Author: Phil Friel

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I\’ve just recently bought the hardback of the final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It\’s been sitting in front of me for about a week now, and I\’m trying to get up the nerve to actually read it. And it\’s proving more difficult than even I\’d imagined it would be.

My son, Philip, died on 19th April 2006, at the tender age of only 14 years and 9 months, from complications caused by terminal cancer. He was a huge Harry Potter fan. I had read the first three Potter novels to him when he was younger, at one chapter a night – he loved his latest bedtime installment of Potter – and read books 4, 5 and 6 to him as he lay ill in hospital. We hung on, hoping against hope that the final HP novel would be released, in time for him to reach the end of the story. But it wasn\’t to be. He died before the final book was published, and one of my most poignant regrets is that he never got to find out how it all ended.

I made a promise to myself, and to my son, the day he died. I swore that, when the final HP book was released, I\’d read it out aloud, one chapter per night, in the hope that he might just finally hear the end of the story \”up there\”, or wherever else he may be. I\’ve avoided all spoilers like the plague. I haven\’t even glanced at the back of the dust jacket. I know absolutely nothing about the story, other than the nebulous \”somebody dies\” that I\’ve seen floating around the internet. So whatever happens, it\’ll come as a complete surprise.

But now that I\’ve finally got the book, I\’m finding it very difficult to carry out my promise. There\’s something, an internal fear holding me back. It\’s like an invisible forcefield, a mountain I have to climb before I can open the book for the first time. It\’s incredible how something as untouchable, as unsolid as the mind, the emotions, can feel so physically real, like a giant pair of hands, holding me back. I really need my kid right now, both in person and to give me a much-needed metaphysical push in the back.

Well, I\’ve made up my mind. By the time the coming weekend is out, come hell or high water, I\’ll have broken the ice, the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be well and truly behind me, and I\’ll be moving through the book at a regular chapter per night.

And at last, if there\’s any justice at all, and any such place as an afterlife, my son (and I) will find some sort of closure with the end of the Harry Potter saga.

Collecting Old Comics Stuff

I\’ve been going through a bit of a crazy phase recently. Almost a reversion to my youth, or, at least, my youthful collecting habits. I\’ve been spending a lot of money on Ebay, trying to pick up some of the rare relics of my early-to-mid teenage years, when I was an obsessive collector of British comics, as opposed to the more easily found US comics that I became a collector of from my later teens onwards.

Over the last couple of weeks I\’ve been buying a lot of old issues of my favourite British comics from the 1960s and 1970s, mainly Lion, Valiant and Thunder. I would dearly love to be able to buy a whole bunch of Countdown and TV Century 21 (aka TV21), but these are a lot harder to find and a heckuva lot more expensive than the Lion, Valiant and Thunder. Maybe someday, when I\’m rich.

I\’ve also started collecting old annuals, those hardback, once-yearly collections of strips and other goodies from our favourite comics. Again, mainly Valiant, Lion and Thunder, although I did also pick up a nice Countdown Annual from 1972. I remember from when I was a kid – these were the Holy Grail, usually too expensive for me to buy (I didn\’t have a lot of pocket money back in the \’60s and \’70s, and annuals cost on average ten times the price of the weekly comic), and usually confined to Christmas presents from my Dad or other relatives.

Well, I\’ve made a really good start on picking up many annuals from the \’60s and \’70s period, and I\’m starting to develop a real knack for picking them up dirt cheap, or, at least, relatively cheap. (I\’ve just won two more as I\’m typing – Lion Annual 1973 and Thunder Annual 1973). I often look at this ever-growing stack of annuals beside me, and wonder \”Am I going mental? Why am I collecting all of this old stuff? What the hell am I going to do with it?\” And then I open an annual and feel the tidal wave of nostagia wash over me, all the old memories boring up from the depths of my moth-eaten excuse for a brain. And I feel good. Really good. Maybe nostalgia is the narcotic of the 40-somethings (I\’m 46). If it is, I\’m a complete addict. Since my son died in April 2006, I have little else left in my life.

At least nostalgia is a much safer and more productive addiction than cigarettes, booze and drugs. And we all need our little hobbies to spend our money on, or life would be unbearable, all bills and shopping and crappy Real Life nonsense. The thought makes me shudder…

Children of Dune Mini-Series

A while back I talked about the Sci-Fi Channel\’s excellent Dune mini-series, and said how much I enjoyed it. Well, tonight, we watched the first part of the three-part DVD release of the sequel mini-series, The Children of Dune.

