A strange one. Bret Easton Ellis does Bret Easton Ellis does Stephen King. I enjoyed it, but I’m not sure what I think about it.

Few of the comic characters of my childhood have stayed with me the way that Doomlord has: perhaps as a result of its unusual presentation as a photostrip (it later reverted to a more conventional drawn format), perhaps because of its uncompromising tone. More than twenty years later, I can still vividly remember following its twists and turns with grim and occasionally horrified fascination: it was one of the more unusual offshoots of the bleakly apocalyptic scifi of the early Eighties.

Created by Alan Grant and John Wagner, Doomlord had the same nihilistic feel to it as many other prominent strips of the time. (And stands in almost hilarious contrast to the clean-cut derring-do of Dan Dare, Eagle’s jut-jawed champion). Like Grant and Wagner’s own Judge Dredd, Doomlord is a profoundly antiheroic character, meting out brutal justice that pays scant attention to the rights of the individual, favouring the abstract letter of the law over social or humane concerns. Doomlord kills innocents left, right and centre even when he’s being a goodie: his actions are calculations of the greater good made flesh.

This point is made robustly on the very first page of Doomlord: The Deathlords of Nox, when Doomlord vaporises a hurtling lorry - and its hapless driver - to save the lives of a mother and baby. “A human life has been lost, but two have been saved!” he rationalises as he slips away from the scene. This is actually the second Doomlord, and the fourth Doomlord story; Servitor Vek is “oddly fond” of humanity, which he (unlike his predecessor) believes has the potential for greatness. That’s why he’s refused his orders to destroy the species, and is now effectively a fugitive.

Doomlord’s affection for mankind is clearest in the rather odd scenes in which Doomlord, disguised as a travelling salesman, chats amiably with his landlady about such domesticities as a trip to Butlins (!); and he’s given a reprieve from the Deathlords’ onslaught by his ability to convince a family that they should give him refuge. Even though he is at that point a dog with an alien’s head. But then again, he garners the “evidence” and abilities he needs to press his case by murdering random passers-by. The usual sops – only picking on bad guys, and so on – don’t apply: he’s an equal-opportunity killer, taking out anyone whose sacrifice he deems necessary to the cause. So ultimately the good Doomlord isn’t very different, in his methods, to the bad Doomlord; only his ultimate goal differs. Or to put it another way: he’s still a bastard, but he’s our bastard.

Mind you, Doomlord is practically a Fotherington-Thomas compared to the Deathlords of Nox, sent to wipe him out and complete the extermination of humankind. (You’ve gotta love a bunch of assassins called “Deathlords”: no beating around the bush for the Servitors of Nox). They think nothing of zapping anyone who gets in their way, but this fails to have the desired effect. So they up the ante by embarking on what would these days be called “mega-terrorism” to persuade Doomlord to give himself up, including crashing a passenger jet into the Forth Bridge and compelling the entire population of a town to commit mass suicide.

This might sound lurid, and so it is. But it’s also possessed of a bleak humour—and, somewhat unexpectedly, is highly effective at conveying a sense of urgency that overcomes the pulpy nature of the story. Part of this is down to the artwork, which does a good job of incorporating Doomlord’s preposterousness into a convincing British backdrop; but a lot of it is down to the writing, which, apart from the inevitable recap at the beginning of each weekly strip, moves along briskly and without any hint of the directionless will-this-do quality that would overtake it in later years.

That’s not to say that it’s without its howlers. The Deathlords exclaim “Dissemble!” as they teleport; they later suggest that Doomlord has “learnt the Earth trait of loyalty”, before calling him a traitor to Nox, which rather suggests that they already know all about it. And I’d still rather have read the original photo-strip story, in all its icily weird glory. But overall, I was pleased that the strip held up after so many years, and that my fond memories of it weren’t exposed as little more than nostalgia. And the interlude in which Doomlord is caught up in the spirit of Christmas and becomes the world’s creepiest Santa Claus is worth the price of admission alone.

Fourth in a series of reviews. Previously: Third Year At Malory Towers. Next: In The Fifth At Malory Towers. Contains spoilers.

This is getting tiresome.

“Well, it’s all true,” said Gwendoline, forgetting her own record of deceit and unkindness, and not even realizing how she had distorted the facts, so that though most of them were capable of simple and kindly explanations, she had presented them as pictures of real badness.

