Book Review:- The Difference Engine (1990)

The Difference engine is a 1990 steampunk novel co authored by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling.

In a departure from the two authors speciality in the cyberpunk genre, the novels plot takes place in an alternate late 19th century in which Charles Babbage's mechanical computer (the titular "Difference Engine") was considerably more successful than it was in our reality, thus starting the computer revolution at least 100 years earlier than it occurred in our "prime" universe.

As such, the British Empire became considerably more powerful than it did in actuality, and the use of these early computers has kick started a social revolution within the empire, where the hereditary peerage system has been scrapped and replaced with a meritocracy which actively promotes learning and speciality in the "practical" sciences, as such, figures such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Charles Babbage and Lord Byron occupy high places within the government (with Byron being the Prime minister for most of the novel after deposing the Duke of Wellington who had seized power in a violent coup d'etat).

The closest rival that the British Empire faces is France, who also have their own computers (which they call "Ordinateurs"), and in this reality, the United States is made up of a series of smaller countries, all of whom don't particularly get on with each other, named ones include the "Union of States", the "Confederate States of America", "The Republic of Texas" and the "Manhattan Commune" (a communist state which occupies most of new york state).

The plot of the book itself is made up of a series of vignettes, each one concentrating on a series of characters who fit in with the overall story arc, this overall story arc concerning the ownership of a box of punch cards containing a computer program, the use of which is speculated about by many of the characters but only actually revealed in a small paragraph right at the end of the book, meaning the punch cards simply act as a "mcguffin" of sorts, with no effect on the plot other than the fact that they exist.

The vignettes are usually prefaced by some sort of passage, written in the style of a police report, a news report or a diary entry from one of the other characters explaining the setting and background to the events, before the storyline begins proper.
This can be somewhat confusing in places, as the books overall plot does not strictly follow a linear time line, and the prose itself is written fully in the style of how it would have been written and spoken in the 19th century, thus it contains many archaic terms and turns of phrase that the uninitiated reader may struggle to make sense of, as well as some forms or social etiquette which have long since fallen out of use but which were quite common at the time.
It should also be pointed out that although this book is set in the "prim and proper" Victorian era, it does indeed contain numerous sexual scenes, described in detail, most notably occurring during the sections dealing with the character "Edward Mallory".

All in all, the novel is a fairly good piece of alternative history fiction, albeit a difficult one to read, and will require some research being done for those who are not familiar with the time period or the concepts being discussed.

Thunderbirds are GO! & Thunderbird 6

During the 1960s, Gerry Anderson was a very, very busy man, but only really so after his series "Thunderbirds" proved to be somewhat considerably more successful than imagined.

Due to this sudden surprise success, with its mix of sci-fi, action and adventure, along with some spectacular (even to this day) miniature special feffects, after the TV series itself had finished, it got a series of movie spin offs, which was very unusual and almost unheard of at the time.

Thunderbirds are GO! (1966)

Riding on the coat tails of the successful airing of the first series, the first theatrical Thunderbirds movie came just in time for christmas 1966 (a decision that in no way was made in order to sell toys....), "Thunderbirds are GO!" tells the story of the attempt to successfully land a manned mission on Mars. However, this being a sci-fi action film, it don't go according to plan, and after a bit of interference from International Rescues nemesis, the Evil Hood, the "Zero-X" mission ends in absolute disaster.
2 years later, and a second mission takes place, this time however the people in charge of the space exploration agency decide to have International Rescue act as security guards (erm, yeah, makes sense....) in order to ensure this launch goes smoothly, which it does, eventually, with the mission being successful up until the point that the astronauts discover some ridiculous aliens living on Mars and run away screaming and return to Earth, where their landing promptly turns to shit but International rescue is on hand to help save the day etc...The End...

