Film Review | Water for Elephants, dir. Francis Lawrence

 

I'll not be the first reviewer to point this out, I'm sure, but Water for Elephants' framing narrative - which has a dear old soul escape the clutches of his care home long enough to tell a skeptical young man all about this one time he ran away with the circus - is for all intents and purposes a direct lift from James Cameron's Titanic. And that very much sets the scene for Francis Lawrence's latest piece of popcorn-fodder; very much a move towards the good and true and pure after the gaudy grime of Constantine and I Am Legend... yet Water for Elephants too has its darkness.

Least, it does if you squint a bit.

Based on Sara Gruen's pop-lit smash hit - a gritter, greyer thing by far, as I understand it - Water for Elephants is the story of the best days of one Jacob Jankowski's life: a Polish veterinary student who, when his parents pass in a tragic car wreck - leaving Jacob with nothing but his half-completed Ivy League education - jumps the first train heading anywhere but here and never looks back. The train, as it happens, turns out to belong to the Benzini Brothers' Circus, upon which discovery Jacob begs a job from the ringleader, August Rozenbluth. August, in a bid to outdo his great rivals the Wringling Brothers, is only too happy to offer Jacob temporary employment tending the animals.

Which is all very well, of course, and fodder for a fair to fine narrative right there, I don't doubt, but only when Jacob lays eyes on the lovely Marlena, August's wife and star attraction - for she too has a way with the animals - does Water for Elephants reveal its true intent: a forbidden love story set against the backdrop, rather than the fact, of a circus on its last legs in the deeply depressed 30s.

This is where Water for Elephants began to go pear-shaped, for me. I just did not - could not, no matter how hard I tried - buy into the romance between Twilight's Robert Pattinson as, ironically, Jacob, and Reese Witherspoon (last little-seen in one of 2010's biggest flops) as Marlena. What chemistry there is between the leads, if there is truly any at all, seems more an accident of mad science than any natural or even smartly manufactured reaction. At least they look the part - as most everything does in this lavishly produced and ornately set-dressed adaptation - but neither Pattinson nor Witherspoon feel as if they're at home in these particular roles... and so much of Water for Elephants hinges on the viewer coming to care for their characters, which come across as little more than barely-contained impulses in bodily form, that if one cannot easily get on side, then one is likely to find oneself utterly unconvinced by much of what follows.

That said, I was not in fact "utterly unconvinced" by Water for Elephants; only the central characters left me feeling cold and old. Far more worthwhile, as both actor and character and character actor, was Inglorious Basterds' Colonel Hans Landa: Christopher Waltz as August, who has loved Marlena ever since he lifted her up from nothing, and who, as an intelligent and essentially decent man, hires Jacob as much for decent dinnertime conversation as for his, uh... elephant-whispering skills. To my surprise my sympathies were with August first and foremost, until of course the broad-strokes script from Richard LaGravenese - that would be he of The Bridges of Madison County and The Fisher King - requires that August morph into the Bad Nasty Man of the piece, the better to rationalise away Jacob and Marlena's illicit affair.

I was not, needless to say, best pleased with this abrupt transformation, nor at all surprised by it. In fact I'd be interested to hear how August is portrayed in the original novel: is he as clear-cut a monster in the end, or essentially a decent human being, maddened by a broken heart? In any event, in Francis Lawrence's lamentably uncomplicated adaptation, August's development takes a predictable nose-dive towards the melodramatic, even the monstrous, in the last act.

No other actor really gets a look-in on Water for Elephants, I'm afraid, though I'd have looked back on this film rather more fondly if it had had time for dearly-beloved supporting characters like Camel and Charlie and Kinko the Clown, as I gather the book does. Instead, Lawrence introduces the lot, only to abandon them somewhere around the outer circle of the big top he builds evidently for no other reason than to set the stage for a tepid love triangle.

Water for Elephants, then, is schmaltzy, saccharine-sweet, sentimental storytelling, laser-focused where a little range would have done it the world of good, widening its scope and cloying tone a great deal... and I dare say it could have made more of the encroaching darkness about it, rather than merely allude in its direction from time to time. One senses sharp edges here and there - carried over from the book if I'm not mistaken - but I fear former MTV-man Francis Lawrence is more interested in smoothing them over to make way for his shiny happy people to hold hands than for a moment exploring these untold depths. Water for Elephants could have been a far greater thing than the attractive but empty sideshow it is, ultimately: a family-friendly period romance with added tassels and the occasional animal.

