The Shape of Things to Come: 2013

I decided to roll all of my normal 'looking ahead' posts into one this year. It's a bit late, so January is missing from these lists and thus it's a list looking forwards to the next eleven months, rather than twelve.

Books

2013 looks set to be an interesting year. At the more literary end of the spectrum we have new novels by Graham Joyce and Christopher Priest (two novels in three years is, by his standards, astonishingly productive). At the diametric opposite end of the scale we have Raymond E. Feist's last-ever Riftwar novel, which is being published to a reception of stone-cold indifference by most SFF readers. Inbetween we have the ongoing re-release of David Wingrove's Chung Kuo series (set to expand by four volumes this year) and the resumption of Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shadows of the Apt series, which reaches its ninth and penultimate volume. Neil Gaiman also presents us with his first adult-oriented, full-length novel in eight years, which should be worth a look.

Sadly, we have to bid farewell to Chris Wooding's splendid Tales of the Ketty Jay series, which is wrapping up after four volumes. Peter Brett's Daylight War has some hard work to do to make up for the deficiencies of the second volume, whilst Daniel Abraham hits us with another fantasy/SF double-whammy with The Tyrant's Law and Abaddon's Gate. Richard Morgan's divisive Land Fit For Heroes trilogy (no word yet on if it is indeed expanding to four books) also reaches its third volume with The Dark Defiles.

In the area of SF, Alastair Reynolds has the sequel to his Blue Remembered Earth coming out, whilst Stephen Baxter returns to interstellar exploration and colonisation with Proxima.


Undated, but pretty certain to hit in 2013, is Ian Cameron Esslemont's Assail (working title). Easily the most eagerly-awaited of Esslemont's novels, this book takes us to the much-dreaded continent of Assail. Expect to see a showdown involving the T'lan Imass, Silverfox, the Crimson Guard and much more besides. Less certain for 2013 is Fall of Light, Steven Erikson's middle volume in his Kharkanas Trilogy, which might still just sneak out before the end of the year The ever-fecund. Brandon Sanderson, meanwhile, has several dozen novels due out, with his second Stormlight novel being the most eagerly-awaited (but also one of the most likely to slip to 2014). Stephen Donaldson is also tentatively scheduled to publish the tenth and final Thomas Covenant novel (thirty-six years after the first), The Last Dark, before the end of the year.

That's about it for the epic fantasy big-hitters. No Rothfuss, and Lynch's Republic of Thieves remains MIA. Martin fans will get some more Song of Ice and Fire morsels in the form of a narrative history of the Dance of Dragons, which will appear in Dangerous Women, and then a big coffee-table guidebook to the world with The World of Ice and Fire, which is tentatively scheduled for November (but again delays are possible).
At this stage my most eagerly-awaited novel of the year is River of Stars, a semi-follow-up to Guy Gavriel Kay's excellent Under Heaven.

February

The Daylight War by Peter Brett

Jimmy and the Crawler by Raymond E. Feist

Dreams and Shadows by Robert Cargill

March

The Art of War by David Wingrove

The High Kingdom by Pierre Pevel

April

The God Tattoo by Tom Lloyd

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill

Abominable by Dan Simmons

River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay

Son of the Morning by Mark Alder (MD Lachlan)

May

The Tyrant's Law by Daniel Abraham

Magician's End by Raymond E. Feist

Dangerous Women by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois (ed.)

The Year of the Ladybird by Graham Joyce

The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson

June

Abaddon's Gate by James S.A. Corey (aka Daniel Abraham & Ty Franck)

The City by Stella Gemmell

On the Steel Breeze by Alastair Reynolds

The Time of Contempt by Andrzej Sapkowski

Cold Steel by Kate Elliott

The Dragon Queen by Stephen Deas

Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

A Discourse in Steel by Paul S. Kemp

An Inch of Ashes by David Wingrove

Requiem by Ken Scholes

July

Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea by Adam Roberts

The Glass God by Kate Griffin

Gallow: The Crimson Shield by Nathan Hawke (Stephen Deas)

August

Shadows of the New Sun: Stories in Honour of Gene Wolfe by Bill Fawcett (ed)

The Adjacent by Christopher Priest

Emperor of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

War Master's Gate by Adrian Tchaikovsky

The Dark Defiles by Richard Morgan

The Ace of Skulls by Chris Wooding

Blood of Tyrants by Naomi Novik

Gallow: Cold Redemption by Nathan Hawke (Stephen Deas)

September

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

The Broken Wheel by David Wingrove

Shaman: A Novel of the Ice Age by Kim Stanley Robinson

Gallow: The Last Bastion by Nathan Hawke (Stephen Deas)

