagonist in every single entry? Well, barring the half-hour episodes and later movie adaptation. The movie's tie-in video game did something to rectify that, as a recurring element was each story sequence or mission ending with Aeon's death. This use of death falls within the series' bold experimental style, and helps Aeon stand out as not only one of the most enduring, but one of the clumsiest heroines in science fiction.

Now obviously there are too many television series or one-off specials in existence to count, and those listed above are a very general selection from my own limited experience. But there is a recurring theme I've seen as a writer examining stories. The episodic format of many a television series turns death into something with more impact than often possible in movies; unless it's end of series, the rest of the cast need to move on without that character. In movies, you normally have around two hours with the likelihood of another death down the line. In television, you can have as long as sensibly or even idiotically possible. Of course the quality of that death, as with all things, relies on the quality of the show. For example, character deaths in Primeval resonate far less than those in Sons of Anarchy. This is a rule that applies to all forms of storytelling, but people can be especially critical for television series.

Next week, we dive into the realm of video games. Sharing stories with other mediums, video games have the advantage of being an interactive medium. This enables games with stories of incredible complexity, in addition to turning death into a whole mechanic, and even an element of player choice narrative.

Reapers are a Writer's Best Friend; Introduction

Let's face it: death in all its myriad and repulsive forms is an inseparable part of life. It's the yin to the yang, the other side of the coin. Nere the twain shall meet, yet one cannot exist without the other. But the problem is that death is liable to be treated in popular media in a way that might skew its place in people's lives. Sure, there are plenty of ways in comics, movies, television, books and games that treat death with the respect and gravity it deserves, but there are just as many who treat death as an almost-trivial means of advancing the story. This post is in the form of a basic introduction to the concept, recurring themes, and my goal with this post series.

So what makes a good death in fiction? Well, it depends on the genre, the scale and the setting, and also on how you want to tell the story. Deaths in the main cast can prove a strong catalyst for the story depending on how you lead up to them, while supporting characters carry less weight and are consequently more liable to slip into the background of importance. A villain's death or expected death - whether just or ironic or even humiliating - is an expected and consequently overused trope. Quite often it's the main protagonist dealing the blow, or failing that trying one last time to save them despite their villainy. Widespread death of a population can also form both a background and catalyst in the story - these can be caused by plague, human agency, or widespread disaster.

In a murder mystery or thriller, a death acts as the catalyst for the entire story, and can be anyone with anything as long as there's a kind of reason and logic apparent by the end of the story; it also has a realise on the type of genre featured. It can be a single isolated death driving the characters forward, or a series of murders leading them on. Everyday stories don't tent to feature death except in a natural form. In fantasy and science fiction, death can be treated rather more freely, even to the point that none of the characters die at all. It is also more likely to be highly fantastical and perhaps even clean due to the nature of the death.

The type of story the author wants to tell also affects whether death plays any part. Young children's fiction generally avoids the topic for good reason. Older children and young adult stories can more frequently involve it, but often in a stylised form. Adult fiction more often brings forward realistic and messy deaths where applicable. In general, various factors contribute to how death is introduced and handled , varying from author tastes and genre to the story's setting and tone.

Over the next few weeks, I will be creating several articles that look at particular deaths in different media, and how they impact and advance or conclude the story. My articles will concern death...

In books.
In movies.
In television.
In video games.

Finally I hope to look at how my own character deaths are created, and the lessons I've learnt over ten years of evolving my style. So until next week, please look forward to it. See you then!