Pot. Kettle. Black. I mean, come on Enid, play the game, eh? Or is this by way of a sly textual hint to the alert reader? Upper Fourth once again sees Blyton preaching a quixotic sermon on the virtues becoming to a schoolgirl - and once again, it’s difficult for me to accept the book’s age alone as sufficient justification for the perspective and opinions thus communicated. At some points - notably a critical scene in which Darrell confronts a snitch—the entire moral framework becomes so far removed from my own as to be virtually incomprehensible, much less sympathetic.

The tone is set early: the book sees Felicity, Darrell’s little sister, arrive at Malory Towers, as well as June, cousin (and proxy sister) to Alicia. June turns out to be remarkably self-possessed for a first-year, taking Felicity in hand and quickly becoming familiar with the workings of the school. This, we are told in no uncertain terms, is A Bad Thing. Quite why is never really explained. It just is, alright? This obviously reflects contemporary attitudes in British public schools, but it’s exasperating that Blyton puts so little effort into justifying these attitudes, or providing object lessons as to their relevance.

Instead, she just gets Darrell, fuming with sisterly jealousy, to spew them as received wisdom, presenting readers with barely any context from which to draw conclusions. June, in particular, is such a tool that she simply disappears once she’s served her purpose; there’s no closure to her story arc at all. One much-quoted “rule” of good fiction writing is “show, don’t tell”—but Blyton is very much a storyteller. Perhaps it’s the headmistress in her; and perhaps it’s what the intended audience for the Malory Towers books enjoy. Kids like structure and certainty, allegedly, and so maybe that’s one reason Blyton’s such a successful childrens’ author.

On the other hand, maybe the messages don’t come over as “intended” anyway. It’s difficult, as an adult, to remember the extent to which children can form their own opinions and avoid becoming a sanctimonious censor. I remember admiring smart-mouthed Alicia when I read First Term as a kid; a friend thought Zerelda, the vain American of Third Year, was the bees’ knees. Perhaps my reaction is more of a knee-jerk response based in my own prejudices than a fair reflection of Upper Fourth’s simplistic morality.

But I feel more secure in stating that Upper Fourth is probably the dullest of the books so far. There isn’t any of the “mild peril” (as the film classifiers like to put it) that informed First Term and Second Form; nor is there the thrilling exoticism (Americans! horses! lesbians!) of Third Year. Without these devices, Blyton is left recycling now rather tired and obvious themes and twists. Gwendoline is a snobby bitch (and she actually is, in this episode); unappealing weakling Clarissa turns out to be a boisterous horsewoman with flowing auburn locks and sparkling green eyes; a HILARIOUS prank is played on the half-witted Mam’zelle Dupont; and assorted girls learn valuable life lessons great and small.

The plot, such as it is, progresses through a suffocating miasma of bitchery, snobbery, sniping and scheming. When one of the girls eventually succumbs to ASBOid ranting, the effect is gratifyingly cathartic, but it wasn’t too long before I was crying out for a good old-fashioned cat-fight. All, I got, however, was Darrell pushing someone over in a music room. Again. They should really put CCTV in. Anyway, that’s about it for high drama. Even the illustrator’s struggled: the cover shows a girl playing tennis, which barely figures in the book. In fact, not a lot does figure in it; for most of the time, the girls are working towards exams, diverted only by a midnight feast and a couple of dull and sketchily described excursions.

The exams are one of the few hints that the girls are growing up, and may in the forseeable future have to depart the safe walls of Malory Towers for the wild world outside. Some of them are by now fifteen, but puberty is still mostly conspicuous by its absence, though there is the slenderest of hints that it might arrive by the time the girls reach twenty-one … so that’d be, like, Eleventh Year At Malory Towers? (To be followed by God, Let Me Out Of Malory Towers, All The Good Ones Are Taken At Malory Towers and Oh Well, There’s Always Gwendoline).

Other than the exams, and an unconvincing riff to the effect that With Great Power Comes With Great Responsibility, Upper Fourth’s major theme is sisterhood. Not being blessed with any siblings, I can only really guess at whether Blyton succeeds in capturing any of the flavour of such relationships. As well as Darrell/Felicity and Alicia/June, we also get Connie and Ruth, a pair of twins who seem to be set on heading into Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? territory. Connie’d be played by Bette Crawford, domineering and resentful of her more gifted but somewhat Aspergers-afflicted twin. Ruth, for her part, passive-aggressively expresses her rage by surreptitiously destroying Connie’s belongings and replacing them with her own.

