Gerard McGarry's blog

The last novel of Stephen King’s that I read was The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon - the book which preceded Dreamcatcher. I’ve also seen the Dreamcatcher movie but thankfully have no memory of that apparent travesty, so I read the book with virtually a clean slate.

Anyway, useless trivia aside, let me tell you a bit about the plot, and then I’ll fill you in on what I thought of the book.

The Story

In their early adolescence, four boys do a brave thing and stand up for a young handicapped boy who is being bullied by some larger boys. They form a tight friendship with Douglas ‘Duddits’ Cavell and due to this shared bond, they all discover that to some extent they have telepathic or extrasensory powers.

Unable to do anything life-changing with these powers, the four grow up, and loose touch with their childhood friend. The four meet up annually for a hunting trip in the woods. On the last of these trips, the four find themselves in the middle of a military quarantine area just following an actual, honest to goodness alien invasion.

Well, Merlin-watchers, after that episode where Morgana got all doe-eyed about the kid who turned out to be Mordred, is anyone else waiting for her to switch sides?

In a lot of literature, Morgana is portrayed as an adversary of Arthur and Camelot. This is going to sound geeky, but I remember this old Superman graphic novel where Superman gets transported back in time to Camelot and has to do battle with Mordred and Morgaine le Fey (another name for Morgana).

I’ve not written much about Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles this series, but The Mousetrap was an interesting episode.

First, I loved the hat tip to Arnold Schwarznegger – the actor whose identity Cromartie stole appearing in a Conan The Barbarian type movie. It was a cheesy bit of humour that I simply didn’t expect to see in this particular show.

Anyway, Charlie (Sarah’s old flame) and his wife are leaving town after being warned by Agent Ellison that they’re not safe. However, while pulled in at a roadside garage, Cromartie kidnaps Charlie’s missus. Distraught, Charlie calls John for help, and gets precious little sympathy from Sarah. She relents though, and heads off with Derek in search of Charlie.

Sad news for any fans of the famous author Michael Crichton - he died yesterday (4th November 2008) after what has been described as a "private battle with cancer". He was 66 years old.

I was a big fan of Crichton's work during the 90's, and read all the Jurassic Park novels, and I actually read his "sexual politics in the workplace" novel Disclosure before I saw the film.

Many of Crichton's novels were given film adaptations, including Congo, Sphere and The Andromeda Strain. However, after Jurassic Park, his biggest achievement must be the long running medical drama, ER, which debuted back in 1994.

An official statement from the author's family reads:

So far in this third series of Heroes, Sylar has been recruited to the good guys, and he’s discovered that he is fully-fledged member of the Petrelli clan.

There’s a nice counter-point here. As Sylar makes his first tentative steps towards becoming a ‘goodie’, his squeaky clean brother Peter inherits Sylar’s craving for power. Symbolically, the two have swapped places – the irredeemably evil Sylar showing signs of humanity, a sudden bond with Angela Petrelli and a seemingly genuine desire to do the right thing.

At the same time, Peter Petrelli is losing the plot pretty fast, almost giving Nathan a special power-sapping lobotomy. Which is kind of strange, because Sylar killed in order to take people’s powers, but Peter already has the ability to gain powers just by being close to another superhero. So whatever gift has been passed to Peter, it includes a compulsion to murder, which puts him in league with the bad guys he so reviles.

I love Dawn Porter! In tonight’s episode, she finds herself in the house (and the bed) of a Polygamist. Don’t worry, she didn’t quite go that far with her investigative journalism, but in tonight’s show, Dawn spends some time with a polygamist family in a town in America.

In the midst of a scandal about child abuse within a polygamist community, Dawn finds herself among a group of people who are suddenly suspicious about how they might be perceived by the outside world. Nevertheless, they take the decision to allow Dawn into their lives.

Servant Of The Bones is a novel from Anne Rice written during the mid-nineties. Having written extensively about vampires, mummies and witches, the story introduces another supernatural creature – the Genie.

Azriel is the son of a Jewish merchant in ancient Babylon. Living amid the opulence and splendour of the court there, he starts to see the Babylonian god Marduk. When the members of the court realise this though, they conspire to use Azriel to invoke a centuries-old enchantment – they drug him up and involve him in a ceremony to welcome the conquering Persian, Cyrus (no relation to Billie Ray). When the ceremony is over, Azriel is numb and knows he is dying. However, he is brought to another place where his body is placed in a caldron of boiling gold. As the pain overcomes him, he has an out of body experience and his spirit floats above the cauldron as his body dies and is boiled down to the bones.

There was a tremor of warning during the summer that Madonna and Guy Ritchie's marriage was on shaky ground. The rumblings suggested that she'd had an affair with some sporty type with a ridiculous nickname name that tabloid editors would love - A-Rod.

Then it all went silent. Up until last week, that is.

We finally got official word last week that Madonna and Guy were going to divorce. My heart sank. Not for any love of them or their marriage, but because we have been damned to about six months of tabloid dirt-digging about their marriage.

There’s a moment, early on in the first series of Samantha Who?, where someone says to Samantha that “Amnesia doesn’t exist – it’s just a lazy plot device.” And after watching quite a few episodes, boy, was that a self-fulfilling prophecy!

For those of you not in the loop, Christina Applegate plays the lead character, Samantha, a super-bitch who loses her memory and her identity in a hit and run. So each episode seems to revolve around Samantha finding out a little bit more about her former self. It’s all rather like that Harrison Ford movie where he loses his memory, realises he was a complete arse and that’s why he got shot at in the first place and…er…that’s it.

Now, before you all shout at me for slating Samantha Who, please bear the following two pieces of information in mind.

1. I’m a big fan of Christina Applegate from Married With Children to Friends to the chick-flick The Sweetest Thing.
2. I’ve taken the time to watch a number of episodes just to give this a fair crack of the whip.

Did you watch the impossibly long-titled Peter Kay’s Britain’s Got The Pop Factor (and possibly a new Celebrity Jesus Christ Soapstar Superstar Strictly On Ice – phew!) last night?

Britain’s Got The Pop Factor is a spoof on all the reality TV talent shows we have in the UK. Kay himself stars as Geraldine, a transvestite who enters the competition, but has the tabloids reveal his secret. It even hauls in past Pop Idol judges Pete Waterman, Nikki Chapman and Neil “Doctor” Fox to act as judges (and heartless industry moguls).