Proxima by Stephen Baxter

October

Drakenfield by Mark Charan Newton

November

The World of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin, Elio Garcia and Linda Antonsson

Moon's Artifice by Tom Lloyd

December

The White Mountain by David Wingrove

Undated

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson

The Last Dark by Stephen Donaldson

Happy Hour in Hell by Tad Williams

Assail by Ian Cameron Esslemont

New Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett

King of Cobwebs by David Keck

Possible For 2013 But Uncertain

Fall of Light by Steven Erikson

The Free by Brian Ruckley

Seal of the Worm by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Spellbreaker by Blake Charlton

Stormlight Archive #2 by Brandon Sanderson

Next Gaunt's Ghosts novel by Dan Abnett

Dresden Files #15 by Jim Butcher

The Unholy Consult by R. Scott Bakker

The Sea Beggars by Paul Kearney

The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch

Endlords by J.V. Jones

Triumff: The Double Falsehood by Dan Abnett

The Wheel of Time Encyclopedia by Harriet McDougal

Games

In terms of games, 2013 is looking reasonably good at this point, though (thankfully for my wallet) not as jam-packed as last year. There's a lot of much-delayed games coming out in 2013, such as Aliens: Colonial Marines (which somehow looks less interesting with every trailer that appears) and StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, which is arriving a full two years behind schedule. I expect both will be playable, but will be surprised if either is outstanding (in particular, Blizzard really need to hire some new writers).

Also long-awaited is SimCity 5: A Truckload of DRM (or just SimCity as we now have to call it). Long-term fans of the venerable city management series have seen increasing disappointment as they learned of the always-on internet connection and the fact that the biggest cities you can build in the game are disappointingly small.

Looking much more interesting is BioShock Infinite. Whilst I was somewhat underwhelmed by the original BioShock's gameplay, certainly the art direction and visuals were striking and the sequel is following up on that end of things in spades. Hopefully the gameplay will match up this time.

Unfortunately, the dissolution of THQ has left the release dates for Company of Heroes 2, Metro: Last Light and South Park: The Stick of Truth all up in the air. Though the three games have all been rescued (by Sega, Deep Silver and Ubisoft respectively), their transition has left final release dates in some doubt. In particular, there is a legal tussle over South Park that could delay it indefinitely, which is a shame as it was looking like a particularly interesting take on the RPG genre.

Also suffering a delay is Grand Theft Auto V, which slips back four months to September, but only with the console versions confirmed. We all know there will be a PC version - given they released GTA4 on PC at a time when PC sales were rock-bottom and still sold shedloads, they'd be completely idiotic not to now the PC format is back on top of its game - so Rockstar's refusal to confirm it is just tiresome.

Arriving at the end of the year will be the new consoles, and with them the first 'next-gen' titles, such as Star Wars 1313 (likely a launch title for them). However, potentially more interesting is the arrival of the first batch of bigger games funded through Kickstarter (a few, like FTL, have already come out). Wasteland 2, Double Fine Adventure and Carmageddon: Reincarnation should prove whether the concept has legs. 2014 promises even more Kickstarted goodness, with Project: Eternity, Star Citizen and Elite 4 (hopefully) all arriving in force.

For me, the most promising game of the year is easily Rome II: Total War (or Total War: Rome II under Creative Assembly's new naming scheme). There hasn't been a really good Total War game for me since 2006's Medieval II, but Rome II looks like being both more epic and more fun than the last few games in the series.

February

Dead Space 3

Aliens: Colonial Marines

Crysis 3

March

SimCity

Tomb Raider

StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm

BioShock Infinite

Spring/Summer

Company of Heroes 2

ARMA 3

Broken Sword: The Serpent's Curse

Metro: Last Light

South Park: The Stick of Truth

September

Grand Theft Auto V

Late 2013

Rome 2: Total War

Uncheduled

The Elder Scrolls Online

Star Wars 1313

Wasteland 2

X: Rebirth

Carmageddon: Reincarnation

Double Fine Adventure 

Films

 

Film-wise, 2013 looks a bit same-old, with a strong focus on superhero movies (even if these are some of the more interesting ones). We'll have to wait and see if Zack Snyder can resurrect the Superman movies (I'm not holding my breath), but Thor, Iron Man and a Japanese-influenced Wolverine should at least be fun.

The trailers are also suggesting that Into Darkness will be a more interesting, larger-scaled movie than J.J. Abrams's first Star Trek movie (which I was underwhelmed by: all the right ingredients, but not mixed together quite well). Benedict Cumberbatch certainly looks like a far more compelling villain than Eric Bana, at any rate. Also packed full of CGI and large explosions is Guillermo Del Toro's Pacific Rim, which initially looks like a Michael Bay Transformers movie with added Idris Elba (which is in itself quite a good idea, actually). However, Del Toro's trademark weirdness could make this a bit more interesting than it appears.

