So when it was announced that Burton would be directing a film version of Dark Shadows, with a script by Pride and Prejudice and Zombies author Seth Grahame-Smith, and fan favourite Depp as Collins, people were excited. Except the final result isn’t quite what a lot of them were hoping for.

Cursed by a vengeful ex-lover, Baranbas Collins becomes a vampire and is imprisoned in a chained coffin for nearly 200 years. Escaping he sets out to restore the family fortunes and woo the young governess who looks identical to his lost love.

The basic plot is the same, but the changes made make Dark Shadows 2012 appear to be a fanfic of the original material, setting out to right all the things that the creator got wrong. So Collins is less the architect of his own demise and more the helpless woobie, the ‘right’ girl gets the guy in the end and everything is a bit more sexed up. I can see why diehard fans might feel hard-done by. They wanted an updated version of their favourite show, and instead got a slightly time shifted crack fic by Burton.

And why move it to 1972? Is this a nod to the alternate time lines on the show? Either way it seems like they could either have left it where it was or updated it to 2012. What is three more decades?

That isn’t to say that it isn’t a fun movie. Visually it is as gorgeous as you would expect a Burton movie to be, stylized, saturated and immersive. Both Collins’s native 1752 time period and the 1970s are lovingly reconstructed.

There are plenty of humorous, if not wildly original, ‘man out of his time’ moments with Collins. Some were worth a chuckle, such as his ‘tiny songstress’ moment with the TV, while others are genuinely, abidingly funny, such as Collins’s consistent failure to actually blend in at all. Depp’s stilted delivery and powdery complexion hark back, unfortunately, to his Willy Wonka period. Make-up also did slightly too good a job in making him into a semi-grotesque, with his rot darkened cheeks and bloody awl fingernails making him an unlikely source of romantic tension.

Considering he was the main character, I don’t feel there is a lot to say about Depp’s Collins. There is a surprisingly lack of emotional depth to him, which doesn’t affect the humour but does undermine some of the more dramatic scenes.

Chloë Grace Moretz, who plays the sullen and rebellious Carolyn Stoddard, is underused, but when she is on screen her studied mannerisms and teenage strops are oddly entertaining. Her refusal to be charmed or impressed by anything makes her the audiences mouthpiece at the more out-there turns of the plot.

Meanwhile Helena Bonham-Carter, although a usually reliable charming actress, could have done with being less used as poor Doctor Julia Hoffman. It was not particularly Bonham-Carter’s fault, but the character was completely lacking in dignity or self-respect. The original character abused her medical ethics more than once, but the vain, alcoholic incompetent of the movie felt uncomfortably like character assassination. Maybe any fans of the original show could tell me if I am wrong?

Other characters, such as Michelle Pfeiffer and Jonny Lee Miller as Elizabeth Stoddard and her brother Roger Collins, turned in solid performances. Bella Heathcote, who played Maggie Evans/Victoria Winters (the Collins’s sadly under-vetted governess) and Josette du Pres (Collins first, ill-fated love) was charming enough in a role that didn’t have too much to it.

Villains, of course, always get the best lines and Angelique, played with relish by Camelot’s Eva Green, vamped and threatened her way through town with enviable confidence in a series of increasingly unlikely outfits. All sly smiles and disturbing special effects, she was winning right up to the point that she doesn’t.

She was, in fact, considerably more sympathetic than Collins. His repeated claims that he was sorry about all the lives he had taken rang rather hollow, since he never seemed to feel actual regret for it, and he had seduced and abandoned Angelique after all. With Angelique’s every emotion flickering over Green’s expressive face, she seemed more human than Collins.

Barring an ending that hit all my squick buttons, but would be too spoilery to talk about here, Dark Shadows is a good bit of camp fun if you aren’t too attached to the source material. On the other hand, if you have no attachment to the source material Dracula:Dead and Loving It did it first and did it better.

NI Opera create a creepily atmospheric version of Britten’s opera, with mad governesses, ghosts and shadows.

Green is so last year. In 2012 the on-trend St Patrick’s Day reveler knows that it is all about the Roy G. Biv.

Don’t worry, that isn’t some hot new designer on the block that you should know about. It’s the mnemonic children use to learn the colours of the rainbow.

And a Global Rainbow will be visible over the Strangford Lough every day from March 14 2012 until St Patrick’s Day itself. (Hopefully none of the more sodden celebrants will go looking for a pot of gold at the end of it.)

The brainchild of New York artist Yvette Mattern, the Global Rainbow is a cutting-edge light installation which will officially open the Cultural Olympiad in Northern Ireland, after having visited Tyneside and Preston in February.

