"Don't think of the danger or the stranger is gone": You Only Live Twice

It's hard to know, of course, because I don't watch these things in order, but I think this is the loosest adaptation in the original Connery run as Bond. This is because of necessity: the book is very much a follow-up to the death of Bond's wife in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, but in the film universe, On Her Majesty's Secret Service came next! So what can this film be about?

The script writer (none other than children's writer Roald Dahl, the only screenplay he worked on that wasn't an adaptation of his own work) takes a lot of incidents of the book but jumbles them up. Sometimes this works; sometimes it does not. For example, the book ends with Bond missing, presumed dead-- an obituary is run for him in the Times and everything. The film moves this to the beginning: MI6 fakes Bond's death so SPECTRE doesn't know he's coming. But this doesn't really come to anything. And how can it? The whole point of Bond is that he's undercover, he doesn't run around using his own name (well, some of the time), and if SPECTRE does identify a guy as looking exactly like Bond, it doesn't seem likely they'd just shrug and say, "Oh well, that guy is dead, must be a coincidence."

So, instead of Bond investigating a weird guy living in Japan on a whim who by complete coincidence turns out to be Blofeld, here SPECTRE is kidnapping American and Soviet spacecraft from orbit and hiding them in Japan. Like a lot of Bond plots, it's dumb, but like a lot of Bond plots, it has panache. I mean, why not pluck spaceships out of orbit and hide them in a dormant volcano in Japan? I loved all of the stuff with the volcano base, which uses some modelwork to communicate scale to great effect. It has a piranha pool in it! This is stereotypical supervillain stuff, but of course this is where the stereotype starts, with the filmmakers taking the "Garden of Death" from the novel but incorporating it into Blofeld's much more cinematic plot here.

Also Bond flies around in a mini-helicopter and at one point is dumped into a pneumatic tube for no readily apparent reason.

On the other hand, he also uses makeup to look more Japanese. Uh, I don't think they would let Daniel Craig do that.

In our viewing order, this is our last Connery film, and I am sad to see him go. He was actually still trying in this one. I do really like both Craig and George Lazenby as Bond (we haven't got to any Dalton or Brosnan films yet), but Connery was the original and his physicality really recreated the character for the screen, capturing some of the blaséness of the book Bond, but giving him a ruthless charm all his own.

Other Notes:

• Donald Pleasance is the prototypical Blofeld in the pop culture imagination, but I didn't find his performance terribly memorable.
• I did like Akiko Wakabayashi as Aki, the highly competent female Japanese agent who proves a match for Bond more than once.
• There's a bit where Bond meets a contact at a sumo wrestling match. Why don't they ever use phone calls? 
• On the other hand there's a hilarious bit where Bond's in a car chase, and the Japanese save him by sending a helicopter with a giant magnet to suck up the people chasing him and dump their car into the ocean. This stuff is too awesome to hate.
• This is one of a few (maybe the only?) Bond film whose action is limited to one country, fact fans!

Film Rankings (So Far):

1. Casino Royale
2. Dr. No
3. From Russia with Love
4. For Your Eyes Only 
5. On Her Majesty's Secret Service 
6. Thunderball
7. You Only Live Twice
8. Goldfinger
9. The Spy Who Loved Me
10. Moonraker
11. Never Say Never Again
12. A View to a Kill
13. Live and Let Die 
14. Diamonds Are Forever

Hugos 2020: A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

Trade paperback, 464 pages
Published 2020 (originally 2019)
Acquired April 2020
Read May 2020

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

I enjoyed this from the start. Me being me, I was immediately classifying it in terms of genre: it reminds me of both the Imperial Radch and Baru Cormorant books in its attention to the functioning of empire. These books aren't about empires as military juggernauts (though that's in there), but as political and cultural forces. A friend read Ancillary Justice and The Traitor Baru Cormorant and pointed out they were both about "evil meritocracies"; A Memory Called Empire is about one as well! The focus on empire isn't the only similarity (both even feature empires with elaborate tea ceremonies, and a language where the name of the empire is synonymous with civilization), as there's an interesting correlation between the leaders of both empire, even. The acknowledgements say that this book was begun in 2014; Ancillary Justice came out in 2013. I say all this not to criticize A Memory Called Empire, but to triangulate it. I think these books are all doing something that really appeals to me, and clearly also appeals to readers, taking many of the tropes of sf, but invigorating them with new life by thinking through their complexities. (I need a name for this subgenre, which I would also add The Goblin Emperor and the Hexarchate books to. It obviously connects to space opera, but is not limited to it. "Imperial sf" seems to be taken. "Post-imperial sf"?) A Memory Called Empire is also interested in the production and consumption of narratives, something I've seen in other recent sf (it comes up a lot in the Murderbot stories, for example, and I seem to recall there's something of it in the Wayfarers novels, too), which feels natural in a genre landscape where many writers would have been involved heavily in media fandom. And, like in The City of the Middle of the Night, there's a big focus on the languages of the different cultures, and how they shape thought: one has a lot of case markers.

