The Dark Knight

Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins was an interesting take on an established character and franchise. Batman has always been one of the most morally complex 'superheroes' out there and Nolan used his movie to explore the psyche of Bruce Wayne in a manner that Tim Burton's earlier movies barely touched on. However, it was let down by a relatively unimpressive pair of villains, a weak ending and far too much stuff being shoehorned into the plot, resulting in bloat. For all of that, it was still an impressive film.

The first film ended with the establishing of the alliance between Lt. Jim Gordon of the Gotham City police department and Batman, and the beginning of a crime spree by a shadowy figure known as the Joker. The second movie picks up a few weeks or months later, with the Joker rapidly becoming public enemy number one and Batman's attempts to locate and defeat him being unsuccessful, especially as his crimefighting crusade is becoming complicated by the emergence of ham-fisted copy-cat vigilantes. However, a new district attorney, Harvey Dent, has made it his business to bring down Gotham's criminals and after a series of major successes against important gangs and crime bosses, Bruce Wayne begins to let himself think that maybe he won't have to be Batman forever.

Of course, this is only the beginning of the story. Batman, Dent and Gordon form an unofficial alliance to bring down and defeat the criminals of the city, but the Joker reacts by forming his own alliance of the various criminal elements against them. The result is an escalating series of complex, doublecrossing traps and counter-traps by both sides. The stakes are raised, lives are lost, and Gotham is brought into utter chaos as a result. And two men's souls and morals are caught in the balance.

The Dark Knight is a fiendishly clever film which works on a thematic level that superhero movies have rarely operated at before. For this reason, the movie has already been hailed as the most important superhero movie to date, elevating the genre to a new level of credibility (possibly having the same effect on the genre that 2001 had on science fiction or Lord of the Rings on fantasy films). It's hard to argue entirely against this: The Dark Knight is a movie of impressive ambitions, but whilst from an artistic perspective it may indeed be worthy of the hype bestowed upon it, its role as entertainment accordingly suffers in several key areas.

Much has been made of the late Heath Ledger's remarkable performance as the Joker. Taking on a role that Jack Nicholson had made memorable in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman movie was a challenge, but one that Ledger rose to by simply making his Joker an insane agent of chaos, an enigma, rather than a loud clown with a detailed (if unoriginal) backstory. The Joker gets no backplot here, nothing to make him sympathetic on a human level. He is a psychopath and a monster, one that Ledger portrays with brilliant intensity and some excellent comedic timing. However, his role in the film appears misleading. The heart of The Dark Knight is the war for the soul of Harvey Dent, and in that story the Joker is a catalyst. The Joker's significant amounts of screentime eat into the more compelling story of Dent (an almost-equally impressive performance from Aaron Eckhart), who is absent from the plot for long periods of time and his inevitable late-film transformation is not really given enough time to be fully convincing.

A more basic problem is that the movie is too long, and several major climactic set-pieces take place some considerable time before the end of the movie. Hollywood CGI whiz and blogger Mojo has advanced a theory that The Dark Knight actually is an amalgamation of two films into one, and if the Joker and Dent strands had been separated (perhaps by having the Joker's antics and his late-movie plot involving two ferries, which come out of nowhere, as one film and the fall of Dent in another) both would have been stronger. As it stands, the latter third of the movie feels considerably less-developed than the rest, and the series of apparently-but-not-quite final moments in the movie begins to challenge Return of the King at times for its frustration.

Performances are universally excellent. Eckhart and Ledger get special nods, but supporting hands from the first movie Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman and especially Michael Caine all give excellent performances. Caine in particular impresses, with Alfred's experiences as a soldier giving him a moral authority that he uses to convince Batman to do the hard thing at times, paying off in a spectacular moment when Batman makes precisely the opposite decision to what the audience expects. Similarly, after a relatively minor role in the first movie Oldman steps up as Gordon and makes him a credible threat to the city's criminals. In a busy movie, Freeman's character of Lucius Fox even has time for an amusing subplot in which he discovers a Wayne Enterprises employee who has figured out where a chunk of the company's revenue is going and why. Maggie Gyllenhaall, taking over the Katie Holmes role from the first film (thankfully, as Gyllenhaal is a much better actress), also impresses. Christian Bale does good work as Wayne/Batman, but in a movie of stand-out performances from even the secondary cast, Bale merely settles for being pretty good.

