James Rollins - The Master of Clever Thriller

Speaking about genre preferences, I was never much attracted to thrillers. Science fiction and fantasy always come to mind first when the issue of favorite genre is raised (though I dislike the whole genre hoopla, but that is another subject). I remember when, upon strong recommendations, I picked up one of Robert Ludlums spy thrillers, hoping that I would not be able to put the book down. Unfortunately, I was soon bored and went to sleep. I did try it a few more times but I just could not immerse in the world that seemed so like the real one. It took me years to give it another try, and I am sure glad I did.

When I started working as a literary translator, which has always been a dream of mine, I was not expecting to like any of the books that I was given to translate. It was a job and I approached it as a professional. Give me the book and I will translate it to the best of my abilities, whether I like it or not. Despite that determination, I was still somewhat apprehensive when my boss gave me Map of Bones by James Rollins as my new assignment saying that it is a great, smart action thriller bearing some similarities with the then ultra-popular The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. I hated that book. In my opinion, it was poorly written and tried to cash in on the controversy surrounding the speculations about the life of Jesus Christ after the crucifixion, already depicted well in the book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Henry Lincoln, Michael Baigent, and Richard Leigh.

With these thoughts in my head I immediately started on the translation, without reading the book first, as I normally do. After a few dozen of translated pages I was so drawn into the plot that I decided to read it first and did so in two sittings. I was amazed. The plot was intriguing, characters had some depth, action was abundant and well depicted, and twists and cliffhangers were cleverly and believably resolved.

The best thing, however, was the way Mr. Rollins used historical facts to weave a very intriguing and entertaining story. I was astounded when I read the afterword in which Mr. Rollins explains the historical and scientific facts that he used as basis for his fictional work. It is needless to say that I was hooked. After I finished the translation of Map of Bones, I found everything that Mr. Rollins had written that was available in my country and literally gulped it. I was lucky to translate the following two books in the Sigma series – The Black Order and The Judas Strain. I loved them.

Regretfully, the publishing house that I worked for was sold, and the new owner failed to prolong the contract for the publishing of Mr. Rollins’s books. Still, I continued to read them, and I am happy to say that the quality of writing and most of all ideas, remains very high.

The Sigma series books are centered on the agents of Sigma, who can be described as assassins with PhDs. All agents have multiple doctorates, and usually military background. They deal with national security, or better to say world security issues that are related to ancient mysteries and breakthrough scientific achievements and technology. In essence, it is a mixture of Indiana Jones (incidentally, Rollins penned the Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull novelization) and James Bond with all his gadgets. Books are full of adventure, three dimensional characters, humor and clever ideas. I have given my free copies of translated books to some of my friends and family, and they had only words of praise for it. There are even some rumors that they might be turned into movies. 

Now that would be a treat.

Terminator Genisys Trailer – My Thoughts

The trailer for Terminator Genisys with Arnold Schwarzenegger has finally seen the light of day. After watching it a few times my reactions were mixed, to say the least.

My first sentiment was exileration, off course – the latest installment of one of my favorite movie franchises is in the works. Terminator  and T2: Judgement Day were a part of my childhood and adolescent years, and I cannot even begin to express how much they meant and still mean to me. T3 was good, although it did represent a decline of quality in comparison with the first two parts. The fourth one, Terminator Salvation (I am not even sure if it is the correct title), left no particular mark. I also must mention the TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which I thoroughly enjoyed. In my opinion, it is on the same level as T3, if not better, though it is hard to compare TV and Cinema.

After taking a closer look at the trailer, I realized that there seems to be a lot of promise to this film. The trailer starts with the images from the future war with the machines. The resistance movement headed by severely scarred John Connor (Jason Clarke) launches the final offensive against the machines and upon discovering that the machines have sent terminators to the past to kill Sarah Connor, they decide to send someone to protect her. Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) volunteers and we see him entering the time machine. Then we see him arriving to the past, in the same alley as in The Terminator, and he enters the same department store. A policemen follows him inside and then a van bursts through the wall with a young woman at the wheel, hitting the policeman with the back end. When she yells the too familiar words – Come with me if you want to live - we are completely aware of the twist. The policeman is actually a T-1000 (Byung-hun Lee).

The second half of the trailer shows us the arrival of the T-800 (young Arnold Schwarzenegger) who is greeted by another T-800 (present day Arnold Schwarzenegger), followed by a lot of action, lot of terminators, gun-totting, schoolbus-flipping, and in the end, after the unavoidable “I’ll be back”, a helicopter head-butting, the total highlight of this trailer.

It appears to me that they took the screenplay for The Terminator and rewrote it to make some sort of another T2, which could be a good thing, but not necessarily. A way had to be found to include an old Terminator in the movie, and for that matter, I think that part of the story is quite acceptable. Arnold IS the Terminator, period. There would be no franchise without him. However, I am a bit weary of the constant recycling. I do not think that every Terminator movie should include every sentence or image from the first one or two. Give Arnold some new one liners, he cannot keep repeating “I’ll be back” for all eternity. It could turn into a parody no matter how much some people like it.