Of course, she is eventually found out – amazingly, the girls have finally learnt something about mob justice and manage not to leap to the wrong conclusion. So the stage is all set for the twins to vent their frustrations in a close-quarters cage fight (no bladed weapons without prior consent, anything else goes) ... but Darrell, crazed by her lust for power, intervenes to explain that the real problem isn’t that they have an utterly dysfunctional relationship, but their unnatural zygotomy.

“It’s all very peculiar and extraordinary, but somehow quite understandable. It’s because you’re twins, I expect. Connie should have been your elder sister, then it wouldn’t have mattered! You could have loved each other like ordinary sisters do, and you’d have been in different forms, and things would have been all right. Cheer up, Ruth. It’s all been frightening and horrible to you, but honestly I can see quite well how it all happened.”

In other words: it’s okay to be browbeaten by your sibling and to revenge yourself through pathologically destructive behaviour as long as you’re not the same age. Handily, it turns out that Connie and Ruth are, in fact, to be separated next term, as the invisible hand of Malory Towers does its work. So that’s alright then. Rah for Malory Towers!

I guess it would be shallow to say “because the UK edition goes really well with my laptop”?

First episode wasn’t laugh-out-loud, but amusing and I like the concept. (The idea of good luck being cancelled out by bad seems to be doing the rounds at the moment – Hurley in Lost, those TV ads about “the balance being restored”. I did it in a story back in the early Eighties folks! But some pulp scifi author probably did it in 1941).

Well, I’m not watching it on “Sci-Fi Friday”, since I live in the UK.

Series 1 was great – proof that “reimaginings” don’t have to be rubbish, even if they usually are. Hopefully Series 2 will keep up the momentum, though I fear its potential to dissolve into technobabble and soap-opera continuity now that the basic direction’s been established.

Watched the first episode, enjoyed it, will probably be the first BBC1 drama I’ve followed in years. Assuming that I don’t lose interest/track half-way through, which is what usually happens.

Third in a series of reviews. Previously: Second Form At Malory Towers. Next: Upper Fourth At Malory Towers.
Contains spoilers.

A friend recently asked why I was persisting with my Malory Towers reviews “since they sound horrible”. Well, I decided to review two very different series - Malory Towers and Bond - for rather similar reasons. One reason is that they both constitute unfinished business from my childhood; another is that it’s amusing to see what I make of work intended for an audience that wouldn’t normally include me. A third is that both series are highly idiosyncratic, and strongly reflect their authors’ own peculiarities; it’s an interesting challenge to differentiate between genre and period conventions and authorial prejudices.

Third Year is probably most interesting for the last of these reasons. I’d been wondering, since starting this series, if Blyton would ever deal with puberty. Clearly, it would be unreasonable to expect her to deal with the subject with Just 17-style frankness, given her audience and vintage. (And if she had, it’d probably make the books far too creepy for me to read, much less review). But on the other hand, what’s the point of a chronological series if the girls don’t ever grow up?

Darrell and her friends are fourteen as the book opens, but Blyton sidesteps any direct mention of adolescence by dealing with its signifiers rather than puberty itself. The book essentially tells parallel tales of the ambitions of four very different girls, and what becomes of them as they pursue their dreams. Blyton is clearly flexing her authorial muscles: as well as this radical new structure, she also gives her central characters an extra dimension this time round. (Admittedly, that still makes them only two-dimensional, but it’s a start).

The weakest, dullest and least contentious of the four plotlines is the straightforward cautionary tale of Mavis, who is fixated with her (genuine) vocal talents to the exclusion of lacrosse, French and other critical Blytonite skills. The other girls are quick to put a dampener on her dreams of becoming a kind of proto-Charlotte Church at an upcoming talent show:

“It’s just a silly show put on to amuse the people of Billington! ... Can you honestly see Miss Grayling allowing Malory Towers’ girls to go to a thing like this and make themselves cheap and idiotic?”