The Dark Knight (****) is an effective, impressive and dark film with stand-out acting and an interesting thematic arc, but occasionally it lacks focus and has some scripting and pacing issues. It is definitely one of the better superhero movies of recent years, but I'd hesitate about calling it the best. What is does do, however, is aim for something much higher than most superhero movies even think about achieving and if it falls short, it remains an impressive ambition. The film is available now on DVD in the UK and USA, and alson on Blu-Ray in the UK and USA.

Woken Furies by Richard Morgan

Takeshi Kovacs, an ex-Envoy now working for his own agenda, has returned to his homeworld of Harlan's World on a personal mission of vengeance. During his task he falls in with a gang of freelance mercs assigned to cleaning out the continent of New Hokkaida, where intelligent robots left behind from an old war are still making the land too unsafe for re-colonisation. A chain of events is set in motion that will transform the face of Harlan's World and bring Kovacs face-to-face with his own past in a very literal way.

Woken Furies is the third and, to date, final book featuring Morgan's protagonist Takeshi Kovacs. This time Kovacs is out for blood on his own terms when he is swept up in a very different and fuzzy chain of events which focuses on his own past. If Altered Carbon was a detective story and Broken Angels was a war story, Woken Furies is more of a political story and offers more of a glimpse into Kovacs' mindset, brought into sharp relief as he encounters old friends and enemies on his home planet. These events also allow Morgan to explore some more of the consequences of his body-swapping, re-sleeving universe, with subtle nods towards its implications for consciousness, sentience and what it precisely means to be human (a slight and barely perceptible nudge compared to Bakker's Neuropath, which yelled it into the reader's face loudly until we got it).

As usual, this is an ultra-violent, bloody, sexually explicit and generally pretty hardcore story of revenge, rebellion and fear, with some exploding robots, surfing and extreme rock-climbing thrown into the mix. Those who've followed Kovacs' adventures before will be at home here, although given that the events of the first two books do impact on the story here I would advise newcomers to start with Altered Carbon first.

Woken Furies (****½) is the last Kovacs novel for the time being, although Morgan has not entirely ruled out a return to him later on. The book is available from Gollancz in the UK and from Del Rey in the USA. Morgan's latest novel, The Steel Remains, is out now in the UK and in February in the USA.

Merlin: Season 1

Merlin is the BBC's latest Saturday dinner-time family drama programme, occupying the same slot as the popular Doctor Who and the somewhat less popular Robin Hood. The idea behind this new series can be seen as being somewhat the same as Robin Hood: taking an old legend and updating it for modern audiences whilst ensuring it is capable of entertaining an entire family.

This makes it sound like that Merlin would be a heavily sanitised, squeaky-clean and inoffensive programme, boring at best and a travesty at worst. To some extent those fears are realised: this isn't the Camelot of Bernard Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles, which is bloody, realistic and brutal, or the mystical exotic fantasy of John Boorman's movie Excalibur. Camelot in Merlin is very clean and everyone has great teeth. That said, it isn't quite as bland as it might first appear.