The verdict? So far so good. This first part moves a few years ahead to a point where Maud\’dib and his Feydakin armies have swept across human space, defeating the old Imperial forces and sending the former Emperor and his family into exile. But there is great unrest among the Fremen, and a major conspiracy among the Imperial family, the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild. Maud\’dib has to deal with all of this, two attempts on his life, the birth of his two children and the death of his beloved Chani. Quite a lot to cram into only the first part!

While the first Dune mini-series covered the first Dune novel, The Children of Dune covers the next two novels, completing the classic Dune Trilogy. This perhaps explains the more hectic pace of the sequel mini-series, but The Children of Dune is none the less enjoyable despite that.

Overall, and so far, this is an excellent sequel to the original Dune mini-series. Well worth a look, and many kudos to the Sci-Fi Channel for producing these two excellent mini-series. I wish they\’d keep up the good record of adapting classic SF to mini-series.

Hominids in the House: Distant Relatives

There was a nice article in Nature recently relating a few interesting facts about some startling hominid fossil finds in Kenya, finds which challenge some long-held views on human evolution.

There were two fossils – a broken upper jawbone and an intact skull – nothing too startling in that. But what was startling is that these finds challenge the standard theory that Homo Habilis evolved into the more advanced Homo Erectus, who later evolved into us. Now it appears that they were \”sister species\”, that they overlapped in time, and lived side by side at some point. Another long-held standard theory bites the dust?

This brings back memories of an article which I read in Scientific American two or three years back. This article stated that, at one point in the past (can\’t recall exactly how long ago), no less than thirteen separate species of hominids existed side by side on this planet, each occupying their own little niche. Hard to believe, isn\’t it?

It\’s even harder to believe that all of them, bar our own direct ancestors, died out solely through natural selection. Methinks our ancestors were just as handy with the old \”ethnic cleansing\” as many of their dishonorable descendants. Maybe some kind of evolutionary or biological imperative built into us that we\’ll have to overcome before we can consider ourselves really \”civilized\”.

Reminds me of an early episode of Babylon 5, in which a drunken Londo was bragging that the Centauri used to exist alongside another intelligent species on their homeworld, but eventually exterminated them. Londo\’s views on this awful genocide? \”Good riddance!\”

Sounds just like us. The Centauri and Earthers are descended from a common ancestor, if you ask me.

New Sci-Fi on TV

I\’ve been watching a few new sci-fi shows recently, specifically the pilots of the Bionic Woman and Flash Gordon remakes, and the pilot of the Sarah Connor Chronicles, a spin-off from the Terminator movies. And my opinions?

I have to say that all three were… okay… not bad to watch, but nothing special either. I was actually slightly underwhelmed after all of the hype. The Bionic Woman, by the same guys who produced the excellent remake of Battlestar Galactica looks promising, despite the relatively low-key start. The bionic babe herself is played by the always nice on the eyes Michelle Ryan (formerly of Eastenders), while Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica manages to look a lot less butch, much sexier, and positively radiating menace as the nasty original Bionic Woman.

Flash Gordon updates the original story to the present day, and replaces the original (quaint but fun) dildo-shaped rocketships spewing sparks and smoke with a Sliders-like wormhole thingy to provide travel between Earth and the planet Mongo. There are lots of sexy babes (Ming\’s daughter and Dale in particular), Dale is now a very Lois Lane-like newspaper reporter, and the story is now much more based around Earth and Flash\’s family. On the negative side, the guy playing Ming seems a lot less suited to his role than his predecessors (Max von Sydow and Charles Middleton in particular). Overall, it was watchable, but with lots of room for improvement.

The most disappointing of the three was, funnily enough, the most action-packed, and the one that should\’ve had the most potential of them all. The Sarah Connor Chronicles is a spin-off of the second Terminator movie, and each episode features Sarah and a more adult (mid-teens) John, running and hiding from a constant stream of Terminators while under the protection of a \”teenage girl\” Terminator. There was a lot more action and thrills in this pilot than in the other two, but, strangely enough, I reckon that there\’s a lot less potential for improvement than for the others. How many times will we be able to watch Sarah and John survive yet another attack by the umpteenth tenth-rate Arnie clone before the series starts to get really monotonous and tiresome? Not too many, I\’d reckon. This is the sort of thing that is more suited to the occasional movie, not a regular weekly TV show. I\’m really hoping that I\’m wrong, \’cos I was a big fan of the Terminator movies. Time will tell.