This film didn't do very well at the box office, which to be fair, isn't surprising due to the fact that although the episode is a respectable 93 minutes in length, it really does feel like they took a standard 47 minute unused TV episode script and tacked in some "filler" to pad it out...a fact which becomes dead obvious when the side story about Alan Tracy fantasising over Lady Penelope begins being "developed", which interestingly enough features a cameo appearance by "Cliff Richard jr".
All in all though, "Thunderbirds are GO!" is disappointing, it really needed to concentrate more on the goings on of the Zero-X mission and less on Alan Tracys wank fantasies.That said though, two years later, Thunderbirds got another theatrical outing...

Thunderbird 6 (1968)

Intended to be a "summer blockbuster", Thunderbird 6 turned up in mid July 1968, and unlike the previous attempt at making a film version of the popular TV series, this film actually tried to keep in the spirit of adventure of the original show, as opposed to trying to make the film series a more hard sci fi with some bizarre character development stuff tacked on.

Thunderbird 6s plot revolves around Skyship One, the latest creation to come out of the mind of "Brains". Skyship One is a massive airship powered by a nuclear reactor and kept aloft by using advanced anti gravity engines, which at first was laughed at but once built it proves to be a very stable and magnificent ship.
Unfortunately, Skyship Ones maiden voyage is far from glamourous as the Evil Hood has hatched a diabolical plan to use it as a distraction to lure International rescue out so he can hijack their vehicles and do horrible things with them like sell their designs to DIRTY COMMUNISTS!111!!!1!, or something.
The "Thunderbird 6" that the film is named after turns out to be not some new and ultra modern rescue vehicle, but an old DeHavilland Tiger Moth biplane, which is used in the films climax to save the day.

Again, this film performed poorly at the box office, and thus until the renewed interest in the Thunderbirds TV series that occurred during the early/mid 1990s, along with some 1970s/80s compilation "movies", Thunderbirds faded into memory, with its next cinematic outing not being until the release of the god awful 2004 effort which might as well have been called "Spy Kids: Rescue Adventure!".

Apocalypse How? - Annihilation Earth (2009)

So, the prologue...

In 1964, a clever chap by the name of Peter Higgs had this idea that there must be some way to explain why some elementary particles had mass and some didn't, and after a lot of very difficult maths had been done, the idea of the "Higgs Boson" was bandied about. Unfortuneately for Mr Higgs though, the technology of the time wasnt able to validate his theory, so he went on to do some more very difficult sums and discovered some other stuff which got scientists all in a kerfuffle.

In 2008, construction on a very big piece of equipment called the "Large Hadron Collider" was completed, and the boffins collectively spunked in their trousers because now they had the equipment they needed in order to find out if Mr. Higgs was either a genius, or was simply talking out of his arse.

5 years after that, it turns out he is in fact, a genius, and he was awarded a nobel prize for his ability to do incredibly hard maths.


The film...

Annihilation Earth is a 2009 SyFy original movie, starring Luke Goss, Marina Sirtis (who for some reason seems to be under the impression she can do a convincing "southern drawl" accent) and Colin Salmon, as well as some other people who Ive never heard of.

Set in the year 2020, the film establishes that after the Higgs Boson was proved to exist, a related technology, called EVE (an acronym for "Electromagnetic Vacuum Energy") now provides cheap and limitless power to most of western Europe via a series of three linked super colliders.

The lead scientist in the EVE organisation (Goss), is worried that the EVE technology can easily be weaponised and turned into a "Total conversion" weapon (basically, a weapon that converts all matter into energy with near 100% efficiency). This paranoia isn't helped when his ambitious and politically savvy boss (Sirtis) , announces her intention to use the promise of foreign nations being allowed access to EVE in exchange for money and political favours, and it is compounded when his best mate, (Salmon) and fellow scientist seemingly becomes involved to Arab terrorists, shortly after giving him a chilling warning about how terrorists are known to be planning some sort of shennanigans with one of the three colliders in Europe.
These paranoid thoughts are soon confirmed when the collider facility in Orleans has a meltdown, seemingly caused by sabotage.

As the story rolls on, there's a lot of scientific talk about Higgs fields and "doomsday equations", a lot of posturing about the peaceful use of nuclear energy etc, and some healthy doses of paranoia, but, as it turns out, the network of colliders turns out to be a fantastically effective doomsday weapon...so it does.

