Fallout 4

2287. The sole survivor of a cryogenic suspension experiment stumbles out of Vault 111 to find their home city of Boston a blasted ruin, devastated in a nuclear war that took place two centuries earlier. The Commonwealth, as the region is now called, is divided between warring factions of raiders and mutants, all living in fear of the Institute and its enigmatic human-like robots, the synths. The sole survivor has to make their way in the world, survive...and find their missing son.

Fallout 4 is the fifth main game (and ninth overall) in the Fallout franchise of post-apocalyptic roleplaying games. As with the previous two games in the series (Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas), the game is played from a first-person perspective. You create a character and set out to explore the wasteland. Although there is a main storyline to follow, you are free to ignore it and pursue side-quests, do jobs for various factions or simply explore and scavenge for loot and money. Fallout 4 also introduces the idea of settlement building, allowing you to construct entire new towns and outposts in the wilderness and establish shops, trading links and supply lines between them.

This type of gameplay, sometimes called "sandbox" or "open world", has become enormously popular. It gives the player the freedom to decide how to play the game and allows for huge amounts of content. It also personalises the experience: every player may encounter the same enemies and missions, but the order in which they encounter them and the degree to which they vary the story and their own activities will be unique to them. It's also something that Bethesda, who developed both Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 as well as the Elder Scrolls series of fantasy RPGs (their latest of which was the phenomenally popular Skyrim), have struggled to do in a really satisfying manner, especially compared to the team at Black Isle. Black Isle created Fallout, Fallout 2 and, in their current guise as Obsidian, New Vegas.

Fallout 4 is the first Bethesda RPG since 2006's Oblivion to create real, jaw-dropping vistas.

For a very easy review, if you enjoyed Fallout 3, it's very likely you'll enjoy Fallout 4. The game is similar, but the graphics are vastly improved, the settlement-building adds a new dimension to the game, there are a lot more quests, there are more factions with more complex interrelationships and the writing is stronger. The characters in Fallout 4, companions, mission-givers, vendors and random passers-by, are vastly superior to those in the earlier game. Companion characters are also vastly more present. They offer opinions about what's going on, will sometimes join in conversations with important NPCs if they have pertinent information and will interact with you more. Some of them can even be romanced, and all of their have their own personal storyline and missions to fulfil once you've earned their trust. Combat is much more satisfying, with chunkier, more viscerally satisfying first-person shooting and an improved VATs system (which slows time down and allows you to target individual body parts) for more strategically-inclined players. There is a new system for modding armour and weapons, resulting in a truly vast array of weapons and armour to compare and contrast.

The art design is also much better, with Boston being a more vibrant location than the burned-out remains of Washington, DC in Fallout 3. The sky is a glorious blue, the water effects are hugely improved (up close, anyway, from a distance or in the air the water looks distinctly odd) and character animation, long Bethesda's sore spot, is much better. For the first time in a Bethesda RPG, all your dialogue is voiced (as both a male and female player). Whilst some may hate this due to how it limits the writing (the need to record dialogue months in advance prevents late changes), others may feel it's more immersive, especially as Bethesda programmed several thousand names into your robot butler so it's possible you may actually get called by your real name (which is a bit weird the first few times it happens).

Fallout 4 acknowledges hot-button contemporary issues like, er, craft beer in the game.

In terms of being a game in which there is absolutely tons to do, Fallout 4 ticks a lot of boxes. It will suck up enormous quantities of time regardless of if you focus on the main quest, the faction missions, random side-quests, combat or on settlement-building. An enormous amount of work went into the game and the attention to detail is sometimes breathtaking, such as the subtly anti-Communist posters dotting the ruins or the stories about ordinary people's lives which were suddenly ended on the day the Great War took place. Interrupted computer logs, skeletons of entire families slumped in front of televisions and hand-written notes subtly tell the story about a nation of individuals who tragically had their lives snatched away from them by politicians and generals in far-off cities.

Unfortunately, such subtlety does not extend to the primary game design or the writing of the quests. Bethesda's main achilles heel has always been the fact that, after crafting an amazing open world playground packed with stuff, they then completely fail to craft a reactive narrative that interfaces properly with it. The last time they did do this reasonably well was in Morrowind, released in 2002 (astonishingly, Fallout 4 actually uses the same engine - albeit upgraded - as Morrowind, and the occasionally stodgy movement and awkward area transitions are problems it inherits from it). Since then, their main stories have always been a bit on the tepid side and failed to acknowledge the open world design of the game.

