Review: 'Elevation' by Stephen King (2018)

I’m not sure what the point of releasing ‘Elevation’ as a standalone work was, other than to bulk up King’s output schedule alongside May’s ‘The Outsider’.

Pretty sure any other author would be fine releasing one decent-sized book a year, and it’s not like ‘The Outsider’ was bad by any means.

Nevertheless, ‘Elevation’ is Stephen King’s second big release of 2018 and has too many irregularities to dismiss it as merely schedule filler.

Different retailers have billed ‘Elevation’ as a novella and novel and at under 150 pages I’d say it definitely classes as the former.

Furthermore, selling such a short book at £14.99 RRP is a kick in the teeth. 

For comparison, I bought Lionel Shriver’s ‘Property’ for the same price and that gave me two novellas and over a hundred pages of short stories.

Pricing aside, ‘Elevation’ marks yet another tale coming from Castle Rock. Even blowing the whole place up at the end of 1991’s ’Needful Things’ wasn’t enough to fell his favourite fictional locale.

In a time where where political discourse has wound it’s way into art in increasingly unsubtle ways, King deserves credit for showing some amount of restraint.

The tale is at its heart pretty straightforward. An overweight guy by the name of Scott Carey is mysteriously becoming lighter without his outward appearance changing at all. While battling against this mysterious affliction, Carey seeks to help his lesbian neighbour’s vegan restaurant pick up business before he floats off.

If any other author took that plot and those devices in this time, it would almost certainly be nowhere as dignified as the end result here. 

Stephen King stands as the author who can take any hokey story idea and make it into a credible piece, and he proves he’s still got that talent here.

I had no problems with the prose or characters, which all functioned fine for a novella and felt believable rather than too broad. The lack of an antagonist, which a lesser author might use as a straw man for the political bent, is a bold move and possibly proof of King’s wariness of the subject matter.

His general message of “we can still make an effort to get along in troubled times despite our differences” may be dismissed as twee by some but it remains an important one.

Most of my problems with ‘Elevation’ lie outside of the immediate text.

For one thing, despite the quality of the prose, you’ve seen ‘Elevation’ before.

Whether it’s the chapter that documents Scott’s marathon run (echoes of ‘The Long Walk’), or his fruitless attempts to reverse his weight-loss experience (perhaps an attempt to rewrite or perhaps reverse 1984’s grim but sloppy ‘Thinner’) to the use of Castle Rock as the backdrop for the tale, ‘Elevation’ reads like comfort food.

Stephen even brings back Mark Edward Geyer to supply illustrations, as he did to ‘Rose Madder’ and ‘The Green Mile’. 

Familiarity is nice, but isn’t a substitute for having teeth. 

‘The Green Mile’ was a poison apple of a book and ‘Rose Madder’ had opening so visceral the book never really recovered. 

There’s nothing to surprise you here.

The length is an issue for me as well. King has written far larger books with far less compelling narratives than this one. Although ‘Elevation’ never outstays its welcome, its status as a novella mean it also never really takes off. 

Looking back, between this and ‘The Outsider’s attempts to remake ‘The Dark Half’ as a ‘Mr. Mercedes’ instalment, I do wonder if Stephen King is going the way of David Bowie and attempting to reframe his own history. 

Like instead of rerecording and remixing tracks, he’s remixing ideas into what he thinks to be improved forms. (If so, I’d love to see him give ‘The Tommyknockers’ its due.)

Indeed, ‘Elevation’s frequent dips into nostalgia turn into the kind of book that, if it were a song, it’d be an inoffensive “new” tracked bunged onto the end of a best-of compilation after the band’s split up.

It’s kind of thing King can write in his sleep between bigger projects, although previous novellas usually came in collections for value (or in the case of ’The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon’ could actually function as a modern YA introduction to King’s work).

Aside from the admirable if predictable political message, there’s no real reason for ‘Elevation’ to exist in this guise at all.

6/10

Review: Property (A Collection) by Lionel Shriver (2018)

I know this says more about me than the designer but when I saw the cover to Lionel Shriver’s debut short fiction all I saw was this:

I’m not even sorry.

Lionel Shriver has taken some flak in recent years for her stance that fiction should be written by anyone and about anyone regardless of either parties’ personal or cultural backgrounds. I mean, there’s a bit more nuance to it than that but I’m not going into that here. What I will say is while I do support an author’s decision to write about whoever they want, that doesn’t mean that I’ll enjoy the work regardless.

I’m also not sure if Lionel Shriver is aware that there is a difference between social commentary and “lol trigger the libtards”, and some of these stories do seem to serve little purpose than to exercise her right to write from the perspectives of other people, regardless of the quality of the result.

‘The Mandibles’ was one of the best dystopia novels I read this year, and it contained a shit-tonne of social commentary and motifs. Most of these were done pretty well and

I honestly wished it was longer so we could see the chaos continue to unfold.

Anyway, on to ‘Property’!

