I will now force upon you the random things I've been listening to non-stop.

The following is what I hereby dub the "Summer 2009" playlist. It consists of a motley assortment of the songs I've been listening to far too often lately. Because I'm not entirely sure how to upload a playlist for iTunes and share it with the world (and by "world", I mean the 10 or so people who read this), I have provided YouTube links so that you may be privy to the awesome.

"You're Standing On My Neck" - Splendora
"The Well and the Lighthouse" - The Arcade Fire
"Air War" - Crystal Castles
"Hold Tight" - Dave Dee Dozy Beaky Mick and Tich
"Venus in Furs" - Siouxsie and the Banshees (Velvet Underground cover)
"Freeeeze!!" - Aural Vampire
"Chick Habit" - April March
"Soon" - My Bloody Valentine
"The Beginning is the End is the Beginning" - The Smashing Pumpkins
"Science Fiction, Double Feature" - Richard O'Brien, Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack

"Moon" (2009)

Directed by Duncan Jones. Starring Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey.

I actually hadn't heard anything about Moon until about four hours before I went to go see it, and searching it on Google briefly didn't lend much insight into what it was about. Essentially, I went into Moon thinking it was one of those tales of deep-space isolationism, in which the protagonist is accompanied only by his computer and the vast emptiness of space as he delves into eventual madness (i.e., I thought it was going to be a Space Odyssey rip-off). What it was, however, was a very inventive sci-fi with a touching sense of humanity.

The premise is deceptively simple: in the near future, astronaut Sam Bell (Rockwell) is sent to the moon in order to harvest helium-3, the standard source of fuel on Earth. He spends three years in isolation, alone save for the occasional video he receives from his wife Tess (Dominique McElligott) and his computer, GERTY (Spacey), a benevolent AI designed solely to ensure Sam's well-being. As he nears the end of his three-year contract, Sam eagerly awaits returning to Earth and the wife and young daughter he left behind. However, after an accident, in which a strange hallucination causes him to crash his lunar rover, Sam makes a startling and bizarre discovery that causes him to doubt his own sanity and the reality of his existence.

The film's exposition does indeed raise the possibility that Moon could be yet another "man goes stir-crazy after being alone" film, as I initially suspected, but very quickly we realize that it exists in a realm separate from convention. While paying obvious homages to classics of sci-fi past in terms of visual style, it is uninterested with genre traditions. His computer GERTY is not presented as a forbearing and chillingly cold machine, nor as an impossibly cheery AI with a heart of gold. It is simply a tool that Sam can interpret in whichever way he likes, either as friend or as device. Designed with the intention of fulfilling Sam's basic needs, this includes fixing his breakfast just as much as acting as confidant.

In addition to this, interestingly enough, the barren, alien landscape from which the film takes its name is not the star - Sam Rockwell (putting in an astounding and heartwrenchingly honest performance) is. The environment is beautifully, meticulously designed, but it is a vehicle for Sam's exploration of his reality, the perfect blank facade for him to act upon his emotions in the most nuanced way possible.

Nothing about Moon seems false or exaggerated, and it doesn't feel the need to work extra hard to engage the audience, simply inviting them to observe the behaviour of an ordinary human in an extraordinary circumstance. It carries undertones of allegory to the media-entrenched modern era, with carbon-copied stand-ins replacing authenticity and truth, but it is refreshingly subtle. Paradoxically, there is no sense of smoke and mirrors here - Moon is rife with true sincerity, and its strength lies in its fantastic ability to give a complete and whole sense of a man at his most emotionally vulnerable. At its core, it's a character piece, devoted to the exploration of what it means to know oneself when, after living alone for three years, you realize you do not.

Excellent Young Adult Fiction No One Ever Talks About, Part 1

Growing up, I was constantly attempting to convert other people my age to fans of the amazing books I was reading. Evidently I was a fairly convincing kid, as many of my friends did share in my delight of the latest under-rated novel or series, but, judging by their almost non-existent popularity, not many others did. I still bring them up every so often in conversation, and I am almost always awarded with a blank expression. My only consolation is that most of them do have Wikipedia pages, although tragically, having an article on Wikipedia is no longer a tried-and-true sign of celebrity.

In a well-intentioned but probably fruitless attempt to direct attention towards the literature I was obsessed with as a thirteen-year-old and still hold in the highest regard today, I bring you a three-part series best young adult fiction that never received much media attention (i.e., was never made into a film starring actors who smoke pot, don't shower, or star in plays naked with horses).

1 - Broken Sky, books 1 - 7 (1-9 in the UK) (1999 - 2001)
by Chris Wooding


Best volume: 7. (Pictured above is the UK cover of book 5, featuring some excellent artwork by Steve Kyte).
Twice as long as all the others, it's an epic, moving, satisfying end to the series. I cried. Seriously. Books never make me cry, so that's saying quite a bit.

Broken Sky was the highlight of my elementary school existence. I loved it, I worshiped it, I thankfully did not write any fanfiction about it (give me SOME credit here).

I never had much interest in Tolkien-esque fantasy. Wizards, elves, dwarves, and dragons (okay, dragons are pretty awesome, but you get the picture) were unappealing and dull to me, as almost every single fantasy novel I read featured standard stock creatures and races. I also watched a lot of anime for the sole purpose of getting away from conventional Western fantasy and its recycled elements. So imagine my surprise when a young English author writes a series of novels heavily inspired by Japanese anime and mythology instead of Lord of the Rings, but still maintaining its own sense of imagination and individuality.

Broken Sky's plot is a time-tested and oft-seen one: a brother and sister are thrust into a very strange world they know nothing about, and devote their lives to overthrowing the tyrannical king who was responsible for destroying their family. But its a story that's so finely crafted, with compelling and fully three-dimensional characters and worlds, that it's impossible to not appreciate the care Wooding puts into his creations. Despite technically being for children and teens, the series' overlying theme is that of race relations, and although it makes its metaphors clear, the meticulousness in which it is applied does not make it an insult to the intelligence. The same is true for its sophisticated and mature, but never alienating, portrayal of resistance movements. Wooding, who previously had written several fantastic novels set in the real world (his first to receive acclaim, Kerosene, is a gripping and powerfully honest portrayal of a teenage pyromaniac and his drug-dealing best friend), has a masterful hold on realism in his fantasy. There is no deux-ex-machina in Broken Sky, no character or force who is invincible, no villain without a measure of empathy. The violence is surprisingly brutal for the novel's age group, and there is no glorification of war - the opposite is highly stressed. Although, as previously mentioned, the premise itself is certainly not new, the directions in which Wooding takes it and the characters - who never delve into cliche or formula, but instead, refreshingly for a fantasy series, behave as real people behave - make it memorable, fascinating, and really very fun.