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We're overdue on Book Foo, so let's start there.
Finished: City of Diamond by Jane Emerson
City of Diamond (back of the book type spoilers ahoy) ( Read more... )
At first I thought I wasn't going to like the book much. It felt very... light. You know, like the author really wanted to write a fantasy book with kings and knights and city-guards, but dressed it up in a few SF trappings. And maybe there's a little truth to it. But as I read on, I really began to be interested in the stories of a few of the characters, particularly (slight spoilers) ( Read more... ) A few other minor characters with less interesting backstorys, similarly, I wanted to see how their story would develop. Then the big problem... at the end, very little is resolved, much is left dangling, as though it was always intended as the first book of a longer series. Which it may have been, but still, ARGH. I want to see how these character arcs will play out.
Of interesting note (well, to me), which I only learned after googling and wikipediaing the book/author while looking to see if there would be a sequel (apparently it's now being worked on, though the first book came out in 1996 so I can only imagine how annoyed people reading it then were), I learned that Jane Emerson is a pen name for Doris Egan... currently one of the writers of Torchwood.
Finished: The Last Colony by John Scalzi
Finished: Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi
The Last Colony is the third book in the series that began with Old Man's War, and Zoe's Tale is pretty much the Last Colony from the perspective of the daughter of the viewpoint character in the Last Colony... she gets into her own stories and we see things that were left out of the other book. So I might as well talk about both of them together.
Zoe's Tale is a little more personal, although sometimes suffers from "yeah, right, syndrome" where for every big event that happens in TLC, Zoe has a secret personal adventure that relates to it and is just as exciting, to the point that you go "Yeah, right...", but it's only a minor problem. I think TLC is the better of the two, overall, but both are fun and go especially well together.
So yeah, I really liked them both and particularly The Last Colony for (somewhat major spoilers I guess) ( Read more... )
All in all a pretty fun series.
Finished: The Collapsium by Will McCarthy
Another book that I started out thinking I wasn't going to like it... the overly elaborate monarchy system and "court", and the characters felt a little flat at first... felt like one of those books where the author's in love with a supertech idea and writes an idea-heavy book that really focuses it and forgets to make compelling characters. For a while I figured I wouldn't bother reading the sequel. But as I went on, although I still think the characters might be a bit of a weak point (the villain was a bit moustache-twirly and sometimes they'd introduce what could develop into a compelling character, then they'd disappear from the plot and reappear later with very little to do), overall it did come together in a somewhat satisfying way. And some of the SF ideas are pretty cool. So, not one of my favorites but I liked it and will probably read more by the author.
Finished: The Timeline Wars by John Barnes (omnibus of, and therefore counts as, 3 books: Patton's Spaceship, Washington's Dirigible, and Caesar's Bicycle) (reread)
Read this a number of times, and it's odd, because... I don't actually like a lot of it. It's not so much that I dislike it, but I'm bored by much of the plot, but I keep rereading for a couple scenes, a few descriptions of technology and the setup which helps inspire me into an imaginative mood regarding alternate history and how to build human-but-alien cultures and the effects of and difficulty of introducing higher technology before its time.
Started: Matter by Iain M. Banks
Started: The Puppet Masters by Robert A. Heinlein
So, that covers it for books. Comics and Movies I haven't really done much of either, although I have to get to the store to see what they're doing with New Mutants now that the crossover's over, and probably will pick up Gates of Gotham, where Cassandra Cain is apparently back in her new superhero identity, Blackbat (still wish she was Batgirl, but I guess that ship has sailed), and as for movies, well, there are a few I want to see coming up, mostly superheroish ones, but I may wait until they come out on DVD.
TV, well, we're approaching the Dead Zone... all the regular shows are over for the season, which leaves me with Doctor Who, and, right now, Game of Thrones.
Doctor Who's always fun, but I think the season's been a weak one so far. Only one really good episode, and that was The Doctor's Wife... some of the other episodes had brilliant moments, but overall fell a little flat.
Game of Thrones is a fantasy adaptation of (this season, at least) the first book in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, set in a fantasy world with several kingdoms united uneasily under one king, and all sorts of internal politics and plotting. It started a little show... the first episode left me a little cold, and the second one had some interesting bits, but it's really grown on my, particularly due to a few characters like Tyrion, John Snow (I wish the two of them interacted more), Arya, and the main character, Ned. It does suffer a bit from too many characters, so sometimes they have a scene and I don't even know who the person it features is, despite them having appeared before. And sometimes I still can't figure out the point of the scene, some of them seem to be like somebody had the following discussion, "Have we had nudity yet in this episode?" "Just background." "But no nudity involving speaking parts?" "Not yet." "Okay, throw a new scene in!" Yeah, there is a fair bit of sex and nudity, and sometimes it feels a bit gratuitous, but I can ignore it. So, at least that's something to keep me looking forward to the next few weeks.
