Golden Sunsets - 50 Years Of Memories - Part 31 - 1997

Memory-wise then, we're still in the difficult 1990s, but at least we've reached:

1997:

The trivia:

• Reverend Robert Shields from Dayton in the USA developed a kind of compulsion to document everything about his life. Between 1972 and 1997 he kept a diary of every five minutes, including recording his body temperature, blood pressure,  when he changed the light bulbs and even his bowel movements. By the time he stopped due to ill health, the diary amounted to 37.5 million words and filled 94 boxes.
• As part of his High School science class, 14-year old Nathan Zoner convinced 43 out of 50 classmates to vote to ban the chemical "Dihydrogen Monoxide", citing its many negative effects on the environment. He won first prize at the Greater Idaho Science Fair for his project which proved that the use of true facts can lead the public to a false conclusion, since "Dihydrogen monoxide" is actually...water.
• In April of 1997 the Hale-Bopp comet was at its brightest as it passed close to the Sun, and it continued to be visible in the night sky until December of that year. This lengthy visibility and the extensive coverage in the media and on the internet made it the most observed comet in human history. It also became infamous when 39 members of the religious cult "Heaven's Gate" committed mass suicide in order to reach what they believed was an extraterrestrial spacecraft hiding in it's trail

The memory:

The Night's Dawn Trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton

 If the "Lensmen" sequence of novels by E.E. 'Doc' Smith had instilled in me a love of grandiose space opera as a youngster, then this massive series  (in both page count and scope) proved that the SF sub-genre was still alive and kicking and in *very* good hands.

It's worth admitting here that I'm breaking my own internal rules slightly, because the first volume in the trilogy - "The Reality Dysfunction" - came out in 1996, but I didn't discover Mr. Hamilton's work until book two - "The Neutronium Alchemist" was released in 1997. I really wanted the saga to have the top spot somewhere, but since 1996 and 1999 (when final volume "The Naked God" came out) were already allocated, it seemed to fit best here. Anyway, let's dive in...

In the 27th Century, mankind can travel to the stars and has colonised over 900 worlds plus numerous asteroids and space stations. However although humanity is united under the auspices of the 'Confederation' (which also includes two alien species - the Tyrathca and the Kiint) it has split into two distinct factions - the religious "Adamists", who use machine based nanotechnology and see themselves as "true humans", and the progressive, genetically modified "Edenists" who have embraced biotechnology (bitek) and can telepathically communicate with their living wormhole-creating vessels (known as Voidhawks) - not to mention avoid death by transferring their consciousness into their sentient giant habitats. Edenists also dominate the economy because they harvest 'Helium 3' from gas giant planets, which is the primary fuel source for all Adamist starships.

Against this backdrop we are introduced to a vast array of characters  including: the imprisoned terrorist scientist Dr. Alkad Mzu, designer of the outlawed antimatter super weapon "The Alchemist" - space trader Joshua Calvert, who made his fortune from the sudden discovery of artefacts from an extinct alien species - the fiery Edenist Syrinx who forms a telepathic bond with the bitek starship Oeone and now competes against Joshua in the lucrative shipping industry between worlds - and the charismatic but sadistic Satanist, Quinn Dexter, leader of a group of revolting convicts on the tropical settlement planet Lalonde.

It's on Lalonde where the main plot really kicks in. While Quinn Dexter is engaged in torturing a local law enforcer, an ancient alien known as the Ly-cilph which is observing the conflict, notices the dying mans energy signature leave his body and follows it to another dimension (later named "the beyond"), which contains billions of "souls" of human-kind's long dead. Unfortunately this contact ruptures the barrier between the beyond and our dimension, allowing the souls  - many driven insane after centuries of imprisonment, where they can sense the "real" world but not touch it -  to begin to escape and posses the bodies of the living. Dexter is just the first of millions to come.

These reincarnated dead find that they can allow more trapped souls through to posses others and harness energy based powers both as an offensive weapon and often as a way to reshape local reality  - although this prevents them from using use any form of advanced electronics. Although possession has to be with the consent of the host, this can be overcome by various torture methods. Consequently Lalonde is quickly over-run and many of the possessed (including Quinn, who has regained control of his body but kept the powers) leave in spaceships to spread to the wider Confederation.

If  this all sound a bit like the beginnings of a zombie outbreak in space, well that's true in a very limited sense, but the trilogy is so much more than that. As possession spreads throughout the Confederation like a virus, the viewpoint continues to switch so that we see the unfolding chaos across the known galaxy. Individuals battle for survival, governments and even planets fall, there are massive space battles and exploding stars - and across it all Dexter Quinn prepares to unleash his final apocalypse on Earth. It's exhilarating stuff. Even something that might sound hoary - like bringing in Al Capone and Fletcher Christian as two of the possessing souls - works because Hamilton's characters have weight and history and depth. They act like real people, not movie cliche cut-outs and we care about their fates. Key plot reveals also feel earned because characters discover them by detective work and sheer bloody survival.