Mavis, heedless, heads off on her mission to entertain the ‘umble folk. Of course we know perfectly well by now that it is Not Safe Outside. Only the School is Safe. The School. Nothing can happen to you if you only stay in The School. Sure enough, the journey ends in disaster, and Mavis pays a disturbingly high price for her hubris. That’ll teach her.

Mavis isn’t the only girl to have arrived fifty years too early for the X-Factor. Zerelda, a ludicrously named American import, thinks she’s going to be an actress. And that means she’s fixated with her appearance: why, she has Long Blonde Hair — which, as Gwendoline and Daphne have proven in previous books, is a sure sign of Trouble — as well as perfect nails, rosy cheeks and suspiciously red lips. Or to put it another way, she’s a bit like a teenage girl. And obviously, being American, she talks funny, has no idea of propriety and is poorly educated.

Naturally, everyone instantly realises that Zerelda is a bad ‘un, despite the fact that she’s almost always described as easy-going and good-humoured, and suffers considerable indignity with a good grace. Her sins are her vanity and tendency to judge by appearances — the latter being a bit rich, since that’s exactly what everyone at Malory Towers does to her: girls and teachers alike find her deeply threatening.

Zerelda never seemed to take offence, no matter how often anyone laughed at her or even jeered … She made the others feel small and young and rather stupid.

Like white blood cells swarming over an microbial intruder, the other occupants of Malory Towers rally to neutralise and transform her into “a nice little schoolgirl” like all the rest. (This has particularly weird undertones given that Zerelda’s actually nearly sixteen.) In any case, Zerelda’s ambitions turn out to be ill-founded. (The drama teacher tells her that actors have no ego or fondness for theatricality. Yeah, that sounds about right.) And once her spirit has been crushed, she scrubs down accordingly.

Zerelda’s treatment contrasts starkly with that afforded to Wilhelmina, another of the newcomers. Wilhelmina, under any objective assessment, is actually much more disruptive and badly behaved. But that’s alright, because she’s … uh, well, she’s basically a boy. She even prefers to be called Bill. But all the girls warm to her immediately, because, well, she’s a boy. But not in a dreamboat Cory way, obviously, more in a huntin-fishin-shootin way. Which is what all girls should be like. Boys, that is.

To make matters more complicated, Bill is horse-mad, which is quite neat, because it allows Blyton to shoehorn in an equine subplot, augmenting Third Year’s already considerable girl-appeal. But then, the writing also invites a reading in which Bill’s horse-madness presages boy-madness to come, as she spends much of her time day-dreaming about Thunder in class, mooning over pictures of him, sneaking off for illicit rendezvous, writing out her married name … Well, maybe not the last, but:

He was lovely, the way he welcomed Bill … showing her as plainly as possible that he adored every bit of his freckled little mistress.

Hopefully not really as plainly as possible, or there’ll be some awkward questions for Matron. So that’s Bill, the girl who’s a boy who likes a horse that’s a boy. Blur had nothing on this. But this blossoming romance fails to follow the conventional track - Thunder dumping Bill, who takes revenge by feeding sugarlumps to a much nicer stallion at the youth club disco - and instead opts for a more veterinary course as Thunder gets stomach-ache but is saved by an emergency application of purgative (thankfully off-camera), which wouldn’t make for much of a photostory in Jackie. Anyway, the upshot is that Bill learns a lesson, but (mostly) gets her way.

The fourth girl to get a close-up is, of course, Darrell Rivers, Enid Blyton’s alter ego in the Malory Towers books. This time, Darrell’s friend Sally is out of the picture for much of the book – quarantined, as is Alicia’s bosom buddy Betty. So Darrell and Alicia form a marriage of convenience – a cynical partnership that seems to have little to do with actual friendship. And as in First Term, all are very clear that there is only a fixed quantum of amity to go round:

Sally didn’t like Alicia and wanted Darrell’s entire friendship. Alicia didn’t see why she should give up Darrell’s companionship completely just because Sally had come back. Why not a threesome till Betty returned?

Why not indeed. (Stop sniggering at the back.) Binary friendships are once again the order of the day, except for poor old Gwendoline Mary, who has been reduced to being traded to and fro among the glam set, presumably for a pack of cigarettes and some nylons. Anyway, Darrell’s story is pretty simple: she wants to be on the lacrosse team and by dint of perserverance and hard work, she gets there.

