From Cover to Cover: The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Hello, and welcome back to From Cover to Cover. This month I'm taking a suggestion from the man they call the Virtual Octopus, or as he's more mundanely known, Richard. Over the many years of our friendship, he's consistently done his best to push me in the direction of good, solid genre fiction that he thinks I'd like and I don't think he's ever failed me yet. He was the one who introduced me to A Song of Ice and Fire years before it really took off into the juggernaut it is now, our shared love of Terry Pratchett has given us plenty to talk about over the years and he is also the man responsible for me reading The Light Ages, which is a wonderful take on a steampunk universe that's much more ramshackle and grime coated and all together hopeless than most anything I've ever read. If there's one thing that gets under my skin, it's clean Victoriana. Especially clean Victoriana from a street level. But I digress! Richard, true to form, has given me more suggestions for this segment than anyone else - I'm sure you'll see some of them later down the line, although no doubt I'll peruse some on my own time instead - And true to my own form, I've chosen the one that seemed to be given with the tongue most firmly planted in cheek.

So with that, ladies and gentlemen, I introduce you too The Ocean at the End of the Lane...

The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a 2012 novel by Neil Gaiman, a British fantasy author renown for his unusually scruffy hair, dressing in any colour he likes as long as it's black and being acclaimed across a number of media, including prose, poetry, comic books, television and movies. Originally intended to be a short story, it soon outgrew this definition and became a novella, and soon after that the full fledged novel we're looking at today. It opens with a nameless protagonist (yes, another one!) riding aimlessly back to what remains of his childhood home after his mother's funeral. He comes across a farm that he believed an old friend lived in decades ago and sits down in front of the small pond behind the building, beginning to reminisce. Soon memories of a long forgotten incident in his childhood start to bubble up that are too impossible to believe, a strange series of events that begins with the apparent suicide of their current lodger and soon launches him into the affairs of another world entirely. As the memories come flooding back and take a sharper focus in his mind, the reader experiences each moment of it through the eyes of his seven year old self, constantly pondering if any of it is true, because surely it's all too fantastical for our hero to just forget... Isn't it?

Of all the Neil Gaiman stories, I think I'm glad that I'm able to talk about this one. Ocean is an interesting book when compared to the rest of his work, as it clearly has a different focus that's more abstract and experimental for him. It was written for his wife, Amanda Palmer, with a greater focus on things she likes - Which seems to amount to a story that's entrenched deeper in the real world than most of his work and that brings more personal feelings to the fore than ever. I don't want to dwell too long on it's origins, but this interview with Gaiman and this blog from Palmer weave an interesting narrative for the book's genesis, and for me helped to put a lot of the things I found problematic with this book into focus. Either way, the fact that he wrote it for his wife either because he missed her and desired to write something she would love, or to open his heart and let her examine his feelings in a way that he would never be able too any other way is beautiful and I'm glad this book exists, if only for that.

I have to admit, when I started reading, I didn't think I was going to like this one. Or at least, not as much as I wanted too. Unlike other works by Gaiman I've read, it was very slow to reel me in and I found the main character initially distracting. The problem with writing a more personal tale that's less blurred by the lines of fantasy after decades of adding splashes of those events into your fiction, is that so much of it seems familiar. The description of the house our protagonist lived in, for example, is the house from Coraline, because they're one and the same. Both drawn from the same memories of a house that Gaiman had grew up in as a child. And there are echoes of situations and events and places that feel familiar throughout, and I'm never quite sure if they're handled as well. It comes across feeling like one of Gaiman's more introspective short stories, although because it's a novel it takes longer to get to the meat of the story, or the weird that is going to inevitably surround it, spending more time focusing on the elements of those stories I'm not quite as keen on, and loses me a bit.

The game of 'Is this Neil?' you can play with the protagonist throughout the book is also distracting, but not quite to the same degree. I found the hero of the piece to be very relatable , possibly to a painful degree. He was a child who loves books, is slow to make friends, is a huge fan of Batman, is awkward at social functions and believes in white bread above every other kind, because it's not supposed to taste of anything as that's not it's job. That is more me than I feel comfortable admitting, and to a degree I can even relate to the relationship he had with his parents. When the protagonist says he envied the heroes in his book who got a quick smack and then all was forgotten? I understood. I only have one, very vivid memory of my mother ever laying a hand on me and to be honest? I think I prefer it to all the times that both of my parents have ever raised voices to me as a child. There's a certain hopeless, belittling feeling that it brings that has a greater impact than physical pain and as a child, it's harder to understand that people say things they don't mean because they're angry. Now, my parents are wonderful people and I will never hear a bad word said about them if it isn't in jest - I wouldn't be alive today if it wasn't for all the love, care and support they've given me and I truly appreciate it. However, when you're young it's very easy to take things to heart, and this came through in the book wonderfully. The moment the protagonist asked that one, last whimpered question of his father in the fairy ring? I smiled. It's the kind of defence you always wanted to mount, but were afraid it would just make them more angry, and it was beautiful.

As you may have picked up from that, the main character is a very relatable one and, as always, Gaiman excels at writing children. No thought feels too adult, no line of dialogue ever feels wrong coming out of his mouth and the entirely self-centred, yet naive and innocent, perspective of a child is maintained throughout. The first thing the protagonist asks, upon learning that the family car has been stolen, is if his comic is still on the back seat and if they stole that too. It's not a stupid question, or a selfish one, it's an honest one which reflects where the characters priorities lie. I also find it interesting that the story is told in flashback, so on occasion we get shots of his adult frame of mind as he remembers and narrates, occasionally giving a fresh perspective on certain elements of the story. I have to admit that despite all this, I don't feel like I really know him all that well. Especially compared to other Gaiman protagonists. I'm very familiar with the world inside his head, but I'm not as familiar with his place in it - As I was with Shadow, or Fat Charlie, or Tristan or even Coraline, Nobody or Odd. In those stories the world comes alive around them, and we hear bits and pieces of far off things such as how Fat Charlie got his name or of Shadow's time in prison learning coin tricks, here we don't really get anything of the sort. The story exists in the main characters mind, and while it makes sense for the edges of his world to seem more blurred and less fleshed out, it also means this world doesn't spring from the page and grab you the same way either. And ultimately, nor does the protagonist. I relate to him, I think he's a great example of a child character, but I'm not sure I'd go as far to say I'm terribly familiar with him.