‘Property’ can’t seem to introduce one character without letting you know what their political stance is, or what newspaper they read in one UK-based story. Finger very much on the cultural pulse there.

‘Domestic Terrorism’ sticks out amongst the short stories for being a piece of social commentary that actually is given space to breathe and is interwoven into the narrative.

Family dynamics between parents and the nebulously-defined and much-maligned ‘millennial’ are bluntly presented alongside the instantaneous and reactionary powers of social media and politics in general over the last decade.

For almost every other offering here, it’s like Shriver was so anxious to fit the themes into so few pages that she did so regardless of how the stories would suffer. And some of them really do.

What I like about Shriver is her ability to write these abrasive characters who have their well-off delusions of sanctity smashed by the various blind cruelties of life.

The short story format doesn’t really allow her to pull these off as well as she does in her novels.

Conflict is largely limited to arguments between people that read like preludes to larger payoffs that never come.

The exceptions are the two novellas that bookend the collection.

‘The Standing Chandelier’ has room to breathe and show two not-lover protagonists letting their relationship atrophy, with the titular chandelier being a fantastically presented metaphor for a waste of time.

‘The Subletter’ uses the backdrop of 1990s Belfast to illuminate the turmoil between a live-in landlord and a tenant lacking in social graces to great effect.

If ‘Property’ was a collection of these sorts of novellas, it would be much improved. Shriver excels at cutting off her protagonists’ layers and letting the wounds scar over across many pages.

“The Self-Seeding Sycamore” is severely out of date, reading like a casserole of BBC America highlights. People judging one another over newspaper choices, arguments about shrubbery and regular viewings of Downton Abbey. The plot is the aching cliché of  two seemingly-incompatible neighbours striking up a relationship and discovering they’re not so different.

‘The Royal Male’ is about five pages long I suspect is a scene cut from a longer piece.

‘The Chapstick’ presents the immortal moral “don’t be a dick to airport security”.

‘Vermin’s an effective little piece that shows the deterioration of a property alongside a crumbling marriage.

‘Possession’ is a fun ghost story that runs with the idea of property becoming an extension of one’s personality and takes it to its logical conclusion. In this case, this is a haunted house.

When ‘Property’ works, it reads like it should, bite-sized Shriver. 

When it doesn’t, it reads like a thinly-reworked opinion column or a chunk of a larger aborted work.

Calling it a “Collection” is spot on. It's like an assortment of disparate items collected over a long period of time; the equivalent of emptying one’s kitchen junk drawer.

It’s packed with items that mean a lot to the right people, I’m sure. 

But not to me.

6/10

Review: ‘Queer’ (1952/1985) by William S. Burroughs

Summary

Continuing on from his efforts to get off of heroin in ‘Junky’, the now-soberish William Lee (Burroughs himself in all but surname) attempts to pursue a new kind of fix. 

Lee pursues a sexual relationship with the attractive young man Eugene Allerton.

He fails.

Background

If ‘Junky’ was about addiction, then ‘Queer’ was trying to stay clean.

Starting life as the ending to the ‘Junky’ manuscript, the book reads partly as a sequel but works as a standalone piece in it’s own right. 

Burroughs shot his wife in 1951 during a drunken attempt at re-enacting William Tell, finishing ‘Queer’ the following year.

Review

The introduction states that Burroughs’s grief from accidentally killing his wife is a key factor behind ‘Queer’ being shelved for thirty-three years.

Lee’s failing relationship with Allerton does form an interesting parallel to this event, and indeed becomes somewhat poignant in light of it.

I first read the book in an afternoon and it left me cold. 

Maybe it was the third-person narration, the uneven tone or the generally unfinished feel of the book, but ‘Queer’ was as its name implied, an oddity. This awkward thing was neither as clinical as ‘Junky’ nor as shocking as ‘Naked Lunch’ and the ‘Cutup Trilogy’ or even as complete a narrative as the ‘Red Night’ trilogy.

What it does achieve is something nothing of those other books accomplish, it strips Burroughs-as-Lee down to his emotional core. 

Under all the chess strategies and animal torture lies something pitiable. 

There’s a painful void in the heart of the text that provides catharsis in perhaps its crudest form. 

It’s pretty easy to dismiss Burroughs’s work as too disconnected from reality to enjoy. It was almost a year after getting ‘Naked Lunch’ before I felt I could get into it.

I regret that I didn’t begin with ‘Queer’. 

By blending moments of genuine self-loathing and desire with one another, ‘Queer’ sets itself apart from the rest of Burroughs’s work although the frequent forays into madness (Lee casually talks about burning a pig alive and setting it loose in a restaurant as a novelty appetiser) keep it in line with his canon.

The way the narrative starts with disjointed images, congeals into something of a narrative and falls right back apart again is like witnessing an addict’s attempt to get clean and then relapsing in novel form.

