When Is A Game Of Thrones Prequel Not A Prequel? When It's The First Book Of The Series You've Read

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well as regular readers to this blog will know taken as a rule I'm not a fan of prequels. My view is that what's the point of knowing the route when you know the destination? I use the TV series Gotham as the example of this. We all know Bruce Wayne is going to be Batman. So where's the tension?

Similarly I'm not a fan of fantasy novels  as a rule either. Books where a writer makes up their own worlds with fantasy names and words with the occasional bit of "magic" thrown in. So far in my reading life the one and only exception has been the Helliconia series by the late Brian Aldiss.

And so...as I go into my local library the next book on their display which I am honour bound to read by wish to read every "practical" book there turns out to be this.

George R R Martin - A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms

This is in fact three novellas set a hundred years before the Game Of Thrones years where roaming Westeros are our heroes. A "hedge" knight called Dunk and his child servant Egg. A land where there are some exotic places as Cockswindle, Osgrey, Standfast and Ashford (isn't that in Kent?)

I remember vaguely watching the first ever episode of Game Of Thrones years ago. I was half asleep and really unaware about what was going on. Other than that I've passed it by.

Now I know that sounds snobby on my part. Not my intention. But I hope it explains that when  picking the book up I had probably the unique advantage of being able to treat this book not as a prequel but as book one of the whole saga. In other words through luck rather than design I was starting from the beginning.

So did it change my mind regarding this type of book? Well slightly. It's certainly readable. The best novella of the three was the final one which had a mystery at it's core. If I was able to read the next instalment of this (prodigious) series for free I wouldn't baulk at the opportunity.

But whilst interesting and readable I can't say I was excited by it. Even though it was for me book one it still lacked any degree of tension for me. I suppose therefore it was a prequel after all what ever you approach it.

In any case. Helliconia still wins.

Until the next time.

Is The Reason I'm Suddenly Into Watching Comic Book Shows The Fear Of A Hard Brexit?

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Yesterday. Whilst the wife was out for the evening helping a friend I and daughter spent the time watching comic book shows on the TV. And we had a good time. I'll chat about the shows we watched later on (though some of them I've chatted about before) but as we were viewing the thought entered my brain.

"Why after all these years am I into comic book heroes again?"

I had assumed as I've written about before simple nostalgia was the reason. The Flash seems to be like a comic book made flesh. Fantastic in effect and plot but done in a way that your belief as an adult is suspended.

Now though I'm wondering something completely different. I'm wondering whether in the face of Brexit, with the possibility looming of a hard Brexit (where even today the morning's headlines are of warnings from the NHS over a shortage of medicines) my subconscious is seeking some sort of rescue where impending disaster is averted at the last minute.

I've not hidden my desire that the UK should be broken up. But as I've also said no nationalist wants the UK to be broken up because of a hard Brexit (even if it turns out that it's the best thing to do and has to be done) because of the misery that the hard Brexit would have inflicted upon families across Britain (except of course for the rich Brexiteers who helped cause this and would have probably gone into foreign exile by then).

What the United Kingdom as a whole needs is a hero/heroine. What it's getting are villains and idiots.

And so to yesterday evening. Daughter and I watched:

The Flash: Having gone through series one daughter and I have moved to season two. And it works. We watched two episodes and daughter was quicker to understand the possibilities of parallel Earths than me. Episode three ended with the return of Tom Kavanagh as chief villain(?) ...we shall see.

(As a quick aside I must see if I can download Ed, a show Tom Kavanagh starred in. One of those quietly seemingly simple but effective shows not unlike the Gilmore Girls that America does produce well).

Krypton: This was the new show. Where the hero is apparently Superman's grandfather. Being in his twenties he doesn't know that yet. Instead he's doing what men in their twenties do. Drinking, fighting and having sex (thankfully not shown - my finger was hovering on the remote at that point).

Krypton is, interestingly run as a dictatorship at that time through a mysterious masked figure. It also has wealthy and poor areas. It is, essentially a futuristic Gotham city.

Everybody speaks in British or Irish accents, except an American from the future. He warns Superman's grandfather of the arrival of Brainiac (I remember him from the comic books) from the future intent of destroying Krypton and therefore destroying Superman before he's even born.

That is the clever part of the plot. The Batman prequel on TV, Gotham, suffers because whilst you may not know the route you know the destination. You know the child Bruce Wayne is going to be the Batman for example. No mystery there. So the idea that a villain from the future is coming back to change history at the very least creates some tension.

Worth moving onto episode two anyway.

Krypton: A divided society facing impending danger. That's a Brexit metaphor. As is...

Black Lightning : A society teetering just this side of social collapse. It is realism with a fantastical edge alright.

I've chatted before that Black Lightning is not just a superhero for the Afro American community but also for mature men with wife and kids everywhere. He's tired. In this episode he faints. He takes medication. He's determined but weary.

(As an aside wife came back during the middle of the episode and on a particular scene. I told her to look and see if she recognised the actor playing a newspaper editor.
"Is that Huggy Bear?" she said.
And yes it was. Huggy Bear from the seventies cop show Starsky and Hutch.
Daughter looked as if we had just had a conversation in Mandarin)

But although a prequel where the original was based on a comic book perhaps the closest metaphor to a hard Brexit is a programme I've been watching without my daughter.

Fear The Walking Dead. Where slowly but surely disaster strikes and society as we know it is gone forever.

And that is definitely a hard Brexit metaphor.

Until the next time.