The supporting characters are a little light on the ground in this venture too. You have the main character's family, his largely absent mother, his father who seems like a good man but for the most part exists as a puppet to a malevolent force for most of the book and his snot nosed brat of a sister who may only seem like a snot nosed brat because we're looking at her through the eyes of her older brother. There's also the Hempstocks. Three generations of women living together quietly on a farm at the end of the lane, who are really... To be perfectly honest with you, I'm not sure what they are. At first I thought they were witches, but the book refutes that quite early on. They seem to be refugees from the other world with the orange sky that we are introduced too later, but Old Mrs. Hempstock seems even older than that. Even older than creation. Her role in everything is still unclear in the end, but all I can tell you is I love her as I grew to love all the Hempstocks. Originally I found the two Mrs Hempstocks to be indistinguishable from one another, but they soon developed their own quirks and personalties, and as for Lettie I honestly wouldn't have minded if the whole book had been about her. I also loved the strange mix of science and mysticism that seemed to run through them, with Old Mrs. Hempstock having existed before the Big Bang and a delightfully fairytale-esque spin on particle physics that is, perhaps, one of the few things in this book that justifies all the praise it gets as a defining fairy tale for the modern age.

While the initial transition from the mundane to the weird was underwhelming, and by the end of the book I couldn't remember for the life of me why it happened, things really start firing on all cylinders with the introduction of Ursla Monkton and there are very few splutters from there on out. Ursla Monkton is the demon housekeeper from Hell, the reverse Mary Poppins in every sense of the word. She exists to make the life of the main character a walking nightmare and if I thought Fat Charlie got a kicking in The Anansi Boys? What this character goes through tops that tenfold. I'm not sure if it's more powerful because he's so young, but it does add to the helplessness of it all. Ursla Monkton is an adult, our character is a seven year old boy who has already forced one nanny out. That alone is scary enough, an adult who is out to get you and has the complete faith of your parents where you do not, add the fact that she's a literal monster onto that? And like I said, walking nightmare. The scenes that see our character a prisoner in his own home ring of implied child abuse, but soon turn into something that is very literal child abuse and I guarantee - Whatever you think of this book, there is one scene that will stick with you forever. It's sheer horror of the most heart pounding kind, and it's written so perfectly that it captures you right there, in the moment, with our hero.

I really can't fault the writing in this book. I've long admired Neil Gaiman for his descriptive ability, which may not be the most in-depth or detailed, but always does a good job of conveying both the mundane and the strange with equal clarity. While I also praised the descriptive text of A Shadow Over Innsmouth, this is different. Lovecraft describes things in a way that you feel as though you can see them, Gaiman describes them in a way that makes you feel as though they've existed in your imagination all along and were only looking for an excuse to come out. He evokes language that is simple to read, yet says everything it needs to say, and when he draws comparisons to other things they're always relatable. Like how he compares the dead body of the Opal Miner to a waxwork dummy, it's still human in shape, but everything that had made him human had been drained out. I also feel like this book contains some of the best wrting of Gaiman's career. The scene where our main character is pulling a worm from his foot is appropriately cringe worthy and very visceral, and as for the bathtub scene... Like I implied above, will live with me forever.

There's a number of interesting themes running through this book, but the one I latched onto most was the ruminations on what it means to be an adult. Whenever danger was afoot, it was marked by the absence or destruction of things we associate with childhood. The main character's SMASH comic is crumpled and ruined under the body of the dead miner, the border to keep Ursa Monkton in the house is made up of broken toys and then there's the kitten. The kitten is the ultimate miner's canary for the story, when it was around the main character was safe, secure, nothing could touch him - But when it wasn't there? The world was a dark and dangerous place, and something terrible was likely to happen to him. It forces him into a world that no child should have to face, and situations that even an adult would struggle to cope with. The line between child and adult is as distinct as it is tenuous, with the father of the hero acting more like a child than an adult and the main character forced to be braver than any of the actual adults around him. It shows that for all the years we might gain, all the wisdom and experience we may accumulate, on some level we're still the same person. As Lettie Hempstock says, 'Grown up's don't look like grown-ups on the inside either'. I know I don't feel like one, never have, yet when I was a child? They could seem to be a whole other race entirely. It's interesting, the difference between how we present ourselves to the world and how we actually are, and it's something that I can personally latch onto and relate to.

If I may derail this impressions to perhaps take you on the train to crazy town for a moment, something struck me half way through reading this. As well as the things that were familiar because they were taken from Gaiman's childhood and had been woven into other stories I'd read, there also seemed to be nods and winks to other work throughout. The song that shapes the world made a return from The Anansi Boys and a reference to a bazaar that shouldn't have been open yet and trades all manner of wonderful things which puts me in mind of both Stardust and Neverwhere. It did make me wonder, is a fictionalised account of how Neil Gaiman gets his ideas interwoven into this narrative? Or did Lettie pop off into other books during the narrative? It sounded crazy and reaching, until I read the following snippet from the interview above;

I kept expecting to write a story about the Hempstocks, but never did," Gaiman continued. "I had decided their family had spread out a bit. There's a Hempstock in 'Stardust.' A Hempstock in 'The Graveyard Book.' Then in 2003, I bought my first MINI Cooper and my father was visiting America at the time. I recalled my father having a MINI as well and asked why he got rid of his. He told of how he had a lodger who gambled away his money -- and his friends' money -- then stole my dad's MINI. Then, [my father] went down to the lane and found the man's body in the vehicle later that afternoon.

Knowing that the Hempstocks are so far flung through his fiction but only appeared properly in a tale inspired by a real life incident adds some credence to the whole thing, but even if it only exists in my head and I am overreaching, it's an interesting idea nonetheless.

With that idea safely released into the ether, let's break into the discussion point for this month. As I said above, this suggestion was very tongue in cheek and may have even been a joke, but even if it was I found myself captivated with the idea of answering it. The question that Richard asked was 'Has Neil Gaiman got much, much, less exciting now he's married to Amanda Palmer? Or was he always just kind of overrated?'

Now, for those who remember the original mission statement of this segment (mainly to get me to read more) you may be regarding my first couple of choices with a cynical, even judgemental, eye. A short story, and a very short novel is hardly the most inspiring of starts, afterall. But rest assured! To answer this question I read and re-read almost any Gaiman I could get my hands on, you may even be able to pinpoint when I was doing it by the amount of Gaiman references that emerged in the posts of this blog over the period that I was reading them. I've read a good eleven books, watched a couple of movies and even delved into a collection of his Batman work when I was bored one night and I feel that after doing this? The second part of this question is an easy answer, the first is a little more problematic.