Read the rest of the article on CultureNorthernIreland

With the help of the Boston pack, an FBI agent with an unusual debt owed and two black witches, Anna and Charles have to track down the killer before he finishes with his latest victim. Only what sort of serial killer can brutalise three werewolves for days and get away with it?

A scary one.

Fair Game is a tense, discomfiting blend of Urban Fantasy and thriller. With kidnapped dancer Lizzie’s life on the line, tension stays high during the investigation. Briggs does an improbably good job of making the reader care about a character they haven’t meet or even seen.

Unfortunately, remove Lizzie from the equation and the plot sags a little bit. It wasn’t too hard to unravel who the bad guy was, and from that point it was just a waiting game till the protagonists caught up. Chekov was also abused, with a metaphorical gun being used in the third act that then had to be shoe-horned in at the start. Both scenes are well written, Briggs rarely fails to deliver on that count, but have little to do with the rest of the plot or the established characters. It was an unexpectedly disappointing moment.

Other than those minor flaws, however, Fair Game is a good read. The crime plot might not be befuddling genius, but Briggs knack for characterisation ratchets empathy high enough to carry the reader over any holes. And the world on which this characters abide continue to unspool in riveting detail. We visit the fey again here, and learn a little more about them, and get to see some of the politics that shape events.

Alpha and Omega always tends to be more politically involved than Mercedes Thompson’s series, where politics tend to take a back seat to her and hers not getting smooshed by something nasty. Alpha and Omega also puts the enormously powerful Bran’s character in perspective.

In the Thompson books the fact that Mercy had Bran on speed dial, and yet he never just rode in, dominated the heck out of everyone and peed on their couch sometimes seemed unrealistic. Yet in Alpha and Omega, we see aBran is brittle and afraid of losing the threads that tie him to human. Not because it might break him, but because it will break everything else.

Although these two series don’t need to be read together, they do flesh each other out. We see the politics behind the decisions that affect Mercy in Alpha and Omega. Meanwhile, the Thompson series is much more rooted in the ‘real world’. Not that the Marrok and his pack are I’ll informed, but the is a breadth to Mercedes’s involvement in the wider world that they lack.

Most appealing of all, however, is seeing how the marriage between Charles and Anna has evolved.

‘Alpha and Omega’, Cry Wolf and Hunting Ground were, in a lot of ways, about Omega wolf Anna coming to terms with her first brutal years as a wolf and her discomfort with her sudden change in status once folded into a healthy pack. No matter how much you love your new mate/knight in shining fur, after all, three years spent having all the self-esteem whipped out of you isn’t something to get over easily.

In Fair Game, however, it is Charles who is struggling to deal with an unexpected bout of psychological instability. He is the Marrok’s Wolfkiller – his father’s loyal assassin – but since the werewolves came out of the kennel, so to speak, he has been sent out to kill more and more often. There is no more leniency, no more second chances. The wolves can’t afford them if they are going to convince the populace at large that they are the poster-children of the fuzzy and cuddly supernatural world. It troubles Charles to deal out so much death, but there is no one else in the pack who can take on his duties.

It is up to Anna to help her mate regain his equilibrium and she does with determination and emotional maturity. She is still distinctly herself, but the harm that was done to her is nothing but scars now. It is a distinct shift in the tone of the books, and works well. Eternally wounded Anna could be pitied, but a lack of growth is rarely a good sign in a character. Anna who has not forgotten her past, not just shed it, but has moved through it, makes for an interesting and likeable character.

Reading Fair Game makes me want to read the next book in the Thompson series now instead of waiting until next year. It isn’t flawless, but it is compelling writing and adds significantly to fans understanding of the universe. And that big grace note at the end of the book? It isn’t going to be swept under the carpet for Thompson’s next book – everything is going to change.

Or not. Even at her worst, Joanne is more of ‘channelling her fear and self-doubt into righteous ass-kicking’ sort of girl. Which is a good thing, since Raven Calls takes up right where Spirit Dances left off. So Joanne drained down to the dregs of her magic and has a big, oozing werewolf bite on her arm that just isn’t doing her any good. She is also about to get on the plane to Ireland, hoping to find someone there who can stop her turning fury and rabid once the infection in her blood takes hold.

Still, no matter how dark things look – they can always get worse. Within hours the time-editing of The Walking Dead has come back to haunt her, booting her back through time to face a corrupted Morrigan and the skirling, vicious flock of the Master’s banshees. This time if she fails, she doesn’t have to worry about dying – just about leaving as the Master’s beast.