The horror elements (and the books don't shy away from graphic violence) blend seamlessly with the more serious military science fiction and space opera themes and events have real consequence. Plus Hamilton takes the time to examine the philosophical and metaphysical sides of the conflict. For example, how does the existence of "the beyond" change humanity's views on religion and the afterlife? Yes, there are a vast array of multi-layered subplots, which can be challenging to keep up with - this is certainly not a story that you can skim - but Hamilton is a master juggler and knows exactly how to keep all the planets in the air, when to ratchet up the suspense and when to pull back the curtain.

This huge trilogy is also where a lot of Hamilton's core ideas, which he returns to in slightly different forms in subsequent novels, are first brought into the light. Humans enhanced by integrated technology. Vast man-made habitats. Innovative ways of crossing huge galactic distances. Aliens that are truly nothing like us (no bumpy foreheaded bipeds here). The fact that no matter how far out into the universe we go, we just take our prejudices and limited ways of thinking with us.

If I have one criticism, it's that the ending of the whole saga slightly falls short of the immense build-up. It's innovative, there's a logic to it - and it all fits together in a massively complicated tapestry, but I was perhaps hoping for something just a little...more. But that's nit-picking when a story with this sheer scale, innovation and complexity is so rewarding.

To my mind, after reading this series, there's space opera, there's epic space opera, and then there's Peter F. Hamilton...

Honourable mentions:

• Contact - Starring the always excellent Jodie Foster, this is one of those rare things - an intelligent, thoughtful science fiction film that dares to ask the big questions about science, the universe and faith (in all senses of the word). When radio astronomer Ellie Arroway discovers radio transmissions comic from Vega, it leads to the building of a gigantic machine that may just take mankind to it's first extraterrestrial encounter. What will the occupant find at the other end of their journey? Is it real? Is it the biggest hoax ever perpetrated? The film doesn't give all the answers and it's all the better for it.  It should come as no surprise that I love the film so much when you learn that is was written by one of my personal heroes - the scientist Carl Sagan - and directed by Robert Zemeckis, who was responsible for the almost perfect "Back To The Future Trilogy". A seemingly forgotten classic, 

• Buffy The Vampire Slayer - It's difficult looking back now to really appreciate how much a ground-breaking impact "Buffy" had on genre television. The show's powerful female heroine, witty and intelligent scripts that combined fantastical elements will the real world trials of the average teenager (or twenty-something) and a cast of interesting and relatable characters (even the evil ones), played by a bunch of great actors really brought fantasy television to the attention of the masses. Although it wasn't the first show to use season long plot arcs, it certainly re-popularised the idea, and phrases such as "Big Bad" to refer to the ultimate season villain have become part of modern TV language. I first discovered it in the familiar BBC2 evening slot (where some episodes were cut) before diving in and buying the home video releases - which was where my fascination with the show really took off. It was also one of the first programmes you could buy in "box set" collections (albeit each season was split into two releases of three cassettes each). I bought them all, before upgrading to the DVD complete collection in 2005. It's a few years since I've watched an episode, but any show that can consistently produce excellent episodes week in week out for seven years and also deliver stories as emotionally rich and diverse as "The Body", "Hush" and "Once More With Feeling" will always get my vote. 

• Star Trek: New Frontier -  Now I do like "Star Trek" in all its various TV and film incarnations, but I've never really been one for diving into the novelised adventures of Kirk, Picard , Sisko et al. I can distantly remember seeing the numbered Bantam episode adaptations by James Blish in bookshops in the 1970s, along with the curious 'Fotonovels' which contained stills from the episode along with dialogue balloons in a curious mash-up of live action and comics - but they didn't appeal enough to me to actually buy them. Although Pocket Books started releasing new stories in the early 80s, they didn't make their way to UK shores until around 1987, when I started seeing them in places like Forbidden Planet (I guess to co-incide with the transmission of "The Next Generation") - but again they were nothing more than a curiosity. Then in 1997 along came comics writer Peter David, who began to develop his little corner of the "Trek" universe with its own continuity, using a combination of new characters, ones he had created for other novels and minor background players from the various TV series. "New Frontier" concerned the adventures of the reckless Captain Mackenzie Calhoun and the oddball crew of the Federation Starship Excalibur, as it explored Sector 221-G, home of the recently fallen Thallonian Empire.