Was he always kind of overrated? The simple answer is, no. Neil Gaiman is not overrated, not even in the sense of somebody who is really good, but perhaps not as good as all the attention they get. In a world where the names J.K. Rowling, Stephanie Mayer and E.L. James are on more people's lips than Neil Gaiman (and for clarity, I'm not trying to draw comparisons to any one of those authors with the other - Simply stating their work is not, and I doubt it will ever be, as consistently good or imaginative as Gaiman's) I don't think he could ever be overrated. Neil Gaiman is a font of wonderful ideas, even his short stories seem packed with things that I'd kill to be able to conjure up in my own imagination and it's no wonder that people seem to always ask him where they come from - One of the main blocks I have to writing my own fiction is finding an initial idea I can stick with, and yet there's Neil Gaiman with more ideas than he can seem to cope with. It'd be unfair, if he didn't use them so wonderfully.

And that's the other thing about Neil Gaiman, he may not be the most skilled writer in the world. The themes he tackles may not be the most ground-breaking or plumb the depths of the human soul. I can see how somebody who enjoys a more complex prose with grand political or philosophical statements woven intricately into the text, or entire worlds fully mapped out in the most minute of details so they feel like world histories instead of fictional kingdoms may be put off by him. They may even overlook him. But there's a simple joy to the way Neil Gaiman writes. It's highly accessible, easy to read and yet stokes the fires of the readers mind and asks them to imagine. Imagine a world where a falling star can be a beautiful, if petulant, young woman who is sought after by a cast of colour characters in a grand fairytale. Imagine a world where the dispossessed of London fall through the cracks into another London that is much like the one above, yet absolutely nothing like it at all. Imagine a world where Gods of every mythology roam the American landscape, brought there by generations of immigrants from across the world, even as new Gods based on the technologies we worship spring up to take their place.

His writing asks you to imagine, and you can. Clear, crisp, as if it was always there and you just needed to be reminded. On top of all this, his greatest feat of all, is that he makes it look easy. It's not so much that he makes it look like you could do exactly what he does, but that you don't need to write overly complex prose, with in-depth descriptions of everything, to be a successful writer. You can get away with something lighter, and it can carry just as much weight and power. I remember, years ago, when I first read American Gods. I felt inspired. I felt like I'd learned more about writing in that one book than I had in all the time reading, and fumbling with the idea of creating fiction, before it. It's a memory I always look back on when I'm feeling down and uncreative, it doesn't always help, but it's nice to know it's there.

As for the second part of the question, it's tough to judge because Ocean is the first full adult novel that Neil Gaiman has written since they were married. While I think that this novel is perhaps weaker than his previous work, it was also written under very special circumstances as we discussed above. He wrote it for Amanda, and tried to do something very different from the norm, and even though it's not perfect it's also not bad by any stretch. Even if it was, the fact that it arose in such unusual circumstances means that it is no indication of what Gaiman's future work is going to be like.

So let's cast the net further. The other prominent work that Neil Gaiman has written during the few years of his marriage is a children's book called Fortunately, the Milk that was published last year. You may remember in my year end retrospective, I mentioned going to a live reading of it and that experience was fairly glorious. So glorious I feverishly read the book again on the train home. Admittedly it's not as strong as his other children's books, but it also seems aimed at a younger age bracket than those works and what it lacks in complexity, it makes up for in imagination. Fortunately, the Milk is a shaggy dog story that may or may not be true, and would be something the Them from Good Omens would be proud of. In fact, it kind of made me smile when I read about the adventures the Them dreamed up in their heads, as Fortunately, the Milk was all that distilled. It's a good book, but is it an exciting move for him? Is Ocean at the End of the Lane an exciting one?

Ultimately, I'd say yes. One can argue about the quality of Ocean until the tides come in, and if I'm being perfectly honest if you wanted me to stack everything he wrote pre-marriage to everything post? Yes, the pre-marriage would come up short, but you're also asking me to compare decades of work to that of a handful of years. What's exciting is an entirely different thing from what's good, and even though Ocean didn't hit all the marks for me, what it represents definitely excites me. It represents Neil Gaiman coming out of his shell as a writer and trying new things. It represents a new kind of book, which may call back to old themes and ideas from other works, but is something entirely different. It even has a new narrative structure that hasn't been seen in his novels before, usually constrained to his short stories. True, I'm not sure it works as well, but it's exciting to see him try. Ultimately, if Amanda Palmer is pushing Gaiman into new territory, I'm all for it. I may not enjoy the new work as much as I did the old, and one day it may alienate me completely. But on the other hand, if Gaiman can take moments of brilliance from this book? Which, I stress again, feel to me like some of the best writing of his career. If he can take that, and put it into something of consistent good quality, I'm guaranteeing you it'll be an instant favourite of mine.

And that is exciting!

 I really struggled with the rating of this one. Originally I wanted to give it a three, but after Ursla was introduced and everything that happened in the house with her? I was set on upping it to a four. Having slept on it though, I just can't do that in good conscience. For me, the book was too slow in the beginning and when I compare it to other works by Gaiman, or even A Shadow Over Innsmouth, which I gave a four last month, I can't say I enjoyed it as much. Perhaps part of the problem is that I'm just too invested in the author. Giving impressions on this book is impossible without linking it back to his other work, and I honestly feel that in that regard I've been fair. I'm not going to sit here and bemoan the fact it isn't American Gods, but if I was asked to recommend a Gaiman book to a friend, this would be fairly low on the list. It makes me wonder if my impressions would be different if I were less invested in his other works, if, like Amanda Palmer, I'd be raving about it from the rooftops.

But that's not me. That's not the kind of impression I can give. So from me, The Ocean at the End of the Lane gets three out of five monkeys in a hat! If you're looking for something in the style of Neil Gaiman, that's lighter on the fantasy elements and packs a real emotional punch? I'd say this is is the book for you. Unfortunately that's not quite what I'm looking for, but I still enjoyed it enough to say it was a good read.

Next month, I'm going to be forced to reign in every single pun about sheep, lambs, and jumpers that I know because we're going to be looking at the first book in the Silo trilogy, Wool. 