Speaking of which, there is at least one undeniable attraction to this film. The hell with the dude what was in the Twilight flicks, Reese Witherspoon and even my man Christopher Waltz: if you're going to watch Water for Elephants for any reason - and it's alright, really; all my objections aside, it makes for a perfectly pleasant evening's entertainment - watch it for a star-making performance from Rosie... the elephant!

Press Release Your Luck | Meet Stephanie Meyer

Meet Stephanie Meyer. She wrote the publishing sensation of the decade... you know the one. No, not Harry Potter. The other one.

There she blows!

So. D'you fancy grabbing a cup of tea with Ms. Meyer herself?

We all know I'm not a great devotee - though there's an article yet to tell of my attempts to understand the zeitgeist's sudden fascination with sparkly vampires  - so no, I'm not likely to qualify as "the ultimate Twilight fan," but I thought to myself: as like as not there are a few of you reading this wee blog here that might consider themselves such. I bet you guys would love the chance to meet the lady who gave the world a rivalry fit to match the Old Firm in the form of the right honourable Teams Jacob and Edward.

So here. Read some of this press release, and maybe - you never do know - a couple of months from now you could be doing just that:

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, a division of Hachette Book Group, will host a special International Fan Event, featuring Twilight fans from around the world.  Ten fans will be chosen to have an once-in-a-lifetime intimate meeting with international bestselling author Stephenie Meyer.  The event coincides with the upcoming release of The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide (April 12, 2011; £17.99).

Little, Brown US is partnering with the Twilight Saga publishers around the globe to find the lucky Twilight fans who will attend this event. Atom (an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group UK) will be running a competition in their international English language territories (Australia, India, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa and the UK) to find one super fan to join fans from Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico and Taiwan at the exclusive event.  Each special guest will receive an advance copy of The Official Illustrated Guide and get to talk extensively with Meyer, who will answer their Twilight-related questions. 

 “The one thing I miss most about my first book tour was the chance I had then to spend quality time with my readers,” said Meyer.  “At an event with just ten or twenty people, I was able to get to know everyone a little bit.  I could also more effectively answer each person’s questions.  I’m so excited to have that opportunity again, and to get to spend time with fans from many different places and backgrounds.”

“We receive hundreds of travel requests for Stephenie from our foreign publishing partners every year,” said Megan Tingley, Senior Vice President and Publisher of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.  “Since it is physically impossible for one author to be in so many places, we thought this would be a great way to bring some fans to her.” 

 Fans from Atom’s international English language territories will be invited to upload a short video clip explaining why they are the ultimate Twilight fan. Finalists from Australia, India, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa and the UK will go on to a final judging round, from which the ultimate Twilight fan will be picked. Further details can be found at www.stepheniemeyer.co.uk.

 Due to the intimate nature of this event, details regarding the location and timing are being kept confidential.  Photos and additional details will be distributed upon the event’s conclusion.

One way or the other, I know I'll be watching some of the videos resulting from this competition. They're going to be priceless. You know it, and I... well.

Still and all, other than your dignity, what have you got to lose? And what's a little self-respect next to a chance to meet Stephanie Meyer? I know I'd give up more for a session with Guy Gavriel Kay, or a sit-down with ol' China of the Mieville.

Woe Is Team Edward

This just in!

Team Edward, it seems, have lost.

Whilst idly browsing Baby Names World a little while ago - you must promise not to ask me why; it's altogether not what you think - I came across some rather surprising statistics. Apparently, the most popular girl's name for the year 2009, and thus the most popular name of the year?

Bella.

22,067 times last year, a new baby girl came into the world and its originators, presumably Twilight-obsessed new parents, deemed it wise to name it after you-know-who.

Furthermore, the most popular boy's name in that same period... turns out to be Jacob. I kid you not. 20,858 kids born in 2009 alone are now crawling around the floor of the world, named, alas, after a sexy werewolf. Never mind that Jacob's quite a nice name - and perhaps Lost had something to do with this one, too. Or am I kidding myself?

