You May Have Missed... Links 02/09/08

Yesterday was a day of moving and carrying heavy things but weirdly the only things that ache are my forearms.  You'd think those muscles would be pretty well broken in by now... ahem.

• Fabio Fernandes at Post-Weird Thoughts asks "Is Gentlemen of the Road New Weird?".  The answer? yes given that everything can be examined in terms of everything but what is interesting about the book is that Judaism fills the spaces that would traditionally be filled by fantasy.  As an atheist, I can see the attraction for this view but I doubt the Jewish Defense League would agree with me.

• io9 has a story about a sequel to Neil Marshall's excellent The Descent.  Apparently they are resurrecting a character who clearly died and are working on the assumption that the main protagonist escaped from the caves, which she didn't.  This is a needless sequel to a film that worked well as a stand alone.  The only way they're able to create a sequel is by ret-conning the original.  This will not end well.

• Pete Gelderblom at The House Next Door republishes an excellent essay about realism and verisimilitude in fiction.  Wish I'd read this a few days ago as I was struggling over the weekend to voice why I thought that series 5 of The Wire didn't work as well as series 5.

• Nader Elhefnawy at The Fix has a rather splendid overview of the various arguments supporting the idea that science fiction may well be in decline as a genre.

• Faren Miller at Locus reviews Ekaterina Sedia's The Alchemy of Stone.

Comments

[Martin]

Apparently they are resurrecting a character who clearly died and are working on the assumption that the main protagonist escaped from the caves

Oh dear. Does this plus Doomsday spell the death of the brand?

[Jonathan M]

I thought Doomsday had its moments actually...

Weirdly though, Marshall seems to not be involved in the sequel to The Descent.

[Nick]

Actually, in the US release the protagonist does make it out of the caves (it ends a few minutes before the UK release, with her in the car seeing ghosts). Juno's a bit more of a stretch, although she doesn't actually die on camera in either version. Agreed it's a completely unnecessary sequel. Marshall isn't directly involved, but I think the director was the original's editor or something.

[Jonathan M]

Yeah, I thought I'd read something along those lines (the US getting a softer ending) but I couldn't find the reference to check and so I didn't mention it. I do find it amusing that effectively, this film won't make any sense if you aren't aware of the US version.