The game occasionally manages moments of real, atmospheric and haunting beauty.

This was most notable in Fallout 3, where the final mission of the game required you to enter a radiation-soaked chamber and sacrifice yourself, even if you had a radiation-immune companion with you. Later on they fixed this problem in expansions, but it was a good example of Bethesda's attitude to open world game design, which offers apparently limitless possibilities but boils down to "Save the world as a good guy or save the world as a psychopath."

Particularly problematic for Bethesda is that Obsidian showed with New Vegas that, even with the same clunky engine, they could deliver a game rooted in more mature themes which reacted ridiculously well to almost any decision the player could make, down to killing the main bad guy halfway through the plot just because they got a good enough weapon to get through the enemy camp, or rejecting all the options offered by all the factions and conquering the wasteland themselves. Fallout 4, on the other hand, offers only mildly differing finales despite there being four major factions you can align with, in varying degrees of opposition to one another. In fact, there's a rather nasty bug in the endgame which can prevent you from taking one particular faction to victory which is enraging if you've been working with that faction for dozens of hours.

You don't even want to know.

This also interacts with the game's second major problem. The Fallout franchise has always been one about choice, about offering the player the option to solve problems through violence, wits, stealth or diplomacy, and facing the full consequences of how such decisions are made. Fallout 3 rolled this back but didn't dispense with it. The fate of the town of Megaton, for example, was well-handled and there were a few quests that could be completed without violence. New Vegas took this to the extreme of allowing you to kill every single person in the game (including vitally important quest-givers) or by allowing you to use your skills and charisma to virtually avoid combat altogether, apart from some forms of wildlife.

Fallout 4 has absolutely zero truck with this. Once in a blue moon you may be able to convince an enemy to flee or surrender with a dialogue choice, but it's insanely rare you are even given the option. Otherwise almost every single quest in the game involves slaughtering everything in sight with high-powered weaponry. This leads to repetition: you get given a quest to go somewhere and kill everyone there. Then the next quest tells you to go somewhere else and kill everyone there. And so on and on. When combined with the "streamlined" character levelling system (which now only gives you a single perk point per level, with virtually all of the perks being combat-related), the result is a game that is effectively a first-person shooter with looting, crafting and occasional dialogue choices. It's fun, for a while, but it's not really Fallout.

For a game set in a post-nuclear apocalyptic wasteland, Fallout 4 is strangely reluctant to condemn radiation as a bad thing. It makes some people immortal and is very easily cured or avoided.

Then there's the third problem, which is a perennial issue with RPGs but Fallout 4 somehow takes it to new extremes. The game's levelling system (which, unlike previous games in the series, is uncapped) is slanted almost preposterously in favour of the player. By the time you hit Level 20, you're capable of taking on anything in the game with no issue. By the time you are Level 40 you're an effectively bullet-proof, radiation-proof demigod, able to walk through storms of bullets almost without harm and capable of one-shotting virtually everything in the game. The game is extremely generous with stimpacks (which replenish health), bobby pins (which act as lockpicks), currency and ammo, especially when you choose feats which make them even easier to find. A well-designed game will usually build to a climax where it presents its greatest challenge to the player in the finale, where they have to use all the skills and tools they have amassed to overcome the enemy. In Fallout 4 the final story missions are an absolute cakewalk with zero threat to the player's life.

This leads to an awkward game that, from moment to moment, is often great fun to play. Fallout 4 has a sense of humour to it largely missing from Fallout 3, although not to the riotous extent of the Old World Blues expansion for New Vegas. The game certainly has more personality and flair to it than any previous Bethesda RPG since Morrowind. The combat is great, the settlement-building and equipment modding gives creative players lots to do. The factions are all well-thought-out, and it's a tremendous relief to see the Brotherhood of Steel back to being techno-hoarding fascists rather than the inexplicable white knights they were in the previous game. The new additions to the game, such as the Institute, Minutemen and Railroad, "feel" like Fallout factions. Some of the locations are brilliantly-designed and hauntingly atmospheric. Some of the setpieces, whether designed by the story or encountered randomly, are epic. Some of the questlines, such as ascending a Super Mutant-infested skyscraper in a homage to Die Hard or helping out a crew of robotic pirates trying to convert a 17th Century galleon into a skyship, are original, amusing and memorable.