• In a neat marketing strategy, Pocket Books released the first story in four slim volumes at a lower price. Intrigued by the concept, plus being aware of the quality of Peter David's comics work from his 12-year run on "The Incredible Hulk", plus "Dreadstar" and "The Atlantis Chronicles", I decided to take a chance and picked up the first couple of books - and that was it, I was hooked. Apart from the interactions of the unique crew and their adventures, my primary reason for enjoying the books so much was that you genuinely never knew what direction things could go in. Unlike Kirk and Picard, who (of course) would always survive, David might decide to kill off a prominent character, or jump forward in time or just throw in a real plot curve ball - it was that unpredictable. Between 1997 and 2006 David wrote sixteen full novels plus the New Frontier crew made appearances in a number of  other book mini-series, anthologies and even their own comics. Things then tailed off and there were only two new books in the next six years before a final trilogy of e-book novellas in 2015. I bought them all, and to my mind they (plus David's other "Trek" work) are some of the very best tie-in books to come out of the mega franchise. Well worth a read even if you are only a casual fan.

• The Fifth Element - It's wild, it's wacky. I'm sure certain parts don't make a whole lot of sense. but I just can't help love Luc Besson's 23rd century science fiction action extravaganza, if for nothing else than it's sheet imagination and ambition - even if it is clearly influenced by the French SF graphic novel series "Valerian & Laureline". Amongst all the special effects and a story of a once every 5,000 years cosmic alignment, Besson weaves an all-star cast - Bruce Willis is world weary and cynical cab driver, Korben Dallas, Ian Holm is a nervous priest who knows the truth behind the elements and Gary Oldman chews the scenery with gusto as Jean -Baptiste Emanuel Zorg - the villain of the piece, with his half shaved head, bizarre Southern accent and dog-faced henchmen. Plus of course Milla Jovovich as the strange, ethereal Leeloo. Less successful is Chris Tucker as the garish DJ Ruby Rhod - his high pitched fast-talking schtick wears thin very quickly, but it's the one small fly in the ointment of of an otherwise riot of a film. 

• Teletubbies - The brightly coloured forms of Tinky Winky, Laa-Laa, Dipsy and Po were *everywhere* in 1997, as what was conceived as a fun, kind-of-educational series for pre-school children caught the imagination of the general population of Great Britain and resulted in four characters who only communicated in gibberish having a number one single! For me as the father of a one-year old daughter who loved the show, I became very familiar with the repetitive surreal world and bizarre things like the Noo-noo and the Voice Trumpets. My wife even turned my daughters room into Teletubbyland, complete with rolling green hills, a grass carpet, paper sunflowers on the walls  and the rays of a Sun Baby shining out from the corner. Goodness knows what the people who lived there after us thought of it !

• Hanson - Mmmbop - Okay so this one is a real bit of a guilty / secret  pleasure. The three young Hanson brothers from Tulsa, Oklahoma had been making music since the early 90s, but exploded on the popular music scene with the release of the single "Mmmbop", which reached number one in 27 countries and went on to sell over 700,000 copies in the UK alone, where it was constantly on the radio. Even those who said that they hated it couldn't help secretly singing along to the infectious albeit nonsensical chorus. Sure it's bubblegum pop aimed at a teenage market  - and I was certainly outside that demographic, but what can I say - I like good pop music no matter my age and even when it's not "cool" to do so. Subsequent single releases hit the top 10 too (even though people seem to remember Hanson as a one-hit wonder) and piqued my interest enough to shell out for the whole album, "Middle of Nowhere", when I saw it at a bargain price. Despite a few cheesy ballads, it's a selection of cheerful, supremely catchy melodies mixed with modern slick production values . People seem to remember 1997 as the year of Oasis, Radiohead and The Verve, but at a time when my personal life was going through a series of enormous highs and lows, I remember the music that just made me smile...

• The Game - This is probably the film directed by David Fincher that very few people have heard of, let alone seen, yet strangely for me it's one of the most rewarding. Michael Douglas is wealthy investment baker Nicholas Van Orton who is given an usual present for his birthday from his brother - a ticket for a "game" that he promises will change his life. I can't say too much more for fear of spoiling the enjoyment, as your work your way through the labyrinthine plot and its unexpected twists and turns, but hell is the payoff worth it. I love twisty-turny films like this and the first time I saw "The Game" I sat with my mouth open as Fincher slowly opened up his puzzle box. To be honest it's a trick that really only works on that initial viewing, but boy, is it worth it.

• Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone - Who? Never heard of him...

Golden Sunsets - 50 Years Of Memories - Part 27 - 1993

A work of non-fiction intersects with my favourite way of reading stories...

1993:

The trivia:

• Corporate lawyer Gary Hoy used to perform a stunt for new employees where he would throw himself at the windows of the high-rise Toronto Dominion Centre to prove how unbreakable the glass was. Unfortunately when he did this at a reception on 9th July 1993, the glass did not break but popped right out of the frame, causing him to plunge twenty-four stories to his death.
• When the Mississippi and Missouri rivers rose to unprecedented levels, one of the levees failed, flooding over 14,000 acres on the Missouri side and washing away all the bridges. Petty criminal and arsonist James Scott was eventually convicted of "intent to cause a catastrophe" by deliberately damaging the levee  - just so that he could strand his wife on the other side of the river and keep partying.
• The barking sound that the velociraptors in "Jurassic Park" make to communicate with each other is actually the sound of two tortoises mating.