Lee’s frequent moral lapses and Burroughs’s proclamation that he endured a “destruction of self-image” won’t make you like him, but if you read ‘Naked Lunch’ and wonder what kind of fucked-up individual could write the kind of stuff, ‘Queer’ will give you some sort of answer. 

It’s also barely over a hundred pages even with all the introductions and added parts, so even if you don’t like it you won’t have wasted much time on it.

What happened next?

In 1984 a near-complete manuscript of ‘Queer’, then thought long-lost, was discovered and Burroughs agreed to its publication after being offered a lucrative deal on it and subsequent novels. 

‘Queer’ is undoubtedly the most straightforwardly emotive of Burroughs’s works, providing a narrative that is as readable as ‘Junky’, but displays all the warning signs needed to foreshadow the impending madness of ‘Naked Lunch’.

Rating: 7/10

Review: Rage (1977) by Stephen King

Summary

Charles Decker murders his teacher and holds the class at gunpoint and brings them round to his nihilistic worldview. They begin sharing embarrassing secrets with one another and growing closer to Decker, turning the class into a twisted sort of therapy group.

This spurs them to turn on Ted Jones, a popular student and the only one not identifying with Decker’s warped view of reality.

When Jones attempts to leave, the class beats him into a coma.

Decker eventually surrenders and is institutionalised. He later receives a letter from a classmate grateful for his actions.

Background

Stephen King would publish four books between 1977 and 1982 under the pseudonym ‘Richard Bachman’. Reasons for this boil down to King wanting to see whether his writing would still sell if it didn’t have his name attached to it. 

Although King would be outed as Bachman later in the decade, Bachman proved a fertile ground for ideas such as King’s 1989 novel ‘The Dark Half’ and further titles published under the pseudonym in a meta sense.

‘Rage’ is the earliest book that Stephen King began writing proper, as early as 1966.

Review

While reading ‘Rage’, you can see the stuff that would become King staples, albeit somewhat clipped. Since this is early King, it comes as no surprise that the Bachman books read as an embryonic version of his usual style.

That means no stream-of-consciousness asides, no supernatural elements and no idealism.

Of the Stephen King books I’ve read so far, the closest King parallel I can draw is to 1983’s ’Pet Sematary’. Throughout both books, people are written as fundamentally flawed creatures that will always abuse power to achieve personal gain.

In both cases, King felt discomfort with publishing these ideas under his own name. With ‘Rage’ he’d publish it under the pseudonym ‘Richard Bachman’ and he would sit on ‘Pet Sematary’ for a full year before releasing it to fulfil his contract with Doubleday.

However, ‘Pet Sematary’ depicts humans falling victim to their own power and hubris. At the end Louis Creed has lost his entire family and his sanity, his final fate remaining ambiguous. Creed’s actions begin as rational and morally just, and become more questionable and twisted as he succumbs to the allure of power, in this case the burial ground’s ability to resurrect the dead.

‘Rage’ kicks off with Charlie getting expelled after a history of violence and abuse in school, but he doesn’t care for these consequences because he has a gun in his locker.

He begins the story holding all the cards, and ends in the same position. He holds an entire class hostage and turns them into his willing accomplices against Ted. When a police sniper shoots Decker in the chest, he is miraculously saved by the locker padlock he had just happened to place in his shirt pocket earlier. In the eyes of the narrative, he becomes literally bulletproof.

The class doesn’t turn on Charlie, they let him get into their heads, and they drag Ted down to their level, putting him into a coma.

Even when Decker is non-fatally shot at the end, he provokes this himself and ends the story on his own terms. 

Evil never gets out of the driver’s seat.

‘Pet Sematary’ holds a fatalistic worldview best summed up with the line “Sometimes… dead is better”. Stephen King would later argue that “we can only find peace in our human lives by accepting the will of the universe” when discussing the book. 

When Louis Creed seeks to challenge the universe’s will, he is punished.

‘Rage’ holds a far more cynical worldview, the idea that everyone can and will fall from grace, the only negotiable criteria being how far. Charlie brags about the toxicity of humanity, that “all that weirdness isn’t just going on outside. It’s in you too, right now, growing in the dark like magic mushrooms.”

What’s more, Charlie Decker never faces punishment. True, he had a traumatic upbringing but that’s a pretty weak excuse for murder. He received trauma therefore he will spread it to others.

When I first read this book about two years ago, I was in a very different state of mind and I even for a time ranked ‘Rage’ as highly as ‘Misery’ for its uncompromising portrayal of how unsavoury people can become given the right or wrong circumstances.

You could say I was like one of Decker’s classmates. I was taken in by his charismatic but ultimately two-dimensional portrayal and I do feel a bit taken-in in hindsight. 

But people like Charlie Decker do exist out there. Not everyone is a murderer waiting to happen, but there will always be people who go on power trips like Decker. 

That’s kind of the only positive I can glean from ‘Rage’ two years along, the warning about being taken in by people who enable your worst behaviours. And honestly, there are tons of pieces of media that convey that message far more effectively.