Fallout 4's companion characters are far better-written, characterised and are much deeper individuals than in any previous Bethesda game. But sometimes they're handy with a minigun as well.

But the feeling remains that Fallout 4 has fallen far short of its potential. The decision to roll back the real roleplaying elements in favour of violence and combat is disappointing, taking away some of the much-vaunted freedom and flexibility of the game. Dialogue is often clunky and filled with infodumps. The game's "big twist" can be guessed within minutes of the start. And, after what can be a tough opening couple of hours, it becomes far, far too easy. Even as recently as Skyrim these problems could perhaps be overlooked due to a lack of real, credible alternatives. But now if you want an open-world game focused on combat, there are the likes of Far Cry 3 (and 4) and Just Cause 3 to consider. If you want an open-world RPG with much, much more emphasis on roleplaying, The Witcher 3 has Fallout 4 pretty handily beaten. More awkwardly, Fallout 4 falls short of the standards set by its immediate predecessor. It looks a heck of a lot uglier and is much less approachable due to a badly-designed opening area, but Fallout: New Vegas has a much more challenging, interesting and original storyline and narrative, offers far more reactivity and adapts to player choices in a more meaningful way than Fallout 4 does.

Fallout 4 (****) is definitely a good game. It's fun, it drains away the hours and it proves that Bethesda's game design paradigm, despite its age, is still effective. But it's definitely moving further away from the Fallout notions of freedom and consequence that made the franchise one of the most popular and critically-praised video game series of all time. For a lot of people, this won't matter one jot. For others, it will be a shame to see what could have been the greatest CRPG ever made merely settle for being "pretty good". The game is available now on PC, PlayStation 4 (UK, USA) and X-Box One (UK, USA).

Story trailer for HOMEWORLD: DESERTS OF KHARAK

Gearbox and Blackbird Interactive have released a story trailer for their upcoming strategy game, Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, a prequel to the Homeworld franchise.

Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak (formerly known as Homeworld: Shipbreakers) will be released via Steam on 20 January. The game, developed by many of the same team as Homeworld and Homeworld 2, will comprise a 13-mission single-player campaign and multiplayer modes.

Future of GAME OF THRONES revealed

HBO has confirmed its future plans for Game of Thrones. The show will return for its sixth season on 24 April 2016. This will, again, consist of ten episodes.

HBO has also confirmed that it will likely renew the show for a seventh and eighth season around the time of the premiere. This news was anticipated but it will come as a relief anyway to those fearing the show wouldn't make it to the final curtain. Curiously, HBO did not confirm that these are the final two seasons, despite comments from showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss that this would likely be the case. It may be that HBO are hedging their bets or considering continuing the show in a different way after the eighth season (possibly going back in time for a prequel story or adopting a more True Detective-style anthology format?).

The sixth season of Game of Thrones will, slightly confusingly, draw on storylines from the fourth novel in the series, A Feast for Crows (after the fifth season drew a lot on the fifth novel in the series, A Dance with Dragons), as well as on elements from the yet-to-be-released sixth book, The Winds of Winter.

Game of Thrones is now HBO's longest-running show currently on air and by far its most popular. HBO has been running some more experimental and drama-driven series recently, such as the David Simon mini-series Show Me a Hero and the upcoming Martin Scorsese/Mick Jagger collaboration Vinyl, but it has failed to produce another commercial hit on the scale of Thrones or the recently-concluded vampire series True Blood. HBO will be airing a series based on the movie Westworld this year, but more recently have been seen discarding promising projects (such as Dark Tower, Preacher and American Gods) that are then picked up by rivals (Sony, AMC and Starz, respectively). HBO has also optioned a TV series based on Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels, but has so far not formally greenlit it.

HALF-LIFE writer leaves Valve

The primary writer of the iconic Half-Life series of video games, Marc Laidlaw, has confirmed that he has left Valve.