The memory:

Understanding Comics 

I was already a big fan of Scott McCloud before he released the book that would become his most famous and celebrated work. Back in the 1980s I had discovered his comic "Zot!" published by Eclipse - and followed its progression from a light-heated superhero story to a series that also sensitively dealt with issues of teenage sex, bigotry, homosexuality and feelings of not belonging. He also produced the over-sized one-shot "Destroy!!" which was an affectionate homage to the senseless superhero slug-fests of his youth.

But in 1993 McCloud published a non-fiction volume that attempted to explain exactly how comic books function - using the medium itself. At a time when the artistic merit of graphical storytelling was still in doubt, "Understanding Comics" engaged in a wide ranging discussion on the definition, history, vocabulary and methods of the form along with what happens to us as we read comics and how our minds interpret the information - the key balance of time, space, colour, words and pictures that form this unique language. All this in an incredibly accessible style.

McCloud begins by defining comics as "juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence" ("sequential art" for short) and then uses that as a jumping off point to show that they really have been around a lot longer than we might think. When he focuses on the visual aspect, it's as much about our subconscious reactions as anything else - one of the best things is when he explains how the reader is complicit n the telling of a comic book story because so much happens in the "gutters" - the spaces between the panels - where the reader has to fill in the gas and invent what is going on to connect one image to another..

Scott goes on to develop a whole system of pictorial vocabulary - a triangle with vertices of 'Reality' (where pictures represent the real world), 'Language' (where pictures communicate an idea), and the 'Picture Plane' (where pictures are just shapes). All visual storytelling, all comics, can be fitted into this triangle. It might sound complicated but McCloud's skill as writer and artist is that he builds up the concepts step by step in a clear and concise way that means even non-comics aficionados can follow it. He likewise has incisive and interesting things to say about the differences in the evolution of western and eastern comics, the various types of relations of text to image, the ways comics could more fully live up to their potential, and much , much more. It would be impossible to try and summarise the whole book - you need to experience it for yourself.

Before buying this book, I thought I knew all about comics. After all, I had been enjoying them almost from the time I learned to read. I thought I knew the conventions, the tricks - how to *read* comics. What I didn't realise was what I was missing  - the "invisible art" that is the sub-title to McCloud's opus and I'm not joking when I say it made me look at them in a whole new light. This is essential reading for anyone who loves any form of sequential art.

Scott went on to produce two equally brilliant sequels - "Reinventing Comics" in 2000 and "Making Comics" in 2006, plus become one of the pioneers of internet comics, micro-payments and the inventor of the "24-hour comic book" concept. He has also toured the US and Europe as a lecturer and advocate for the medium he adores. I'd love him to release a new updated version one day (or maybe even return to the world of "Zot!") but for now he has recently produced his most significant work of fiction in twenty years, in the form of the 496-page "The Sculptor". Even now he is still innovating. After all , as he says at the end of "Understanding Comics"...

Honourable mentions:

• Myst - This one is for my wife, as she was the real addict to this famous graphical adventure, which was the best selling PC game for nearly ten years. It's combination of non-linear storytelling, challenging logic puzzles (which required a *lot* of lateral thinking and patience to solve) and beautiful pre-rendered locations captivated a generation of players and it was one of the first games that felt like a living breathing world. The four sequels improved the graphics nd interaction much further, but it's this first entry in the series that was a real turning point.

• Cracker - Created by the excellent Jimmy McGovern, "Fitz" is an alcoholic, chain smoking foul-mouthed mess. But Robbie Coltrane's Edward Fitzgerald is also a brilliant criminal psychologist whose ability to get into the mind of his suspects enables him to solve the most complex cases - even if the means are sometimes dubious and the fallout to his personal life is disastrous. It's a mesmerising award-winning turn from Coltrane and the series turned the normal police procedural on it's head, presenting a side to criminal investigations that audiences had not seen before - dominated by a dangerously arrogant lead (in one episode, Fitz is so blinded by his own perceived intellectual infallibility that he even helps the polices extract a false confession from the wrong man). The supporting cast of flawed characters was second to none, with career high points from Christopher Eccleston, Geraldine Somerville and Lorcan Cranitch. McGovern was also not afraid to kill off his characters to show the consequences of the investigations - the death of DCI Bilborough at the end of series two was one of the most shocking and unexpected twists I'd seen on television and it's effects reverberated through the remaining episodes. 