There are some things about this trailer that I did not like. The future does not look nearly as dark and bleak as in the first two movies. I like the John Connor’s look though, with heavy scars on his face. Kyle Reese, on the other hand, looks miscast. Jai Courtney looks like a complete opposite of Michael Biehn. Where Biehn was slim, almost sickly, Courtney looks healthy, strong, ripped almost like a terminator.

As regards the casting of Emilia Clarke as Sarah Connor, she strikes me as a good choice. She appears to have that same intensity that could be seen in both Linda Hamilton and Lena Headey.

My biggest objection to this trailer concerns the fact that, in my opinion, it reveals too much of the plot. I remember when I watched T2 for the first time, I was shocked when it turned out that T-800 was the good guy. This trailer seems to contain every major twist, at least in the first half of the film. I hope that I am wrong and that there will still be some surprises when the film comes to cinemas.

The final question is whether I would go to see this movie based on this trailer alone. The answer is, off course, yes. It’s The Terminator, with Arnold Schwarzenegger. It really does not need a trailer to attract me to the cinema. However, there is a slight feeling of apprehension. It is like when someone you care about is going to do something important and you are worried. You know that you will still care no matter what happens, but you would rather see that person succeed. The premiere will be in July, 2015.

Star Wars The Force Awakens Teaser

We have all seen it by now. The teaser trailer for Star Wars Episode VII The Force Awakens caused mainly positive reactions. It has been analyzed in detail all over the Internet so I will not go in particular depth but I feel the need to share a few thoughts. Overall, the trailer has the feel that is reminiscent of the original trilogy which is a very good thing. Hopefully, we will seen some of the magic that made us fall in love with Star Wars at the first place.

The highlight of the teaser was the Millennium Falcon, off course. Cannot wait to see it again on the big screen. The way the scene is shot reminded me of the way the scenes with Serenity were shot in Firefly. There is that same chasing camera that follows the ship in its flight, making everything look more dynamic. the same technique was then used in BSG, the new series, which also looked awesome. This inspired me to re-watch Firefly and if I find time I will try to write some reviews of this prematurely cancelled, yet incredible series.

Star Wars Episode VII The Force Awakens will be in cinemas in December 2015. Seems like eternity right now, but we will get there. The wait will be over.

Edge of tomorrow

I was eager to see this movie ever since I saw the first trailer. It won me over immediately.

The first thing that attracted my attention was the mentioning of The Bourne Identity, as the previous work of the director Doug Liman. The Bourne Identity is one of my all-time favorites and I had a lot of confidence in its director. Secondly, all personal traits aside, I really like Tom Cruise as an actor. He has a lot of charisma and he is a good actor. I think he was a very good Jack Reacher as well.

There was a lot of talk on the Internet recently about the underwhelming box office performance of this movie and the reasons for it. The consensus appears to be that the marketing was to blame. In spite of the fact that some $100m was spent, people seemed to have had the wrong impression from the trailers about what the movie would be like. I loved the trailer and it was clear to me that it would be some sort of SF Groundhog Day, which is, by the way, also one of my all-time favorites. It was also clear that Cruise’s character does not start as a hero, and the Emily Blunt would play a significant role. All those things attracted my attention. On the other hand, one prominent aspect of the movie was absent from this trailer (cannot say about the others because I avoided them because I wanted to see the movie without spoilers). Humor. It considerably improves the overall quality of the movie. Perhaps if that had been emphasized more in the trailers, the movie would have fared better. Still its quality is undeniable and it will only be proved in years to come.

The movie starts with media news on the meteor crash that turns out to be an alien invasion. Cruise is a military PR officer who comes to England and is ordered to report live on the attack of allied forces on the enemy positions. He rejects and tries to flee, ending up tased and handcuffed. He wakes up in the base and gets attached to a company of soldiers who are to be deployed the next day. Cruise is placed in a battle suit, a sort of exoskeleton that has been seen many times in SF movies. The attack of the allied forces is reminiscent of the Saving Private Ryan invasion at the beginning of the movie. It is very well done so I will not spend too many words on that.

This is where the plot thickens. Cruise manages to kill an alien and gets himself killed, only to wake up the day before, in the military base. The circle keeps repeating itself and Emily Blunt’s character gets drawn in. She understands what is going on because she had the same experience in the previous battle. Together, they try to end the war, using the advantage that Cruise’s ’’immortality’’ gives them. I will no longer describe the plot in order not to reveal the finale so if you have not seen the movie, get it, watch it, it is a real treat, and if you have, you know what happens. You can watch it again, I know I will.

One of the strongest points of the movie is its story. I loved the explanation of the Cruise’s situation. Also, the character development is well done. Cruise’s character changes in the course of the movie, from scared coward, to pragmatic soldier, to disillusioned and hopeless, to determined and self-sacrificing. Of course, he falls in love with Blunt’s character in the process, which affects his actions, while she is naturally unaware. It is satisfying to watch how it all unravels, and the ending was quite to my liking.

Blunt is excellent in this movie. She perfectly blended various character traits, and she is physically fantastic. She actually does a perfect elbow lever on the floor when she first appears. Awesome.

There are a lot of funny moments. It is fun to see Cruise gets killed in all sorts of ways. I read somewhere that he has been killed in this movie more times than in all other movies that he has made in his entire cereer

The verdict: It is, hands down, one of the best movies this year and I am convinced that it will be more and more appreciated with time. 5/5