In this revamp of the traditional legend, Merlin and Arthur are both young men. Twenty years ago King Uther Pendragon united the realm under his rule, but in the process fell out with the sorcerers and witches who initially he seems to have been on good terms with. As a result sorcery is now outlawed in Camelot and anyone who uses magic is tried and executed. Uther is fanatical on this point and neither his son and heir, Arthur, nor his ward Morgana can convince him otherwise. The young Merlin, who has innate powers of magic, has left his own village due to his mother's fears that word of his abilities will get out in the small community. Gaius, Camelot's physician and an old family friend, takes Merlin under his wing. After some initially hostile confrontations with the arrogant Prince Arthur, Merlin saves his life and ends up as his manservant. He also discovers a powerful dragon chained under the castle, who informs Merlin that his destiny is to help Arthur grow into a great king and restore magic to the realm. Merlin also befriends the daughter of the castle's blacksmith, Guenivere.

The series adopts a formula that it follows throughout the first half or so of the season: a threat arises to Camelot that mundane means are unable to eliminate and Merlin must secretly use magic to deal with it without exposing himself to Uther's wrath. Often, he must ask the dragon for advice, and Gaius' internal conflict over wanting Merlin to achieve his potential and restore magic to the kingdom but also wanting him to avoid execution is usually brought into play. Whilst this rapidly becomes formulaic, it is not offensively so: the actors are all pretty decent, although not always serviced well by the scripts (Angel Courby as Gwen in particular gets a raw deal throughout) and the effects range from the impressive to the corny. For watchable hokum fun, especially for viewers with children, it's decent enough and Colin Morgan brings tremendous enthusiasm to the role of Merlin, although he does need to work a bit on the more dramatic moments.

Things get more intriguing in the second half of the season. At this point the series' backstory assumes a larger role in proceedings, and we learn more about the 'Great Purge' that saw magic outlawed from the kingdom. Anthony Stewart Head, previously best known for his role as Giles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, had been saddle with a rather unsympathetic role as Uther earlier in the season, but he comes into his own at this point as we learn why the Purge was carried out and the reasons for the death of his wife. These revelations also throw some extra depth on the characters of Gaius (accomplished TV actor Richard Wilson) and the sorceress-priestess Nimueh (former Bionic Woman, and EastEnders star Michelle Ryan) whose previously rather random villainy is now given a convincing rationale. In another interesting move, newcomer Katie McGrath is given the chance to shine as Morgana, who begins to suffer from terrifying visions and she really delivers after having only a minor role in the first few episodes. I suspect McGrath is going to be the 'big find' of the show. Anyway, these events feed into the last few episodes of the season, as various plots by outlawed sorcerers to kill Uther and Nimueh's attempts to bring the kingdom down culminate in a major showdown between her and Merlin. The end of the season also has a clever (if not exactly unforseen) scene which places the relationship between Merlin and his dragon ex machina in a totally different light, and bodes for bad things to come in Season 2.

At its heart, Merlin is a watchable and entertaining programme which has an unfortunate tendency to dodge any moments or storylines that would entail changes to the show's format. As a result, it is hard to take any scenes of jeopardy seriously. This is not to mention the fact that, although the show plays extremely fast and loose with the Arthurian legend, we can probably guess that Arthur, Merlin, Morgana and Gwen are going to survive for some considerable time. The writers do seem to realise this and develop a habit of putting Uther in considerable danger several times, since we know that inevitably he will die at some point, but after the first couple of occasions this happens this also becomes a bit of a cheap storytelling trick.

According to the writers, they have a five-season arc for Merlin that will eventually lead it to more familiar territory, and as such we can hopefully expect the drama to darken and get more interesting next season. For now, Merlin Season 1 (***) remains awash with great potential but doesn't realise that potential in any more than a few episodes. The rest of the time it is watchable but somewhat forgettable.

The show is available on DVD in the UK in two volumes. Season 1 will begin airing on NBC in the USA in early 2009.

New Battlestar Galactica Webisodes

The new Battlestar Galactica webisodes, meant to bridge the two halves of Season 4, have started appearing on the Sci-Fi Channel website. Happily, the webisodes are available on YouTube for those outside the USA. The link should also lead to a version of the webisode with commentary by writer Jane Espenson.

The webisodes are called The Face of the Enemy and contain MAJOR spoilers for the end of Season 4.0 if you haven't seen it yet, so beware.

