More on Iain M. Banks and a film review

[sligachan]

This follows on from the last entry.

There's an interesting review of Iain M. Banks latest, and probably last,
science fiction novel, in number 243 of the British science fiction magazine
Interzone (the only SF journal I still read with any regularity, and
even that's pretty hit-and-miss). I just finished "The Hydrogen
Sonata," which, unfortunately, is not his best -- although I did enjoy
it. The review-author says there is "so much crammed into" the novel,
and in my opinion that's its problem: it's about so much it ends up
being about almost nothing, and I found it a little too light hearted
for its subject matter.

And for another review: I ended up not having to work over the weekend
so I just watched a DVD of "The Awakening," a BBC-produced ghost story
with lovely performances by Rebecca Hall and Dominic West. Set just
after WW-I, a London woman with complex motives makes it her business to
expose extrasensory phenomenon as hoaxes purpetrated by charlatans.
She's hired by a Master at an orphaned boys' school, housed in a Downton
Abbey-like manor house, to disprove the existence of the supposed ghost
of a long-dead boy who is scaring away the current class of boys and
(more importantly) their parents' money. Atmospheric and modestly
scary, the story features several surprises that are fully foreshadowed
in the plot. It got mixed reviews, and I don't disagree that the acting
is better than some elements of the plot, but I liked it a lot.

Enjoy!

-- Donald