Problems with the narrative are purely down to reader interpretation, there’s nothing functionally wrong with the writing.

Bad Stephen King is still highly readable and compelling stuff.

What happened next?

Due to the book being found among the possessions of several school shooters, King allowed ‘Rage’ to fall out of print. While I’m personally of the belief that banning or discontinuing a piece of media will only intensify people’s desires to obtain it, I understand and respect King’s reasons for doing so. I can’t imagine how heartbreaking it would feel to have a piece of your art being used as justification for murder.

Considering ‘Rage’s relative lack of merit amongst the rest of King’s canon, not much has been lost. If you really want to still get ahold of the book, it is still available online through secondhand websites.

If you want something similar, ‘Luckiest Girl Alive’ by Jessica Knoll supplies a much more sympathetic interpretation of the ‘school shooter’ character template. As well as this, the book has a much more relevant and insightful depiction of bullying and misogyny.

King tends to place himself on the side of good, that idealism and morality will always triumph over evil

The Bachman books tend to lean towards a more cynical worldview, they were written by a younger man who may have at times believed it was just him up against the world.

‘Rage’ is a nasty little book, but coming back to it actually made me learn a lot more about myself. I no longer hold ‘Rage’ in such esteem as I once did because of how my own worldview has changed.

Rating: 4 out of 10

Quick Review: Birth Of Venom

Bit about Venom, Spider-Man, but evil and a massive alien Joker-like grin. 

Who’d have thought he’d be as successful as he was.

Well, considering he first appeared in 1988 just as the Dark Age of Comic Books was kicking off and edgy anti-heroes were really taking off, I’d say a lot of people.

Eh, regardless, Venom remains one of my favourite Marvel characters not only due to his design but also his backstory in being the sort-of dark counterpart to Spider-Man.

Writer David Michelinie had an idea to have a villain that was immune to Spider-Man’s spider-sense, adding a new level of menace to Venom when he finally appeared in 1988. 

Birth of Venom: Roughly cover ‘The Alien Costume’ saga, and the first two appearances of Venom.

Originally published between 1984 and 1989.

So the broad timeline of events in ‘Birth Of Venom’ go as such:

• 1984: During the ’Secret Wars’ crossover event, Spider-Man obtains a new black costume. 
• 1984-5: Spider-Man becomes suspicious of his new costume and its abilities, (infinite webbing, can change its appearance by reading his mind). He visits the Fantastic Four, who reveal it to be an alien symbiote trying to permanently bond to him. The symbiote is removed and kept in storage. 
• Concurrently, Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson’s relationship matures, featuring Watson’s backstory and the revelation that she’s known Parker’s been Spider-Man for years.
• 1985: The symbiote escapes confinement and attempts to forcibly bond with Spider-Man, who manages to use extreme sound (in this case church bells) to repel the alien costume.
• 1986: A hand pushes Peter Parker in front of a subway train without triggering his spider-sense. 
• 1987: A hand grabs and pushes Peter Parker out of a window, again without triggering his spider-sense.
• 1988: Venom’s first full appearance. Ends with Venom incarcerated.
• 1989: Venom’s second appearance. 

A key part of Peter Parker’s characterisation, even if you’re not an avid comic reader, is the phrase ‘with great power comes great responsibility’. The words of his late Uncle Ben are integral to Peter Parker and Spider-Man’s characterisation and approach to crime-fighting.

So the idea that some thing could challenge this unshakeable ethos and perhaps push Spider-Man to go even further with greater power than he could potentially handle, to perhaps seek to even kill off his villains in cold blood, the ends justifying the means and so on? Yeah, with this image in mind thanks to adaptations like the 1994 and 2008 cartoons and the 2007 film, I was pretty stoked to have a read.

But the first appearances of the alien costume have neither of these effects. Indeed, for most of the black costume run, the symbiote behaves as any other costume would.

The reasoning for this was Spider-Man’s new costume was poorly received by readers and was later retconned to be an alien and was presumably killed soon after.

Venom’s first full appearance could have included a doppelgänger type scenario to maintain the tension for a little while longer. Furthermore, Venom’s reveal as Eddie Brock lacks some impact when the next few pages contain retcons for Brock’s involvement that go back to 1985, almost three years ago.

Venom’s return in 1989 already displays the beginnings of being an anti-hero, rescuing a family from militant thugs and killing the latter. These proved to be early indicators that there was more to Venom than just being the ‘dark reflection’ villain to Spider-Man.

Later adaptations such as the 1994 fox cartoon and the 2007 film would introduce the retcon that the symbiote boosted Spider-Man’s abilities and aggression, the former giving him a reason to keep it on and the latter leading him to get it off. 

This also had the bonus outcome of putting Spider-Man in a better light by turning the removal of the symbiote into a return to heroism.

As it stands, Spider-Man’s motivation for removing the symbiote is understandable (being forced to do things in your sleep is a horrifying concept), but later adaptations would do a much better job of tailoring the alien costume plot device into Spider-Man’s characterisation.