The release schedule for the webisodes is a bit unclear, as there are 10 meant to air in the weeks leading up to the first proper episode back on 16 January, so keep checking Galactica Sitrep regularly to see if new ones have been released!

New Spring by Robert Jordan

Back in 1998, Robert Jordan was asked to contribute a short (ish) story set in his Wheel of Time world to Robert Silverberg's Legends anthology, along with a number of other authors such as Stephen King, Terry Pratchett, Ursula K. LeGuin, George RR Martin, Raymond E. Feist and Tad Williams. Jordan decided to write the story of the first meeting of two of his pivotal characters, Moiraine Damodred and Lan Mandragoran, and their first steps on the road that would eventually lead them twenty years later to the Two Rivers and the discovery of the Dragon Reborn.

This was a big test for Jordan, whose narrative skills run (obviously) to massive novels packed with detail. Jordan himself acknowledged it was a challenge, but surprisingly it was one he rose to. In less than 100 pages, New Spring introduced some new characters, featured a major new city we hadn't seen before in the main series (Chachin, the capital of Kandor) and featured some fairly important plot twists that set up events later in the series. It was an economy of storytelling that I suspect most people thought Jordan was incapable of.

However, in 2003 Jordan announced he was taking a break from writing the main Wheel of Time sequence to expand New Spring into a novel, adding several tens of thousands of words of new material. Fan reaction was somewhat bemused, but given the negative reaction to Crossroads of Twilight Jordan taking some time off from the series to refresh his creative batteries seemed like a good idea, and the next main novel, Knife of Dreams was a vast improvement. In the meantime, New Spring: A Novel was released in early 2004 and was greeted with indifference. Its sales were not stellar (it's by far the most common Wheel of Time book to run across in remaindered stores), and the critical reaction was generally muted.

The novel version of the book is three times the length of the short story. The opening sequence is set during the Battle of the Shining Walls and we see what Lan was up to during the battle. We also get to see the much-reported moment when Moiraine and Siuan learn that the Dragon has returned, and then the political machinations in the Tower that follow the battle and Moiraine and Siuan's raising to the rank of full Aes Sedai. The original version of New Spring, expanded with some extra material, makes up the latter third of the novel and remains a rattling good read.

Unfortunately, the new material at the start of the book is almost totally superfluous to requirements. Yes, it's amusing to see how the White Tower initiates handle the almost overnight transition from callow Accepted to wise Aes Sedai, and the test for the shawl is vaguely interesting. Trivia-minded fans may also enjoy spotting all the references to other Aes Sedai from the later books and what they are up to at this point in time. The big problem is that the revelation of the Dragon's Rebirth, as reported in The Great Hunt, was ominous and powerful. Here Moiraine and Siuan's reaction is extremely muted, to say the least, and there is no real tension in their storyline as a result (not helped by the traditional prequel problem of the readers knowing who is going to survive the story). It's not until we reach the novella version of the story that any sense of momentum and tension kicks in.

New Spring (***) is readable enough and has some points of interest for major Wheel of Time fans, but it is also packed with unnecessary padding. Nevertheless, the original novella remains readable and compelling, and despite its short length still raises the overall quality of this book. The book is available from Orbit in the UK and Tor in the USA. However, if you are in the UK you may be able to find copies of the book readily available at a much cheaper price from your local branch of The Works.

Iron Man

Given all the praise and excitement surrounding The Dark Knight, the superhero movie Iron Man released just a few weeks earlier was somewhat overshadowed. However, reviews of Iron Man were almost universally positive at the time, so I was looking forward to sitting down and enjoying the movie.