Which leaves only Edward. Poor, misbegotten Edward. He comes in 248th overall, with only 2952 infants named in his dubious honour. Can't say I saw that coming. For goodness sake, more boys were named Maxwell!

Where did Team Edward go so wrong, I wonder? Honestly, I have no idea. Did Edward turn out to be a creepy old man wearing a teenager's face - the better to perv on Bella with - in the end? Was that it?

Book Review: Zoo City by Lauren Beukes

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"Zinzi December has a Sloth on her back, a dirty 419 scam habit, and a talent for finding lost things. But when a little old lady turns up dead and the cops confiscate her last paycheck, she's forced to take on her least favourite kind of job - missing persons."

***

Who here remembers urban fantasy? Hands up.

No, no, no. Those of you waving your arms in the air at the thought of some forbidden affair between a tough female protagonist and a gentleman of the night, think again. Of late, there's been a largely regrettable insurgence of such fiction: a counter-culture of wish-fulfillment fiction bearing transparent elements of the fantastic and set against one urban environ or another has arisen - if only to be subsumed itself by the zeitgeist. Paranormal romance by any other name (the vast majority of which smells as sour as the likes of Laurell K. Hamilton and Stephanie Meyer have taught us to expect) has thoroughly co-opted urban fantasy in recent years, and the genre, as is, bears only a trifling resemblance to the mature and sophisticated fiction it once espoused. In short, an overabundance of Twilight wannabes and screeds of sexy vampires have given urban fantasy a bad name. With Zoo City, South African author Lauren Beukes is taking it back.

Meet Zinzi December. Animalled after murdering her own brother, Zinzi serves out her penance in a district of Johannesburg where "Zoos" such as she and sometime-significant other Benoit can live in relative peace, zoned off as they are from the rest of the world. With a Sloth slung over her shoulder, an externalisation of her fratricidal guilt and a constant reminder of her crime, life isn't easy for Zinzi. Against her better judgment, she works as a 419 scam artist in order to repay the staggering debt she has accumulated thanks to a past-tense drug addiction, making ends meet in the erstwhile by "finding lost things" with the supernatural talent she acquired as a by-product of being animalled. Only ever things, though - never people. But Zinzi's fallen on hard times. When one of her clients ends up mercilessly slaughtered and an opportunity to pay off her crippling debt once and for all arises, she puts her principles to the side and sets about her unusual charge: the rooting out of a missing Afropop starlet.

You simply wouldn't credit that Zoo City is only Lauren Beukes' second novel. She doesn't put a foot wrong for the duration. With endless verve and a cynical wit, she carries off a concept so audacious as to beggar belief, an inspired riff on the daemons of His Dark Materials which has humanity reevaluating its roots in the aftermath of the Zoo Plague, or AAF (Acquired Aposymbiotic Familiarism). "It's a fragile state - the world as we know it," Beukes warns us. "All it takes is one Afghan warlord to show up with a Penguin and a bulletproof vest, and everything science and religion thought they know goes right out of the window." Relevant and revelatory, the ghettoisation of the Zoos in the pockmarked and unrelentingly urban landscape of Johannesburg also recalls the quandary of the slumdog prawns of District 9, yet Beukes confers on the animalled of her novel a murky sense of depth Neill Bloemkamp could only imply.

The Zoos are tragic creatures, one and all; some hateful, others haunted - Zinzi most of all. A recovering journalist, as Beukes has it, and "master builder in the current affairs sympathy scam," Zinzi is an embittered anti-heroine living, as all Zoos do, in fear of the Undertow, an unknowable terror which suffuses the fringes of her existence. She has, of course, more immediate concerns, foremost amongst them the everyday dangers of life in a city bereft of (conventional) order. Singularly the most disturbing of all her encounters in Zoo City, short perhaps its truly gruesome dénouement, is with a gang of junkie tunnel rats who have stolen her phone. Zinzi has fallen so far, yet she still has her pride, and so she makes the mistake of confronting them. Realising her mistake, she runs; they tear through the sewers after her with a rusty, sharpened screwdriver and such unadulterated hate that we see it is the city, in as much as the Zoos, that she need fear.