Old Friends and Familiar Places.

A good week ago, I was reading Monarch of the Glen, a short story by Neil Gaiman (yes, that man again!) in the back of his Fragile Things anthology. I often find Neil Gaiman's short stories to be very hit and miss, mainly because they tend to either be very experimental or go right over my head. But then some of them are wonderful, and strangely introspective of his life in a twisted mirror kind of way. I was extremely excited to read Monarch though, so it was not just any short story, it was a novella that tied into my most favourite of Gaiman's work, American Gods.

I was pondering if I should re-read American Gods first, immerse myself back into the world. Remind myself of the epic journey that Shadow takes through the realms of Gods and men. But I'd already read more books than I have in the past two years those last few weeks, and I felt that when I do get around to re-reading that novel, I want it to be unclouded by the haze of several other works. So I decided to just dive right in and hope that the years hadn't eroded all my knowledge of the world Gaiman had created and understanding of the characters. 

I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. A few paragraphs in and it was like... The only way I can describe it is coming home. The narrative style was just as I remembered it, all the little quirks and ticks that made Shadow unique were instantly recognisable and I was right back into the great game of American Gods, looking at every character critically to decide if they were a God or if they were human. I wasn't just reading a story, I was enveloping myself in a world, wrapping it around me, and waving at the characters inside like they were old friends. As I read, the story of the book began to come back to me thick and fast, everything Shadow had been through to get to that point and when Mr. Wednesday made a surprise cameo? I was grinning from ear to ear. 

It was a surprise for me, but it was a pleasant one. 

You have to understand, I haven't read American Gods in years. I don't think I've read it since I was a teenager. By all rights it should be lost to me, a flickering flame in the back of my memory of something that I know I love but cannot properly define. But there was something about taking another step into this world, reading more adventures of a character I had come to love, that put me right back into that mindset and just brought it all back to me. And honestly, I think that is one of the many, incredible powers of fiction. Of these vast, and often underrated imaginative landscapes that we embroil ourselves in. 

When I thought about it further, I realised this was not as uncommon as I thought - It's just the gulf of time that made it remarkable. Every month we wait for a new issue of a comic book to land on the store shelves, ready to continue the brightly coloured (or black and grimy with the way modern comics are going!) adventures of our favourite characters, ever mindful of what went before. Every year we wait for a new series of our favourite TV shows, the characters as fresh as if they had never been away. When it comes to movies it can be years between each new adventure, and of course with so many hands involved there's a greater risk that we'll lose that special feeling thanks to a sub-par product, but when it all works out it's still wonderful. Then when getting onto books and games, the wait can be even longer. I remember willing Bioware to give the Mass Effect series as much time as they needed to make each game perfect, and I've become accustomed to waiting years for each new chapter of A Song of Ice and Fire but when they come? It's like I never left the Citadel or Westeros at all. 

I suppose one should never really underestimate the things you love, the things that you are invested in. You may think they're gone, but all it takes is one little push, and it'll be like they never went away. I wonder if I'll feel the same way with the upcoming American Gods TV show. But if not, I suppose Shadow is like so many of my old friends - Always at my fingertips, only instead of being a text message away, he's a mere page turn away.  

The Cold Black OCP

This week, I believe, sees the release of Robocop, the future of the future of law enforcement! A remake of the 1987 classic satire about corporate greed, corrupt law enforcement and the struggle of mankind to balance it's humanity against the tidal wave of technological development. An absolute world away from our current, cyber-prep utopia where big business is all hugs and puppies, the police are infallible demi-gods who are never on the take and there are absolutely, positively no concerns, worries, qualms or even minor niggles about the rapid rise of technological development. So naturally, with all the themes of the movie as out of date as they are, and all the wry criticisms aimed at problems that just aren't a problem in this modern world; and! Come to think of it, did we really need all that blood and violence?! Oh no, of course not, we don't need all that grotesque body horror leaving our viewers questioning if our main character is more corporate machine than man, nor do we need all that excessive brutality to further blur the lines between the corporations and the criminal gangs until it all blurs into one. No, quite right, absolutely no place or relevance in that these days - So of course, it was only natural that this remake needed to happen. Nobody could possibly enjoy the old film on it's own merits now, right?

... Right?!

Okay, I don't think my internal sarcasm metre can take much more of this without blowing several major gaskets, and bursting into a rather ominous blue-green flame, so I'm going to draw a line under that right now. The truth is, Robocop isn't just one of the greatest sci-fi films ever made, it's also one of my favourite films full stop.Possibly the favourite. I adore the hyper violence, I adore the cyberpunk trappings, I adore the snappy dialogue and one liners, I adore the characters and I adore the barbed wire satire that still stings today even through it's big shoulder padded, floppy haired eighties trappings. Given this fact, the Robocop remake would seem like perfect blog fodder for me - But there's two problems.

The first is that I just have no interest in seeing it. Not even from the standpoint of morbid curiosity. It doesn't, in truth, even look particularly bad. In fact, I almost wish it did, because what it does look is something even worse - It looks boring. The only person who looks like they're having any fun in their role from the trailers is Michael Keaton, and considering he was almost the only thing worth watching in The Other Guys I don't really see that as much to shout about. The world looks like one of charcoal concrete, shimmering skyscrapers and gunmetal grey (see, for reference, almost every other modern science fiction movie) and Robocop himself looks like he has more in common with Master Chief than Judge Dredd in cyborg form.

The second? You don't need me to tell you why Robocop is great. You all know why Robocop is great, each and every one of you, even if you don't agree with those things and only know them as why other people think the film is great. If I like Robocop the remake or not, anything I write on it is going to be overshadowed by those things. I did consider writing something on Robocop 2 which I consider the best thing Frank Miller has ever produced, and a worthy successor to the original and other people see as barely a baby step up from the horror that is Robocop 3. But to be honest with you, the Robocop remake hasn't really got under my skin yet. The advertising blitz for it either hasn't arrive in full force, or just plain isn't coming, and I'm half expecting it to whimper in the spotlight and limp off with it's tail between it's legs like the Total Recall remake did. Even if it doesn't, well as I alluded to above, Robocop 3 has already happened, so it's not like it can be the worst thing to ever happen to the franchise.

So let's grab the metaphorical wheel of this blog and turn it right around to an adaptation of a previous work that I actually think matters!

Let's talk about Coraline.

