Interzone Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine #226 (21 page)

Both of the main characters have the usual complex backgrounds and are struggling with difficult family circumstances. Iridium's father was incarcerated in Corp Co's extrahuman jail, Blackbird, after becoming a ‘rabid’ criminal. Jet has to contend with the fact that her father went mad and murdered her mother in front of her when she was a child. Apparently the bearers of the Shadow superpowers are cursed to become dangerously insane at some point in their adult lives, and this naturally haunts Jet as she copes with the events that unfold in the book. It also happens to leave her open to manipulation and, ultimately, betrayal.

On the surface,
Black and White
seems to be a conventional conspiracy thriller with superhero overtones, but it is a much more complex read than those elements suggest. The lines between good and evil are sufficiently blurred by the time the novel ends to leave room for the characters to develop further in future instalments of the series. There may be a moment in the story where an important plot twist is telegraphed pretty loudly but that doesn't actually detract from the final revelation, and, in fact, serves to complicate matters nicely by allowing a third, wild, element to enter the novel.
Black and White
's strength lies in its sophisticated young characters: their changing motivations, their moving loyalties, and their reactions to their situation. One is hunted and cynical from the start, whereas the other only slowly comes to realise the extent of the betrayal in which she has been complicit.

It's an enjoyable page-turner of a novel and it is the first of a new series. There are some interesting loose ends left dangling and it will be intriguing to see how Iridium and Jet counteract the inevitable reaction to the events in
Black and White
.

Copyright (C) 2010 Vikki Green

[Back to Table of Contents]

Set in Paris, 2010, Pierre Morel's
District
13
(aka:
Banlieue 13
, 2004) was a showcase for daredevil ‘free-running’ stuntmen, gunplay sequences and some cool martial arts, combined into a sci-fi thriller with many exhilarating action scenes. Captain Damien Tomaso (Cyril Raffaelli) is teamed up with ‘local hero’ Leito ('parkour’ maven David Belle), on a mission to retrieve a stolen nuke and rescue Leito's kidnapped/enslaved sister Lola (Dany Verissimo) from the hideout of mobster Taha (Bibi Naceri, also co-writer with Luc Besson). Among several obstacles there's giant-sized henchman ‘K2’ (Tony D'Amario), but he's not the only problem for the special undercover operation, as the uber-competent heroes can hardly trust each other, let alone Parisian police or French politicians. If the filmic model for
District 13
was
Escape From New York
, then Patrick Alessandrin's sequel
District 13: Ultimatum
(DVD, 26 October) cribs its baseline plot (awful warning about dangerous fascism) from a
RoboCop
checklist, minus clunky cybernaut and satirical jibes, while its key action—for returning heroes Damien and Leito—stems clearly from Walter Hill's
The Warriors
(1979). Can you dig it? Now, it is three years later in screen-story time and those walled-in ghetto projects have become gangland fortresses run by ethnic warlords. Crooked elite cops, working for almost genocidal military chiefs, perpetrate a crisis, forcing a republican president to consider evacuating and destroying all those inconvenient dens of vice/supposedly verminous residents in unemployment traps. With a noticeable budget increase, this borrows hi-tech slickness of design/style from the James Bond pictures, although, to maintain a distinction from the 007 format, super-cop Damien is first seen in a drag-disguise to get him within striking distance of a wealthy but sleazy villain. Overall, the stunts are grander in scope and more outrageous, but often less realistic or gritty, and yet a hectic pace and infectious energy (which is a signature of Besson's productions) is expertly sustained throughout. What distinguishes these fun French actioners from typical Hollywood sci-fi adventures with lone heroes is that
District 13
and this sequel are ‘buddy movies’ in the truest sense. The dual protagonists are synchronised equals, separately proficient in feats of daring skill and bravado, and yet wholly unbeatable if working together for lively comic-book exploits. Honest lawman teamed with athletic activist present a formidable challenge to the villains’ cynical pragmatism of property redevelopment at the expense of citizens locked untidily in poverty hell. As such, and as ever, this is inspiring superhuman fantasy fun about a valiant few winning the day against demonstrably insurmountable odds.