Movies and books

First off, an RIP for Nicholas Courtney, the Brigadier on countless episodes of Dr. Who.
Second off, an RIP for Dwayne McDuffie, writer of multiple comics and DC Universe cartoons. Among his many fine works, Damage Control—about the company that cleans up after super-hero battles and alien invasions—remains a personal favorite.
Moving on …
FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (1963) is probably the most Cold War of the James Connery bonds—no surprise since the film takes the book’s plot (a Russian attempt to take out Bond) and simply establishes SPECTRE is pulling the Red strings in its scheme to lure Bond to destruction (at the hands of sociopath Robert Shaw) with the combined appeal of a Russian decoding device and sexy file clerk Danielle Bianchi. A landmark for introducing SPECTRE’s Number One and his white cat, and solidly entertaining. Also interesting to see how slow the cuts and jumps are compared to a modern thriller, and how relatively human Bond is (taken down by Shaw’s hitman who, while formidable, is hardly up to the Oddjob or Jaws level). “Your plan was perfect—except you forgot you were dealing with Bond.”
QUAI DES ORFEVRES (1947) was HG Clouzot’s big comeback after Le Corbeau (which was indirectly critical of French collaborationists during WW II) got him blacklisted for several years. This drama has a singer’s jealous husband attempting to cover for her murdering a lecherous film producer, only to find everyone’s stories unraveling under the yes of a disheveled, grumpy cop. Not as dark as Wages of Fear or Diabolique, but very good. “When she showed him her tra-la-la, he surrendered!”

OD MAGIC by Patricia McKillip has a gardener reeking of Earth magic and a street conjurer whose magic may be extremely real find themselves at odds with a kingdom where magic is very carefully controlled for the Good Of All. Not McKillip’s best, but good, remininding me of Diana Wynne Jones’ Year of the Griffin in portraying a school of magic as more likely to straitjacket students’ skills than teach them the real potential of magic.

SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE: Dr. Death and the Night of the Butcher is my first look at Matt Wagner’s reinvention of the 1930s superhero as a pulp detective, here battling a couple of serial killers while trying to explain to his girlfriend why he didn’t tell her about his double life. Despite much critical acclaim, this didn’t work for me—too slow paced for a good pulp, and not enough of anything else to offset it.

CAIRO is a graphic novel by G. Willow Wilson and M. Henry Pekkar in which an Israeli deserter, an aspiring suicide bomber, a petty drug dealer, a jinn and a naive American are among those caught up the search for a mysterious McGuffin that could determine the destiny of the Middle East (the McGuffin shows Wilson’s fondness for words and symbols from her Air comic-book series, though it got a little heavy-handed). A fun, fast-paced read.
(And no, I don’t know why the picture came in wrong side up).
FIRE by Kristin Cashore has a telepathic mutant in a fantasy setting reluctantly becoming involved in helping a king win a civil war despite her fears using her powers will lead her down the slippery slope to becoming the mind-controlling manipulator her father was. Cashore does a good job on her lead character, but this runs longer than could hold my interest, partly because she’s not tempted by the dark side enough for it to be a serious factor in the story.
THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES—2007, edited by Stephen King makes me wonder if the top short stories writers are all getting older or if that’s where King’s interest lies, since a large number of them deal with either seniors struggling with their own aging or Baby Boomers coping with having aging parents. As usual with serious literature, a lot of this didn’t work for me, though there was the excellent fantasy “St. Lucy’s Home For Girls Raised By Wolves” and even mainstream pieces such as “My Brother Eli” that I enjoyed. Overall, though, not quite to my taste.
INVISIBLE DEATH: A Tale of Zarkon, Lord of the Unknown From the Files of Omega, by Lin Carter has Carter’s Doc Savage pastiche and his crew investigate why a series of wealthy men have keeled over dead after receiving mysterious letters from a “Grim Reaper” (now it’s hard to read without thinking of the 2001 anthrax letters). This is weaker than the first book (doing a pulp knockoff doesn’t justify pulp ethnic cliches) though it does have a lot of pulp and comic references such as Zarkon chatting with Bruce Wayne, Lamont Cranston, Britt Reid, Richard (The Spider) Wentworth and Doc Savage’s aide Ham Brooks. Enjoyable, if hardly first-rate.