Coraline is a 2002 children's novel by Neil Gaiman. It's also a 2009 stop-motion animated film by Henry Selick. Both are about a young girl who finds another world on the other side of a door, both are brilliant in their own way and both have been consumed by me very recently. I've had intentions to read Coraline for a very long time, and have owned the movie for almost a year now and never watched it. I always wanted to read the novel first, but never got my hands on the novel, so never got around to watching the movie and I think you can see how this cycle went. Well, I picked up the novel just before Christmas, and just this week have finally broken the cycle.

Having devoured and thoroughly enjoyed the book, I was greatly looking forward to the film. I'm a big fan of stop-motion animation, and a huge fan of Henry Selick's big claim to fame, The Nightmare Before Christmas. Let me be clear, before I say anything else, Coraline the movie is beautiful. It's beautifully made, beautifully put together and the art style and slightly jerky, inhuman movements suit the tone and style of the book very well. There are also some very well thought out camera angles, coming up from under desks and between bushes to give you the idea that you're not only the audience, but a silent, stalking, ethereal watcher peering into Coraline's personal life. It sends a chill down your spine from the very first scene, and leaves you with a creeping sense of unease right through the first half of the movie. If this was a silent movie, I'd wish everyone a jolly well done and say it was a shame they didn't have any words in it - After all, did they see the book? That has nothing but words in it, and it's rather wonderful!

The problem, which hindered my enjoyment of the film more than I'd have liked, was the characters. I didn't really find an awful lot to like in the interpretation of Coraline herself and her family that the film presented to us. Coraline herself was loud, obnoxious and bordering on bratty and her parents were on the border of just being plain neglectful. This wouldn't be too much of a problem, there's an element of the brat in the book Coraline too afterall (her refusal to eat anything her dad eats, because it looks disgusting for example) and we all know full well that children can be this way, as can their parents. But the problem is I've seen all this before. It's one of the standard, fall-back parent/children relations. I'm going to be sarcastic and dismissive to you until you pay attention to me, well I'm going to ignore you because my job is more important than you'll ever be, GOD!  You're the worst parents ever! I'm going to my room! *slam* It gets to the point where you completely understand why the parents can't stand the child, and the child can't stand the parent, and why the snake will continue to eat it's own tail but I'm bored of it. Especially when I've seen the same story, given a better treatment in this regards.

In the book, none of the characters are really expecting anything too unreasonable. It's obvious that they all love each other in a way that the film family is never shown too, the story that Coraline tells the cat about her dad being one of the most moving in the entire book. It's just everyone has their priorities in a different order. Coraline wants to explore and keep occupied and for people to get her name right and pay a touch more attention to her, but appreciates at least that her parents are trying. Their efforts just don't always live up to her expectations. Her parents also are aware they have a responsibility to look after her, but at the same time they have their own busy lives to juggle and sometimes those two needs just don't sync up. Coraline knows, for example, that her not being able to go outside isn't just her parents being unreasonable mudaphobes and keeping her inside is actually for her own well being. Just like her father only gives her the list of windows, doors, blue things, etc. to count because he knows his daughter is going crazy being couped up inside, and tries to help her as best he can in the current circumstances. It certainly never struck me as an 'I'm so freaking busy I have no time for you right now please go away so I can finish my work, please, please, pleeeeeeassseee!!!!' ploy like it did in the movie.

I suppose my point is, the family in the book felt like real people who, by and large, wanted the same thing - But not at the same time. And those things they did clash on (such as cooking, clothes shopping, etc.) really stood out. The family in the movie just seem cobbled together from screenwriter tropes of headstrong, snarky young girl and strung out, out of touch workaholic family.

Where the film does shine, however, is in recreating the more grandiose spectacles of the book, and creating a few more of it's own. The theatre belonging to the Other World Spink and Forcible was an absolute wonder to behold, and I think the Mouse Circus ranks alongside the Pink Elephants in Dumbo as an utterly bewilderingly beautiful sequence that I'll be hard pressed to forget. The problem tends to be that the art style lends itself so well to the weird and wonderful, that the real world seems barely grounded in reality itself. Spink, Forcible and the Old Man in the book are hugely eccentric, but they're the kind of eccentric I can believe. In the movie, they do and say things that seem more in line with the Other World and it blurs the line between the two, making the real world seem like an unnerving, dull grey, slightly off key place and the Other World seem like a circus parody of the entire thing. Compared to the description of Coraline's Other Father, or the fate of Other Spink and Other Forible in the book, what we're presented with seems tame. Especially when taken in conjunction with Chris Riddell's haunting visuals.

Taken from Illiustrationcupboard

Neil Gaiman's world is one of scrapped bloody knees, gouged faces, rats that bleed blood and not sand and altogether feels more dangerous and imperative. It feeds the imagination like a good book is supposed too, but a movie, especially a children's movie, doesn't have that liberty. In an already visual format, something has to give, and I think despite that, the film did a good enough job. While the final encounters with the other inhabitants of that world may not have lived up to expectations, the final encounter with the Other Mother? That was all the best parts of the movie rolled into one. The chilly atmosphere of the first half returned in full force, the sense of danger went right up to eleven and the whole thing was a visual feast as Coraline raced to escape her inevitable doom. It is also incredibly unfair to pit the visuals in the movie to the slow, bubbling recesses of my imagination that the author managed to stoke - I've been in my head. Spent my entire life there, in fact. I'm very well aware of which one is going to win.

The one thing I can't really forgive the film for, though, is the ending. I'm going to try not to spoil it, but I will say that at the end of the book, Coraline survives through her own wits and ingenuity. In the film, however, she's saved. It's kind of a running theme, when I think about it. Things she was clever enough to work out on her own, she was hinted towards or out right told about in the film. I don't really mind that so much, as I suppose with the lack of an internal monologue you could put it down to letting the audience know what's going on as much as Coraline herself, but the tweak to the ending kind of did leave a slightly sour note in my mouth - Mainly because it solidified this Coraline as one who doesn't really stack up to the one in the book. But I think I've been down this road before on this very blog with a Miss Mina Murray, so I'll just stop now and say I thought it was a bit of a disappointment. But not movie breaking. In fact, all is almost forgiven simply on the basis of Keith David as the cat being an utterly delightful casting choice that always made me grin like, well, the Cheshire Cat whenever he opened his mouth. I don't want to say it was the best thing about the movie... I'l just be over here, secretly thinking it.

