"Put down that wrench!"

Various people on my friends list have greeted with dismay the news that Connie Willis has won this year's best novel Nebula for All Clear (step forward nwhyte and bookzombie).

I have enjoyed a few works by Willis in the past, but they've almost all been her shorts. For me, Fire Watch and Blued Moon are the stand-out shorts.

Her novels have mostly left me underwhelmed, partly because poor research and lazy plotting seem to be her bywords. For example, the farcical bits of To say nothing of the dog work well enough, but I lived in Coventry for long enough to find her descriptions of the city and the cathedrals to be jarringly wrong, with errors that could have been avoided had Willis read any tourist guides. Similarly, Doomsday Book didn't work for me because the plot around the future epidemic would collapse as soon as someone used a phone or sent an email. I haven't dared to give it to ias to read, mainly because I suspect that she will have Issues with the medieval bits.

The reviews I've read so far for Blackout and All Clear have not encouraged me to read either of them (there was a particularly memorable discussion of elementary gaffes in Blackout on drplokta's LJ back here)

Bother. I spotted an emergency power off panel from an IBM 1602 on eBay over the weekend, and was out-sniped within the last ten seconds (I'd set my snipe for 29 seconds, figuring that there wasn't likely to be a great deal of interest in a 3kg block of metal). On the plus side, the postage would have cost me the best part of USD50.

For those of you that might be wondering why I'd want an obsolete IBM boat anchor, might I refer you to one of autopope's stories, particularly the last four paragraphs.

As reported by the BBC: A cloud of pollen has coated cars and homes across a huge stretch of the east of England in a film of yellow dust.

(inspired by coffeeandtv0)

I've been looking forward to the release of V for Vendetta with some trepidation since I first heard that an adaptation was seriously in the offing (see my previous posts). ias and I went to see it last night; I'm hoping that she will also post her views on the film, because unlike myself she hasn't read the comic and has a different (and more positive) take on the film.

Without spoilers, what are my feelings on the success of the film?

Is it a bad film? No.

Is it a good adaptation? Sadly, also no. It isn't a disaster, but I wouldn't class it as a success.

Do I think that Alan Moore's condemnation of the film is unjustified? No.

In many ways, the film reminded me of the Morecambe and Wise sketch with Andre Previn; all of the right scenes, just not necessarily in the right order.

For those that are interested, Charlie Brooker has a rant on V for Vendetta in today's Grauniad, and there's a rather good V for Vendetta in 15 Minutes that's going around LJ.

Given that the 1961 original was lost in one of the great BBC tape purges of the 1970s (to make way for Match of the Day, no doubt), it's unsurprising that I've never seen A for Andromeda. Rather more embarrassingly, I've not read any of Fred Hoyle's novels.

ias and I watched the live remake of The Quatermass Experiment that BBC Four showed last year; I enjoyed it, but I didn't think that the plot had dated especially well, and the pacing required of a live production with outside broadcasts felt artificial. I've just seen BBC Four's remake of A for Andromeda, and I have to say that I was really rather impressed. Good dialogue, and an intelligent script - what more could one want? The closing quotation by Carl Sagan was a deft, if slightly in-jokey touch, considering the considerable conceptual debt that Contact (written 1985) owes to A for Andromeda. I shan't deign to comment on the similarities between AFA and the execrable Species.

In other news, I'm back from Sofia, and will possibly write something about that tomorrow.

Cor lummee, they've kept the really good stuff for the end of the season haven't they?

Well, that's that. I've finally taken the plunge and paid my money for Interaction, so I guess that I'm going to be at the Worldcon this summer, making this both my first Worldcon and also my first large SF con (having repeatedly failed to get to any Eastercons). Those of you who are going to be at Intersection - which hotels will you be staying in?

A little over a year ago, I commented that I hadn't heard that the Wachowski brothers were working on an adaptation of V for Vendetta.

Yesterday, Warner Bros put out a press release stating that they're going ahead with the project. There's a poster image for people to drool over:

For what it's worth, they appear to have cast Natalie Portman as Evey, which might work.

I hadn't heard that Alan Moore was retiring from the (mainstream) comic industry.

I hadn't heard that the Wachowski brothers are to make a film of V for Vendetta.

I am deeply worried by both of the above.