• Demolition Man - Forget "Rocky" or "The Expendables". This is Sylvester Stallone's best action film by far. Not only that, it's incredibly funny too. Sly is the brilliantly named John Spartan, a maverick cop who, while in the pursuit of  the insane Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes), inadvertently causing the death of all the hostages. Both men are convicted for the deaths and sentenced to a CryoPrison where they are frozen for decades. Thawed out in 2032 for a parole hearing, Phoenix escapes and goes on a rampage in a society so free of crime that it's police force has forgotten how to deal with physical violence. Here in the future guns, alcohol, coffee and swearing are banned. Physical contact is discouraged and even going to to bathroom involves a mystifying process called "the three shells". But Lieutenant Huxley (Sandra Bullock) has an idea - unfreeze John Spartan to deal with the problem. "Set a maniac to catch a maniac"... What follows is not only an action blockbuster  in the true 90s mold but also a fish-out-of-water story as Spartan tries to come to terms with  this brave new Political-Correctness-gone- mad society, catch Phoenix  and figure out who is behind it all. It's an affectionate send up of the macho man genre and all three leads deliver great performances, with Stallone finally showing that with the right script he can do comedy. As someone who grew up on the futuristic satire of "Judge Dredd", this film was  right up my street and I loved it from the first viewing. 

• The Book of Ultimate Truths -  Robert Rankin had been around since the early 80s, and I recall being lent a battered copy of his debut novel "The Antipope" at some point. The early follow up's in the increasingly mis-named "Brentford Trilogy" were pretty good fun, although I wasn't so enamoured of the "Armageddon" series. But it was this first book starring Cornelius Murphy and more importantly the Guru's Guru - Hugo Artemis Solon Saturnicus Reginald Arthur Rune - that kind of heralded his second coming and cemented his place as the "father of far-fetched fiction" with a stretch of over twenty novels full of catchphrases, re-occurring characters, running gags and convoluted plots usually involving a conspiracy of some sort. It's probably because of a tradition or old charter or something - or else because of the transperambulation of pseudocosmic antimatter...

• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - The best "Trek" series so far (I know, some of you will violently disagree) - probably because it throws out the 'wandering around the galaxy in a starship' for a fixed location where the characters can't run away from their problems. The first couple of seasons has the show still finding it's feet but once the Dominion are introduced and the war starts, "DS9" is firing on all cylinders and produces one classic episode after another. Nothing is black or white, complex characters change and mature and there are always consequences. Outside of the main plot arc there are a number of other excellent stories varying from the social and racially focused "Far Beyond The Stars" to the 30th anniversary tribute "Trials and Tribble-ations". As much as I like "The Next Generation" and have seen those episodes multiple times, "DS9" is the only "Star Trek" series I own on DVD.

Golden Sunsets - 50 Years Of Memories - Part 21 - 1987

By my early twenties I was fully immersed in the comics industry - both as a reader and as a retailer. But an encounter with one of my customers lead to the discovery of a different kind of super-heroics...

1987:

The trivia:

• By 1987, due to poaching, lead poisoning and destruction of their natural habitat, there were only 27 California Condors left on the planet. All of the huge birds, with their 3 metre wide wingspan, were captured and placed in the San Diego Wild Animal Park and the Los Angeles Zoo to help preserve the species. Thankfully due to a successful breeding program there are now over four hundred - many living wild.
• Chicago businessman Steve Rothstein purchased an unlimited first class American Airlines ticket for US$ 233,509. During the more than 10 years he owned it, he travelled in excess of 10 million miles, made over 500 trips to England and apparently cost the airline US$ 21 million. The pass was terminated in 2008 due to "fradulent behaviour".
• 19-year old German amateur aviator Matthias Rust managed to fly his small Cessna aircraft all the way from Helsinki to Moscow and land illegally near Red Square. Despite being tracked several times by Soviet air defence, he was never shot down. Although originally sentenced to four years in prison he only served a few months and the incident allowed progressive Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to dismiss many of his harshest military opponents.

Okay so I guess before I start with the memory proper, I should provide a bit more context to that comment at the top of the page about being a comics "retailer". This might take a while...

By the mid-1980s I was getting my regular comics from specialist shops rather than newsagents. It started with all those trips to "Forbidden Planet" in London, but as I left school and (after a brief period in market research) started working in Southend-on-Sea, I switched to getting my weekly fix from the local independent book shop in the Victoria Circus Shoping Centre - known rather generically as "The New Bookshop" (I never did discover where the "Old" one was).

The two rather mature gentlemen who ran the shop were always friendly and I became a regular customer. Their shelves were crammed full of all the latest Marvel, DC and independent titles. Each week I would pick up the current releases (almost everything to be honest) which they had put by in a hi-tech filing system of brown paper bags with your name written in marker pen. Thanks to these lovely fellows I discovered comics from First, Comico, Capital, Eclipse and a vast range of other titles. More and more of my meagre wages was being spent on four-colour adventures (well I was still living at home and couldn't drive, so had very little outgoings). I reunited with some old friends in the shop as we all started to hang out there and met some new ones along the way - including a very young Warren Ellis.