Longer term... well, the major US networks have released their fall schedules and it's a little grim. Very little new has caught my eye... Alcatraz, another 'weirdstuff' show by J.J. Abrams, might be worth a look (Premise: when Alcatraz closed in the 60s it was a cover story because every prisoner mysteriously vanished... now they're reappearing, unaged, with a mysterious mission). Grimm has a cop who can see fairy-tale monsters hiding in everyday life, and created by one of the old showrunners of Angel, David Greenwalt... probably the only reason I'm giving it a look, and there's Terra Nova, which was originally thought for this last year but got delayed. None of these I'm especially excited about, but I will probably give them a look... everything else can be cancelled before the first episode for all I care. Of continuing shows I'll continue to watch Fringe, Supernatural (more out of a grim fascination with how much worse it could get) and... I think that's about it for SFish shows that I make an effort to watch. Sure there are a few more episodic shows that I'll watch regularly if nothing else is on (House, Criminal Minds, a few others), but... nothing I'm invested in. Boo TV.
And let's finish with Food. Nothing really special, but President's Choice, the makers of my current favorite flavor of potato chip ever (Greek: feta, olive, and oregano), every so often introduce a few new flavors, and, my tastes being as sophisticated as they are, I feel I must sample them. This year/season/whatever's tries: Jamaican Jerk Chicken, and Chipotle Ranch (thick style).
Both were decent chips, I guess. Jamaican was the better of the two, a bit spicy, and I do like jerk flavoring, although no real sensation of chicken... it just tasted like a different variety of BBQ, basically. I enjoyed it, and I'll probably have it again, but it's unlikely to become one of my regulars. Chipotle Ranch was disappointing. It tasted fine, but when you say 'Chipotle', you have certain expectations of spiciness. Mostly I just tasted 'Ranch'. And it already had a strike against it, being a thick-cut chip (I always feel like they're less satisfying because they give me fewer in a bag)... which I suppose that does mean less total seasoning, since there's less total surface area to slather it on to). So I doubt I'd try it again - if it were regular thin cut, I'd put it in the "every once in a while" category, but as is, forget it.
Yes my life is that shallow that I'm savoring different types of chips. :) But there's really very little else in my life to blog about, and I have to talk about something or I might as well just disappear.
Finished: City of Diamond by Jane Emerson
City of Diamond (back of the book type spoilers ahoy) ( Read more... )
At first I thought I wasn't going to like the book much. It felt very... light. You know, like the author really wanted to write a fantasy book with kings and knights and city-guards, but dressed it up in a few SF trappings. And maybe there's a little truth to it. But as I read on, I really began to be interested in the stories of a few of the characters, particularly (slight spoilers) ( Read more... ) A few other minor characters with less interesting backstorys, similarly, I wanted to see how their story would develop. Then the big problem... at the end, very little is resolved, much is left dangling, as though it was always intended as the first book of a longer series. Which it may have been, but still, ARGH. I want to see how these character arcs will play out.
Of interesting note (well, to me), which I only learned after googling and wikipediaing the book/author while looking to see if there would be a sequel (apparently it's now being worked on, though the first book came out in 1996 so I can only imagine how annoyed people reading it then were), I learned that Jane Emerson is a pen name for Doris Egan... currently one of the writers of Torchwood.
Finished: The Last Colony by John Scalzi
Finished: Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi
The Last Colony is the third book in the series that began with Old Man's War, and Zoe's Tale is pretty much the Last Colony from the perspective of the daughter of the viewpoint character in the Last Colony... she gets into her own stories and we see things that were left out of the other book. So I might as well talk about both of them together.
Zoe's Tale is a little more personal, although sometimes suffers from "yeah, right, syndrome" where for every big event that happens in TLC, Zoe has a secret personal adventure that relates to it and is just as exciting, to the point that you go "Yeah, right...", but it's only a minor problem. I think TLC is the better of the two, overall, but both are fun and go especially well together.
So yeah, I really liked them both and particularly The Last Colony for (somewhat major spoilers I guess) ( Read more... )
All in all a pretty fun series.
Finished: The Collapsium by Will McCarthy
Another book that I started out thinking I wasn't going to like it... the overly elaborate monarchy system and "court", and the characters felt a little flat at first... felt like one of those books where the author's in love with a supertech idea and writes an idea-heavy book that really focuses it and forgets to make compelling characters. For a while I figured I wouldn't bother reading the sequel. But as I went on, although I still think the characters might be a bit of a weak point (the villain was a bit moustache-twirly and sometimes they'd introduce what could develop into a compelling character, then they'd disappear from the plot and reappear later with very little to do), overall it did come together in a somewhat satisfying way. And some of the SF ideas are pretty cool. So, not one of my favorites but I liked it and will probably read more by the author.