Later in the year we have sequel city, with the second Hunger Games movie hoping to repeat the better-than-the-book trick of the first one. There's also the second Hobbit movie. I'm hoping against hope that Peter Jackson learns the art of editing so we can get a lean 90-minute (okay, two hours max) action movie, but I'm not holding my breath on that one. What is likely to be a lot shorter and a lot funnier is The World's End, Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright's long-awaited conclusion to their thematic Three Colours of Cornetto trilogy (following Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz).

For me, the movie I'm most interested in is, perhaps unexpectedly, Riddick. The third film to feature Vin Diesel's titular character, we've been promised a picture that jettisons most of the excesses of the second film in favour of a tighter scope and more condensed storytelling. With Katee Sackhoff on board to provide support and Karl Urban resuming his role from the second film, this could be a bit of a dark horse.

April

Oblivion

May

Star Trek: Into Darkness

Iron Man 3

June

Man of Steel

World War Z

Kick-Ass 2

July

Pacific Rim

The Wolverine

September

Riddick

October

The World's End

November

Thor: The Dark World

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

December

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

TV

Crimson Nuptials. Does more need to be said?

Community Season 4

Game of Thrones: Season 3

Doctor Who: Season 33.5

Doctor Who: 50th Anniversary Special

The Walking Dead Season 3.5/4.0

Third RIDDICK movie on the way

Universal have signed a deal with star Vin Diesel and director David Twohy to release a third movie based on the character of Riddick, following on from the excellent Pitch Black and the promising-but-overblown Chronicles of Riddick. The third film, with the working title of just Riddick, will apparently retreat from the (expensive) complexities of the second movie see a return to the smaller-scale action of the first movie.

This could be promising. I didn't hate Chronicles of Riddick and found it somewhat enjoyable, if a much less successful film than the original. However, Pitch Black and the two spin-off computer games from the series, Escape from Butcher Bay and Assault on Dark Athena (all made with Twohy and Diesel's involvement), are all superb, so colour me cautiously optimistic that this could be an interesting flick.

The Chronicles of Riddick

Pitch Black was an excellent low-budget movie with great characters and a tense, dramatic storyline built on an interesting SF premise. The director and the studio obviously thought it was missing a few things, such as big men in eyeliner, vast reams of CGI and a scenery-chewing English bad guy (seriously, what is up with that?), and decided to more than make up for it in the sequel.


The Chronicles of Riddick is a bit of a mess. A gloriously insane and entertaining-in-its-dementia mess, true, but it's still a movie that feels like what happens when you chuck every single idea you have into a melting pot and randomly shake it around rather than think about things seriously for a few minutes.

The movie opens with the director telling you the editing is a bit rubbish in places, which I must admit was very good of him, especially as I'd never have noticed without him bringing it up. Cheers for that. Then we're on a desolate ice planet with a bunch of mercenaries tracking down antihero Riddick. The mercs are armed with miniguns, nets and a faster-than-light spaceship. Riddick is armed with an unconvincing beard. Obviously my money was on Riddick here. Riddick travels to the planet Helion Prime to find out who's put a bounty on his head and is reunited with the Imam from the first movie. However, the planet is invaded by the 'Necromongers', a bunch of iron plate-wearing American football players who feel like they belong in a totally different film (and that film being David Lynch's Dune). Riddick humiliates the chief Necromonger bad guy (the aforementioned scenery-chewing Colm Feore) and escapes, only to be picked up by the mercs from earlier and taken to the prison planet Crematoria.

But! It's all part of Riddick's cunning plan to break out Jack (the other survivor of the first movie) from the same prison, which is located on a planet where the dayside is so blisteringly hot the air catches fire. This leads to a truly bemusing sequence which reverses the events of Pitch Black as the characters have to stay ahead of the daylight and keep in the shadows (clever writing or lazy recycling of past ideas? You decide). At the same time, a Necromonger attack force under Vaako (Karl Urban) is hot on his tail. Events culminate in a showdown between Riddick and the Necromongers (bet you didn't see that coming, eh?) and a quite unexpected ending.