Then to my delight, a proper specialist comic book store opened on the ground floor of the shopping centre. "Collector's Dream" was run by run by local writer, artist, musician and sometime shoe salesman Gary Spencer Millidge. Gary would become well known in comic circles in later years for his seminal series "Strangehaven", but when I first got to know him, he was focused on the new shop and associated mail order subscription service. "Collector's Dream" became the new place for us comics fans to hang out, and it was in Gary's shop that we saw him work on the famine relief title that became 1985's "Food For Thought" (way before Marvel and DC produced their own titles). I was there when he unboxed the first issues of "Watchmen" and "The Dark Knight Returns". My younger brother even worked there for a while when he first left school. Those were great times.

But at some point not long after this (and here my memory gets slightly hazy), Gary decided that he needed to down-size and move the shop to smaller premises. I really wanted to get into the industry in some way and convinced my brother and a friend that we should buy the "Collector's Dream" mail order service and run it ourselves. With a cash loan from my father, we did just that and from my bedroom we somehow managed to run a small business on a complete shoestring.

Typing up the monthly order catalogues on a Commodore 64 computer, printing them out and pasting them together to then be photocopied, we wrote semi-humourous editorials to accompany the listings. We started with the customer list we had purchased from Gary and then expanded it by handing out flyers at the Westminster Comic Mart's - which looked great thanks to a custom piece of Alan Davis artwork we had got with the business purchase,  Deliveries from Titan Distributors became a weekly occurrence along with regular trips to the warehouse itself in Mile End for single issues (the minimum pre-order was two copies). All of our spare time was spent wrapping parcels, collating orders, banking cheques and keeping things afloat - all this while holding down regular jobs. It was hard work but hugely exciting. We made lot's of contacts, learnt a huge deal and of course bought a *lot* of comics for ourselves at trade prices!

One of our regular overseas customers was a young guy called Philip Chee who lived in Hong Kong and he often sent us long letters with his large order, chatting about his love of science fiction and fantasy and comics. Over time we corresponded back and forth and developed a good relationship with this fellow fan who was half a world away. Then one month Philip mentioned that he was going to be in London visiting family - did we want to meet up with him for lunch or something?

Arranging to meet outside Tottenham Court Road tube station in the West End, the three of us waited somewhat nervously until approached by a young dark haired gentleman in glasses. Yes, this was Philip and after a few minutes we found ourselves getting on really well, even if he did come across as very excitable and a definite comic book expert. We made a tour of all the London comic shops within walking distance (Philip wanted to stock up on back issues) and ended up at the flagship "Forbidden Planet" store, which as well as comics had the best selection of SF and fantasy novels that we knew of.

Perusing the lengthy low shelves for anything new, Philip picked up a US import book with a somewhat lurid purple-ish cover and a shining logo.. "The secret history of our times revealed" it claimed. "Had I heard of "Wild Cards" before?" Philip asked. I shook my head and he thrust the book into my hands. "You should try this series, it's really good" he replied (or words to that effect). Not wanting to appear rude - and to be honest open for something new to read - I took a look at the blurb on the back. What I saw was enough for me to plonk down my cash - and a nearly thirty year love affair was about to begin...

The memory:

Wild Cards

This was a world parallel to our own - a history in which an alien virus struck the Earth in the aftermath of World War II. Thousands were killed, but a handful of survivors were endowed with strange superhuman powers. Some were called 'Aces', gifted with extraordinary mental and physical abilities. Others were 'Jokers', cursed with bizarre mental or physical disfigurements Some turned their talents to the service of humanity, some used them for evil - and the Wild Cards 'shared' universe was born.

So this might have sounded like your typical Marvel or DC super-hero universe in prose form. But the difference was that these were "mosaic" novels (although the first book was more district short stories). Each unique character was created and written separately by a leading science fiction author, but formed part of a jigsaw whole, shepherded and edited by some guy I'd never heard of called George R.R. Martin. These weren't your traditional throwaway stories either. Following the 80s trend towards more realistic portrayals of super-heroes, these characters were fully three dimensional. They changed and adapted and faded in out out of the narrative like real people and even died, sometimes in violent pointless ways. The authors involved include Walter John Williams, Roger Zelazny, Melinda, M. Snodgrass, Stephen Leigh and Daniel Abraham. Even "X-Men" scribe Chris Claremont had an entry, but there are many many others.