Mahit Dzmare is the ambassador from the tiny polity of Lsel Station to the homeworld of the powerful Teixcalaanli Empire. But even though Teixcalaan's might threatens her station's sovereignty, she's grown up reading poetry and novels and watching tv shows from Teixcalaan. She loves and is fascinated it, even as she understands its dangers-- but reading about it is no substitute for being there. This was one of my favorite parts of Memory: empire is cruel, but also seductive, and it provides great stories. In the nineteenth century you would have grown up reading about the virtues of Rome even if Rome's virtues actually weren't your nation's virtues. I really liked the book's attention to the nuances of empire; as I said above, it really feels as though it builds on Ancillary Justice in terms of that.

I enjoyed it from the start, but it got better as it went. It's a good political thriller (and it makes sense); it has some neat sf ideas; it has strong worldbuilding (the Teixcalaanli naming system is fun, even if I kept getting distracted by the name "Six Direction" at first). It gets you invested in its characters and their struggles. Mahit is a great, believable protagonist, but I had a soft spot for Twelve Azalea, a friend of Mahit's cultural liaison, a goofy guy who comes through in a pinch. Some aspects of the climax really got me emotionally, and by the end, I loved it, and I can't wait for book two (which isn't out until March 2021 in hardcover, so God knows when it will hit paperback).

Review: You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming

Mass market paperback, 274 pages
Published 2006 (originally 1964)

Acquired October 2019
Read January 2020

You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming

This starts good, with a broken Bond reeling from the death of his wife at the end of On Her Majesty's Secret Service. It continues okay, with Bond traveling to Japan, and Fleming doing an unusually good job immersing one in the local color. (Fleming is often decent at this kind of thing, but this is one of his better takes in terms of how interesting it is. On the other hand, I somehow suspect it is reductive and not entirely inaccurate!)

Where it all falls down for me is that basically Bond bumps into the man who killed his wife by complete coincidence! There's no feeling of comeuppance or vindication here; Bond just happens to discover a plot by Blofeld. And though I love the idea of Blofeld's garden of poisonous plants, it's like: that's it? He's just hanging out there? Where's an even more dastardly plot? Fleming tries to explain this by saying Blofeld's gone totally insane... but that's not really satisfying. Imagine if after killing Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Vader went nuts off screen so that when Luke met up with him again, killing him was a doddle. Meh.

And what's the point of the epilogue where Bond loses his memory?

There's a really good "Bond's wife was killed and now he's angry" novel to be written, but this isn't it. And of course, the films didn't deliver on that potential either, thanks to the departure of George Lazenby.

Book Rankings (So Far):

1. Casino Royale
2. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
3. Dr No
4. Thunderball
5. Moonraker
6. For Your Eyes Only
7. From Russia with Love
8. The Spy Who Loved Me 
9. You Only Live Twice
10. Live and Let Die
11. Goldfinger
12. Diamonds are Forever

Revieiw: Discworld: Snuff by Terry Pratchett

Mass market paperback, 470 pages
Published 2013 (originally 2011)
Borrowed from my wife
Read March 2020

Snuff: A Novel of Discworld by Terry Pratchett

This didn't do much for me; Snuff is the weakest of the eight City Watch novels by a clear margin. Part of my objection is a little unfair: I don't know if Pratchett meant for this to be the last one, but it doesn't feel satisfying for the final one to mostly take place outside of the city and largely not involve the majority of the Watch. Aside from a few scenes, it's all Vimes all the time meaning we don't get closure on long-running subplots, especially Carrot and Angua.