The resurgent Robert Downey Jr. plays Tony Stark, a hyper-rich genius engineer and unstoppable womaniser who builds extremely lethal weapons for the US military. His latest invention is a massive multi-warhead variation on the 'bunker-buster' missile, one that is meant to level entire Afghan mountain ranges. Stark is kidnapped by stereotypical Afghan terrorists during a demonstration of his new weapon and forced to build them some newer and more lethal versions of the same weapon. Stark is aided in his work by a gentle local educated Afghan man who is brought in as a translator but in the space of about ten minutes has convinced Stark that making massive destructive weapons isn't good for his soul and he needs to change. Stark, despite being under constant 24-hour video surveillance, is able to build a massive robot suit armed with flamethrowers and a jetpack instead of the promised missile, and is able to effect an escape, although sadly not to the theme tune from The A-Team.

Having checked that I hadn't made an error and picked up a copy of a comedy movie by accident, I continued watching in mounting disbelief as Stark returns to the USA as a new, more moral man, deeply changed by his horrifying experiences in the Afghan mountains. The newer, more caring Stark decides to build a more uber version of his metal suit so he can personally go off and slaughter the terrorists with rocket launchers and flamethrowers. Of course, hijinks ensue and the story ends in a series of massive explosions. Who would have thought?

Iron Man is a deeply stupid movie with plot holes and logical flaws so vast they render the story almost nonsensical in places. However, the movie remains brainlessly entertaining thanks to the almost single-handed efforts of Robert Downey Jr., who was clearly enjoying himself far too much making this hokum. His portrayal of Stark works excellently, despite the highly dubious writing, and I suspect his best moments were all ad-libbed. Suffice to say, without its star working above and beyond the call of duty, this movie would be a total failure. Gwyneth Paltrow stands around being, well, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges manfully deals with a curious baldness-beard combination. There's also a lot of guff about a new energy source Stark spontaneously created in his Afghan cave that dozens of the finest scientists in the world cannot replicate in their state-of-the-art labs, but none of it really matters.

Iron Man (***) is quite possibly the most sloppily-written film I've seen since Pearl Harbour, but it's also a lot of fun, as long as you strictly remember to put your brain in neutral before watching it. It is now available on DVD in the UK and USA.

Fallout 3

In the late 21st Century, China and the United States fought a major war over resources in the Pacific Ocean. After the United States won a great victory in Alaska in 2077, it seemed as if the war might be over. Instead, it went nuclear and civilisation was destroyed. The majority of the human race was wiped out, save a few thousand survivors hidden in immense fall-out vaults, and others who somehow evaded the radiation and eked out an existence in the wastelands.

The inhabitants of Vault 101 have lived a peaceful, if somewhat dull, existence sealed away from the outside world, under strict orders that the airlock to the outside world is never to be opened. However, one day nearly two centuries after the apocalypse, one man - your father - flees into the wilderness and you set out after him to find out where he's going, and why.

Fallout 3 is the follow-up to the successful 1997 roleplaying game, Fallout, and its sequel of a year later. However, it has been developed by a completely different team and the action has been moved from the West Coast to the area immediately surrounding Washington, DC, whilst the timeline has been advanced by twenty years. A few minor references aside, there are no connections between this game and its predecessors, which is handy given that Fallout 3 had outsold the combined lifetime sales of the two earlier games within about 48 hours of going on sale.

Fallout 3 is instead the creation of Bethesda, responsible for the mega-selling 2006 RPG Oblivion, and is based around the same engine. Although initially critically lauded, Oblivion soon became a target for scorn due to a somewhat dissatisfying combat system, a dull main quest and a rather silly levelling system that had the whole world levelling up with you (Fallout 3 does away with this, fortunately). However, many of the side-quests were ingenious and the depiction of a vast, beautiful but somewhat sparse (and given its proximity to the Imperial Capital, surprisingly dangerous) world was first-rate. Oddly enough, Fallout 3 plays to the weaknesses of Oblivion: a somewhat sparse world with a highly dangerous landscape makes far more sense in the context of a post-apocalyptic, vaguely Mad Max-esque world than that of a high fantasy setting. The combat system has been totally revamped and rebuilt into something truly impressive, and the more inventive and imaginative quest structure has been redeployed into the main narrative rather then the side-quests.