Chronicles of Riddick is a massive, epic story compared to the first movie, although it shares some of the same driving forces. Laudably, the movie is strong on characterisation and Karl Urban's Vaako (coping manfully with a dodgy haircut and even dodgier make-up) is given some genuine moral dilemmas to chew over as his own ambition clashes with his personal loyalty to his leader, with his wife (played with relish by Thandie Newton) egging him on to do things against his conscience, Lady MacBeth-style. Riddick remains a strong character, although the things he does to save Jack does push him out of the 'ambiguous antihero' role and more towards a straight-up good guy, although he retains enough ambiguity to make the film's ending not as 'happy' as it may first appear. There's also no faulting the impressive set or prop design, which channels Lynch's Dune adaption rather than blander or more antiseptic views of the future.
All of that said, the movie comes across as being fairly ridiculous and over the top, although that could be considered part of its charm. The re-using of familiar elements from the first movie (particularly the inverting of the day/night threat on the planet) is also disappointing. The character of Jack is also not served well, not helped by a change in actress (the hero-worshipping and awkward tomboy of the first movie being replaced by an ass-kicking babe). Judi Dench also has a pretty surreal cameo as an ethereal 'elemental' alien, or something. I wasn't too clear on what was going on there. Oh yeah, and some of Riddick's backstory is explained in the cheesiest manner possible.

The Chronicles of Riddick (***) is an insane movie, but it is also curiously compelling to watch. The action is serviceable and its ambition is admirable, but this is a movie that collapses under the weight of its own ideas. That said, there is still scope for another good movie featuring these characters, and the forthcoming third movie (which will have apparently a smaller budget) should still be quite interesting.

The movie is available now on DVD (UK, USA) and Blu-Ray (UK, USA).

Pitch Black

Originally released in 2000, Pitch Black is a low-budget SF/horror movie that became something of a hit, and helped propel lead actor Vin Diesel to action superstar status. A sequel (which I will be reviewing presently), The Chronicles of Riddick, followed four years later and a third movie is currently in pre-production.


Pitch Black opens with a spacecraft passing through the tail of a comet and suffering serious damage. Thrown off-course, it enters the atmosphere of a habitable moon. The pilot, Carolyn Fry (Radha Mitchell), almost jettisons the passenger compartment to help save the rest of the ship, but her co-pilot manages to stop her (although he dies in the crash). Of the forty passengers and three crew, there are only ten survivors. A major problem is that one of the survivors is bounty-hunter William J. Johns (Cole Hauser) and his prisoner, an exceedingly dangerous man named Richard B. Riddick (Diesel), who introduces himself as "Riddick, escaped convict, murderer." After initially escaping in the aftermath of the crash, Riddick realises he needs the help of the other survivors to escape from the moon and agrees to join forces with them. A great deal of tension in the movie is mined from the unpredictable behaviour of Riddick and the fact that Johns has his own demons and has allowed his obsession with capturing to Riddick to override his humanity. Carolyn also has issues of guilt over nearly killing the other survivors of the crash.

The character study part of the movie is very interesting, although the English survivor Paris (Lewis Fitz-Gerald) is a walking caricature and we don't get to know Australian prospector Shazza very well, despite her being played by well-known genre actress Claudia Black (formerly of Farscape and later StarGate SG-1). The other key characters are Abu al-Walid (Keith David), an Imam on a pilgrimage to New Mecca, and a youngster named Jack (Rhiana Griffith). Al-Walid finds his faith tested as the experience on the planet continues, whilst the impressionable Jack seems to find Riddick 'cool', despite the concerns of Carolyn and Johns.

The focus on the characters is extremely well-done. It's unusual for an action/horror movie to have such well-rounded and believable characters, and the actors all bring their best talents to the job. Diesel is extremely impressive as the anti-hero Riddick, whilst Mitchell makes a rather dislikable character interesting and her gradual move towards redemption believable. As the movie moves into its second half the SF backdrop to the movie becomes clearer: the moon, which is normally permanently exposed to the light of the three suns in the system, is about to pass into the shadow of its gas giant parent planet, at which point a race of vociferous flying creatures who are harmed by light will be released. The horror elements kick in as the characters have to find some way of generating enough light to keep the creatures at bay whilst they make their way across the wasteland to salvation.

These sequences are very tense and handled well. The movie may be low budget, but it makes the most of its resources very well, with the CGI creatures still holding up convincingly a decade later. Even in the middle of these action sequences the director keeps the mutual mistrust and paranoia between the survivors going quite nicely.

Pitch Black (****½) is a genuinely excellent movie, with a well-explored premise and an unusually sophisticated level of characterisation. It also features a highly positive portrayal of Islam, and pretty much all of the actors bring their A-game to the project. The only minor niggles are some stylistic flourishes of the director that are artistically interesting but a bit weird when taken literally (Riddick casually showing up unnoticed in the background of shots as the other characters anxiously search for him at the start of the movie), and the rather one-note writing of the token British character. Otherwise, this is an enjoyable and highly underrated movie.

The film is available now on DVD (UK, USA) and Blu-Ray (UK, USA).

The sequel is...different.