All comparisons and analysis aside, Coraline is a fantastic children's book, that was transformed into an interesting, although very different children's movie which is perfectly good on it's own merits. Check 'em both out, read the book to your children if you have any - They'll thank you for it, one day. And if they don't, they're probably ungrateful bastards who probably has more in common with film Coraline anyway.

A year in Retrospect! Or, wot Aies did with 2013!

So, here we are again! Or at least, here I am again. I still haven't really shared this around publicly, but I rather enjoyed my last foray into mad rambling and think I'd like to do it again. In my head I'm telling myself that I'd like to do one a week, but I'm not really sure if each week will provide something sufficient for me to get worked up about and write on. I had, for example, a great idea for this week that relied on something rather special arriving on my doorstep. Alas, that didn't happen, so we're pushing that back a few months - But I did start to think on what I could do instead.

Generally I'm not a nostalgic person. I'm not a huge fan of looking back at my own life, especially my childhood, and often cringe at photographs of myself that are before a certain dateline. Now, don't get me wrong, this is not because my childhood was in anyway tragic or terrible. My parents are wonderful people, and I owe the very fact that I'm able to sit here and type this out right now to their love and their persistence. I just generally feel that the person I was then doesn't quite reflect who I am now, and beyond that, having grown up with a rather debilitating heart condition, there's not an awful lot that's exciting or fun to look back on.

With that last thought in mind, and with the year only a few days old, I pondered on doing an end of year retrospective. Originally it was going to be a run-down of my favourite media released in 2013. Favourite film, game, TV show, you get the idea. But the more I thought, the more I realised that I never exactly indulged many of my great loves last year (comic books, music, books, for example) and it would feel criminal to leave them on the wayside, and also that this year wasn't really a year defined by those things. I want to look back at the things that were exciting, that helped shape the year for me, that defined the trends that crept their way into my life. After all, last year was kind of a strange one because it's caught between two of the biggest trips I've undertaken in my adult life. The first to Tucson in 2012, and the second to Seattle and beyond this year. By comparison, it would be easy to write last year off as the dull one - The inbetween days. Well, let's see how the old girl did, shall we?!

The Man-Ape Cometh!

You know what, for other people this may not even register - And considering all I said about about excitement! And meaningful events! This... May leave you scratching your head. But let me tell you something, as I look back upon the year? This little metal guy up here may have had a deceptively big influence on it.

So, let's break things down, shall we? Back in February last year, I decided to pitch in for a Kickstarter campaign for an expansion to West Wind's Empire of the Dead line of miniatures. Now, at this point I hadn't painted or even been a part of the modelling hobby in years. I was an old Games Workshop victim, having put together armies of Space Marines, Chaos Marines, Orks and dabbled in other things in days of yore, but recently? I mean, I knew where all my modelling material was, but hadn't truly touched a paintbrush or modelling file for a good, long time.

(Image taken from Steampunk Miniatures Review)

But there was something about Empire that just reeled me in. It's a Gothic horror skirmish game with steampunk elements that draws heavy on pulp fiction, penny dreadfuls and Victorian literature. I threw far more money at it than I should, and have since received a good sixty to eight minis to work on as a result, but during that time I thought 'I should get something to work on to make sure that, you know, I can still actually do this!'

So I picked up Man-Ape. A special character from the line, who is an escapee from the Circ Du Noir. Why Man-Ape? Well, he's a great gorilla in a top hat, so why wouldn't I?! And you know what, I not only had a blast, but really surprised myself as well. I decided to be brave and go completely off the suggested colour scheme and paint him as an Albino gorilla instead, and although mine looks nowhere near as good as the sample above - He turned out so well that I gained a new found confidence in my abilities. Miniature painting became a great source of stress relief and pride for me, and although not everything I've painted has turned out all that grand and I feel like there's more I could do to improve, it's thanks to this first success that I gained a hobby that would, in it's own small way, become an important refuge for me last year. One that I certainly look forward to picking up with a vengeance in the this new year.

International Tabletop Day

Another thing that would have probably been a blink and you'll miss it moment in other people's year, but upon looking back came to symbolise some good times last year! 2012 was, most definitely, the year that Tabletop gaming came to creep into and dominate my leisure time, especially when hanging out with my friends, and that was something that stayed very strong in 2013. International Tabletop Day, though? Was honestly one of the most eye-opening gaming sessions I had last year. To set the scene, International Tabletop Day is the creation of Felicia Day, Wil Wheaton and the team over at Geek and Sundry, it's a yearly event where everyone gets together and plays tabletop games and has ridiculous amounts of fun in the process. Last year it fell on the 30th of March and... All my friends were otherwise engaged.

So I took myself down to my local Forbidden Planet, and had a day gaming with a very small group of people (I think only three of us actually stuck it out until closing time, with another couple ghosting in and out) and some very charming, very dedicated staff. Let me tell you, it was a blast. I got introduced to some great new games, enjoyed a whole different dynamic compared to when I was playing with my friends and got to fight for the honour of Real Cheese in a game of Resistance, and who could really ask for more than that? Why is this so important, aside from being a really fun day? Well, mainly because it really gave me the confidence to go forth and enjoy several more gaming days, with a wider variety of people, since and to be honest, acts as my representative for all of those great gaming days throughout the year. Even when I was at my lowest, recovering from an operation, having not left the house in weeks - My friends were still good enough to get together, crack open Betrayal at the House on the Hill, order some pizzas and just have a fantastic time. Because that, at the end of the day, is what tabletop gaming is all about - One of the most fun ways to connect with people, even if those people are complete strangers to you!

Going Down to Dublin...

So last year, one of my best, and most charismatic, quirky and creative, friends got married. Now unless you go to dozens of weddings a year, which I don't, this would be enough to be a highlight of anyone's year - But oh no! It doesn't end there. For you see, it seems like it's impossible for me to go to a wedding that's actually local. In fact, the day I do go to one I'm going to be disappointed, because I've done such a marvellous job dodging the whole thing. My next wedding, for example, is in Denver, which for the trip alone is sure to be extraordinary. Last year, however, was only slightly more mundane - As it took me to both Dublin and Kildare in Ireland.

