TimC

The complications that come with bats being reportedly present in the cavities of a property one's attempting to purchase. We'd have no problems with them, but the mortgage people differ. As bats and their roosts are legally protected, I'm still trying to discover what they want us to do.

I am, however, quite enjoying reading about Bats And The Law, Bat Crime and Bat Monitoring, and calling the Bat Helpline.

I just laughed till tears came down my cheeks, Tim. Are you in Finland?.

I was in Helsinki for a few days on business. Ate a lot of reindeer, drank fine local beers, visited some islands, mocked the American cruiseshippers complaining about the price of a sandwich in Subway (mostly because the overheard discussion included the phrase "That's socialism for you.").

Bear steak. I find I like bear steak.

I was a bit worried it might be in some way unethical, but checked with some Finnish colleagues, and no complaints arose. So long as it's not served in a little duffel coat with a marmalade glaze.

So it's not a Harry Brearley biopic? I'm frankly disappointed.

Official statement -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2013/matt-smith-doctor-who.html

Not too sorry to see him go, though it seems like he's barely started. I'd prefer to see a change of showrunner.

Something for fans of Who and obscure English rural customs.

Ashford well dressings, Derbyshire, May 2013. Not bad likenesses, apart from the Pertwee.

I very much enjoyed that. In all, I'd say the run since 'The Snowmen' has been the best since Moffat took over - a pleasant surprise, given the preceding short run. I'm not sure it all makes sense, exactly, but it's been a good ride.

And yes, I squee'd several times.

That's it for Dial H, then -

DIAL H #15

Written by CHINA MIEVILLE

Art by ALBERTO PONTICELLI and DAN GREEN

Cover by BRIAN BOLLAND

On sale AUGUST 7 • 48 pg, FC, $4.99 US • RATED T+ • FINAL ISSUE

This extra-sized conclusion to the epic DIAL H series has all the answers you’ve been looking for, and more questions you didn’t even think to ask! Stay on the line! The entire universe is at stake!

The only surprise is that the trade was solicited to issue 16.

I've not read this adaptation. I read the original novel and thought it was pretty poor. It could be the case that Mina's adaptation makes something better of it, but that would have to involve a thorough reworking which would doubtless upset fans of the novel.

I suspect DC has missed the boat on this, as the Larsson fad seems to have mercifully passed. I hope the hackwork paid well, because it's a waste of Mina's talents.

Like an awful lot of Ellis's work, his run seemed to mostly be about whatever he'd been reading or watching that month. I'd been reading a lot of Derek Raymond myself around the same time, and his (ahem) homage in 'Haunted' wasn't terribly inspired. The 'Men Behind the Sun' one seemed particularly blatant.

The most solidly enjoyable episode this season, I'd say - nothing groundbreaking, but some good twists and (an increasing rarity) nothing terribly cringeworthy. There's always a place in Who for a base-under-seige runaround story, and this was a thoroughly decent one.

For myself I could have done without that pre-credits bit, if only because it means that Sally Sparrow is now the only significant non-antagonist female character the Doctor has met under Moffat's pen who he didn't first befriend as a young girl

Without wanting to reopen that whole canonicity can of memory worms, that does rather depend on whether you count Moffat's original story, 'What I Did In My Christmas Holidays - By Sally Sparrow'.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/s4/features/stories/fiction_blink_the_original_story_01

M John Harrison's 'Climbers' is being republished -

http://ambientheotel.wordpress.com/2013/04/11/a-new-edition-of-climbers/

This is very very good news. Superb book, even if you're not a climber. It's about obsession and escape.

And, more specifically, it has probably the best writing about the landscape and atmosphere of the south Pennines since Ted Hughes.

The line about having been to a parallel universe where the laws of physics were subject to the whims of a madman? I read that as a reference to Omega in 'The Three Doctors', but yeah, it fits just as well as a nod to 'The Mind Robber'.

Or to the Moffat years, really. Though maybe with 'madman' replaced with an epithet that may cause offence.

So I'm sure even Banks' later, more realised SF books won't interest me, no matter how well they're written.

Well-written is not a phrase I'd use to describe 'Surface Detail', at least.

Have any of the M Banks fans here read M John Harrison's later scifi? I thought 'Light' and 'Empty Space' were superb, but wonder if anyone prefers 'Nova Swing'?

'Surface Detail' closes with a last-page revelation about a character's name, which is a reference to one of the other books published 20-odd years earlier. Nice for the fans, maybe, but really fucking annoying for the casual reader.

Think of the blond, British actors who've worked with Del Toro before who might be suitable for the role.

There's one obvious candidate for playing Constantine: Luke Goss.

Now, imagine if someone had suggested that in the late 80s...

So... yeah.

John Constantine Is The Lead Character Of Guillermo Del Toro’s DC Movie

During the Wondercon panel for Pacific Rim this afternoon, Guillermo Del Toro seized the inevitable question about his “Justice League Dark” project, Heaven Sent, aka Dark Universe, and absolutely smashed it back.

The lead character of the film, he announced, would be John Constantine. And a blond John Constantine at that. A British John Constantine? Apparently he didn’t say.

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/03/30/john-constantine-is-the-lead-character-of-guillermo-del-toros-dc-movie/

I saw Trance. OK, but Danny Boyle has still only made two and a half good films.

You're not reading Constantine, Tim?

Short answer: no.

Long answer: good shitting christ, noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Based on the latest DC trade solicitations, I will bet a shiny penny that Dial H will be cancelled (or old China will leave) with issue 16.

This would leave me DC-free for the first time in 25 years or so. So it's not all bad.

A damn fine issue. I would have liked to see Smith do more with the book (certainly in preference to yer Careys and Diggles), especially given his comment in the post linked above -

I think Constantine does work best when he’s grounded in more mundane situations rather than fighting demons and angels and all those naff horror tropes…

And if you do digital stuff and have 99c to spare -

http://www.comixology.com/Hellblazer-51/digital-comic/ICO001055

In The Flesh was indeed really rather good. A new twist on a hoary horror trope, mixed with northern kitchen sink and a heavy dose of not-too-subtle satire - pretty much my ideal mix.

If it keeps up the quality of the first episode, I'd say best thing of its kind on the telly since that one good series of Torchwood, and best zombie thing since 28 Days Later.

Anthropomorphic animals from children's books doing self-consciously inappropriate swearing/violence/sex isn't exactly a groundbreaking concept, is it? Even Mark Millar's done it, let alone any number of comic parodies going back to Tijuana bibles (and almost certainly before). That particular issue was also rather reminiscent of the coyote issue of Morrison's Animal Man.

More generally, the intro to the first collection (by the Fables bloke, I think) specifically talks about the booming genre of literary-based fantasy. Stories about story-telling and the power of narrative have been a staple (or cliche) of Vertigo since Sandman (Milligan's Greek Street is another recent, not entirely successful, example). There's any number of shared-fictional-universe comics out there - LoEG is the standout, of course, and Moore freely acknowledges there's nowt new in the idea.

The 'Am I real or a fictional character?' schtick is a very basic postmodernist trope - even Hellblazer did it in an early issue.

There's plenty of interesting things that might be done with these old ideas but, based on the first couple of volumes and his other work, I'm not convinced that Carey's the chap to do it. On the other hand, at least it's less grating than those Jasper Fforde novels.