But even on its own terms, this didn't work for me. Both Willikins and Sybil felt out of character, and the book was full of elements that didn't seem to go anywhere. The opening has a big focus on what Lord Vetinari is up to that as far as I could tell turned out to be irrelevant, and a subplot about a Jane Austen spoof just gets forgotten. The big climax is good, but then the book just keeps on going.

But even a weak Pratchett is filled with strong moments. The rehabilitation of the goblins is great, and I love any scene where Vimes punctures others' pretensions and/or argues his way into being in authority. So, a frustrating way to go out: glimpses of greatness, but no one wants a series's last installment to be its weakest.

Reading Roundup Wrapup: May 2020

Pick of the month: A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. I will talk about this book in full on its own and in the context of being a Hugo finalist, so I won't say much about it here, but suffice it to say that I really liked it.

All books read:
1. The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders
2. LaGuardia: A Very Modern Story of Immigration by Nnedi Okorafor
3. Dragon Pearl by Yoon Ha Lee
4. The Deep by Rivers Solomon with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes
5. Monstress, Volume Four: The Chosen by Marjorie Liu
6. The Wicked King by Holly Black
7. The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein by Farah Mendlesohn
8. Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor, Vol 2: Fractures by Robbie Morrison [with George Mann]
9. A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
10. In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire

All books acquired:
1. Deeplight by Frances Hardinge
2. Babylon's Ashes: Book Six of The Expanse by James S.A. Corey
3. Exhalation by Ted Chiang
4. Middlegame by Seanan McGuire

With a couple small exceptions, all of my reading and acquisitions this month were in pursuit of the Hugo Awards. It's not the heaviest reading rate I've maintained, but it is pretty steady, and much faster than I have been!

Books on "To be read" list: 658 (no change)
Books on "To review" list: 14 (down 9)

Review: Doctor Who: Weapons of Past Destruction by Cavan Scott, Blair Shedd, et al.

Comic PDF eBook, n.pag.
Published 2016 (contents: 2015)
Acquired September 2018
Read December 2019

Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor, Vol 1: Weapons of Past Destruction

Writer: Cavan Scott

Artist: Blair Shedd with Rachael Stott
Colorist: Blair Shedd and Anang Setyawan
Letters: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt

I felt like this failed to capture the tone of the era it's supposedly recreating. It felt too action-y, too continuity-y. The Doctor talks a lot about the Time Lords and the Time War in an era that on screen was content to mostly hint obliquely. The plot seemed to pile complication on complication and incident on incident for the sake of it. It's a shame because Cavan Scott did a great job capturing this era in Night of the Whisper.

I also didn't care for Blair Shedd's weird faces, or his tendency to use silhouettes for random panels, which I think is meant to look artistic but is actually done to save him time drawing things.

Review: Discworld: Thud! by Terry Pratchett

Hardcover, 373 pages
Published 2005
Borrowed from my wife
Read December 2019

Thud!: A Novel of Discworld by Terry Pratchett

Thud! is a solid City Watch novel, not up to the lofty heights of Jingo or Night Watch, but a solid adventure with some interesting things to say in the line of, say, Men at Arms. There's ethnic tensions brewing between trolls and dwarves, both in and out of the city, and Vimes has to (as usual) simultaneously investigate a murder and stop mass political violence as well. There's a lot of fun stuff here: the auditor who becomes a Watch member himself, another Nobbs and Colon investigation, the high-speed trip to Koom Valley, Vimes's devotion to his daily ritual with his son. But some of the threads don't feel effectively drawn through, and I got a bit confused at all the stuff with the Summoning Dark, a demonic sigil accidentally absorbed by Vimes.

Hugos 2020: The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein by Farah Mendlesohn

Hardcover, 477 pages
Published 2019
Acquired April 2020
Read May 2020

The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein by Farah Mendlesohn

This is a book-length academic study of the works of Robert Heinlein. And at over 400 pages of content, it's quite a long book! I haven't actually read a ton of Heinlein (Double Star, Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land, and Friday are it), but I still enjoyed this. Mendlesohn situates Heinlein in his historical and literary context, especially when it comes to issues of race, gender, and sexuality, showing both where he was ahead of the curve and where he couldn't see beyond his own limitations. Her argument is there are some things he gets flack for, which is undeserved if you read it in the context of his time and his body of work, but there are other things for which he deserves castigation, especially Farnham's Freehold.