Laidlaw, an experienced novelist  joined Valve in 1997, at roughly the same time that Valve decided to completely revamp their then in-development action game, Half-Life. Laidlaw helped stream back the game's original, much more overt action/horror angle, instead developing a pared-back form of worldbuilding and abandoning lengthy exposition in favour of environmental clues and letting the player piece together the plot from clues left lurking around the levels. This more naturalistic form of story-telling helped Half-Life become one of the biggest-selling first-person shooters of all time when it was released to blanket critical acclaim in 1998.

Laidlaw returned as the sole writer on Half-Life 2, released to equal acclaim and even greater sales in 2004. The game again favoured environmental storytelling over exposition or infodumping. This form of storytelling - largely ignored by the cut scene-heavy, narratively clunky first-person shooters that have followed - was highly praised for its immersion but also criticised by some who felt it left the game's backdrop and setting underdeveloped and even obtuse. Laidlaw also co-wrote the two expansions to the game, Episode One (2006) and Episode Two (2007). More recently he has worked on the background fiction for Valve's online battle game Dota 2 (2013).

Laidlaw's best-known novels are Neon Lotus (1988), nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award, and The 37th Mandala (1996), which was nominated for the World Fantasy Award and won the International Horror Guild Award. Laidlaw has indicated that he will likely now return to writing novels and short stories.

Laidlaw's departure from Valve has led to renewed speculation over the fate of the long-missing continuation of the Half-Life series. Valve were developing Half-Life 2: Episode Three after Episode Two ended on a monumental cliffhanger over eight years ago, but the title failed to appear. Valve later seemed to indicate that the episode had been abandoned in favour of a full Half-Life 3, but official comments were hard to come by. Fans of the franchise have grown increasingly frustrated as Valve have released several other games in the meantime whilst refusing to comment on the status of Half-Life 3. More recently Valve have chosen to focus on online games and on their insanely popular gaming marketplace software, Steam, which now boasts over 125 million users.

Laidlaw's departure is not necessarily bad news for the Half-Life franchise, as Valve still employs other talented writers who have worked on games such as Left 4 Dead and, especially, the critically-acclaimed Portal 2 (2011). However, speculation that Laidlaw may have decided to leave due to Valve's move away from narrative games, and potentially from any interest in bringing Half-Life 3 to market, will no doubt be rife.

DEADWOOD movie in development

HBO has confirmed that a film version of their critically-acclaimed Western series, Deadwood, is currently in development.

Fans have speculated about a continuation of the series since it was cancelled in 2006 with several storylines and character arcs left unresolved. The series aired for three seasons and 36 episodes. Beginning in 1876, it was set in the goldrush town of Deadwood, South Dakota and revolved around the machinations of the local barkeep, entrepreneur, brothel-owner and gangster Al Swearengen (a career-redefining performance by British actor Ian McShane). Of particularly note was Swearengen's relationship with the town's sheriff, Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant), with them sometimes acting as allies against mutual threats to the town's interests and sometimes facing off against one another.

The series was mostly written by the highly idiosyncratic writer David Milch, who gave the series an increasingly complex, almost Shakespearean feel as it continued. Characters were occasionally prone to long soliloquies and an air of tragedy hung over the entire series. It was also notable for mixing fictional characters with real historical ones (such as Swearengen and Bullock) to dramatic effect.

The series was cancelled after Milch expressed an interest in developing another project for HBO, John From Cincinatti, which was not well-received and was cancelled after one season. Milch's insistence on doing this before the planned fourth and final season of Deadwood created problems in hanging onto Deadwood's vast and sprawling cast, many of whom had found other work and commitments in the meantime. HBO was unable to reassemble the cast for a final season. Plans for a shortened mini-series or a film at the time also failed to coalesce due to problems around availability. These issues led HBO to changing the way they operate with later series, refusing to let shows die on the whim of their showrunners (and likely preventing shows like Game of Thrones from taking lengthy breaks).

Many of Deadwood's cast went on to great success in other projects, such as Timothy Olyphant's six-season run as the lead on Justified and Anna Gunn (who played Seth's wife) on Breaking Bad. Ian McShane, a long-established figure on British television, finally broke through into the American market with Deadwood and has since played the lead on shows such as Kings and Pillars of the Earth. He will have an undisclosed, recurring role on Game of Thrones in its sixth season as well.

