Daily Archives: Sunday, 12th November 2006
Manic Street Preachers – Everything Must Go
This is the tenth anniversary edition of the first Manics album after the disappearance of their lyricist Richey James Edwards. After losing their friend, the band could have fallen apart, or attempted to carry on in the same vein as before. Instead, they came up with something new – uplifting, defiant, passionate and which introduced them to a much wider audience than they’d known before.
Some hardcore Manics fans prefer the previous album, The Holy Bible, but this was their major breakthrough. Prior to Everything…, I knew them from a few earlier tracks – Motown Junk and the sublime Motorcycle Emptiness in particular, but after it, I went back to the earlier albums. Anyway, although it doesn’t seem that long to me, ten years have passed, and we now have this rather nice special edition. So what’s included?
CD1
The original album, which includes the anthemic A Design for Life, which quite apart from having some of the best strings ever heard in a rock context, deserves its status as a classic if only for the opening lines
Libraries gave us power
Then work came and made us free
And much more, of course. In addition there are live versions of many of the songs, and a remix of Design….
CD2
A bit of a mixture, this one. Some B-sides, alternative versions and a load of demos, plus first rehearsals of A Design for Life and Kevin Carter. While the early versions are very rough, it’s an unusual insight into the development of some classic songs.
DVD
And as if two CDs packed with unreleased material wasn’t enough to justify buying the album again, the third part of the package is a DVD which includes a documentary, some live performances (including a couple from Later with Jools Holland) and four promo videos. Nice.
And as if that wasn’t enough, there are two well-illustrated booklets. A nice package, and if you shop around a bit, available at a quite reasonable price.
Zima Blue – Alastair Reynolds
I don’t know, you wait ages for an Al Reynolds collection, then two come along at once. In Galactic North, Reynolds collected his shorter works from the Revelation Space universe. In this collection are some of his remaining short fiction. It’s from San Francisco based Night Shade Books, and there is also a signed limited edition which includes an additional story.
The collection has an introduction written by sf writer Paul J McAuley, and notes on the stories by Reynolds, which added to my enjoyment. I’ll just mention some of the highlights among the stories.
Signal to Noise is about communication between parallel universes, and how this gives a man a last chance to see his wife. It’s also set in Cardiff. 
Hideaway and Merlin’s Gun take us into more familiar Reynolds territory – distant future, ships travelling at just short of the speed of light, and a vast span of time.
But my favourite has to be Understanding Space and Time, an excellent “last man alive” story, and almost certainly the only such story to feature Elton John. No, really. 
All very readable stuff, and like every other Reynolds book, comes with my highest recommendation.
Robin Hood – The Taxman Cometh
More Saturday silliness from the engagingly daft modern take on the legendary outlaw. The Sheriff comes up with a Cunning Plan[1] to catch Robin and his friends. This involves a fake tax inspector who allows himself to be captured so that he can be “persuaded” to tell Robin that all the taxes collected in the North are in the vaults of Nottingham Castle. Naturally, the outlaws plan to get in and steal the lot.
Meanwhile, Gisbourne takes a nun into the castle. She says she’s an Abbess who has been robbed by outlaws. The Sheriff reluctantly allows her the use of the castle’s chapel, which is where the tax money is really being kept.
All the usual fun follows, including the traditional fight to get out of the castle, with the extra entertainment value of the Sheriff being tricked by the people he hired to trick Robin.
Yes, it’s predictable, formulaic, anachronistic[2] and silly. But it’s a lot of fun.
[1] Baldrick would have been proud of it
[2] I swear Marian was doing Tai Chi at one point…
Torchwood – Cyberwoman
And now, it starts to get interesting. Up till now, Ianto has kept pretty much in the background – he’s been making the tea, archiving the more dangerous bits of alien technology and generally tidying up. But now we get to know a lot more about him…
One evening, after the rest of the team have left, Ianto welcomes a Japanese gentleman into the base, and takes him to a locked room in the basement. In the room is something that shouldn’t be there, something that should have been destroyed after the Canary Wharf battle. It’s a Cyber conversion unit, and in it is a young woman who has been partially converted into a Cyberwoman.
The woman is Lisa, Ianto’s girlfriend. Ianto pulled her out of Torchwood One, and used the conversion unit to keep her alive. The visitor is a cybernetics expert, who agrees to try to convert Lisa back into a full human. As they work, the rest of the team are on their way back to Torchwood to investigate a UFO sighting.
And then we’re treated to a dark and dangerous base under siege story. Lisa’s Cyber side comes out, and she attempts to upgrade the cybernetics expert, with fatal results.
Now having a Cyberwoman lose in the base might be quite enough to make a decent story, but the real meat here is how Ianto behaves. He’s desperate to save the woman he loves, and is torn between her and his loyalty to Torchwood.
This leads to some rather nasty confrontations between Jack and Ianto – Jack showing a much sterner and more ruthless side than we’ve seen before. We also see Torchwood’s pet pterodactyl[1] getting a larger part than normal.
But questions have to be asked. By the end of this episode, Ianto has been through hell, his innermost feelings laid bare, and his actions have endangered not only the lives of his colleagues, but everyone on Earth. Can he just carry on as before? It will be interesting to see if the next episode shows any change in the relationships between Ianto and the others…
[1] One of many things that have come through the Rift…