So yeah, this film isn't too bad, although it does take some liberties with the science fact so as to make it more palatable to science fiction, and the film does take itself very, very seriously at times, but it is nonetheless a half decent bit of B-list sci-fi storytelling.

I give it 7 debasements of science out of 10.

Apocalypse How? - Stonehenge Apocalypse (2010)

So, yeah, I said i was gonna write about something less depressing, so the first thing I chose was...an apocalypse film......


*ahem*

So, the silly sounding title aside, "Stonehenge Apocalypse" is a made for TV Sci-fi disaster movie which fist aired on the Syfy channel in 2010.
Starring no one of any note or importance, this low/mid budget piece of sci-fi B-list material manages to make use of both pseudo-science, pseudo-archeology AND an "end of days" storyline to produce something which although full of poor acting, cheap CGI effects, plot holes and some inexcusable technical gaffes, is actually highly entertaining.

yes, it is...really.


The plot goes like this:-

An archeological dig in Maine unearths an egyptian tomb, which then causes the stones at Stonehenge to begin moving about and releasing wave after wave of deadly electromagnetic radiation.
A disgraced astrophysics professor, who now presents an internet radio show from his basement hears of this event and travels to Stonehenge to unravel the mystery of the moving stones and in the end manages to validate several of his crackpot theories regarding ancient astronauts, out of place artifacts and several apocalyptic prophecies as foretold by "the ancient writings" (whatever they are, because they are never explicitly referenced).
Cue a rip roaring adventure which sees a group of hippies try to become the only survivors of the end of the world and some military gung ho explosions and machine gun shooting, with a bit of a plot twist which I never saw coming about two thirds of the way through.

Yeah, I liked this film, even though the story is ridiculous and the acting is terrible, but, if you ignore all this and just sit and watch it, this film is entertaining, which is what a film is supposed to be.

I give it 7 crystal skulls out of 10

Aint War Hell? - The Divide (2012)

The Divide is a 2012 sci-fi/psychological thriller type film, dealing with the trials of a group of survivors who hide in a basement to escape a nuclear war.

The film is somewhat different to most "post nuclear" films as it makes no effort to explain how or why the war happened, or indeed how life goes on in the fallout riddled aftermath, instead, the film concentrates on the breakdown of human morality following a harrowing and extremely life changing event.

Although the film gets a little slow in places, which is unsurprising given its subject matter, and lacks any kind of deep meaningful scenes or action packed edge of your seat type bits, the whole aspect of people "going rotten" is well explored and realistically portrayed.
The film itself also doesn't make use of "A-list" actors in much capacity, the only names in this film I recognise are Michael Biehn and Rosanna Arquette, both of whom play pivotal characters and do so extremely well.

The film begins with nuclear missiles raining down on New York City. Eight residents of an apartment block force their way into the ex-military survivalist caretakers fallout shelter in the basement of the building hoping to live through the terrible events going on above ground.
The "survivors" are an eclectic mix of people, a young couple, a mother and her preteen daughter, two brothers and a shy reclusive man.
Very quickly, the caretaker (Biehn) tries to assert his dominance over the group, but ultimately fails due to the combined efforts and wills of the younger men.
Shortly after they lock themselves in, the shelter is invaded by masked soldiers of indeterminate origin (it is never explained who these soldiers are) who kidnap Wendis (Arquette) daughter. the survivors successfully manage to repulse the invaders, killing one of them and taking some of their weapons. One of the men, Josh, volunteers to dress in the dead soldiers uniform and go outside to see if he can find a way for them all to escape, when he does so, he instead finds that the outside is a series of plastic sheeting corridors, which lead to some sort of laboratory, in which he finds Wendis daughter seemingly having medical experiments being performed on her, as well as other children all locked in deep freeze units. His disguise is rumbled quickly by one of the other soldiers within the bizarre complex and he beats a hasty retreat back to the shelter, killing some of the soldiers as he flees.
After he returns, the soldiers weld the metal door of the shelter shut, thus preventing their escape.