Although HBO have confirmed that the film is in development, it hasn't quite been formally greenlit. Milch is currently wrapping up another project as well as working on an early draft of the Deadwood movie script. HBO will not formally greenlight the project until the script is done, a director is available and they are sure they can bring back the required castmembers.

Ash vs. Evil Dead: Season 1

Thirty years ago, Ash Williams and his friends found a book - the Necromonicon Ex Mortis - in a cabin in the woods. They recited some passages, the dead started rising and Ash's friends - and his hand - were lost in the bloody slaughter that followed. Ash emerged from the carnage victorious thanks to his shotgun and chainsaw. Unfortunately, when the evil book is once again opened, blood and death follow.

In 1981 Sam Raimi directed the horror movie The Evil Dead, starring Bruce Campbell as Ash. This was a very low-budget, horror-driven movie reliant on gore and shocks. The 1987 sequel, Evil Dead II, transformed Ash into more of a wisecracking buffoon and featured black comedy alongside the horror. The third film in the franchise, Army of Darkness (1992), dialled back on the horror in favour of Ray Harryhausen-inspired battles and memorable one-liners. Rumours of a sequel abounded for decades before Raimi produced a reboot of the original Evil Dead in 2013, which seemed to put a nail in that coffin.

It's therefore a bit of a surprise to see the original Evil Dead franchise resurrected for television. Bruce Campbell reprises his role as Ash, now thirty years older but still no wiser, who once again unleashes the Evil Dead into the world and has to set out to defeat it. This time he has more time (these ten half-hour episodes more than double the total screen time for the character and franchise) and actual help, with younger deadite-fighters Pablo (Ray Santiago) and Kelly (Dana DeLorenzo) joining the battle. Troubled cop Amanda Fisher (Jill Marie Jones) also soon joins the fight, as does the enigmatic Ruby (Lucy Lawless).

The expanded cast helps the thin premise sustain ten episodes. I must admit I was initially startled to hear that the episodes were only thirty minutes long, fearing this would result in rushed storylines. As it turns out, this is exactly what happens but, unexpectedly, this turns out to be a good thing. Sam Raimi and the directors aping his style in this series (and they do a pretty good job) work best when using frenetic wipes, jarring jump-cuts and ramping up the action to 11, and the limited airtime helps them do this better. Several episodes are in fact based around single action set-pieces and in this sense the limited viewing time works.

What makes the series really sing, however, is the clever way it opens out by aping Army of Darkness's style of comedy and gradually shifting back to the more interesting mix of laughs and utter, shocking horror pioneered by Evil Dead II by the final episode. In fact, the season as a whole is a lot smarter than it looks. Ash's sexist, blustering heroism comes from a different era and his younger friends don't let him off the hook for his behaviour whilst also, begrudgingly, admiring other aspects of it (Ash's tendency to run into insane danger to save his friends is emphasised here). The fact that only one of the main cast is a middle-aged white dude is also not commented on at all, making it odder when you suddenly realise that you hadn't noticed it. The world has grown up around The Evil Dead and this TV show acknowledges it silently before getting on with the undead-slaughtering.

Of course, the show's nods towards such things are secondary to the shocks, the brilliant stunts and the inventive horror. Sam Raimi and his team have lost none of their glee for decapitations, impalements, dismemberment and blood. Gallons and gallons of it. The main reason the Evil Dead works so well on TV is that there is no way a modern movie could get away with the sheer amount of mayhem on screen, not to mention that the budgetary restrictions force the producers back to the ways of practical effects and not relying on CGI for everything. Sam Raimi is such a huge director he could now get a massive budget for a new movie project of his, but here he seems to relish having to think his way around budgetary limitations.

On the negative side of things, the constant murder and slaughter gets a little wearying in extended doses. This show works better when viewed as half-hour chunks a few hours or days apart rather than in massive binge sessions. The ending of the finale also feels a little off, a little bit too obviously designed to set up the second (already-approved) season. Some may also feel frustrated that Ash makes the same mistakes a little too readily, which is true but it's also very true to the character. There's also Ash's failure to mention the events of Army of Darkness, which feels a bit odd until you learn this is down to legal issues.