The result is a much more fun and enjoyable game than Oblivion, although it starts in a similar manner. Fallout 3 replaces Oblivion's prison escape sequence with a set of scenes as your character is born, grows up, learns basic skills and finally decides to pursue your fleeing father into the wilderness. It is an effective way of introducing the world and some of the characters you'll meet later on in the story. Emerging blinking from Vault 101, the vast, blasted landscape of DC greets you with the battered but still-standing form of the Washington Monument towering in the distance, which is a tremendously atmospheric way of starting the game (and, as with the Citadel in Half-Life 2, eventually your path will lead you to that dominant feature on the horizon). Your path will quickly lead to the town of Megaton, where you can pick up quests, find out more about the world and, if you choose to help defuse the nuclear bomb still stuck in the middle of town, even set up a home and garner a reputation for honesty and honour. Conversely, you can choose to set the bomb to detonate, which earns you the gratitude of a local aristocrat and makes you infamous in the wasteland, with the radio stations pouring scorn on your activities and the noble Brotherhood of Steel gunning for you on sight.

Fallout 3 is nicely focused in this regard, and draws you in to its world thanks to its memorable characters and the way your deeds are picked up on and reported, either on the radio stations or among the citizenry. The dialogue in the game is somewhat ropey, and they still haven't fixed the problem from Oblivion with the NPCs being rather stiff and robot-like in their movements, but there's definitely been some improvement. Best of all is the fact that there are now dozens of voices in the game rather than the four or five in Oblivion, which led to situations where two identical-sounding characters would be having a conversation in the street. There's also better use of the celebrity vocal talent, with Malcolm McDowell and Liam Neeson getting plenty of exposure (compared to Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean's rather brief roles in the earlier game). Ron Perlman also returns from the first two games for the opening and closing narration.

Combat is probably Fallout 3's strongest point. Combat can be performed manually in a FPS-style system, but it's more satisfying to activate VATS mode, which pauses the game and allows you to target specific parts of an enemy's body, such as their head or, if you want to disarm them, their weapon or arm. Once you have queued up your attacks, they are carried out from a cinematic viewpoint in slow motion, which is often spectacular (and insanely gory: decapitation is bemusingly commonplace in Fallout 3's world). The system has its weaknesses - the fact you only take 10% damage whilst in VATS means your character is virtually invulnerable whilst it is activated and there is rarely, if any, reason not to shoot someone in the head - but by and large it is a welcome and effective innovation, and a far more satisfying solution to the FPS/RPG combat problems that have plague the genre for a while (with Mass Effect, for example, putting off hardcore RPGers due to its more action-oriented style of combat). I hope Bethesda include a suitable variation of it in their forthcoming Oblivion sequel.

Character growth is also pretty satisfying, employing a system based on the earlier Fallout games but more streamlined. Oblivion's character growth system was completely counter-intuitive, but here everything is much more straightforward and it is easier to build the type of character you really want to be.

There is a weakness in the game's structure, however. In Oblivion you could completely ignore the main quest if you wished, or get it out of the way (to close the annoying Oblivion Gates ASAP) and carry on with the side-quests. However, completing the main quest in Fallout 3 ends the game and you can't play on, which is annoying (and totally unnecessary: the main quest's ending doesn't actually make much logical sense). The main quest in Fallout 3 is also surprisingly short, perhaps 6-8 hours if you ignored everything else. For this reason, I heavily recommend interspersing the main quest missions in the game with the optional side-quests and also just random exploring. The total number of quests in the game is fairly low (certainly far lower than Oblivion's), so randomly wandering the wastes searching for new locations to explore does play a larger role in the game, as does the search for really good gear. A further problem with this is that the game is capped at Level 20, which isn't that hard to attain, so such random wanderings may be rather short-lived once the reward for them dries up. There's also a rather severe limit on what you can carry, again limiting the prospects for lengthy exploration.