That sets the scene for a pretty classic school-story ending, as Darrell wins a critical match and the girls unite to praise her — including the three mavericks, who have by this time learned that resistance is futile and settled into their new lives as Borg drones. But this reader felt somewhat cheated: I was hoping for a climactic scene in which Darrell’s explosive temper leads her to leap clawing upon Zerelda, screeching “You painted whore!”, before Bill whisks her up to sit behind her on Thunder, and they ride off into the sunset. But alas, that’s not how it goes. Maybe next time.

Second in a series of reviews.
Previously: First Term At Malory Towers.
Next: Third Year At Malory Towers

Contains spoilers.

So, Second Form at Malory Towers. Satirising Enid Blyton through puerile innuendo (if you’ll pardon the pun) is sooo1982. But dammit, it’s just too difficult to resist. Yes, girls have a tendency to develop innocently platonic crushes on each other (just as boys have a tendency to hero worship), but Second Form’s rather dated language makes it pretty difficult for a filthy modern mind to read the bizarre love triangle between Gwendoline, Mary-Lou and new girl Daphne as anything other than the synopsis of a Sapphic Seventies romp.

Gwen, at least, can be forgiven for wanting some sugar – Daphne is the first girl at Malory Towers to extend the hand of friendship. It’s hard not to feel a bit sorry for her: no sooner has she made her first, largely unobjectionable appearance than the other girls are bitching merrily about her. And so it goes for the rest of the book. Other than sucking up to Daphne and a bit of naughtiness after lights-out (yes, yes, move along), it’s hard to see what her offence really is in this book, but she’s nonetheless the object of scorn. And she probably still has ink on her shoes.

Mary-Lou, however, has no excuse: having fought the good fight to win Darrell’s love in First Term, her head is turned almost the instant that Daphne’s blonde locks enter the door. (Evidently she’s progressed from butch to femme during the holidays). And she’s apparently learnt nothing from her previous experience, trailing around like a kicked puppy-dog despite Daphne’s exploitation and apparent indifference. One has to wonder what her home life is like, to make her so starved of affection: something like Dave Pelzer’s, presumably.

In fact, Mary-Lou’s infatuation has the same near-disastrous consequences as in First Term, as her hormones, er, that is, her good-hearted nature leads her to take a stupid and entirely unnecessary risk that endangers both herself and others, although this time she’s the rescued rather than the rescuer. Presumably she grows up to be some sort of extreme sportswoman, albeit probably a crap one. A base jumper, or something. But as a kid, she’s a prime case for electronic tagging. Or possibly just a ball and chain.

Nor are Mary-Lou’s torrid relationship issues the only shameless retread from the first book in the series. The other major plotline concerns Ellen, a gloomy newcomer to the school who’s convicted of serious offences by a kangaroo court on the basis of purely circumstantial evidence, even as a far more obvious suspect goes unchallenged and no-one bothers to involve the teachers. Once again, Darrell (another one who learns nothing from experience, apparently) takes it upon herself to mete out a savage beating, whereupon Ellen is confined to the sanatorium, although no-one thinks it necessary to tell her schoolmates where she’s gone.

Admittedly, this is a hybrid of both Gwendoline’s and Sally’s stories from First Term- a literary remix, no less! Blyton was ahead of her time - but they don’t gain much from being unceremoniusly munged together. You would think that Sally (who has evolved, rather disappointingly, from a sororocidal goth to the sensible head girl) would understand, but other than expressing a few wimpy reservations, she lets the lynch mob do its work. The only note of originality is that Ellen’s a scholarship student who’s cracked under the pressure of going to a dead posh school. That’s what happens when commoners get ideas above their station.

This repetition wouldn’t matter so much if it weren’t for the fact that there’s little new in the rest of the book. Most of the remaining space is filled out by get a couple of pranks so innocuous by today’s standards as to raise few eyebrows. The girls find a way to use “invisible chalk” on their teachers’ backs: do they write “SLAG”, or draw the ever-popular spitting willy? No, they do not: they write “OY!” I find it hard to believe this was ever considered to be behaviour so uproarious as to cause the girls to descend into the hysteria described here.

The denouement, when it arrives, is painfully slow to unfold. But then perhaps that’s because I’m thirty-four, not eight. And we do get to see the headmistress, Miss Grayling, unfold her leathery wings and descend upon the miscreants with her flaming sword of justice. Well, alright, she just stares at them a bit and persuades them to Do The Right Thing. But that’s quite exciting enough, I can tell you.