‘Birth Of Venom’ is a pretty good example of the kind of continuity lockout that would go on to plague Marvel throughout the 1990s, becoming a contributing factor to their eventual bankruptcy at the end of 1996. 

Marvel lives on with the fallout from this event to this day, having sold off the film rights to many of their major characters to stay afloat.

A couple of pages are plagued with asterisks linking to other titles running concurrently to explain background events and character recaps and these can get a little intrusive at times.

All things considered, ‘Birth Of Venom’ can’t be faulted for the problems of the source material and does a fair job of cherry-picking the most relevant parts of the arc to produce a relatively coherent narrative. 

I only wish there were a few more recap panels and highlights showing off more of Eddie Brock’s backstory before becoming Venom. As it stands, he still bursts into the narrative with relatively little fanfare.

Considering how popular the character is, I’m still quite surprised that there hasn’t been a definitive update of Venom’s origin story even for the sake of being concise.

The Fox cartoon arguably provides a more definitive version of Venom’s origin story, certainly a more succinct one. Except it gives Venom these weird snake-like pupils.

In hindsight, they weren’t a good idea for the same reason that Spider-Man doesn’t have pupils on his costume. It looks like he’s perpetually struggling to make eye contact with any other character he talks to.

Aside from that, the 1994 cartoon sands off all the edges present here. For that reason I’d still recommend it over this collection as it requires much less background knowledge of Spider-Man and it avoids the continuity headaches present in the original source material.

Still, the collection is an interesting piece of Spider-Man’s history and gave later adaptations all the ingredients they needed to refine the origins of one of Spider-Man’s most notable villains.

Gary Numan: Live 1984-2000 (Another Fan Look)

Part 2: White Noise (1984)

What follows is my original review for White Noise from 2017.
I soon realised the whole 'track-by-track' method would wear very thin very quickly, and this is the only review that is conducted in this manner.
An updated version more in keeping with later pieces will eventually be released here as well.

White Noise

Most artists will, after releasing a new album, tour for the new album and play a good deal from that. 

White Noise is an interesting case for several reasons.

First off, this was the first complete concert recording that Gary Numan had released, Living Ornaments ’79 and ’80 being highlights-only single-disc affairs (not getting fully released until 1998 and 2005, respectively), and more importantly the first live album released by his doomed vanity label, Numa Records.

Gary Numan’s live albums often outclass his studio material in terms of intensity and sound quality, although White Noise does fall short in some areas.

Next up is the setlist to album track ratio.
Berserker had nine tracks, but by this point in the tour, only four of them had survived in the setlist, The Secret having been dropped after the opening night.

As Numan was touring for the divisive Berserker, its industrial/funk stylings at odds with the synthpop that made him famous, all the tracks get performed in this slower and heavier style. Sometimes this works (Remind Me To Smile, We Are Glass, Are ‘Friends’ Electric?), sometimes it doesn’t (Metal, Down In The Park, Cars). 

It’s pretty telling that out of the new songs performed, the punchy techno-rock of The Hunter or the funky Pleasure Principle-lite The God Film are not amongst them.

Numan instead focuses on more upbeat and commercial-material, sometimes at the expense of the quality of older tracks. Metal in particular suffers from a plodding synth line and generally lifeless delivery.

Out of the four new tracks, three (Berserker, Cold Warning, My Dying Machine) benefit from the live presentation, gaining a punchier and stronger overall sound than their studio counterparts. The title track in particular kicks in with a synthetic roar that readily outclasses a lot of the material on offer here, although that is more down to how well the material fits with the funk style he was peddling at the time rather than the fault of the material.

The one notable casualty is This Is New Love. Already a six-minute exercise in flailing and exhausting repetition on the album, the live version adds nothing of worth besides a slightly stronger percussion layer which is not enough to save the track.

Then is the setlist length.

Compared to the previous year’s Warriors tour, where the setlist was regularly altered and every track from the new album was performed on one night or another, it is slightly disheartening to see the setlist shorten so dramatically.

This would mark a trend in Gary’s concerts that would carry on for the next nine years, where the big hits would accompany then-current album cuts with very little variation between nights. 

Live rarities include The Iceman Comes and This Prison Moon, both from Warriors. they benefit from the live presentation as the Berserker cuts do, sounding rawer and more energetic.

Gary seems far more at ease throughout the concert, although this does unfortunately lead to a very slurred delivery of several vocals, as well as an outbreak of hysterics during Are ‘Friends’ Electric?

The setlist is fairly balanced to give a fairly accurate cross-section of his best material from this period (including the only available live recordings of several tracks).

You get most of the best Berserker-era material in superior live incarnations here, although Ghost has a more varied tracklist and slightly superior sound quality.

Either way, this is a decent representation of Gary’s mid-1980s period, and one of the few parts that he looks back on fondly.

Sound quality is excellent, and the Eagle Records reissue comes with an extensive set of liner notes and a new front cover to fit in with the rest of the reissued live albums.