Overall, so far, all three shows are watchable, but nothing special. Definitely nothing approaching the quality of Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who or Heroes. But it is early days yet, so here\’s hoping all three pick up a bit. I\’m still waiting for someone to do a Battlestar or Babylon 5-level quality series adaption of E.E. \”Doc\” Smith\’s classic Lensmen stories. Pretty much every space opera series or movie (Star Wars, Babylon 5 and others) have shamelessly ripped off the Lensmen and (to a lesser extent) Lord of the Rings. LOTR has had the big movie treatment. It\’s about time that the Lensmen also got the movie or TV honours. Why it hasn\’t been done a long time ago beats me.

A Good Day at the Shops

I\’ve had an interesting and fruitful day at the shops. Picked up a load of DVDs, a book, and a new set of plug-in earphones.

The book is the new hardback release of the final Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which my local Tesco\’s was selling at a huge 50% discount.

The earphones (bought at my local HMV) are the absolutely gorgeous Sennheiser CX300 plug-in ear-canal earphones, to go with my equally gorgeous Cowon iAudio X5 DAP. I needed phones to do the excellent sound quality of the X5 justice (the iAudio X5 blows the iPod out of the water, when it comes to sound quality). The earphones cost just under £40, and are worth every penny. You\’ll be lucky to find anything better under £100.

Finally, to the bulk of today\’s haul: five Doctor Who DVDs from my local Virgin store, at only £9 each (most Doctor Who DVDs are selling at over twice that amount right now). Genesis of the Daleks, Revelation of the Daleks, The Hand of Fear, Earthshock, and the 1996 Paul McGann Doctor Who TV movie.

I\’m a huge fan of both the classic Doctor Who series and the new series, and Genesis of the Daleks and The Hand of Fear are particular favourites of mine from the classic series. So I\’m well chuffed with this lot. Now, if only the rest of the classic Doctor Who DVDs would come down from their relatively high price of around £20 apiece, I can start replacing my tatty old Doctor Who VHS video collection with a bunch of pristine new DVDs.

It\’s going to be an enjoyable week going through this lot. A load of nice music, DVDs, and a good book… what more could any self-respecting geek ask for?

Silver Surfer: Requiem

One of my current favourite comics is a four-part mini-series published under the Marvel Knights imprint, Silver Surfer: Requiem. The series is is written by none other than J. Michael Straczynski himself (yep, he of Babylon 5 fame), and the beautiful, painted art is by Esad Ribic, someone whom I haven\’t come across before, but I\’ll certainly sit up and take notice if I see the name again.

As you might have guessed, the overarching theme of the mini-series is the impending death of the Silver Surfer, due to the molecular disintegration of the silver \”skin\” which covers his body, and which is part of him, right down to the deepest level of his nervous system. Even Reed Richards, one of the smartest humans on the planet, can do nothing to help. So the Surfer, in his own stoic, pragmatic fashion, resolves to accept his coming fate, and enjoy his remaining time to the utmost. He hops on his surfboard, and heads off into the big blue (or black) yonder, to see as much as there is to see of the world and universe before he dies.

So far, there have been three parts published out of the four, and each issue is a separate-but-linked segment of the whole story. The first part deals with the visit to Reed Richards, who confirms the diagnosis of the illness, with a bit of a recap of the Surfer\’s origin and the fateful adventure in which he rebelled against Galactus and sided with the Fantastic Four and the people of Earth against his former master. The second revolves around a fascinating encounter with Spider-Man, with a nice ending to that segment of the story. And the third issue takes the Surfer away from Earth out to the stars, where he gets involved in a \”Sacred War\” between two interplanetary races.

The series looks beautiful, and is very well written (as you\’d expect with Straczynski at the helm). What I really like about it is the way it deals with people, examining with a critical eye both the beauty and the ugly flaws of humanity (even when the \”humanity\” is two alien races), the religious fanaticism, the aggression, and the corruption and greed of powerful rulers. Powerful stuff.

Excellent story so far. Can\’t wait for the fourth and final segment of the mini-series.

Eternals by Neil Gaiman and John Romita, Jr.

I tend not to follow modern mainstream Marvel or DC comics at all these days. With the exceptions of the various collections of Silver and Bronze Age material and the occasional, very rare, collection of modern material by authors that I like (Ed Brubakker, Warren Ellis, Mark Waid, Mark Millar, Kurt Busiek, James Robinson and a few others), they do absolutely nothing for me. Compared to the glory days of the Silver and Bronze Ages, the quality of new comics output by both companies is generally absolutely abysmal these days.

