Reviewed by Joelene Pynnonen

Ross Baker is having a bad day. Having found out from office gossip that his beloved girlfriend has fallen pregnant but does not trust him enough to tell him, he volunteers for a scan using the new technology his company, Neurosphere, is developing. The scan is meant to take his mind off the complications in his life, and it does, just not in the way that Ross had expected.

Now he is trapped inside Starfire, the computer game he had played incessantly as a child. No matter what he does, he cannot escape. Dying is painful, but only leads to respawning. There are bridges that can take him out of the game, only to lead him to other games. What’s worse, a group of people called the Integrity have set up within the game world and are trying to close off all the bridges, using brute force if necessary. Ross must find out what they are doing before time runs out for him and everyone else.

From the blurb one would expect Bedlam to be a fast-paced action with a lot of thrills and kills, but not much heart. That would be wrong. It does have action, but there are a lot of other things going on in this novel. It’s philosophical and strangely domestic. Stuck in a game – or set of games – where pretty much anything goes, Ross’s character is defined more by what he has left behind than by his actions. He considers the ramifications of killing before he makes any kills and his mind is consistently on Carol, his pregnant girlfriend. Ultimately Ross is a pillar of morality, and he has the intellect to be able to consider ethics on a scholarly level.

The writing is third person, but from Ross’s perspective and it is as clever as it ought to be in showing Ross’s thought processes. Brookmyre’s writing is at turns witty, thoughtful or self-deprecating, but it is always in character.

The pace is the only thing that lets this novel down. There were a few reveals that I figured out before Ross did because of pacing issues. Usually that wouldn’t bother me, but Brookmyre sold me on Ross being smarter than me (and most of the general population) and he should have been able to figure out anything that I could.

There were quite a few reveals that I didn’t figure out, though. And, although I beat Ross to some of them, his reaction to the news was starkly different to what I would expect and quite refreshing.

 Bedlam isn’t what one would expect from the cover and blurb. It is, however, a wonderful read that takes into account the moral dilemmas we will increasingly face as our technology advances. It’s an inventive and thought-provoking read that I would recommend to gamers and non-gamers alike.

 Bedlam – Christopher Brookmyre

 Orbit Books (February 7, 2013)

 ISBN: 9781408704073

Everything that kills me… makes me feel alive~ OneRepublic

Love, love LOVE this song! Every time I hear it, I smile. Upbeat, great lyrics, slick music production. So what about the video? Frankly, I’m not sure.

Filmed in New Orleans in the second oldest church in the country, the band performs in a basement while overhead a Christian revival meeting is going on. The two scenes are cut together in quick bites and interspersed with an alligator roaming around. The video culminates in someone from the revivalist meeting falling through the floorboards down to where the band are.

An intersection of belief sytems, perhaps? Music News says: Lyrics “losing sleep dreaming about the things that I could be,” resonate in the duality of danger being ever present and looking for a safe haven to heal yourself. The lost alligator roams the halls of the deteriorated church basement far from its’ swamp home and the ever present unknown. 

Lost in translation is the phrase that comes to mind when I watch it. I feel like the meaning is an elusive vision, hovering just outside my cornersight. But then maybe I’m just looking for something that’s not there in the first place!

To be fair, part of my ambivalence towards the video is because the music incites a wholly different set of images for me – far removed from church basements and bible-singing congregations. But this was the vision the band and British producer James Lees (British aesthetic, colour, frames, blah di blah…) shared, so I’m on board with that and I still totally LOVE the song.

The Video

The making of the video!

There’s been an increase in cop shows with female leads over the last few years and many of them have been pretty good: The Closer, Major Crimes, King, In Plain Sight, Saving Grace, Cold Case and Rizzoli and Isles come to mind. Poppy Montgomery in Unforgettable is another one to add to the list.

The wiki summary says:

Carrie Wells has hyperthymesia, a rare medical condition that gives her the ability to visually remember everything. She reluctantly joins the New York City Police Department’s Queens homicide unit after her former boyfriend and partner, Lt. Al Burns, asks for help with solving a case. The move allows her to try to find out the one thing she has been unable to remember, which is what happened the day her sister was murdered.

The use of Carrie’s (Poppy’s) hyperthymesia is an interesting hook, and there’s some strong romantic tension between her and her old boyfriend-now-boss, Al Burns. The stories are a little pedestrian but Carrie’s obsession with her sister’s murderer adds a darker and slightly disturbed layer to what otherwise, could be a pretty ordinary cop show. There’s something about Poppy’s Character, Carrie Wells, that resonates for me with Bo played by Anna Silk in Lost Girl. Both are confident, brave, sexy women who value their friends.

I haven’t seen Jane Curtin, who plays Dr Joanne Webster the gnarly Medical Examiner, since her days in 3rd Rock from the Sun, and her acting brings some extra piquancy to her role.

Having cancelled it after season 1, CBS commissioned a second series in which they ditched all of the cast except Carrie, Al and Dr Webster, and relocated the three uptown into much more opulent circumstances at NYPD headquarters. I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet, but I’ll be interested to see if shifting the show’s location from Queens robs it of its little bit of individuality.