Non-fans are unlikely to buy this anyway, and Gary has made better live efforts.

As it was his first live album I ever got, I’ve still got a soft spot for the album.

Track by Track 

Intro - A stripped-down rendition of the theme from Berserker, similar to how the Replicas theme was used during the Touring Principle.

Berserker - Far more energy than the studio rendition, which sometimes came across as too cold and alienated for it’s own good. Everything comes together well.

Metal - The audience’s clapping sounds slightly out of time. Coupled with a very plodding performance, this becomes a bit of a flop.

Me! I Disconnect From You - After the sped-up version played on earlier tours, it was a surprise to hear the original studio version being played again. The Berserker synth sound can’t quite keep up with the razor thin precision of the original’s notes, but it works well enough.

Remind Me To Smile - Final official recording until 1993. The heavy Berserker sound makes this work a lot better than before, fitting well in the setlist as well.

Sister Surprise - This version is halfway between the ominous-but-overlong album version and the snappier single mix, taking the best elements from both for a fairly sparkling performance.

Music For Chameleons - Only official live recording. It’s an admirable attempt to emulate Pino Palladino’s bass-playing and it is a largely successful one.

The Iceman Comes - One of Warriors’ highlights, and it benefits from the live presentation, relying less on backing singers.

Cold Warning - Only official live release. Holds up well live.

Down In The Park - Benefits from the lower, moodier synths used, although it becomes plodding by the end.

This Prison Moon - Eh.

I Die: You Die - Works well enough.

My Dying Machine - Bigger synth sounds, and the use of two sets of drums give more power. Gary forgets a few lines though.

Cars - Flabby and weak compared to the ultra-precise original.

We Take Mystery (To Bed) - Energetic and kicks some life back into the concert.

We Are Glass - A powerful take with clearer guitar lines. Gary forgets most of the lines as usual.

This Is New Love - Awful in the studio and awful here.

My Shadow In Vain - Gary changes the lyric from ‘black and white’ to ‘blue and white’ in reference to the Berserker image. Not much else to note.

Are ‘Friends’ Electric? - Gary repeats the second verse, having gotten caught up in some onstage shenanigans and laughing out loud twice. Where faster early tracks suffer from the Berserker treatment, the fairly ballad-like tracks like these cope with the changes rather well.

A Critical Look at Ghostwriting / Continuing A Series: How Well Can It Go?

Part 1:

Stieg Larrson’s Millennium Trilogy and the two (so far) follow-ups by David Lagercrantz

Context on The Millennium Trilogy:

Larsson’s trilogy is an unusual case for a book series in that the content becomes less exaggerated as the series progresses. Whereas literary figures such as James Bond or Hannibal Lecter started out in relatively grounded narratives before moving into more stylised domain, Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist unmask a notorious serial killer and sink a business empire during The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, before becoming entangled in a vast legal conspiracy throughout the following two novels.

The horror of Nils Bjurman raping Lisbeth Salander in Dragon Tattoo becomes a bizarre kind of exhibition when Salander’s covertly filmed account is presented as part of a legal case in The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest.

Likewise, Salander’s revenge upon Bjurman, using a tattoo gun to permanently brand him as “a sadistic pig, a pervert and a rapist”, becomes something of a dark running gag amongst the police investigations going on throughout the following two novels.

By Hornet’s Nest, the horror of Salander’s ordeal and the catharsis of her revenge become somewhat cartoonish in the context of the trilogy.

Likewise, the story of sadistic serial killer Martin Vanger, who with his torture dungeon and incestuous leanings would be right at home in a Hannibal Lecter novel, becomes an afterthought within the same book as the final antagonist role is transferred back to white-collar crook Hans-Erik Wennerström, with the novel ending with his financial ruin and murder.

Regardless of my quibbles about the tone shifting within the original trilogy, Larsson’s books are page-turners packed with intrigue and suspense, and it’s clear that Larsson seriously did his homework throughout the writing process.

Although this does work against him by Hornets’ Nest, where the ongoing legal battles require the reader to absorb large chunks of information on Sweden’s judicial process.

That said I’m fairly sure these issues could have been addressed were it not for Larsson’s untimely death before anything was published.

DavidLagercrantz Takes The Helm

In 2013 author David Lagercrantz was enlisted to complete the Millennium series. He did so without access to Larsson’s material and outlines for future novels, which remain with Larsson’s partner Eva Gabrielsson. 

This led to the two (so far) continuation novels, The Girl In The Spider’s Web in 2015 and The Girl Who Takes An Eye For An Eye in 2017.

I have no issue with the idea of bringing in another author to complete a series in the case of the original creator being unable to do so.

I was eager to see how the intertwined narratives of Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist would continue, as I’d imagine most fans were.

As long as it has the approval of the creator’s estate, there shouldn’t be an ethical problem with continuing a piece of art although in this case Larsson’s family appear to have gone behind Gabrielsson’s back to carry on the series without her consent.