These parts of the book are worthy but honestly a little too thorough, though I understand why. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the chapters about Heinlein's technique and rhetoric, and about the themes of civic engagement, revolution, and personal responsibility in his work. By reading all of it, from the early shorts to the juveniles to the late-period novels, Mendlesohn is able to show how Heinlein saw society and the self and the relationship between them. It deepened my appreciation of the Heinlein I have read, and made me want to read more of it. (Upon finishing it, I promptly ordered a copy of The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, though who knows when I will actually get around to reading it.)

As in her book Rhetorics of Fantasy, Mendlesohn is attentive to detail when she needs to be, but her real strength as a critic is identifying trends and explicating why they matter. She's also a lively and engaging writer. This is a model of good criticism in general, and good sf criticism in particular.

Review: Doctor Who: Serve You by Al Ewing, Rob Williams, Simon Fraser, Boo Cook, and Warren Pleece

Comic PDF eBook, n.pag.
Published 2015 (contents: 2015)
Acquired September 2018
Read December 2019

Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor, Vol 2: Serve You

Writers: Al Ewing & Rob Williams

Artists: Simon Fraser, Boo Cook, and Warren Pleece
Colorist: Gary Caldwell
Letters: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt

This opens with a timey-wimey issue, which didn't entirely succeed for me in practice, but I liked the idea, because it played with time and the comics page in much the same way that Moffat played with time and television on screen. It captures the spirit of its era without feeling like it's trying to recreate it slavishly in another medium. The next two stories bring us back into the SERVEYOUinc story arc, as Alice deals with the apparent resurrection of her mother and the destructiveness of grief. It's good, character-based stuff, showing how much the character of Alice has come to life in half-a-dozen issues of this title. (I do wish ARC and Jones were taken more seriously, however.)

The last story here serves as a mini-climax to the SERVEYOUinc story arc (though I think there is more to come), with the Doctor momentarily taking over the company and being corrupted by power. I liked the idea, but didn't think the execution entirely rang true. Still, of the four Titan Doctor Who strands I've read so far (those featuring the ninth through twelfth Doctors), the eleventh Doctor one is clearly the most interesting and most successful. It's the only one I think is trying to do something other than ape its screen era.

Review: Doctor Who: The Weeping Angels of Mons by Robbie Morrison, Daniel Indro, and Eleonora Carlini

Comic PDF eBook, n.pag.
Published 2015 (contents: 2014-15)
Acquired September 2018
Read December 2019

Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor, Vol 2: The Weeping Angels of Mons

Writer: Robbie Morrison

Artists: Daniel Indro & Eleonora Carlini
Colorist: Slamet Mujiono
Letters: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt

The Weeping Angels seem to me to be a uniquely televisual monster. Their whole gimmick is that they don't move if you can see them-- so you need a medium that clearly delineates movement. It's particularly clever, because Weeping Angels aren't just frozen when characters see them, but when you the audience are looking. Big Finish have done okay by them, but it's definitely been diminishing returns, and the way Big Finish must indicate movement by stings of music is often inadvertently hilarious, and people have to say things like, "Gosh, that statue wasn't there a second ago!" aloud.

Comics, I think, start out from even more of a disadvantage, in that in a comic nothing is moving when the viewer is looking at it. Possibly a clever writer could make use of this somehow, but judging from The Weeping Angels of Mons (not to mention Terrorformer), Robbie Morrison is not one. This is a generic Doctor Who pseudo-historical. Plus, if you think about it, a Weeping Angel actually isn't that scary in terms of what it does: yes, it plucks you out of time... so that you can live a long and fulfilling life! Most of the tv and audio episodes featuring them manage to get around that, but this one's setting flags up the problem. If you're a soldier in the trenches of World War I, this is actually a step up! Again, a clever writer could probably make something of that, but this story does not.

from Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor #7 (art by Daniel Indro)

One of the real high points of Titan's first Tenth Doctor volume was the Doctor's new companion, Gabby Gonzalez, who felt like a real person with a distinctive voice. Unfortunately, there's none of that present here, where Gabby could be literally any young female companion. This isn't just a writing problem, but an art one, as she suddenly looks like a generic non-Hispanic white woman.