Fallout 3 is an excellent RPG, building on the many strengths of Oblivion and coming up with satisfying solutions to its problems. Wandering the burned-out ruins of one of DC's suburbs, or trying to sneak into the Capitol Building, can be extremely atmospheric and the depiction of a ruined, blasted landscape is second to none. The game employs some terrific influences within its mission design as well, with the movies Them!, Blade Runner, Pleasentville and Battle Royale all being directly referenced or parodied in the game. Character building and combat are both highly satisfying, although some issues with dialogue remain. There's also probably a bit too much mucking around in DC's subway system in the first half of the game as well which can get a bit old.

Fallout 3 (****) is available now on the PC (UK, USA), X-Box 360 (UK, USA) and Playstation 3 (UK, USA). Downloadable missions will start appearing in January, allowing players to visit Alaska, the Pitt and follow up on the main quest as a member of the Brotherhood of Steel.

Forrest J. Ackerman has passed away

It was with some sadness I read the news that Forrest J. Ackerman had passed away two days ago at the age of 92. I strongly suspect a lot of people reading this are saying, "Who?", so a biography is in order of the man who was one of the most important formative figures in SF fandom and is credited as the populariser of the term 'sci-fi'.

Forrest J. Ackerman, who was nicknamed later in life as 'Mr. Science Fiction', was born in 1916 and saw his first movie, One Glorious Day, in 1922. He purchased his first SF magazine, Amazing Stories, in 1926, and established a club for young SF readers in 1930. By 1933 he was contributing to SF fanzines and had established a sizable worldwide network of correspondents and in 1939 attended the world's first ever World Science Fiction Convention in New York City in costume, thus allegedly creating the tradition of cosplay. He attended every Worldcon bar two before his death. Ackerman attended the Clifton Cafeteria Science Fiction Club, where one of his claims to fame was introducing Ray Bradbury to Robert Heinlein and Jack Williamson. Bradbury later borrowed $90 from Ackerman to set up the Futuria Fantasia fanzine in 1939.

Over the next few decades Ackerman amassed a collection of SF&F memorabilia that remains legendary. More than 300,000 individual items filled his collection, which he displayed to many luminaries including astronaut Buzz Aldrin and an estimated 50,000 fans between 1951 and 2002. Ackerman later allowed some of his collection to be displayed by the Seattle Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, of which he was a board member. Ackerman won the one-off Hugo Award for #1 Fan Personality in 1953.

Ackerman's own contribution to SF fiction was reasonable - over fifty short stories and novels, some of them published under pseudonyms or in collaboration - but as an editor and 'encourager' his role was more pronounced. He is credited with helping Marion Zimmer Bradly, L. Ron Hubbard, Ray Harryhausen and even the director Ed Wood (director of the terrifyingly bad Plan 9 from Outer Space, almost certainly the worst movie ever made) get their careers off the ground. In 1958 he began the Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, whose readers later included Peter Jackson, Steven Spielberg, Tim Burton, Stephen King and George Lucas before it folded in 1983. Between 1969 and 1977 Ackerman also arranged for the translation of the long-running German space opera series Perry Rhodan into English, although only 150 or so books (out of more than 2,400 at present) were published.

Ackerman's most famous claim to fame was in 1954 when he used the term 'sci-fi' at UCLA as a replacement for SF, citing some people confusing the genre definition with San Francisco. However, Ackerman's ownership of the term was disputed when it turned out Robert Heinlein had been using the term in the mid-1940s in private letters. 'Sci-fi' is now regarded as a somewhat derogatory term within SF circles, although some have argued for its use when referring to soft or overtly populist SF (such as Star Wars or Star Trek). Ackerman was certainly credited with the creation of the world, possibly to Heinlein's relief.