That aside, what I do have an issue with is when the continuation work isn’t very good.

In the cases of most series that have a long gap between instalments, they tend to either rely too heavily upon the original work to function as a complete experience (see the Star Wars prequels, largely recycled parts of the original trilogy mixed in with concepts and characters rejected from the original films) or act as a weird, slightly sad imitation of the original work (every comedy sequel that comes out over ten years after the original).

Although modern cinema has now almost mastered the art of the soft reboot, which function as both a continuation and reboot to ageing franchises such as Star Wars and Jurassic Park, this is not as widely used a technique when it comes to books.

The Girl In The Spider’s Web

The Girl In The Spider’s Webtakes the opportunity of a time skip to introduce further amounts of social commentary, in particular the NSA’s tendency to monitor people and the potential abuses of this kind of power.

To tie into this further, the villains of the series continue to become both more spectral and mysterious and closer to realism for the most part. 

Spider’s Webintroduces the Spider Society, formed from the remnants of Zalachenko’s criminal empire and helmed by Lisbeth’s long lost sister Camilla.

And this is where the problems really start to kick in for Spider’s Web.

Simply put, the Spider Society doesn’t seem like that credible a threat when compared to supposedly the greatest computer hacker alive.

Having Camilla be evil and “following in her father’s footsteps” is a pretty predictable move, and she functions as a fairly generic antagonist, from her pulpy femme fatale act used on Blomkvist, to her taunting “until next time!” message to Salander at the end of the book, Camilla is not an intriguing villain, having been used as a copy of the more engaging Zalachenko, and admitting in-universe that she wanted to be like him is not excuse for powering on ahead anyway. 

There’s a backstory mention of when Zalachenko locked his daughters in their room while he was beating their mother, how Camilla would punch the mattress in time with Zalachenko’s punches.

Even when compared to the cartoonish sadists on display in Larsson’s original books, this moment for me was when Spider’s Webcrossed the line into all-out absurdity. 

Several previous plot points are out and out retconned to little impact other than attempting to tailor the original trilogy to a more conventional layout.

Camilla goes from being the one normal member of Lisbeth’s family to a sociopath similar to their father for seemingly no other reason than having a familiar character act as an antagonist.

Having Lisbeth’s ‘Wasp’ handle supposedly derive from the Marvel Comics character of the same name felt like an attempt to link the series to current pop culture and had a cheapening effect on the character. So too with Camilla’s handle as ‘Thanos’, which will do little but culturally date this volume in the series.

General writing problems are felt throughout, Blomkvist thanking his lucky stars twice within the first 150 pages was the most acutely felt.

The plot wraps up fairly neatly with the Camilla disappearing largely unscathed and no real cliffhangers, which left me pretty empty upon finishing.

Spider’s Web includes some good character ideas; Lisbeth rescues and bonds with August, the young autistic son of a murdered AI developer. August’s drawing skills are both impressive and hold the key to identifying his father’s killer. To Lagercrantz’s credit, he gives Lisbeth an interesting foil to play off of, and is able to have her show a few more moments of humanity without making it look like she’s losing her edge.

Other positives include the online smear campaign against Blomkvist was pretty interesting and a nice taking apart of internet campaigns, and the general idea of print media paling in comparison to the rise of blog news media.

In general, Spider’s Webhas a few good ideas but Lagercrantz spends far too much time trying to soft reboot the series to fit his own vision and flood the narrative with exposition to develop these ideas in a more satisfying manner. 

The book certainly could have benefitted from being longer.

After the dense and winding (maybe too winding) epic of Hornets’ Nest, Spider’s Webfeels frustratingly back-to-basics. The style is a tad more obvious, with exposition dropped in small but noticeable chunks throughout, and the plot wraps up in a predictable manner.

However, Spider’s Webwas still a page turner, although it’s the first time I felt I was in a rush to finish the book, it might have been faith to the characters that kept me reading more so than the quality of the book. 

The Girl Who Takes An Eye For An Eye

I assumed that many of the issues I had with Spider’s Webwere down to Lagercrantz finding his bearings and being cautious about avoiding the kind of seven-hundred-page pileup that Hornets’ Nestbecame.

Then I read The Girl Who Takes An Eye For An Eye.

Thankfully Eye For An Eyedevelops most of the better parts of Spider’s Web and progresses in a way more faithful to the original trilogy in general.

Positives first.

The book starts off much better immediately, by putting Lisbeth in the unfamiliar surroundings of an adult prison, you give the reader an entirely new set of expectations, we’ve never seen her as an adult in this kind of environment.

The reasoning for her being in there is fairly plausible, although not really in keeping with the tone of the series.

Fellow inmate Benito feels slightly cookie-cutter, but serves as a more immediate antagonist than Camilla as we get to see Salander deal with her directly, and the direct repercussions of her actions within the echo chamber of prison, more succinct and punchy, effectively captures the ideas of actions having consequences displayed so well in the original trilogy.