But every once in a while they do come out with something worthwhile, something a little different, like a brand-new kind of superhero story, or a high quality reimagining of an old one. One of the better \”reboots\” of a classic superhero comic that I\’ve read in recent years was Eternals, a seven-part mini series produced by Marvel Comics, written by Neil Gaiman, and with art by John Romita, Jr.

This is a reimagining of Jack Kirby\’s old Eternals title from the 1970s and early 1980s, and elevates what was really a second or third rate (although fun) Bronze Age Marvel series to true \”classic\” status. Although the original was an interesting enough series in its own right (and I myself almost always prefer the originals over reboots), in my opinion, Kirby was well past his best when he worked on it, and it showed.

I know that the purists will be screaming \”BLASPHEMY!!\” from the roof-tops at these comments, but I cannot emphasize just by how much this modern, \”Gaiman-ized\” version of the Eternals completely blows the original out of the water. Gaiman takes the original concepts and story and runs with it all, creating a fresh new look at the original, a more adult (in the good sense) story, and great characters. What else would you expect from Neil Gaiman?. All of the original characters, both protagonists and antagonists, get a real make-over in this new version.

The Deviants, in particular, are given the expert Gaiman treatment. These were the one-dimensional, bad-guy cannon-fodder in the original series. Now they\’ve been fleshed out, made more three-dimensional, and given a lot more depth, darkness and outright menace. The two lead Deviant antagonists are a nasty team altogether, obviously modelled on Vandemar and Croup, Gaiman\’s own creations, the two vicious assassins in his classic novel Neverwhere. These two are by far my favourite characters in the entire story.

Romita\’s excellent art also sets off Gaiman\’s writing perfectly, and the series was published in a number of variant covers (most by Romita) that all collectors will want to grab. I usually am NOT a fan of the multiple \”variant cover\” nonsense, but I made a point of grabbing most of these, because the Romita covers are so good.

I won\’t spoil things by revealing details of the story itself. Just go buy it. The series was collected in both hardcover and trade paperback. I bought both, and I\’d definitely recommend grabbing a copy of the trade paperback, at least. I\’d say that anyone who is not a hardcore original Kirby Eternals \”purist\” should enjoy this one.

Some Interesting Prehistoric Stuff

I love to browse the Sci-Tech page (page 154) on BBC1\’s Ceefax (teletext) service. There\’s always a lot of interesting snippets culled from various sources such as the New Journal of Physics, Nature and Science magazines. My favourite areas of interest are astronomy and space exploration, and palaeontology, and here are a couple of palaeontology snippets from recent pages:

Apparently scientists in Germany, Switzerland and the US claim that they\’ve found the point at which the African and Indian elephants split and diverged from a common ancestor. They compared genetic research done on both species and other research done on the extinct woolly mammoth and mastodon, and came to the conclusion that the split occurred 7.6 million years ago.

Another interesting snippet concerns the dinosaurs. Accepted theories state that when the dinosaurs first evolved, they swept all before them, and rendered the earlier, more primitive forms of reptiles (known as dinosauromorphs) quickly extinct. Apparently that\’s considered now not to be the case, and both lived side by side for many millions of years.

Just a couple of interesting snippets from the pages of Sci-Tech. Go to Ceefax page 154, and git yerselves ejjicated a bit. 🙂

Heroes Debuts on UK Television

The first two episodes of Tim Kring\’s Heroes, Genesis and Don\’t Look Back, aired earlier tonight (Wednesday 25th) on BBC2, followed by a short ten minute behind the scenes thingy, Heroes Unmasked. I must say that I\’m absolutely delighted. I\’ve been following its progress since it started on satellite TV, and it\’s nice to see this series coming to a more general audience on terrestrial TV. It\’s also nice to be able to watch it all from the start again.

The first episode seems to start off as a slow-tempo kinda X-Men clone, but it soon finds its own niche and transforms into something quite different. Conspiracies abound and there\’s lots of great action and complex stories ahead, so all the UK terrestrial TV viewers are in for a treat. And it is soooooo nice to see a series about super-powered folks, and not a single glimpse of a cape or tights (I\’ve always thought that capes \’n\’ tights look really naff on-screen – they only really work in comics or animation).

Heroes, along with Battlestar Galactica and Doctor Who, is right at the top of my list of current favourite sci-fi TV series. So let\’s roll on next Wednesday night, BBC2 at 9pm, and episode 3.