The first season of Ash vs. Evil Dead (****) is inventive, funny, well-paced and quite startlingly bloody whilst also working on a cleverer level than it first lets on. But it is, overall, quite ludicrously entertaining and delivered by a group of highly talented performers led by Bruce Campbell, whose charismatic fire has not been dimmed one whit by the passing years.

Jessica Jones: Season 1

Hell's Kitchen, New York. A private investigator named Jessica Jones makes her living from exposing cheating spouses, whilst trying to play down her former life as a superhero (due to being endowed with super strength). This becomes impossible when her former nemesis, Kilgrave, returns to New York. Kilgrave has the ability to control minds, making him a near-unbeatable foe. To defeat Kilgrave, Jones will need to call upon allies, her powers and confront her own motivations.

Jessica Jones is the second in a series of collaborations between Marvel and Netflix, following on from Daredevil and due to be followed by Luke Cage, Iron Fist and culminating in The Defenders, which will unite the four heroes into their own team. For that reason it might stand to reason that viewers should be expecting Jessica Jones to be an action pulp thriller, stylish but ultimately fitting into the "conflicted hero" mould pioneered by Daredevil. However, the show has absolutely no problem with going in a completely different direction.

Jessica Jones opens as a standard procedural, with Jones (Krysten Ritter) investigating yet another case of infidelity and running into Luke Cage (Mike Colter), a barman who also has superpowers. Jones and Cage's initially firery romance becomes problematic when Jones discovers that she was inadvertently responsible for a tragedy in Cage's life, one forced upon her by Kilgrave (David Tennant), a monstrous and egotistical man with the power to control minds. When Kilgrave returns to New York, intent on winning Jessica's heart and soul, Jessica at first wants to flee but then decides to stay and face her abuser. Given the utter formidable nature of his powers this proves to be a herculean task which forces the normally independent Jessica to call upon various friends and allies for help.

The result is a show which is focused not on superpowers and heroics (although both are present, they are treated matter-of-factly compared to other Marvel films and TV shows) but on psychology, survivor's guilt, post-traumatic stress disorder and revenge. There are moments of biting comedy, pathos, romance and tragedy, with a few major stunt set pieces and some real heroics put into play, but ultimately this is a much more adult, nuanced and subtle TV series about people with powers than we have seen before.

The series works well because it is not afraid to make Jones do things that are unlikable. She is sarcastic, rude and often apparently ungrateful, but is forced by events to rely on her friends for help and assistance in bringing Kilgrave down. As with Daredevil's first season, this results in what is effectively a 13-hour origin story as Jones the hero gradually emerges from the shell of Jones the survivor. Ritter plays this complex character well, by being able to retain viewer sympathy and empathy even when makes selfish or silly decisions.

Ranged against her is Tennant's Kilgrave, described (not without justification) as a walking example of white male privilege. As with Daredevil, the writers here chose to develop Kilgrave as the antagonist almost as well as Jones, peeling back the layers of his character to reveal someone shaped by a difficult childhood into an uncaring monster. Cleverly, the writers reveal that he is an incomplete character, desperately seeking a destiny and identity. These are among the things he hopes Jones can give him, but these also expose him as an insecure and needy character. It's also fascinating to encounter a villain who is ruthless, amoral and intelligent, but also remarkably unambitious. When you can walk into any apartment or mansion in the world and take it over for as long as you like, plans like conquering or destroying the world become rather moot. The lack of a grandiose plan for the villain is honestly rather refreshing, and makes the conflict feel more personal and more real. Tennant's intense performance is the perfect mix of Machiavellian planner, childlike anger and creepy stalker. The only negative here is one that's not really Tennant's fault: the producer's decided to have Tennant adopt an English accent in the role rather than an American one, or his native Scottish accent. The only other major role Tennant has played with an English accent is Doctor Who, which leads to moments of tonal disjointedness for viewers who are also fans of the latter. Once you adjust, that's not really a problem.

The battle between the abuser and his former victim forms the main through-line of the series, but other storylines come into play. Malcolm Ducasse (Eka Darville) starts off as Jessica's "junkie neighbour" cliche but rapidly evolves into the show's beating heart and soul. Luke Cage belies his appearance as a hunky motorcycle-driver to show someone suffering real emotional pain. Colter's acting is excellent, and bodes well his stand-alone show later this year. Carrie-Ann Moss also turns in a strong role as lawyer Jeri Hogarth (the Marvel Cinematic Universe's first major lesbian character), whose disintegrating marriage unexpectedly collides with Jessica's investigation into Kilgrave. Rachael Taylor also turns in an intriguing performance as Patricia Walker, a former child star now living in a fortified apartment out of fear for her safety.