The first volume chronicled the events from World War II to the present day and showed the emergence of the Aces and Jokers and the effect they had on world events. In addition there were many allusions to real-life celebrities being affected by the virus. Mick Jagger was a werewolf. Jim Morrison really *was* the Lizard King, etc, etc Most importantly we were introduced to many key players in the Wild Cards series as the decades passed:

• Doctor Tachyon -  a flamboyant Takesian who tried to prevent the detonation of his races virus bomb and now attempts to atone for their mistake by staying on Earth.
• Croyd Crenson "The Sleeper" - cursed to fall into a coma and wake up in a new body every few months. Sometimes an Ace and sometimes a Joker, he never knows what will happen when he falls asleep.
• The Great and Powerful Turtle - possessed of the world most powerful mental abilities, he hides inside a metal shall constructed from an old VW Beetle
• Fortunato - the supreme sorcerer on the planet who recharges his powers via tantric sex.
• Captain Trips - a burned out hippy biochemist who can call forth five different super-powered persona through the use of drugs
• Puppetman - a politician able to control the minds of anyone he touches and feed off their negative emotions? How could that  not be a bad thing...

I loved the first book and immediately went back and brought the following two. Set in the then current late 80s, each one dealt with a particular threat but sub-plots and continuing threads were interwoven and carried across between the novels, although generally each three books formed a loose trilogy. Between 1987 and 1993 there were twelve books published and "Wild Cards" straddled a host of different genres from political thriller to detective mystery to space opera. A  universe of different heroes and villains were introduced and like the best comic multi-part stories, sometimes it took several volumes for good to triumph over evil - and sometimes the bad guys won and people died. I couldn't get enough. This was my comics world though an adult lens. It was violent, sexy, horrific, thought provoking and overall brilliant.

Around about book six, a UK publisher (I think it was Titan) caught onto the "Wild Cards" phenomenon and they re-issued the books with new Brian Bolland covers, US publisher Bartam Spectra responded with their own new covers by "Grimjack" artist Timothy Truman, who continued with the new releases, and it's those that adorn my copies of books seven to twelve.

With a new trilogy starting in volume 13 came a new publisher - Baen replacing Bantam Spectra - and Barclay Shaw took over from Tim Truman as cover artist. Released a mere month after book 12, "Card Sharks" was subtitled 'Book 1 of a New Cycle'. A conspiracy tale involving a deadly "antidote" to the Wild Card virus known as the "Black Trump", the set of three also brought a number of character arcs to a conclusion and wrapped up things pretty neatly for the series as a whole. It would be seven years before I would get to read a new story set in this universe.

2002 brought "Deuces Down". Published by iBooks, the long-awaited sixteenth volume in the series was almost a companion piece to the first, as the reader was presented with an anthology of individual tales spanning four decades from 1968. However this time it was viewed from the sidelines as the focus was on those less well known members of the Wild Card saga, the 'Deuces' - those whose powers were almost negligible and often more trouble than they're worth. It's an interesting book but I wanted things to move forward in the main timeline.

Four years later I got my wish in "Death Draws Five", a novel written solely by John J. Miller. An apocalyptic thriller with religious overtones it featured the welcome return of favourite characters such as Carnifex, Mr. Nobody and Fortunato plus new female bad-ass Midnight Angel. But iBooks were about to go into bankruptcy and a new publisher was needed yet again. 

Enter Tor Books, who have released a further six new novels so far, with more to come - plus reprints of the originals, some with extra stories added. There have been many new characters, many new writers brought into the "Wild Cards Trust" and many new Jokers, Aces, Deuces and villains. 

Turning things almost full circle, there have been two comics versions (Epic did four issues in 1990 and the Dabel Brothers  / Dynamite six in 2008), plus role playing games, audio books, online short stories and translations into several different languages. There (predictably) is even a live action TV show in development. 

Why do I love the books so much? Certainly regular superhero comics have caught up with some of the storytelling techniques used ("Astro City" springs to mind) but I think it really comes down to two reasons. Firstly it's that things really do change within the in-novel universe - unlike the transitory illusion of change with mainstream comics (at least from the big two publishers). "Wild Cards" has been running for thirty years with nary a reboot or reality altering event in sight. Secondly it's that there is a real weight to the characters (probably because they are always written by their creators) which means you care about what happens to them. The "Wild Cards" universe looks certain to continue for many years to come and I for one can't wait to get each new release.


Honourable mentions:

• Filthy, Rich and Catflap - At a mere six episodes, this series was kind of the bridge between the anarchy of the "The Young Ones" and the sheer slapstick brilliance of "Bottom" that was to come. Rik Mayall played Richie Rich, a talentless out of work actor, Nigel Planer his sponging agent Ralph Filthy and Adrian Edmonson was Edward Didgeridoo Catflap, Richie's violent drunken minder. Treating the Fourth Wall as if it just didn't exist and frequently taking the piss out of Z-list celebrities and their huge egos, I found the show not quite as enjoyable as it's predecessor but still worth tuning in for the relentlessly manic performances.