Zinzi is not so easily dissuaded. She washes the stink of the sewer off her and immediately follows up on her next lead: could Songweza, the absent half of Afropop sensation iJusi, have taken up with a burly bouncer working the doors of Counter Revolutionary? Zinzi is a strong female protagonist in every sense; and she is strong in the face of violent crime, betrayal and a city that seems to want her dead - not just a bit downtrodden until she attracts the attention of a devilishly handsome werewolf, as in the mode of many so-called "urban fantasy" narratives. Her Sloth, meanwhile, is more than a glorified pet: it has its own personality, its own desires - often at odds with Zinzi's - and yet it is a part of her that she must come to terms with, however much she despises what Sloth recalls, for the Undertow comes for all those who are separated from their animal companions.

Zoo City is lean and mean urban fantasy in the best and most respectable sense of the thing. In Zinzi Beukes gives us a truly compelling character: strong, centered, flawed just so and brilliantly intertwined with her world. In the titular district of Johannesburg, the South African author offers up an environment so desperate and evocative it puts innumerable paint-by-numbers fantasylands to shame. Hard-bitten, deliciously vitriolic and utterly engaged, both with the city and what the city means to those who call it home - for want, one intimates, of anywhere else to - Zoo City is, in short, the best thing to happen to urban fantasy in years.

***

Zoo City

by Lauren Beukes

September 2010, Angry Robot

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Book Review: The Passage by Justin Cronin

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"Amy Harper Bellafonte is six years old and her mother thinks she's the most important person in the whole world. She is. Anthony Carter doesn't think he could ever be in a worse place than Death Row. He's wrong. FBI agent Brad Wolgast thinks something beyond imagination is coming. It is: the Passage.

"Deep in the jungles of eastern Colombia, Professor Jonas Lear has finally found what he's been searching for - and wishes to God he hadn't. In Memphis, Tennessee, a six-year-old girl called Amy is left at the convent of the Sisters of Mercy and wonders why her mother has abandoned her. In a maximum security jail in Nevada, a convicted murderer called Giles Babcock has the same strange nightmare, over and over again, while he waits for a lethal injection. In a remote community in the California mountains, a young man called Peter waits for his beloved brother to return home, so he can kill him. Bound together in ways they cannot comprehend, for each of them a door is about to open into a future they could not have imagined. And a journey is about to begin. An epic journey that will take them through a world transformed by man's darkest dreams, to the very heart of what it means to be human... and beyond."

***

When a book has made $5m before it's even been published, you know it's got to be something special. At the least, you can be sure several somebodies somewhere think it is. Or perhaps "special" isn't the right word: commercial, perhaps, is more on the money. As of this writing, The Passage has hardly hit store shelves, but that it is the literary phenomenon of 2010 - in the mode of Harry Potter, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and Twilight - is in no doubt. It's been a sure thing since before the year even began: it was the subject of a high-stakes bidding war between publishers of such ferocity that it made the news; tens of thousands of ARCs went out late last year to reviewers the world over, achieving a fever pitch of publicity well in advance of release; it's been championed on USA Today; and the rights for the inevitable film adaptation have been bought for a whack of cash by Ridley Scott. Whether or not you're in the least bit interested in The Passage, it's been, and it will continue to be, impossible to ignore.

Hype is a funny old thing. At its most potent, its most prevalent, hype creates such a hurricane of sensation that the actual subject of all the calculated hoo-hah often get lost in the mix. By the time people remember that there's a book at the heart of this latest wave, and not just a whirling wall of watercooler wonderment, you'd think the thing itself would be so up against it that it could only fail to meet the sky-high expectations the hype and all that follows has instilled in us. You know how it goes. J. K. Rowling needs an editor, right? Don't you think the Millennium trilogy stretches its credibility a touch too far? And perhaps centuries-old sparkly vampires preying on teenage girls isn't so romantic, when you think about it.

Hype breeds expectation; huge hype, of the calibre that's paved the way for The Passage, breeds expectations of equal standing. But The Passage is that rarest of things: not only does it live up to every one of the promises its exhaustingly enthusiastic publicists, it positively exceeds them. You'd only be doing yourself a disservice by ignoring this book.