Resigning themselves to being trapped within the small basement shelter, the survivors begin to lose hope, and over time, begin turning somewhat insane.
Firstly, after arguments over food and supplies begin breaking out, the survivors find that the caretaker has a secret room which is crammed full of food and clean drinking water, his punishment for not revealing this, as well as for killing one of their number in "self defence" is a lengthy torture session, carried out by Bobby and Josh, who emerge as the dominant members of the group, followed by him being tied to a chair and left to starve in a back room.
Bobby also begins physically and sexually abusing Wendi, as she has become completely apathetic upon learning her daughter is dead, even going so far as to tell Eva, the only other female survivor, that she should begin allowing the men to have sex with her on a regular basis in order to make themselves all feel better.
As time passes, Bobby and Josh become degenerates, and begin indulging in various bizarre sexual rituals, while all the time very obviously suffering from the early stages of radiation poisoning, for example, Bobby begins wearing Wendis clothes and make up, while Wendi is usually seen wearing only a dressing gown or makeshift clothes made from gaffer tape.
Eva and Adrien try and figure out another way to escape, and their breakthrough comes when the caretaker reveals that they could escape by swimming through the septic tank and going out through the sewers.
Things come to a head when it is discovered that Bobby and/or Josh have killed Wendi in the process of abusing her, and open fighting breaks out.
The caretaker reveals he has another gun hidden in his safe room and it ends up getting used to kill Bobby, but then Josh immolates himself, leaving Adrien and the caretaker scrambling to escape the flames, while Eva locks them out of the toilet, and, taking the dead soldiers NBC suit earlier worn by Josh, she escapes through the sewers, leaving the other two men to be burned to death.

The ending of the film is somewhat depressing, as all through the film Eva and Adrien struggle to maintain their relationship, but she happily abandons him when it looks like she might be killed, and the final scene shows her walking through a completely destroyed New York, whose streets are litters with the skeletons of people killed by nuclear blasts.

This isn't a bad film, but its really, really hard going in the middle, as the films subject matter is wholly dependant on character development, which fortunately, this film does really well.
This film will most certainly NOT appeal to all, especially those looking for action scenes etc or mystery, but its a nice enough film to get you thinking about human nature.

I give this film 6 megatons out of 10

Dystopiarama:- Life After People (TV series 2009-2010)

"Life After People" is a History Channel documentary series produced between 2009 and 2010, and thus far has had two complete series plus its initial 90 minute "special" episode.

The series postulates what would happen to the Earth should mankind suddenly vanish, and also explores what would mankinds legacy to the universe be should this happen.

The series' tagline is "Welcome to Earth, population: Zero".

The initial 90 minute episode takes a look at various subjects, mostly concentrating on the subjects of how animals would cope without humans, and also the matter of urban decay.
The series version, which runs at approx 50 minutes per episode, expands on these concepts, with each episode having a particular theme, such as the fate of various building types, the long term effects of human mechanisation and technology, and the effect that pollution would have after we have gone and are not around to stop it.

The series makes no attempt to explain why humans have gone, they just have, and all the episodes show time from "today" (i.e, early 21st century) and extends forward, up to 1 million years into the future in the case of one episode.

The series can make for rather depressing viewing at times, for example, all those fluffy little pet animals would not fare so well without their owners to look after them, and many farm animals such as dairy cows would die from starvation, whereas other creatures, such as house cats, horses, raccoons and rats would do very well freed from the constraints of human intervention. A special mention also goes to head lice, who would become extinct within two weeks due to the complete loss of their only available food source.
One episode concentrates on the legacy of pollution left behind, showing how nuclear waste and hazardous chemicals would cause horrendous environmental damage after their containment systems begin to break down within the first 50 years or so, and the incredible amount of time it would take for nature to recover from the mass chemical or radioactive poisoning that would result.
Another bizarre twist is an episode which looks at what would happen to buried or preserved human corpses in the years that followed, where, due to lack of maintenance, human corpses would not only provide a feast for the animals that remain, but would also end up becoming something akin to the crude oil that we use by the gallon now.