Raven Calls is a tension-ratcheting addition to the Walker Papers world. The evil that has been festering in the lymph-nodes of the world since Urban Shaman has finally been confronted, faced down (if not out). And the ever-tightening spiral of Joanne’s life has constricted again, pulling her back to face the past she’d fled as a child. It even ends with a tantalising, long-time reader rewarding hook into the next book.

It’s a good novel, slotting neatly into place with past novels and opening new avenues for Murphy to explore in the future. Perhaps even the potential for a spin-off series with the addition of an interesting new character.

Yet it didn’t feel quite as much of a stretch as I had hoped for. Over the last few books in the series Joanne has settled into familiarity with the magical world. I felt that shifting her to geographically unfamiliar ground, away from her mortal support network, could add something interesting to the books. Instead, Joanne spends most of her time moving through the Celtic otherworld and limited time interacting with anything but the geography of Ireland.

There were also a few recurrent tics that started to stand out – Joanne seems to kick herself an awful lot, and who literally does that?

Still this is a good novel and a fun read. I think, at least with me, that Murphy doesn’t always get the credit she deserves for ‘good’. She is a reliably good writer. The very least you can expect (the Worldwalker Duology never grabbed me, for example) is a fast-paced, well-structured read full of twists, turns and intrigue. Her best is addictive, clever and molasses sticky prose that settles into the folds of your brain (the sadly cut short Inheritor Cycle which I adored).

Raven Calls is a good novel and a solid step in the progression of Joanne’s overall arch. I always love a good bit of Celtic mythology and it was good to see Joanne confident and assured in her powers. It will be interesting to see if that will carry over to the next book. It is easy to be the confident, competent around people who have always known you as an adult.

At the same time Til Schweiger’s terrorist Heinrich is taking his menacing duties very seriously, perhaps hoping for a role in the next Bond film. He only gets a few plot appearances, but he is quite Teutonically threatening when he’s there.

Other than Heinrich, who you just feel would be happier in a Gerard Butler film, the mismatched genre shenanigans of the rest of the cast are actually fairly amusing. Lauren fusses over a bit of green in her teeth and has a moment with FDR’s gran while Tuck and FDR break into her house to plant bugs and Heinrich earnestly menaces a tailor in a badly lit room. (If that man tries to do any tailoring in there, he will ruin his eyes.)

A lot of the big funny moments are already familiar from the trailor, but there are a number of lower-key witticisms slid in that rouse a chuckle from the audience. The CIA support personnel provide great commentary – including a frantic ‘Are we recording this?’ when FDR reveals an embarrassing childhood story – and Hardy gets the best lines as Tuck. Poor Pine rather drew the short straw as FDR, who gets emotional growth rather than crack-up opportunities.

OK, the film isn’t going to change the way you think about yourself or those closest to your heart. On the other hand it is fun and easy-going and Chris Pine and Tom Hardy are charismatic, engaging leads.* And they have a great onscreen chemistry as bickering best mates Tuck and FDR, whether it is the bromance hugs or the pathos when they broke up.

Unfortunately, despite Reese Witherspoon being just as gosh-darn cute as she can manage, director McG never really establishes Lauren as more than a convenient foil for Tuck and FDR’s rivalry. There’s very little concrete to her character, with her flip-flopping from lovelorn, socially cursed goof in jeans and sneakers to the challenging, polished flirt in short skirts and sky-high heels. People aren’t simply one thing or another, of course, but everything we see of Lauren seems a reaction to one of the dominant figures in her life.

Combined with the fact that there’s not that much bro in Tuck and FDR’s bromance – they made a way better couple too – it makes the romantic plot a bit…saggy. Particularly since we are meant to see Tuck as the safe, home-body option while FDR is the Bond-esque playboy. Pine is a good-looking guy, and gives good intense stare, but Hardy is five miles of bad boy road. Tattooed, bad boy road.

Give Hardy his due, he does a good job of showing Tuck’s softer side with his longing for romance and his relationship with his son, but he’s still a tattooed brick wall of muscle punching people. Expecting the audience to buy into FDR as the raw and dangerous one of the two is pushing the suspension of disbelief just a bit.

They could also do with being a bit clearer about Kate. I’m not giving too many spoilers, but it turns out Kate isn’t related to FDR. Knowing this will save you some ick over a near the end comment.

Whether you think Tuck and FDR would make a better couple than Lauren and…whomever… aside, this is a fun movie with a few fairly witty moments and lots of slick slidy, punchy fight scenes. What more could you ask for?