Now, I'd never been to Ireland before - In fact, I've never been to a European country before outside of the United Kingdom itself. I'd set my expectations at 'A lot like Britain, but with more Irish stuff' and to a degree that was true, but to an even greater degree it wasn't. Dublin was a beast all it's own, with more in common with other European capitals (according to my good friend and travelling companion, with the appropriate moniker of Wanderlust) than anything in the UK. I found it somewhat surreal and disorientating at first, especially as when we arrived they were celebrating the last days of Oktoberfest (at the tail end of September, yeah, work that one out!) and the city was full of Germans. Literally. More Germans than Irish people. Can you imagine such a thing in the UK? Even if it were for a few days, the Daily Mail would be wringing it's hands over this clear show of dominance from Brussels! But it went deeper than that. They had an overground tram system that, while not always reliable, was easy to access and stopped at every place of importance along a clearly marked out route. Newsagents, cafes and shops doubled up as sandwich bars - Often with a branded subway and a not-at-all branded Irish deli counter that served the same style of food, only looking significantly more edible, under the same roof. I can't help but feel we have things we could learn from Ireland, just... No adopting the currency. Not because I'm scared for our financial independence, but because it all looks so dull and boring and fake. The notes, in particular, are re-purposed Monopoly money and most of the coins are roughly the same shape and colour so you can never find the change you're looking for, but I digress.

After a couple of days we moved away from Dublin, and up to Kildare where we eventually made our way to the place that would be housing the main event - The Village at Lyonns, as pictured above. I'm not usually a person for natural beauty or getting away into the country, I'm far too big a fan of being connected to my friends all around the world for that, but The Village was truly a place of wonder, beauty and both natural and man made extravagance. I don't believe I have ever been somewhere quite so fancy in all my life, and certainly never stayed at such a place. I won't go into too much detail, but to paint you a picture of what we're talking about here - The teabags? They were silk. Silk! I mean, the tea itself was only of average quality, but still, that's a lot of effort for something ultimately destined for the bin.

As to the wedding itself, it was a night and day to remember. The ceremony was touching and sweet, I got to meet up with some fantastic new people, as well as some treasured old friends, including a friend I had never met face to face before. The reception was... Well, it was wild and unexpected. The entire night was set to the backdrop of a crashing waterfall outside, and featured such delights as a fire juggler, an Xbox gaming room, a balloon manipulator and an elderly magician who had the most wonderful personality. By the end of it, I was completely and utterly worn out. So I did the only smart thing, returned to Dublin and ventured to the local Goth club! Sadly my only Goth outing last year, but a good one! Most everyone was very friendly and kind, with some great music played and a huge buffet brought down from the pub above. Not an entirely wise way to round off the trip considering how done in I was, but a great one otherwise. What I ultimately got out of the Ireland trip though, was a desire to see more of Europe, especially Germany. Perhaps we can pencil that in for 2015 sometime. Yeah, sounds like a plan!

Where's Neil Gaiman when you need him?

And so we get into early October, and my major, solo outing for the year. Months before, at two or three am in the morning, a post had gone up on Neil Gaiman's facebook page, stating there would be a reading of his new children's book - Fortunately the Milk - In London. Now usually, I over think these kinds of things and talk myself out of going. I wanted to go to the Doctor Who Proms for example but panicked over the logistics of getting there, finding a place to stay, travelling, etc. and in the end had a good time watching it on TV with my mum instead. But not quite as good a time as if I'd been there, I'm sure. But for this one, my tired brain took full reigns, and before I knew it the whole thing was booked, with a special edition book thrown in, and suddenly I was going to London.

So I found a reasonably priced train, managed to find a hostel on the opposite side of Westerminster Bridge to the venue - Which to my surprise and delight, was only a ten-fifteen minute walk away! Then promptly forgot about it until it was nearly time to go. I have to say, right from the off, it was an experience. To focus on the event itself first, I was worried about finding the venue. I knew it was near Westminster Abby, for example, but I had no idea *where* in all that it might be. Eventually I spotted a gaggle of quirkly dressed folk forming a line that went around the block (baring in mind I was, at this point, three quarters of an hour early!) and thought 'Yep! This must be the place!'. So I joined them, got chatting to a rather charming gentleman who became my friend for the night - Sadly I don't remember his name, but we chatting about book and TV series and Ipads for primary school children (new initiative at his son's school, I don't get it either!) and even had a drink afterwards. But the main event, oh! The main event! It was wonderful. Truly. Neil Gaiman has a voice that's made to read books, and all his co-conspirators (who were also responsible for bouts of stand-up comedy and musical interludes) rose to the occasion with their readings. The biggest surprise of the evening was Lenny Henry, playing a T-Rex at the end. The entire venue erupted in cheers when they heard him, and I think the highlight of the entire thing may have been Henry's enthusiastic interpretation of the Doctor as a dog - Before the quip to end all quips, 'The BBC would sooner cast a dog as the Doctor than a black man!'.

Overall, a magical experience capped off well by the not-quite-so-surprise appearance of Gaiman's wife, Amanda Palmer, who sang a rendition of Ukulele Anthem which... May not have been the best choice for a family event like this one. The only regret I have is one I share with Neil Gaiman himself, that there weren't more children in the audience to enjoy such a vibrant and imaginative reading themselves.

The rest of the trip was a decidedly mixed bag. The hostel I stayed at, while in a good location and with the friendliest staff I've ever encountered, was missing very basic things like sinks in their bathrooms and light switches to see what you're doing of a night. There was also a rather large kerfuffle on the train involving downed trees across overhead lines and general dishonesty and incompetence for Virgin in sorting the matter, which doubled the time of my three hour journey home. But aside from that, I had one of my most pleasant trips to London proper in a long time. I found everything I set my heart to going on, including Forbidden Planet and the Sherlock Holmes museum, never getting lost once and handling travelling on the Tube almost like a native. Almost. I also picked up my now legendary Sherlock Holmes pen, which is perhaps one of the tackiest things I bought last year but I still love it! Overall this was a great boost to my confidence, as it was proof that when I set my mind to something, I could be as independent as I ruddy well pleased and get where I needed to go. I just hope, in 2014, I bare that in mind much more often.

Operation: Ark Reactor.

