‘The Dark Knight Rises’ – Novelisation by Greg Cox (Titan Books)

Before I sat down to write this post, I found myself wondering when I last made it to the cinema. Thank goodness for the blog is all I have to say :o) I had it in mind that the last film I saw was ‘Revenge of the Sith’ but it was actually ‘Iron Man’… way back in 2008. Three years since I’ve been to the pictures? It doesn’t feel right but that’s what the blog is telling me… Babysitting issues make it even more difficult to go these days (although Hope really behaved herself at the Olympics, maybe she’s ready for a film) and that’s why I love movie novelisations. A ‘book of the film’ is never going to beat the film itself but I’ll always take it over not getting any story at all. There’s also something to be said about not having to queue up to read a book (once you’ve bought it) and reading it in your own house without an annoying couple eating loudly and spoiling all the good bits… ;o)

So it was then that I was really pleased to get my hands on a copy of ‘The Dark Knight Rises’. The way things are these days I’m looking at watching this on DVD, in a couple of years time, so was glad to get a chance to read the story in the meantime.
It goes without saying that I’ll be doing my utmost to avoid all spoilers but if you haven’t seen the film yet (I thought it was just me…) then you might want to play it safe and stop reading here. Or not, totally up to you…

It’s been eight years since the Batman was last seen in Gotham City, not that his presence has really been needed with crime in the city at an all time low. That’s all about to change though with the arrival of Bane, a criminal genius on a mission to bring chaos to Gotham City… and more.
Will Batman be tempted out of retirement and, even if he is, will he be able to stop Bane from destroying an entire city…?

Having not seen the film, this review was actually very hard to write. I’d normally judge a book on its own merits but a film novelisation? I think in a situation like this you really need to have seen the film as well; just to be able to tell whether the book has done its job or not. I guess a book can do more than one job though… If this books job was to make me want to go and see the film then it certainly did that.

I started reading ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ a couple of nights ago and finished it the very next morning. Like I said, I can’t compare it to the film but it’s clear that Cox has done very well to inject his work with the raw power and energy of a big screen movie. You have to keep turning the pages; Bane is larger than life and capable of surprising you every time with what he does (I’m thinking of the football stadium…) and how he is constantly one step ahead of everyone. His initial fight with Batman makes for some powerful reading.

The plot itself veers between being absorbing and, erm… not. I enjoyed some of the twists (one of which I should have seen coming but totally didn’t) and I liked the way that Cox takes time to give us a little more insight into each character. Little things like that make this book more than just a ‘book of the film’.

Having said that though… You know how you can really enjoy a film but only bits of it stay in your mind? This novelisation suffers from the same kind of problem. While I enjoyed the main sequences (and the way that it all fits together) I couldn’t really tell you, a few days on, what happened in the lead up to these. If you can’t remember what happens then you have to ask whether those passages were strictly necessary… Is the book possibly aping the film a little too well here…? If it is then it’s not a good thing for a tale told in this format. A movie can afford to lose a little focus while it’s throwing image after image at the viewer; a book needs to be tighter than that to keep the readers attention.

Like I said though, ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ is an entertaining read as well as one that has me wanting to see the movie on the big screen (we’ll see if that happens). Sometimes, you can’t really ask for a lot more than that. I wish it could have been a little more but I’ll happily settle for what I got.

Eight and a Quarter out of Ten

‘Predator: South China Sea’ – Jeff Vandermeer (Dark Horse Books)

I wouldn’t say that I’ve read a great deal of Jeff Vandermeer’s work (and some of what I have read I need to go back and re-read; it’s been a while...) but the impression I’ve been left with is that this is a guy who likes to follow his own path and tell stories of what he finds on that journey. No tapping into what’s popular here, Vandermeer stands out by seeming to deliberately go against the flow.
That made it all the more surprising then when I found out that he had written a ‘Predator’ tie-in novel a couple of years ago (yep, it can sometimes take me far too long to catch up on things). I was of course immediately curious to find out what Vandermeer made of the leap from the gloriously weird settings of ‘Finch’ and ‘City of Saints and Madmen’ to a setting that’s undeniably more commercial and mainstream. As things turned out, it was a leap made with some aplomb but also with the help of an anchor placed firmly in the weird stuff...

For those who have the money to play with, a remote jungle island in the South China Sea offers the perfect place to let off a little steam with the best in big game hunting. If there’s an animal that you ever fancied hunting, the odds are that it’s here and ready to be shot at. Now something else has arrived on the island and the hunters are about to find that the game has suddenly become a lot more deadly...
The deadliest hunter in the galaxy is on the island and on safari. In its sights is a collection of gangsters, pirates, secret agents... and a burnt out rock star. Can they put aside their own double dealing schemes to deal with a greater threat? Will the Predator only serve to advance these schemes? It’s all going down on the island and not everyone will make it out alive; not everyone will even want to...

Yet again, Jeff Vandermeer has written a novel that I couldn’t put down until I’d finished; reading his stuff is always a pleasure. This time round though it’s for entirely different reasons than normal. Vandermeer set out to write a sci-fi thriller and succeeded on all counts.

You could say though that Vandermeer was already onto a winner, before he even started, considering the material he had to work with. The ‘Predator’ franchise is successfully based on a very simple concept and it’s a concept that (on initial inspection) Vandermeer aligns very closely with what he has happening in ‘South China Sea’. It’s a tried and tested formula and one that Vandermeer doesn’t stray far from. There’s a Predator on the hunt for prey and he’s doing it in the jungle, that’s the bottom line. If you’re looking for something a little fresher in terms of plot then this may put you off initially but stick with it. The ingredients might all be the same as usual but it’s what Vandermeer does with them that eventually raises ‘South China Sea’ from being standard ‘run of the mill’ fare and turns it into something special.