Finished: The Timeline Wars by John Barnes (omnibus of, and therefore counts as, 3 books: Patton's Spaceship, Washington's Dirigible, and Caesar's Bicycle) (reread)
Read this a number of times, and it's odd, because... I don't actually like a lot of it. It's not so much that I dislike it, but I'm bored by much of the plot, but I keep rereading for a couple scenes, a few descriptions of technology and the setup which helps inspire me into an imaginative mood regarding alternate history and how to build human-but-alien cultures and the effects of and difficulty of introducing higher technology before its time.
Started: Matter by Iain M. Banks
Started: The Puppet Masters by Robert A. Heinlein
So, that covers it for books. Comics and Movies I haven't really done much of either, although I have to get to the store to see what they're doing with New Mutants now that the crossover's over, and probably will pick up Gates of Gotham, where Cassandra Cain is apparently back in her new superhero identity, Blackbat (still wish she was Batgirl, but I guess that ship has sailed), and as for movies, well, there are a few I want to see coming up, mostly superheroish ones, but I may wait until they come out on DVD.
TV, well, we're approaching the Dead Zone... all the regular shows are over for the season, which leaves me with Doctor Who, and, right now, Game of Thrones.
Doctor Who's always fun, but I think the season's been a weak one so far. Only one really good episode, and that was The Doctor's Wife... some of the other episodes had brilliant moments, but overall fell a little flat.
Game of Thrones is a fantasy adaptation of (this season, at least) the first book in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, set in a fantasy world with several kingdoms united uneasily under one king, and all sorts of internal politics and plotting. It started a little show... the first episode left me a little cold, and the second one had some interesting bits, but it's really grown on my, particularly due to a few characters like Tyrion, John Snow (I wish the two of them interacted more), Arya, and the main character, Ned. It does suffer a bit from too many characters, so sometimes they have a scene and I don't even know who the person it features is, despite them having appeared before. And sometimes I still can't figure out the point of the scene, some of them seem to be like somebody had the following discussion, "Have we had nudity yet in this episode?" "Just background." "But no nudity involving speaking parts?" "Not yet." "Okay, throw a new scene in!" Yeah, there is a fair bit of sex and nudity, and sometimes it feels a bit gratuitous, but I can ignore it. So, at least that's something to keep me looking forward to the next few weeks.
Longer term... well, the major US networks have released their fall schedules and it's a little grim. Very little new has caught my eye... Alcatraz, another 'weirdstuff' show by J.J. Abrams, might be worth a look (Premise: when Alcatraz closed in the 60s it was a cover story because every prisoner mysteriously vanished... now they're reappearing, unaged, with a mysterious mission). Grimm has a cop who can see fairy-tale monsters hiding in everyday life, and created by one of the old showrunners of Angel, David Greenwalt... probably the only reason I'm giving it a look, and there's Terra Nova, which was originally thought for this last year but got delayed. None of these I'm especially excited about, but I will probably give them a look... everything else can be cancelled before the first episode for all I care. Of continuing shows I'll continue to watch Fringe, Supernatural (more out of a grim fascination with how much worse it could get) and... I think that's about it for SFish shows that I make an effort to watch. Sure there are a few more episodic shows that I'll watch regularly if nothing else is on (House, Criminal Minds, a few others), but... nothing I'm invested in. Boo TV.
And let's finish with Food. Nothing really special, but President's Choice, the makers of my current favorite flavor of potato chip ever (Greek: feta, olive, and oregano), every so often introduce a few new flavors, and, my tastes being as sophisticated as they are, I feel I must sample them. This year/season/whatever's tries: Jamaican Jerk Chicken, and Chipotle Ranch (thick style).
Both were decent chips, I guess. Jamaican was the better of the two, a bit spicy, and I do like jerk flavoring, although no real sensation of chicken... it just tasted like a different variety of BBQ, basically. I enjoyed it, and I'll probably have it again, but it's unlikely to become one of my regulars. Chipotle Ranch was disappointing. It tasted fine, but when you say 'Chipotle', you have certain expectations of spiciness. Mostly I just tasted 'Ranch'. And it already had a strike against it, being a thick-cut chip (I always feel like they're less satisfying because they give me fewer in a bag)... which I suppose that does mean less total seasoning, since there's less total surface area to slather it on to). So I doubt I'd try it again - if it were regular thin cut, I'd put it in the "every once in a while" category, but as is, forget it.
Yes my life is that shallow that I'm savoring different types of chips. :) But there's really very little else in my life to blog about, and I have to talk about something or I might as well just disappear.