*I liked FDR and Tuck, but the stalking and CIA level manipulation of Lauren was verging on creepy from the wrong side of the verge. Even if you do look really good dressed in black and ninja’ing your way about, it isn’t romantic to break into the object of your affections house to bug it.

 This Means War can be seen at the Moviehouse from March 2.

Can an author who made his name writing intelligent, near-future sci-fi for adults write a novel that will appeal to children?

If the author is Ian McDonald, and the book is Planesrunner – the first in McDonald’s Everness series – the answer is a resounding yes.

Basically, McDonald has taken all the things that kids love – pirates, airships, science-magic, football, Christmas – and turned them into a novel. Planesrunner is relentlessly enjoyable from beginning to end, certainly the most fun of all McDonald’s books.

14 year-old Everett Singh is a genius. He can think in more than your bog-standard three dimensions, and his spatial awareness makes him a killer goalie at school. None of makes much difference, however, when his father is very professionally snatched off the street in front of him.

Read the rest of the review on CultureNorthernIreland.

With Royal Street, the first in The Sentinels of New Orleans series and available from April 2012, debut author Suzanne Johnson joins their ranks. A magical murder-mystery set in post-Katrina New Orleans, Royal Street catapults its reluctant heroine on a desperate romp through a clever, well-constructed world populated by a cast of quirky, sometimes wicked, characters.

Drusilla Jaco, DJ to most, is an ambitious young Green Congress Wizard, sick of being stuck with the magical grunt-work of pixie retrieval and sniffing out bad guys. Maybe her potions and rites aren’t as immediately potent as the physical magic of her Red Congress Wizard mentor, Gerald St. Simon, but it gets the job done. Surely she can be trusted with more than batting her eyelashes at Jean Lafitte, the famous and undead pirate.

The one thing DJ never expected, was that in the drowned wake of Hurricane Katrina she’d be responsible for the devastated, supernaturally infested city of New Orleans. St. Simon is missing, gone without a magical or mystical trace, the with the Veil in storm-tatters the preternatural creatures of Beyond – the vampires, gods and historical undead – are slipping into the city and Lafitte is back – again – and holding a grudge.

With the aggravating, and mostly unwanted, help of Enforcer Alexander Warrin and his troubled, scarred cousin Jake, DJ must put New Orleans back together. And whether the Elders like it or not, she is going to find the wizard who raised her like a daughter when her own family didn’t want her.

To be honest, the fact that Royal Street is set in post-Katrina NOLA gave me pause. So many people lost their lives, their homes and livelihoods that using it as a backdrop sits uncomfortably. Yet, obviously, eliding NOLA entirely from the canon on modern literature – since it would be worse, surely, to write about the city without acknowledging Katrina – isn’t the answer.

Speaking as a non-native of the area, I think Royal City handles it respectfully and with creative integrity. Katrina and its after-effects are an integral part of the novel. The basic plot could have survived with a modicum of tweaking, but the atmosphere of the book is essential to the structure of the novel. The early pages, pre-Katrina, where an oblivious Gerry and DJ chat light-heartedly about the hurricane stir up a sickly tension as the reader waits for the other shoe to drop. By the time DJ’s experience catches up with the readers knowledge, that tension carries over to the unfolding plot. Her bone-deep distress at the state of the city she loves is also affecting, and mirrors her eroding confidence she will find the mentor who is the reason she loves the city.

(And, as it turns out, Johnson is a New Orleans native. Her affection for the city is palpable. So if anyone has the right to write about it…)

Earnest, sometimes nervy DJ is a complex character, with enough potential to carry the next two books in the series. She works hard and ass-kicking doesn’t come naturally to her, but she can make a hand of it when she has time to prepare. DJ is an ant not a grasshopper, she has natural talent but she also works hard at being good at what she does. There is a endearing down-to-earth quality about her, considering she is tosses not-quite fatal spells at undead pirates. It grounds the book, anchoring it in the fictional reality of DJ’s experience. After all, people rarely go through their day to day life thinking, ‘This is amazing!’

I do like DJ, and the rest of the cast, but it is the world that steals the show in Royal Street. Johnson has conjured up an engrossing, thought-provoking world with enough unique elements to incite theories (essential to build a fan-base). From the colour-coded Congresses of the wizards to the shadow New Orleans of the restless, historical undead – a dangerous reflection of the New Orelans on legend – it is sketched with light, evocative strokes that make you want to know more. There is obviously more to learn, there are races – vampires, weres, fae and elves – that we have seen nothing of so far. Wizards seem to dominate this side of Beyond, but it is obvious that isn’t just because of might. Perhaps they are just the ones with the most co-operative society? Or is it the fact that, unlike the rest, they don’t seem native to the Beyond?