First and foremost, Vandermeer works very well with what he has been given (namely, the aforementioned hunt and jungle setting). You might well see what’s coming but that’s ok, you’re meant to. Our characters don’t share that same privilege though and this is where Vandermeer injects a sense of tension that grows on the reader as the tale progresses. You can literally feel the tension growing in these people as they make their way through a relatively unfamiliar landscape whilst being stalked by an alien foe. Once you tap into that sense of tension, you have to see it through to the conclusion and this forces the plot forward at just the right pace.
It’s also worth noting that Vandermeer doesn’t just limit this tension to the human characters. The Predator is very much portrayed as being on an alien world and subject to the kind of surprises that such a newcomer would experience. Just when you think the Predator is about to walk off with it all... well, that would be telling (and some surprises shouldn’t be spoiled). It goes without saying that the resulting pyrotechnics, in various confrontations are worth sticking around for.

All of these moments are cleverly bundled up into a multi faceted and tightly controlled plot where everyone’s motivations are suspect and some only come to fruition right at the very end. There is always something going on and the human intriguing contrasts very nicely with the more straight forward ‘violence in motion’ of the Predator. This is a story that gives its readers plenty to look at as well as plenty to think about, all in equal measure.

Where ‘South China Sea’ also stands out from the pack is in the way that Vandermeer expands upon the mythos of the Predator species and, as a result, gives his readers something that’s a little broader in scope than you would expect. On the basis of the films, you might be forgiven for thinking that most Predator activity is confined to Earth. Vandermeer pulls back the curtain on a whole galaxy that is nothing more than a hunting ground for this species. I found myself rooting for the humans even more because of this. When such an activity is shown to be commonplace you can’t help but support the little guy, in the thick of it through no fault of his own.

Vandermeer really lets loose with his imagination in these scenes, none more so when one of the human party undergoes an enforced transformation themselves. While it’s beautifully written, and makes for one particularly superb fight scene, I couldn’t help but wonder whether this was one moment where Vandermeer lost that tight hold he had on the plot. While there were connections to the plot, this sub-plot felt more like an exercise in whimsy and perhaps a means for Vandermeer to reconnect with the weirdness that he enjoys delving into. As a result, we’re left with a tight plot that could perhaps be tightened more.

Despite these small failings though, you can’t really complain when the sum of ‘South China Sea’s’ parts is a such a thoroughly entertaining read. You may think you’ve seen all this before but you haven’t seen it in the hands of Jeff Vandermeer.

Nine and a Quarter out of Ten

‘G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra’ – Max Allan Collins (Del Rey)

As a kid I used to love movie novelizations, I couldn’t get to the cinema that much and ‘the book of the film’ was a great way to make up for what I was missing out on. In some ways, reading the book was even better than seeing the film; especially during the long wait for the film to show up on TV so you could videotape it for future viewing. In the hands of a decent writer the movie tie-in could become so much more than what you saw on the big screen, giving you a better look at the world in question and the characters in it (I’m thinking ‘Return of the Jedi’ here, I’d include ‘Ladyhawke’ as well but I’m not sure of the book or the film came first...)
I’ve got a real soft spot for movie novelizations but have refrained from including them here simply because I didn’t want to give too much away for people who were planning on seeing the film. ‘The Rise of Cobra’ proved to be the exception though. We didn’t have G.I Joe over here in the UK (we got ‘Action Force’ instead which doesn’t sound quite as good...) but I’d read a couple of the comics which was enough to intrigue me. It’s a shame that the book didn’t live up to that promise...

I’m not going to give too much away; suffice it to say that ‘The Rise of Cobra’ deals with Duke’s induction into the G.I Joe team and their ongoing struggle against the plans of a ruthless arms dealer who is unaware that a nascent terrorist organisation is growing right before his eyes. Cue lots of gunfights, high speed pursuit and last minute confrontations where nothing less than the fate of the world is at stake...

There is plenty going on in ‘The Rise of Cobra’ and the constant action moves things forwards at a very fast pace. The resulting confrontations are full of spectacle and promise good things for the film if you like explosions, gunfights, high speed pursuit and so on.

The only problem was that there wasn’t anything more to the book than that, not that I could see anyway...

This is going to sound odd (seeing as I haven’t seen the film) but here goes...
To me, ‘The Rise of Cobra’ reads like a straight retelling of the events on film. On one level this is a good thing as it’s doing its job. That’s all it does though. I got the impression that if it wasn’t in the screenplay then it wasn’t going in the book. This is all well and good but it felt to me that there was a lot of room for expanding the story that was never exploited. The relationships between G.I Joe members (who weren’t main characters) were glossed over and you never really got a sense of why McCullen was doing what he was doing (other than being a stereotypical villain). When Collins decided that things did need explaining I was left wondering why he had felt the need...

‘In days to come, the craft would be known as a Typhoon gunship...’

Was there any need to tell the reader what the craft would be known as in ‘days to come’? Surely all that mattered was what it was doing right now? This wasn’t the only time Collins’ pulled this trick and it really jarred the flow of the story for me...

I could really see this working on screen but explosions and spectacle in a book just aren’t enough to cover up what is essentially half a story. I haven’t read the prequel yet so I’m open to the fact that it may provide more background detail to the story as a whole. ‘The Rise of Cobra’ doesn’t do it though and I was left wondering why Collins didn’t bother... Surely he had the scope to do that?

Five out of Ten