On a plus note, the series takes a fairly in depth look at the way nature would quickly reassert its dominance over the Earth one we have gone, with cities quickly giving way to the regrowth of plants and trees and natural water flows sweeping away concrete dams.
Glimpses into the far future show cities such as London, Washington D.C and Seattle becoming marshlands or even being completely covered by water, and even show that in the far, far future, bacteria from Earth my spread life from Earth to other planets both in and outside of Earths solar system due to them stowing away on the various space probes launched during mans time on Earth.

The series itself is quite enjoyable, albeit very dry in some places, and should you wish to view it, you can do so, click HERE

Aint War Hell? - The Day After (ABC 1983)

The Day After is a 1983 American TV movie starring Steve Guttenberg, John Lithgow, Bibi Besch and a whole list of others Ive never heard of.

Again this film depicts the events leading up to, during, and after a global nuclear war circa the early 1980s, concentrating on the lives of a small group of people who live in and around the area of Kansas City.

Like both "The War Game" and "Threads", the build up to the war itself takes place off screen, this time round, the war is caused by a Soviet build up of troops in East Berlin, which quickly degenerates into a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, leading to open conflict  worldwide, and eventually the launch of ICBMs.

The characters followed throughout the main plot are as follows:-

Dr Oakes - a fairly affluent doctor at one of Kansas Citys main hospitals. At the time that the first Soviet missiles destroy the main bulk of the city, he is on his way to give a lecture at the university of Missouri but gets stuck on the road after the EMP effects of the first missiles knock his car out of commission. He returns to the hospital and spends several weeks struggling to treat survivors, before finally succumbing to the effects of radiation sickness. A poignant scene is where at the end of the film, he manages to return home to find his house has become a smoking crater, and the only remains of his family is his wife's smashed wristwatch.

The Dahlberg family - Farmers from rural Kansas. The Dahlbergs farm is surrounded by missile silos, and on the day of the war they are preparing for their eldest daughters wedding. When the war breaks out, they take shelter in their cellar, and are eventually joined by Stephen Klein.

Stephen Klein - A medical student on his way home when the war started. Stephen finds himself caught in the open as the bombs start falling and takes cover inside which saves his life. He makes his way on foot back to the city but stumbles across the Dahlberg house on his way there, where he becomes like a surrogate son to them. At the end of the film, Stephen is suffering from the early stages of radiation sickness but has formed a relationship of sorts with the Dahlbergs eldest daughter.

Professor Huxley - A teacher at the university of Missouri. Professor Huxley provides most of the films "science bits", as well as several healthy doses of cynicism throughout, especially over mankinds chances of long term survival.


The film is marked by several very harrowing scenes, including people being vaporised by the initial nuclear blast, piles of dead human and animal corpses, people descending into savagery and all the usual stuff youd expect form this type of film.
One bit that jumps out for me though, it one scene where, shortly after the war has ended, people gather in the ruins of a church near the Dahlbergs home to listen to a sermon given by a scarred and burned priest, who cannot even bring himself to complete it due to the absolute obvious fact that its words, in which he attempts to extoll gods glory by stating that the faithful will be protected, whilst standing in the burnt out rubble of his church surrounded by wounded and dying parishioners in a country which is now lying in ruins and packed stalked by death.

A caption at the end of the film states that the film is a work of fiction, but is based on fact, and that the film makers intentionally toned down the effects of a nuclear conflict in order to make the story more beleviable, and that they hoped it would give those in positions of power something to think about.

Oddly enough, it did, as President Reagan was said to have viewed the film and bore it in mind when he pursued nuclear disarmament talks in the late 1980s.


As for my opinion on this film, id have to say that its a pretty good one, although it sacrifices the harsh realities of "Threads" in order to make the film more viewable to family audiences.

If you want to watch this movie, click HERE