The thirteen hour running time gives the writers time to experiment with the story, follow up on intriguing secondary characters and flesh out storylines and characterisation to the maximum. There is even time for experimental episodes, such as Jessica being trapped for an episode in her childhood home and Kilgrave in turn being interrogated in a cell designed especially for him and his powers. However, as with Daredevil, there is the feeling that thirteen hours is just a bit too much. With at least a couple of episodes shaved off, the result would have been a tighter focus which would have eliminated a few flabby storylines (the adventures of ex-soldier-turned-cop Will Simpson are completely uninteresting, not helped by Will Traval's indifferent performance). In addition, given the status of Kilgrave and Jones as mortal enemies and the tremendous danger of Kilgrave's powers, the way Jones continuously exposes herself to him seems recklessly dangerous. This is eventually - sort of - explained, but there is the feeling in a few mid-season episodes that the reason Kilgrave survives is because they need to pad out the running time, not because it makes much sense in the story. There is also a late-season crossover with Daredevil which is doubly jarring, because the tonal difference between the two shows is so huge they they don't feel like they take part in the same universe and also because the character in question becomes highly prominent in the episode for absolutely no reason unless you've seen Daredevil as well.

These are fairly minor complaints, however. At its best, Jessica Jones (****½) is cleverly-written and boldly inventive, with surprising-but-justified twists for many of its well-played characters. It's a show that works both as a stand-up thriller and a more nuanced study of grief and abuse. The first season is available now on Netflix.

NASA confirms lander mission to Europa by 2022

NASA today announced a new mission to Europa, one of Jupiter's moons. The mission will consist of a spacecraft that will enter a dedicated orbit around Europa and survey the moon from orbit, as well as a probe that will land on the surface and conduct experiments. The mission will launch in 2022, likely to arrive at Europa a couple of years later at the most.

Europa is remarkable as it consists of a solid shell of ice beneath which lies an ocean which is made up of more water than there is on the entire Earth. Scientists have long speculated that Europa's subsurface ocean may be one of the most promising places in the Solar system beyond Earth for life to develop. It has also been a long-favourite location for science fiction authors to explore, most famously Arthur C. Clarke in 2010 and 2061, the two sequels to 2001: A Space Odyssey. It also played a major role in the 2013 film Europa Report, and in novels such as Galileo's Dream and The Quiet War.

The new Europa mission was directed by the House Appropriations subcommittee in the US Congress. Remarkably, NASA themselves did not want to include a lander, believing an orbiter was more important so it could select a future landing site for a lander. However, the chair of the subcomittee, Texas Congressman John Culberson, directed NASA to include a lander as part of an enhanced budget for their operations. With just six years before launch (not much time at all for such an advanced mission concept), NASA is going to have to scramble to get a lander designed and built.

Europa possesses a harsh environment which will make the long-term survival of a lander unlikely. Jupiter is ringed by massive radiation belts and Europa will be freezing cold, especially at night. It is likely that any such lander will only last a fortnight or so at most before failing.

This is a big step forwards for the exploration of the Solar system, especially impressive as it will happen on a fairly rapid timescale.

To Green Angel Tower by Tad Williams

The power of the Storm King gathers over the lands of Osten Ard. Snow falls on the desert lands of the south, howing blizzards inundate the ruins of Naglimund and even the magic-wreathed Sithi strongholds are failing. Josua Lackhand is gathering an army as Sesu'a, the Stone of Farewell, but his brother Elias has sent a vast army to destroy him. Far to the south, Miriamele remains a captive at sea to an arrogant noble, and forces good and evil seek out the three magic swords which hold the key to the fate of the world: Memory, Sorrow and Thorn.

Originally published in 1993, To Green Angel Tower is the concluding volume of the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy and also the largest single fantasy novel ever written: at 520,000 words it outstrips The Lord of the Rings in its entirety by a cool 50,000 words. To this end the novel is frequently published in two volumes in paperback (entitled Siege and Storm in the UK, just "Part 1" and "Part 2" elsewhere).

