Oh, joy. Tier 4. The gym has closed again. I mentioned back at the start of the month that I’d be bashing through as many books as I could until the aforementioned happened… which it has. During December, though, I did hammer away at the gym, getting some good results: an extra 5 on my dips record, hitting 95, and a total of 9 bicep chin-ups, something I can’t find any records of prior to this month. What did I read?
Aliens Colonial Marines Technical Manual
I got this book either for Christmas or my birthday when I was about 17. Based on the fictional world of the movie Aliens (1986), this manual examines what exactly went wrong in the ill-fated mission to rescue some colonists from planet LV-426. Author Lee Brimmicombe-Wood, game designer by trade, goes to incredible lengths to determine the world of Aliens: the army ethos, the battle techniques, the materials involved to create the dropships, starships, guns and ammo, and the Hadley’s Hope colony.
The detail gone into the technicalities of this world are so intricate that you have to remind yourself that the whole thing is fiction. The narrative of Aliens, the Alien franchise instalment, is enriched with extra hypothesis. The director’s cut reveals that Newt’s family were the ones to find the Alien spacecraft, but the author details that Carter Burke, evil company man intent on exploiting the aliens, sent them out there to discover the aliens and bring them back into the colony for impregnation.
It’s not without it’s misgivings: the manual describes how androids have support but not combat roles. I’m pretty sure the spin-off novels, by Millennium, featured androids with guns blowing aliens apart.
A fascinating, mcguffin-laiden nerd-fest.
Movie Charts
A humorous visual representation of movies, their quotes and their jokes. You’ve got to be familiar with the films to get the jokes, but it’s a great stocking filler from a few years ago.
The Godfather Treasures
Not so much a book as an entire hobby-kit, Peter Cowie’s Godfather Treasures traces the creation of the movie from author Mario Puzo’s 1969 novel, through to the film’s legacy in contemporary popular culture. (I’ve not seen The Sopranos, but I gather they reference it frequently.) Each step of the production is described, and accompanied- in pockets interspersed through the book- by replica call sheets, copies of director Francis Ford Coppola’s notes ascribed around pages of the original novel, publicity posters and quotes from cast and crew on their recollections of the film shoots.
Tremendous depth of research went into the project; Godfather Treasures lives up to its name. It’s a treasure. (It was also a good find in book shop The Works, heavily discounted.)
The Godfather in Pictures: An Unofficial Companion
Tony Nourmand edits together a collection of professional behind-the-scenes photographs from the shoots of all 3 Godfather movies, with detailed captions of the scene’s shoot, usually with some great trivia. A bargain at 4 quid (although again a massive reduction from the original £25 tag. Thanks, The Works!)
HR Giger
After reading for a few minutes, I realised this investigation into the Swiss artist’s work, published by Taschen in Germany, was done so in three different languages. In the same book. So, it took about a third of the time I expected to read. Still, it’s a fascinating look at HR Giger’s drawings, paintings and sculptures.
His most famous work was the set design on Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), and the alien itself was modelled on his drawing, Necronom IV.
That’s as far as I got before the rules changed. I’m currently dual-reading 2 books- reviews of which will go up whenever we move tiers, or I get offered the vaccine.
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