Lagercrantz adds to Lisbeth’s backstory without intruding upon prior events too much, the additions feel like natural evolutions rather than extraneous additions in this area.

He continues to reintroduce a few more memorable figures and motifs, and I particularly enjoyed the characters of Leo and Dan and the shooting mystery, which reminded me of the journalistic skills employed in Blomkvist’s investigation into Harriets Vanger’s disappearance from the first book, although not necessarily in an imitative manner.

The classic mystery novel device of having identical twins is here used as a springboard into a sinister Nazi-like venture into shaping identical twins separately from birth, a natural evolution from the “nature vs. nurture” concept.

Now for the problems.

Salander is frustratingly absent for large portions of the novel, without the excuses of being in hospital or custody. She’s released from prison halfway through the novel, and takes a back seat in favour of several flashbacks showing how the two mysteries of the twins and her former cellmate’s murdered lover relate to one another. Surely, especially when one considers how proactive a character Salander is, she should have put into an investigative role like the previous books had done?

And why even put Salander in prison in the first place if it doesn’t ultimately affect her character, and she gets released halfway through anyway?

Faria Kazi is a sympathetic figure, but her plot exists seemingly to keep Lisbeth distracted from the main plot long enough for the antagonists to do enough damage.

Kazi’s situation does tie well into the series’ ongoing examination of violence against women, a theme glaringly absent from Spider’s Web, but its use as a side story feels frustratingly token.

Lisbeth’s secondary antagonist throughout the book is the cartoonishly evil fellow inmate Benito, who I swear has some kind of dagger fixation. 

Her obsession with proclaiming that her ‘Keris is pointing at you’ as a kind of death sentence becomes frankly ridiculous by the end, where she’s been severely beaten by Salander and needs a bunch of cronies to even get hold of her. 

The entire showdown between the resurgent Benito and Bublanski’s forces at the end was somewhat predictable, although it thankfully wasn’t the main attraction this time.

Salander confronts Rakel Greitz and Lagercrantz gives her an appropriate send-off, with Salander preventing Greitz’s suicide and having her arrested and await her “death by shame”. This certainly seemed more in line with Larsson’s original version of her character.

Overall Eye For An Eyewas a marked improvement over Lagercrantz’s first attempt and gives me a fair bit of hope for future instalments.

Main Issues

My main issues with Lagercrantz’s attempt to continue the Millennium series are as follows:

-      He does not seem overly interested in sticking to the characterisations of much of the cast, instead preferring to keep them separate more for reasons of the plot than of their own volition, giving the books a distinct air of poor fanfiction.

-      New characters are often shunted in at the expense of existing characters. Much of the cast built up during Hornets’ Nestis removed as of Spider’s Web, leaving Blomkvist and Salander flailing. 

-      One of Larsson’s express purposes when writing the series was to provide a scathing examination of the misogyny ingrained within society in a supposedly civilised age, especially when justified ‘for the greater good’. By swapping the villains for a science fiction hacker network in Spider’s Weband putting Salander in prison anyway in Eye For An Eye, Lagercrantz’s work suggests he wasn’t interested in continuing one of the core themes of the series.

-      The original books, while not being hot-blooded erotic works, contained several scenes of a sexual nature. Lagercrantz’s follow-ups often come across as sterile and sexless. Their absence is especially conspicuous in notable womaniser Blomkvist’s scenes. Coupled with Figuerola’s absence, and he appears deliberately neutered for no other reason than Lagercrantz’s discomfort with covering the topic. Which again begs the question as to why Larsson’s family thought him the best author to continue the series?

-      Lagercrantz’s additions are notably more episodic, with only passing references to past adventures. Had he been asked to continue the series if only the relatively standalone Dragon Tattoowas the only available novel, this would be an understandable strategy and would have lead to a relatively understandable change. However, two very layered and intertwined volumes stand between Dragon Tattoo and Lagercrantz’s efforts, and his efforts to force the series into a more conventional thriller format are akin to locking the gate after the horse has bolted. 

-      By making the unique and non-conforming figure of Lisbeth Salander a guest in her own series, Lagercrantz effectively smothers one of the series’ biggest draws.

Conclusion

Overall, Lagercrantz’s follow-ups are not necessarily bad books on their own, it’s just that they are ill-fitting at best with the rest of Larsson’s series and clearly betray their germination from a dubious legal tangle.

It’s disheartening to see a series once so unique become so anonymous so quickly.

That said, the series was fairly wrapped up as a trilogy if left alone so one can still enjoy Larsson’s work as it stands.

Lagercrantz’s additions are ultimately unnecessary to the series’ main arc of achieving Lisbeth Salander’s freedom.

Lacgerantz’s style is frustratingly timid and tame, he seems afraid of dealing with the serious and controversial content of Larsson’s series, yet he presses on.

As a Millennium fan, I’m likely to read his next addition to the series, and I am hopeful that his work will continue to improve.