A few years from now, The Passage has it, the army discover a peculiar virus that scientists believe might prolong human life. Or rather, it discovers them. The fact-finding trip through the Bolivian rainforest goes horribly awry, but a secret cell of the government separates the expedition's findings from the blood-curdling tragedy of its execution and develop the virus in an isolated laboratory using conveniently disappeared death row inmates as guinea pigs. FBI agent Brad Wolghast has persuaded twelve convicted murderers to sign up - among them Anthony Carter - and it's sat easily enough with him so far. When his superiors order him to abduct a six year old girl, however, Wolghast's conscience catches up with him. The girl in question is Amy Harper Bellafonte, orphaned by her prostitute mother when a trick got horrifically out of hand. And one day, Amy will save the world.

That's how Justin Cronin begins his magnum opus - that's the plot summary of the first few hundred pages - and in any other case I'd hesitate to give so much away, but truly, it is only the beginning. In point of fact, it's pretty much the prologue. The Passage is a behemoth of a book. Clocking it at nearly 800 pages in hardcover, it's an intimidating thing in terms of its physicality, first of all; the sheer presence of this novel will be enough to turn heads. And The Passage is a tale of many parts.

The beginning represents the origin story of the manufactured terror that latterly despoils the world: Cronin calls them flyers, jumps, smokes, and a hundred other things, but cut right to the quick and they're vampires. But they're not your usual vamps - for one thing, they don't sparkle (although they do glow); there's nothing suave and seductive about these bloodthirsty creatures. A hundred years after Amy and Wolghast and the initial infection, the period during which the larger part of The Passage takes place, they hunt the barren landscape for survivors in vicious pods, though true humans are fewer and further between every day. The hundred or so inhabitants of a walled compound protected by harsh fluorescent lights believe they're the only people left alive, and for all intents and purposes they might as well be. When the lights threaten to go out, an unexpected visitor represents the only hope of a cadre of survivors who take to the world in search of a way to take the planet back.

The Passage is an honest-to-God epic the likes of which hasn't been seen since The Stand. This'll be blasphemy to some, but come to that, Cronin's tome is still more impressive than the novel many consider to be Stephen King's greatest. Certainly, it's better written than anything the so-called modern-day Dickens has produced in his career: in terms of characterisation and pacing, Cronin is surely King's equal; in terms of wordsmithing, however, he handily overcomes that author's awkward tendency towards the trite. The Passage can be pedestrian when the occasion calls for it - during action sequences Cronin's prose is snappy and matter-of-fact - but in between times his writing is considered, composed, even poetic. The Passage, you come to understand, is a passionate piece of fiction, honest and heart-felt. It chronicles any number of brutalities, awful things happen in almost every one of its seventy-some chapters - characters you've come to care for are killed indiscriminately; unsettling events are the order of the day, every day; enemies grow more powerful with every step our heroes take: our expectations become like so much dust on a windy day - and yet, against all the odds, it is an undercurrent of hope that drives Cronin's narrative. Hope, if not for a better today, then for a more tolerant tomorrow.

Hands down, The Passage is the best book I've read this year, and believe you me, I've read a lot of books this year. It has its faults, of course: its sprawling nature gives it a somewhat episodic feel that can be jarring at first, and the very middle fifth is perhaps a little baggy. But it begins brilliantly, ends with a deafening smack of surprise that will have you hungry for the next book in the series immediately, and in the interim, you'll find the experience of reading The Passage as compelling as any addiction. By turns pacey and exhilarating, tragic and touching, breathtaking in its scope and near-perfect in its execution, Justin Cronin handily inherits the mantle that Rowling, Larsson and Meyer have shared these past few years. You mightn't think a vampire apocalypse is the most likely candidate for the cultural zeitgeist to hone in on, but make no mistake: The Passage is this year's literary sensation, and for once, it deserves the attention.

***

The Passage

by Justin Cronin

June 2010, Orion Books

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Last Stop on the True Blood Train

I've tried reading Charlaine Harris - I have - but the Sookie Stackhouse books... they simply aren't for me. No surprises there, I suppose: the whole notion of paranormal romance rubs me the wrong way.

All the same, when HBO announced Six Feet Under creator Alan Ball would be showrunning an adaptation of the series, I was as excited as all get-out. For me, Six Feet Under represented a very personal watershed moment in television drama. I know a lot of people criticised the series in its later years, and yes, even my interest wavered amidst all the navel-gazing and tiresome relationship shuffling of seasons four and five, but looking back, three great years and a superlative finale is all the redemption Six Feet Under needed in my mind. Deep, dark and daring, it will always have a special place in my heart.