Surprisingly, the novel is not as long-winded as that may sound. This is very much a novel of two halves, making the split more organic than might have otherwise been the case. In the first half the armies of the two brothers clash for control of the Stone of Farewell in an epic, vividly-described and lengthy battle. In the second, forces converge on Green Angel Tower, the tallest tower of the Hayholt, where the fate of Osten Ard will be decided. It's all pretty standard epic fantasy stuff, but Williams was one of the first post-Tolkien authors to pulls this off on such a large scale and so well.

As with the previous novels, The Dragonbone Chair and Stone of Farewell, the focus is on the characters more than the scenery. Although the history and landscape of Osten Ard are fleshed out well in this book (both better and more organically than in the previous two volumes of the series), we get more development (and more convincing development, critically) of characters like Josua, Miriamele and Simon. By now these have all developed into more complex, interesting protagonists.

Unfortunately, the same does not extend to the antagonists: Elias's descent into madness precludes us getting to know the real character, and Pyrates as a villain never really raises above the "evil wizard" archetype. The Norn Queen is more interesting but has only limited appearances, and Ineluki is mostly missing in action until the climactic showdown. Williams excels with the heroes and the more conflicted figures (like Cadrach, Guthwulf and Camaris) but the villains unfortunately lack greater depth.

Memory, Sorrow and Thorn has attracted some acclaim for its stance as a revisionist fantasy, because the bad guys have a genuine grievance and their apparently insane plan to conquer/destroy the world actually makes sense (in a twisted, dark way). There's also some subtle commentary on Tolkien's more regressive use of racial archetypes (something Tolkien himself later regretted, and did note on even in Lord of the Rings itself), with representatives from all the races of Osten Ard playing a key role in the final battle.

For such a huge novel, the pace flags only in a few key places: Miriamele spends so much time on a boat you expect Gendry from Game of Thrones to show up and Guthwulf's blind adventures beneath the Hayholt drag on for an exceptional length of time. The old epic fantasy problem of having characters sit around and talk about the plot rather than getting on with it also rears its head from time to time.

But for the most part, To Green Angel Tower (****) works well both as a novel in its own right (despite it's hippo-stunning bulk) and as a conclusion to the greater series. The novel is available now in the UK and USA (Part 1, Part 2).

Tad Williams will return to Osten Ard for the first time in twenty-three years in late 2016 with the novel Heart of Regret, which will be set some months after To Green Angel Tower and also act as a prequel to the much bigger project, The Last King of Osten Ard. This is a new trilogy set to begin with The Witchwood Crown in early 2017.

George R.R. Martin provides update on THE WINDS OF WINTER

George R.R. Martin has provided an update on progress on The Winds of Winter, the sixth and (so far) penultimate novel in the Song of Ice and Fire series. This is the first substantive update on the book in almost three years, since Martin confirmed in April 2013 that the novel was more than a quarter done.

Still not the actual cover.

The bad news is that the novel is not complete right now and will not be published before Season 6 of Game of Thrones starts airing in mid-April. Martin cautioned that the showrunners will be using his notes and outlines to bring the show (currently expected to end with the eighth season in 2018) to an ending, so some aspects of Season 6 may spoil the final two books in the series. Martin was understandably very disappointed by this, although philosophically it would have only delayed the problem by another year at best: getting A Dream of Spring done before the seventh season next year I think, it will be safe to say, is next to impossible. So the ultimate ending of the story and the ultimate fate of the characters will certainly now be revealed on screen before in the books. That seems likely at this point.

On the positive side of things, Martin believed it was plausible to bring The Winds of Winter to a conclusion with several months of work last year. If that holds true, completion of Winds for publication in late 2016 or early 2017 certainly seems possible.  Martin was cautious not to emphasise this point, however, given how badly his estimates have been off so far. He also confirmed that both his British and American publishers can get the book on the shelves within three months of completion, as with the previous three books in the series.

On the other hand, all being well, we will 100% definitely be getting Scott Bakker's new novel The Great Ordeal this year, Scott Lynch's fourth novel Thorn of Emberlain is almost done and seems likely for release, and even The Doors of Stone by Pat Rothfuss has not been ruled out for this year. But the Big One remains MIA, for now.