This is the fifth in a series of reviews. Previously: Moonraker. Next: Blood Fever.

Diamonds Are Forever, the fourth outing for James Bond, is a rather different proposition to its predecessors, and mostly not in a good way. It’s sometimes regarded as one of the weaker books in the series – perhaps marking the turning point between Fleming’s initial attempts to find his voice and the more formulaic Bondage to come. Be that as it may (and since I haven’t read the later novels yet, I can’t really say) I found it to be the weakest of the books to date, for reasons of narrative, character and writing.

Diamonds’ plot is a skimpy thing. Bond’s mission is to infiltrate a diamond smuggling racket – apparently a matter of considerable concern to Queen and Country, for reasons that are hard to appreciate today. But this quickly dissolves into little more than a travelogue of moneyed American playgrounds ranging from Yankee racecourses to the bright lights of Vegas. This in turn gives way to a love story, of sorts, which then turns into some sort of cruise-ship potboiler. There’s little motive force behind the plot: the reader, rather like Bond, simply stumbles from one scene to the next.

The characters are also rather disappointing. With the exception of Tiffany Case, the engaging if implausibly soft-centred diamond smuggler, the baddies get little space to make their presence felt; there’s no real nemesis in this story and the would-be Big Bads barely make an appearance before being unceremoniously despatched. On the side of the angels, Felix Leiter reappears, surprisingly unembittered by the misfortune he suffered during his last adventure with Commander Bond—and just as well he does, because without him (and his cab-driving sidekick), Bond would spend much of Diamonds are Forever blundering about cluelessly.

That cluelessness is another of this book’s irritations. You could make a moderately plausible case for Bond’s character having developed between Casino Royale (in which he acts like an out-of-his-depth ingenue) and Moonraker (in which he has learnt some smarts and shows some moxie). But in Diamonds, Bond is back to bumbling about like a bull in the proverbial, apparently oblivious to much of his surroundings. For example, this is the first Bond book to stray away from an entirely linear narrative – a very small deviation, admittedly – but the effect is to of this experiment is largely to frustrate the reader, who will have spotted the twist, such as it is, long before OO7 does.

Bond also picks fights for no readily apparent reason other than personal peevishness; gets his allies into deep trouble, while persistently relying on them to bail him out of it; and triumphs, once again, largely because of his ability to tolerate (and perhaps even thrive) on imaginatively nasty physical punishment. (I knew the Bond books contained a strong element of sadism, but I hadn’t expected Bond to be so consistently on the receiving end). The rest of his success is really down to luck and only a little resourcefulness. After three such scenes in consecutive books, this is getting a little tedious: shouldn’t England’s finest secret agent be good at something other than playing the bottom in torture games?

Much of Diamonds is also written in an overtly sneering tone – in fact, the very stereotype of English condescension towards our American cousins. In some ways, this is the mirror image of Moonraker: in that book, the Wrongness is foreign treachery at the heart of the British Establishment; in this one, it’s the gauche corruption of those colonial types that only a true-blue Brit can put right. Much of Bond’s motivation for wiping out the gang seems to derive from little more than outrage at the crassness of Americans and their amusements – something of a volte-face from Live and Let Die, in which Bond (and Fleming) seem to be quite approving of America’s vibrancy, rather than offended by its vulgarity.

Diamonds are Forever also sees Fleming retreat somewhat from literary prose: there’s still the occasional neat turn of phrase, punctilious description and pacy action sequences; but overall the impression is of workmanlike copy. The scene-setting and dialogue has a will-this-do quality about it, and there’s substantial repetition of themes and language from the earlier books. (Most jarring, by the by, is the repeated use of the word “ironical”, which Fleming appears to use as a place-keeper whenever he can’t think of anything else).

All told, then, Diamonds Are Forever was something of a disappointment. There’s some anoraky fun to be had in spotting how various elements of the Bond formula, particularly as expressed in the movies, are starting to come together – but that’s not really sufficient grounds to recommend this book, quick and easy read though it is. I’d be tempted to give up on the Bond series at this point; but as it is, I’ve heard that the next in the series, From Russia With Love sees Fleming hit his stride. So on with Bond I go.