Ackerman passed away on 4 December 2008, having failed to reach his target of 100 but having achieved an almost indisputed position as one of the the genre's most popular and important fans. Without him, we may very well never have had furries ;-)

SF Crow's Nest's tribute to him is here.

TV Round-Up

Battlestar Galactica's final ten episodes start airing on 16 January, but spin-off series Caprica has been greenlit for a full first season, which will debut in 2010. The extra-long wait is due to BSG's writing staff having scattered to other shows in the interim and needing some time before they can head back to the barn. Caprica's cast from the completed pilot (including Rome's Polly Walker and film actor Eric Stoltz) need some time to regroup as well. Caprica is set 55 years prior to BSG and chronicles the creation of the Cylons and the count-down to the First Cylon War.

Pre-production on the Game of Thrones TV pilot for the BBC and HBO is starting to get underway. The producers are about to appoint a casting director and a final decision on the location for filming is expected before the end of the year. According to producers David Benioff and DB Weiss, the characters' ages will be upped slightly, but not drastically. They also confirmed that the opening line of dialogue in the pilot will be, "We should start back," (as in the novel) and the last line in the pilot is the iconic, "The things I do for love," moment. More from the producers here. Also check out the blog 'Winter is Coming', which is doing a great job of staying on top of all the news coming out on the production.

Some important upcoming TV dates: the Doctor Who Christmas special airs on Christmas Day, BSG returns for Season 4.5 on 16 January, Lost comes back for its fifth and penultimate season on 21 January and Heroes Season 3.0 finishes next Monday before returning in late January. Season 3 of Heroes has been a bit of car crash in slow motion so far, but expect a review of the first half in a couple of weeks or so.

Nation by Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett had been talking about a book called Nation he'd really wanted to write for almost half a decade when he was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's. According to rumour, he'd already begun working on the next Tiffany Aching Discworld novel, I Shall Wear Midnight, but upon hearing the news he dropped it immediately to make sure Nation was written first.

Nation is not a Discworld novel, but is instead set in an alternate history very similar to our own late 19th Century when the British Empire was at its height. A tidal wave sweeps across the Great Southern Pelargic Ocean (the South Pacific) and wipes out the tribal civilisation of the Mothering Sunday Islands. In particular, the island simply known as the Nation is totally destroyed, apart from a single young man named Mau. Mau finds himself alone on his island, until he discovers the crashed remains of a foreign ship and a pale-skinned young woman who initially tries to kill him, but later invites him to tea. Soon refugees from the crisis gather on the island, and Mau realises he has the choice to rebuild the old world, or choose to do something new with his nation...

Nation is Pratchett's most serious book since his 1992 classic, Small Gods. In fact, it shares some similarities with that book and acts as another treatise on faith, religion, atheism and morality. It is slower and more thoughtful than that earlier novel, where a younger and more angry Pratchett was in full-on fiery condemnation of blind fundamentalism, but works well due to those contrasts. It isn't as funny as a typical Pratchett book, although there are a few chuckles to be found here and there, particularly what appears to be a clever inverting of one of the premises of the TV show Lost in the final chapter and epilogue. However, it is also a more spiritual book, which is interesting given Pratchett gives New Age ideas pretty short shrift in his other books. But here things happen that can't be easily explained away by science, and it's debatable whether this is Pratchett perhaps considering things in a different light or simply a facet of this world which is different to our own (and is quite reminiscent of the gods in Discworld who exist purely because people believe in them, not the other way around).

Nation is being marketed as a YA novel, but it really isn't. It's depiction of tragedy and death in the opening chapters is pretty unflinching, and occasional moments of blood and cruelty abound throughout its length. Also, the central themes are pretty weighty and not something I see young children really getting into. However, for the adult reader Nation is an interesting and thought-provoking read which raises many interesting ideas and questions, whilst remaining entertaining and well-characterised.

Nation (****) is available in the UK from Doubleday and, with a spectacularly awful cover, in the USA from HaperCollins.