So, something relatively big that I don't wish to dwell on too much - On the seventh of November, I went in for major surgery. Now for most people, that would be a life changing and no doubt scary event that they would probably tell war stories of for the rest of my life. My poor mother, in fact, has recently broken her arm and it was a rather harrowing experience for... Well, both of us, especially as there was a good chance she could lose it. For me though, it was simply something I have come to regard as routine - I needed my pacemaker changed. Now, this is my... Fifth or sixth device I've had installed, the most recent being about seven or eight year ago, and while there was some measure of anxiety over the whole thing, it had almost become routine. Something I was sure they were going to get right, and they did. I'm now three months into the healing process, and although my scar is still sore, I can honestly say that the procedure seems to have gone off without a hitch.

The biggest question, however, is will it increase my quality of life? And to be honest with you, I don't know. 2013 was marked by a distinct lack of energy, frequent bouts of illness and a general sluggishness on my part. Now, I'm always struck down by bout of illness, I have no immune system, that's nothing new - But the lethargy? That was particularly pronounced. I think, had I been in better condition, I would have more exciting ventures to put on this list. I would have been to more live events, travelled to that Doctor Who prom, seen my friends in Luton a lot more often and maybe done more Goth stuff. But as it stands, that was not the case, and now I'm stuck pondering the question - Am I any better? I think the tenuous answer is yes. When I'm fit and well, I seem to be able to do more and suffer less for it, but ultimately only time will tell. Let's see how well, or poorly, I fare in this coming year and hope that being sliced and diced open for replacement parts has done me a world of good. Even if it hasn't though, this is still an important one that I can't ignore - If only for the reason that it's kept me alive! Alive to enjoy everything that's coming in the future, and alive to enjoy our last entry in this look back...

The Day of the Doctor!

Yeah, yeah. I know. Figurines! Tabletop gaming! A TV episode?! This hardly ranks alongside 'Got Married', 'Visited the Great Wall of China', 'Skydived out of a plane into a tank of sharks!' in terms of significance or excitement. But do you know what? Sometimes the smallest things can cast the brightest light, and even putting aside all the hype and the historic significance of this episode (and also putting aside the fact I'm a huge Doctor Who nerd, see last post for reference!) Day of the Doctor was one of the things last year that I got a huge amount of pleasure out of.

Now, last year was a pretty exciting one for television, no doubt. Misfits took it's final bow, in a series that got off to a rocky start but reminded me exactly why I loved it in all it's cringe-worthy,highly  inappropriate glory by the end. Dexter also came crashing to it's grand finale, which seemed to divide the fanbase into more pieces than the killer does his victims, but I found enjoyable enough - Even though it was utterly ruined by those last few seconds. Black Mirror came back for three more interesting, if slightly less savage than last series, stories of satire and woe and early to mid-2013 also saw Utopia and In the Flesh. Two thought provoking, engaging, yet highly disturbing in parts creations with a real point to make. As an aside, if you've yet to watch In The Flesh, do yourself a favour and hunt it down. It's characterisation, world and plotting is the finest in the zombie genre and the story twists pack such an emotional punch it hurts. There was also plenty for my comic book geek side to sink his teeth into, with the superb second series of Arrow and the steadily improving Agents of Shield to enjoy - And you know what? Doctor Who was no slouch last year either!

So what makes Day of the Doctor so special that I'd want to single it out as one of my top moments of the year? Especially when, for my money, Adventure in Time and Space is by far the best Who related piece of media televised last year.

Well, it's because I had the great privilege of seeing Day of the Doctor in the cinema!

Now, on it's own this isn't very significant. I went to the cinema a lot last year, and I'm sure for many people it's just your average day out. But when it came to Day of the Doctor, it was different. For one thing, it was packed. And I mean packed. Our cinema is never full, at any time of day, but for this one? I am so glad I picked up my ticket early, because the queues for the till were so long that they had to set up a concessions stand in the theatre itself. It was also an absolute joy to see so many different people from so many different walks of life there, some of them in costume, some of them (like myself) in a variety of Doctor Who themed t-shirt and one woman even wandering around in a TARDIS onesie. Ultimately though, in contrast to what I was saying about Neil Gaiman's book reading, it warmed my heart to see so many children there. The thing with geek culture is that, while it's great to see it thriving of late, we've also allowed it to become rather dominated by adults. All you have to do is look at the most recent Superman movie to see what an absolute sorry state we're in right now. We have Superman, the world's first superhero, the character on which the morality of the entire genre was built on - Starring in a film that's so far removed from what an audience of children could enjoy, that it just makes me sad. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think dumbing down for children is the way to go - Quite the opposite! But I think this is always a line that Doctor Who has walked well. It knows that the true meaning of mature isn't to just make everything grim and gritty, to have every character scowling, to wreak massive amounts of destruction because that's the only possible way to up the stakes - It's smarter than that. And it shows. Because throughout the entire episode, despite being in a cinema packed to the rafters with people, a good number of them children, do you know how many times the showing was interrupted?

Not once. Everyone was glued to that thing, wooping and letting out the obligatory 'Yes!' during the bits they were supposed too, but otherwise it had their full attention. And that, my friends, is part of the reason why the day was so magical - It showed that one piece of media could capture the imagination of so many people, of so many age groups, and ultimately touch their hearts. Soppy, but true, and an experience that will stick with me for a good, long while.

Of course, part of the reason is also the company I was in. Last year was a year of fantastic cinema outings with a very good friend of mine. We've seen everything from Thor 2, to Man of Steel, to Pacific Rim, sadly missing out on seeing the Hobbit together but again, this is a trend I very much hope to keep up in 2014 and if you're reading this, thanks for being such good company over the year, my friend! It's been a real pleasure, and like I said, long may it continue!

So, that was the year that was. There are, of course, other things that have shaped this year - Rather more tragic things that I'd rather not address in what, should be I feel, a celebration of everything good that's come and also smaller things. I was asked to be the godfather to a good friends child, who I hope to finally meet this year, and was very touched to accept. I had plenty of smaller adventures with friends old and new, and quiet, relaxed time with my family. I like to think I grew closer to my eldest brother, which is nice, and on an even smaller, but still significant note, there was blind draw and Celebrity avatars. Two wonderful, weekly endeavours with friends - One where you draw a subject with your eyes closed, the other where you change your facebook pictures to that of an actor or theme picked by another in the group. Simple things, but also things that have allowed me to engage with some very good friends of mine.

So that was 2013! What does 2014 hold? Who knows! But I hope, this year, whatever life throws at me, I can share it here and bring whoever might be reading it along for the ride. :)

Happy New Year, internet. Make it a good one!