So when I heard Alan Ball would be directing his attention to an adult vampire drama loosely based on books whose speculative leanings had interested me but whose soap-opera execution I'd found wanting, I didn't let the sour taste half of the first Sookie Stackhouse book had left in my mouth spill over into my expectations for True Blood. 

 Perhaps, in this case, I should have been a little less objective. Because as of last night, when my lovely other half and I belatedly polished off the last episodes of the second season, I think I'm done with True Blood; unless something significant happens to change my mind, I'm washing my hands of it. I know it has a huge following. And in light of the way the likes of Twilight and The Vampire Diaries have seized the contemporary zeitgesit, that isn't surprising. Certainly True Blood is the best of that bunch. There are moments when I genuinely do enjoy it, and irrespective of my tastes, I admire its stylishness, its energy, its panache.

I'll even go so far as to say I've fallen for a few of its characters. Bear with me here, because I'm not great with names, but I enjoyed the Cajun from the first season; the lonely vampire Jason and his girlfriend preyed upon; and Godric, short-lived though he was despite his long life, was great. But there's no-one in Bon Temps that delights me more than Lafayette - though his role in season two sadly downplayed the very outrageousness that made his character so memorable.

And that, I think, is a stake straight to heart of my problem with True Blood. It has its strengths, and no shortage of them, but rather than play to them, time and again it digresses towards its less winning aspects. Characters tread water, promising narrative threads amount to nothing more than a return to the status quo. A warning: look away now if you haven't yet caught up with the show and don't want some pivotal plot points spoiled.

Now Buffy suffered through some pretty dire antagonists in its seven years, but truly, the Big Bad of season two of True Blood takes the cake. Maryanne could have been another great character. Instead, the writers spent perhaps half the season driving home the same point, again and again: Maryanne reduces people to their basest, most animal instincts. Her development happened too slowly; the big reveal, on the other hand, happened too fast. I understand the limitations of serial television, but a show with the pedigree of True Blood - not to mention a network noted for its support of television which breaks the mold - simply shouldn't fall victim to such problematic pacing. That's a problem of the creators' own making, rather than a by-product of its format.

Anyway, I could go on, but I'll save you the bellyaching. I really was ready to love True Blood; I just don't. Ill-content to let its best characters breathe and thrive and determined to repeat itself ad infinitum, pandering at the best of times and insulting at the worst, I honestly feel this show could have been so much more than a supernatural soap-opera with sex and death. I see the appeal, but I don't feel it. If you ask me - though nobody did - Alan Ball needs to move the True Blood train on rather than reveling in the world he's realised.

When and if he does, someone hit me up, alright? I'm ready to fall for this world, though as it stands it seems too busy falling for its own self.

Book Review: The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman

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in the UK / in the US]

"Listen. The Sanctuary of the Redeemers on Shotover Scarp is named after a damned lie, for there is no redemption that goes on there and less sanctuary.

"The Sanctuary of the Redeemers is a vast and desolate place – a place without joy or hope. Most of its occupants were taken there as boys and for years have endured the brutal regime of the Lord Redeemers whose cruelty and violence have one singular purpose – to serve in the name of the One True Faith. In one of the Sanctuary’s vast and twisting maze of corridors stands a boy. He is perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old – he is not sure and neither is anyone else. He has long-forgotten his real name, but now they call him Thomas Cale.

"He is strange and secretive, witty and charming, violent and profoundly bloody-minded. He is so used to the cruelty that he seems immune, but soon he will open the wrong door at the wrong time and witness an act so terrible that he will have to leave this place, or die. His only hope of survival is to escape across the arid Scablands to Memphis, a city the opposite of the Sanctuary in every way: breathtakingly beautiful, infinitely Godless, and deeply corrupt.

"But the Redeemers want Cale back at any price... not because of the secret he now knows, but because of a much more terrifying secret he does not."

***

Expectations are high for The Left Hand of God, almost unbearably so. Some have tipped it as among the most anticipated new fantasy novels of 2010, and from the outside looking in, it's not difficult to see why. Here in the UK, Penguin Books have embarked on what is reportedly the single biggest and most expensive publicity drive in the publisher's long history, taking in the most mainstream ad campaign I've ever seen employed for a piece of speculative fiction short of a new Stephen King; not to mention a series of viral trailers you'll find infecting the likes of YouTube and DailyMotion and even, bafflingly, a iPhone app.