• Green Arrow The Longbow Hunters - After "The Dark Knight Returns", this was DC's second "prestige" format mini series and for my money one of the finest Green Arrow stories ever told. I was already a fan of writer / artist Mike Grell from his time on "Jon Sable, Freelance" but the quality of his work here is on a whole other level and succeeded in getting me seriously invested in a character which I had never really been that bothered about before. By stripping away the trick arrows and bombastic villains, acknowledging his age and grounding things in a more realistic environment, Grell turned Oliver Queen into an urban hunter and these three issues paved the way for a fantastic seven year run as writer and occasional artist. I still don't think Green Arrow has been written better.

• Weaveworld by Clive Barker - I never got into the"Books of Blood" or the "Hellraiser" movies. Horror stories are not really my thing and certainly thirty years ago I had read only a mere handful of genre novels. However I picked up "Weaveworld" because of the more fantasy-orientated premise - and boy was I glad I did. The book revolves around the secret existence of a race of magical beings known as the "Seerkind" and their struggles to remain hidden from the non-magical world inside "The Fugue" - a separate dimension woven into the strands of a carpet. The Seerkind have to face multiple dangers from human and non-human antagonists, plus the mysterious "Scourge" which seeks to destroy all magic. Full of religious allusions and themes, a multi-facted plot and truly evil and horrific threats, the novel was several worlds away from the more traditional fantasies I had consumed up to that point and even now remains one of the best books I have ever read. I quickly became a Barker devotee as he published one excellent novel after another over the next ten years. Any attempt to turn "Weaveworld" into a film or TV series can only be doomed to fail in my eyes, as it would be practically impossible to match the imagination and power of Barker's prose.

• The New Statesman - It's Rik Mayall in a razor sharp political comedy. What's not to love? As M.P. Alan B'Stard he was selfish, devious, lecherous and out only for himself. Heaven help anyone who got in his way, and whatever schemes, crises or scandals surrounded him, B'Stard always came up as top dog. It was a role tailor made for Mayall and proved that he was not only a brilliant comedian but also a tremendous actor. I may have been  biased of course (since I already considered Rik to be my comedy god), but as well as being very funny the show was savagely cruel and irreverent to all it's targets from any corner of the political spectrum. Four series, two specials, a couple of stage shows and many newspaper columns - B'stard was a force of nature and hugely popular. Any resemblance to real politicians either living or dead was completely deliberate.

• Star Trek Next Generation - We actually didn't get to see this show in the UK until September 1990, when it started airing in its regular early evening slot on BBC2 (and then subsequently on Sky One), but I've included it here as it was first broadcast in the USA in 1987. That first viewing came at the right time for me as "Doctor Who" had finished the previous December. I quickly took to the adventures of the Enterprise D crew, and thanks to some 4 hour tapes and my trust Panasonic VHS video, I recorded up to eight episodes on one cassette in 'long play'. In later years this meant that my first wife and I (also a fan) would occasionally start watching an episode in bed, fall asleep and wake up the next morning to find that Captain Picard was still boldly going.. For a while I was obsessed with all things "Trek" and amassed a large collection of books, comics, fact files and assorted ephemera. Looking back, even if that obsession has faded and even if it doesn't quite reach the heights of "Deep Space Nine" in terms of dramatic arcs and long-form storytelling, "TNG" still has a cast of characters that I love to spend time with, and it's one of those shows where despite having seen each episode so many times that I probably know the plots off by heart, when one comes on the TV I still stop changing channels and start watching.

Marshal Law - First published by Epic Comics as a six-issue mini, before sporadically hopping around a number of different publishers and formats in the subsequent years, Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neill's savage satire of the superhero genre is a classic that deserves a much wider audience. Set in the future city of San Futuro, Law's job was to take down rogue heroes, which he did with maximum force and extreme pleasure. He hated all costumed heroes - including himself - and Mills parodied pretty much all the major characters over the course of the various storylines. It's violent, funny and packed with a wide disregard for the meaningless tales of the larger than life costumed do-gooders. Match that with O'Neill's unique spiky artwork and you have something really rather special. Later odd cross-overs with characters such as The Mask and even Hellraiser's Pinhead are less acerbic but still interesting. There is a big deluxe 480 page collection available which deserves to be on your Christmas present list.

Max Headroom - The world's first computer generated TV star (sort of), it's hard to describe to people that weren't there exactly how popular Max was in the mid-80s. Star of a one-off near-future TV drama, host of a video jukebox / interview chat show, the spokesman for "New Coke" and even part of a pop song along with the Art of Noise, Matt Frewer's creation and his staccato voice was everywhere. I enjoyed all of these appearances, but it's the US TV series which is my favourite. Set in a dystopian near future (aren't they all?) where television networks rule the world, it was full of inventive imagery and storylines - at least for the time. Nowadays many of the things it predicted have sort of come true, which is kind of worrying...

By the way, there are a lot of other fantastic comics I could mention here, but I'm saving them for longer pieces further down the line. There is also this little series called "Star Cops" that deserves a *lot* of love and attention...