Perhaps the next book in the series will give some of those answers?

Hopefully we will be seeing Jean Lafitte again too. DJ has two perfectly good suitors already, barring between-book misfortunes, but Lafitte has all the charm of a not-too bad guy.

Luckily you won’t have to wait too long to find out any questions raised in Royal Street. River Road is scheduled for fall 2012. There are also a number for free stories to read on Johnson’s blog (In what I think is chronological order): Pirate’s Alley, Intervention and Chenoire.

I think this is going to be a series with legs. It is fun, the world is complex but not confusing and Johnson has a fun, versatile writing style.

For more information on the Incarnate Theater Treasure Hunt, check out Jodi’s post.

Amy Ryan is a Senior Art Director for HarperCollins Children’s Books. Joel Tippie, Art Supervisor, designed the jacket and interior for Incarnate.

Are there any specific design guidelines to YA covers? If so, what are they. If not, what makes a good cover?

A: There aren’t specific guidelines to follow, which is what is so great about designing for teens! But, we do look closely at trends for book covers and genres. We nail down early on what genre the book is and where it will be shelved in the bookstores so that we can come up with a compelling and competitive cover.

We tend to explore both iconic and figurative imagery in the very beginning stages and then from there, editorial and sales really helps us hone in on the essence of the book and what imagery and concept work the best for it. As for what makes a good cover, we go for eye catching typography and striking images. We want our covers to stand apart from the masses and really catch a teen, parent, or child’s eye.

Beautiful as the cover is, and intrinsically tied to the book, did you have any other concepts?

A: In some of our original concepts, Joel worked up some comps that utilized the butterfly motif in a more iconic way without the girl. We loved the idea of showing a group of things with one standing out in a unique way. One of Joel’s early comps had a bunch of fluttering butterflies, all in the same color on a flat background color, with just one butterfly in shades that stood out from the others.

He also worked up a comp with a close up of a butterfly with beautiful, luminous wings and then behind it a slew of smaller butterflies all in shades of blacks and blues in the distance (see embedded picture for one example of an early comp made from free stock photography). Again, it showed with color and scale a unique butterfly midst a group of all others that look the same.

One last version, aside from an early comp of the concept that ended up being ‘the one’ for the cover, was to get a figure in the mix, but with just a graceful hand on the cover, gently releasing a butterfly into the air. In the end, everyone agreed that Joel’s comp with the beautiful butterfly mask over the girl’s face was something fresh and unique.

We were so happy that it was the chosen concept! From there, we looked at photographer’s portfolios and chose the wonderful Gustavo Marx. We did a casting with editor Sarah Shumway and the photographer, and had about 40 models show up that matched the general description of the main character. From there, Gus shot some gorgeous pictures of our model and we had the hair and makeup get progressively darker and more wild with each set of pictures so that we would have plenty to choose from for all 3 books.

Gus photographed the girl on the cover of Incarnate in full color and then, in post, Joel worked up a beautiful array of hues that make the cover stand out so much. From the gorgeous butterfly he overlaid, to the flash of colors he used, Joel and Gus really combined their strengths to get the very best out of the photoshoot.

Does it give you a thrill to see the books you worked on out on the shelves?

A: For me, seeing a book on the shelves that I worked on from the very beginning is so rewarding. While my artwork isn’t typically on the cover, I love seeing the final book jacket out in the bookstores, know that I helped conceive of the concept, whether it be an illustration for a tween book or a photographic treatment for a teen cover. It’s satisfying to be there from the beginning, helping to mold the way the package comes together and help make it all cohesive.

What are some of the other covers/books you have worked on?

A: I’ve been at Harper since 2000 so you can imagine that there is a long list of books! Joel and I have tag-teamed on a bunch of books, including Divergent (read a review), Sweet Venom, and Dark Eden. In the tween area we’ve worked on The Billionaire’s Curse and Walls Within Walls, and Vanishing Acts together, just to name a few.

I also love working on tween fiction—some of my faves are The One and Only Ivan, The Cabinet of Earths, and Nest for Celeste. Thanks for this opportunity! I LOVE Incarnate and can’t wait for it to hit the bookstores! What an amazing read—and it was such a fun cover for Joel and I to work on.

My clue for the password is . . .First word: W. Remember, there are no spaces in this password!

Onwards to the Clue Bloggers!

Read a review of Incarnate.