The premise, too, sounds appealing. Tailor-made, one might go so far as to say, to hit home with fans of speculative fiction; Hoffman has a check-mark in all the right boxes. There's a chosen one with an impossible love interest and a pair of unwilling allies caught in the middle of an epic battle between powerful opposing forces set against one another; there's a touch of alternate-history about the world Cale must navigate, yet a whiff of the real world rendered unreal in the mode of so many superior narratives.

In short, The Left Hand of God arrives carried aloft by a wave of high hopes and great expectations, but it is far from the equal of either. The Guardian observes that "it might have been planned by a focus group," and reviewer Patrick Ness is right on the money; everything about Hoffman's highly-anticipated genre debut seems calculated to win over fans of speculative fiction, and perhaps it may have, had it not a myriad of other, more commercially viable target markets in mind. Penguin Books only stands a chance of recouping the massive financial investment they've made on The Left Hand of God if it sells fantasy to the masses in the same way they bought into the horror genre via the likes of True Blood and Twilight. This is that book.

None of which, come right down to it, is really Hoffman's problem, but that his publishers have pitched The Left Hand of God far too hard is only the tip of the iceberg. As the action shifts from the sickening training camp at Shotover Scarp to the burlesque streets and alleyways of Memphis where Cale finds refuge from the Redeemers, Hoffman seems to lose sight of the sliver of promise that had speckled the narrative's first act. The pace set by his protagonist's attempts to escape chokes at the sight of the city and soon stalls entirely

For the larger part of The Left Hand of God, in fact, Cale and his companions do... nothing. They wait. Sometimes they talk about not waiting, but decide, invariably, to wait a while longer. The days, weeks and months wasted away in Memphis only serve to pad out the first volume of a fantasy series of indeterminate length; without them, Hoffman's novel would be comparable to a YA effort, and a slim one at that. Perhaps Penguin, seeing some potential in the draft presented them, had its author divide The Left Hand of God down the middle and demanded that Hoffman fatten up the remainder for fear of putting off fantasy fans whose eyes light up at tomes fit to work as well as doorstops as narratives. But I digress - speculating about where it all went awry will do little good.

Hoffman's prose is rarely more than competent. It chugs along like a train-ride to nowhere; eventually, it gets you where you're going, but the awkward stops and starts that punctuate the journey are infinitely more memorable than the supposedly striking vistas glimpsed along the way. His idea of character development never amounts to anything greater than a bit of clumsy exposition that states how and why Cale or one of the forgettable supporting players have changed their outlook. And the worst is yet to come.

As I've said, The Left Hand of God meanders woefully on its way to the inevitable battle between the legions of Redeemers and the armoured Materazzi of Memphis who Cale has inexplicably taken to advising, but when that climactic encounter finally arrives, the pay-off is unspeakably disappointing. Hoffman's clumsy narration during this sequence shifts to an equally ineffective eagle's-eye perspective; he recounts the clash as if it were an historical event occurring in the far distance of time and space.

Still more distracting is the way in which the author's numeric obsession, heretofore only an occasional obstacle, wins out as the irresistible force of the Redeemers meets the Materazzi's immovable object. After building up to this battle for so long, when it comes to the actual article Hoffman seems content to simply relate the mathematical composition of each army; the referential number of each regiment; even the ages of each soldier. Once you've noticed the author falling back upon the presumed safety of the numbers that were so pivotal in his previous work - a book which apparently "predicted the collapse of the world financial system" - the numbers here, there and everywhere become impossible to ignore.

There are occasional glimmers of something worthwhile in The Left Hand of God, but for the most part, Hoffman's first genre novel is derivative, distracted and downright dull. This early in the year, readers are no doubt keen to latch onto the next great fantasy; assuredly, however, this literary identity crisis falls far short of that high watermark. In all likelihood Penguin's disproportionate publicity campaign will persuade enough readers to buy The Left Hand of God that sequels will come along to resolve the many plot threads left unresolved by this disappointing volume's abrupt conclusion, but unless Hoffman hones the scattershot craft he exhibits herein, I truly don't think I'll care enough to find out.

***

The Left Hand of God

by Paul Hoffman

January 2010, Michael Joseph: London

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