More Fandom Bits, Book Foo
Aug. 5th, 2006 09:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newnumber6Spoilery thoughts on Stargate SG1 and Atlantis, episode 4 of current seasons.
Neither really wowed me this week. SG1 was a Baal plot that sort of continued that thread but was kinda ehhish and relied a little too much on manufactured problems (I mean, really? A bunch of Baal clones armed with weapons they picked up on site can hold the base hostage? And there's no quick way to distribute symbiote poison? You'd think that would be priority 1 of any difficult facilities! Hell, by now you'd think huffing symbiote poison would be a standard procedure in secure facilities, although I suppose it still could be)
But there was some nice work, particularly with Vala (I liked her creative way to ring into Baal's base), and of course with all the Baal jokes. And I've gotta hand it to the writers, I guess, it certainly takes a lot of Baals to do an episode like this.
Atlantis was kinda a stock tough-guy plot. Highlights were Shepherd upwardly revising his count of how many Wraith he killed, and the final destruction of baldy-wraith.
But... remember when the Wraith were supposed to be scary? I mean, not just numbers, but remember the first episode where they went on about how they had remarkable regenerative powers and that they'd be very, very hard to kill? It's kinda sad how they've gotten to the point that you can basically have three people take out 25 of them with no trouble.
Meh.
Book Foo!
Finished: Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman (reread) &
Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card (reread)
Started: Xenocide, by Orson Scott Card (reread)
Minor not terribly spoilery thoughts behind the cut, and some of my favorite quotes from the book.
Neverwhere, well, some books I enjoy more or about the same the more I read them, and some I enjoy a little less - I still enjoy it, mind you, but it's not as good as my memory of it. This was one of the latter type. I still think it'd be cool to see a movie and tv series based on it (ideally a movie that's very faithful to the book, and an ongoing tv series based on some of the loose threads, perhaps travelling to the Belows of other cities in search of Door's sister). And yeah, I've seen the mini, but it was a bit rough, production quality wise.
Few quotes from this stuck me this time... most of them I remembered from prior rereadings:
"Do you like cat?"
"Yes, I quite like cats."
"Breast, or thigh?"
And, more 'image' than 'quote', I've always liked the idea that if you walk a certain path in a certain way, you might wind up in a different place than the rules of logic (and geography) would indicate. Sometimes I actually sort of halfheartedly test it out, taking strange detours and so on, on the off chance I might stumble on a magical world by stumbling on the right path, but it never works.
Oh, and the whole scene with the marquis that I iconned from the miniseries:
With Speaker, I was relieved to find this time around no trouble keeping the kids straight. I still much prefer Ender's Game (and for that matter, most of the Bean books), but Speaker's still an enjoyable book. There is something appealing about characters whose main 'power' is that they speak the truth, even when it hurts, even when it's hard. I suppose that's one of the reasons I was drawn to the Seafort novels (because without the strict code of honor, the regular canings of crewmembers would be a bit cruel!). It's compelling to see a character of such honesty, in part because that's really the kind of person I wish I could be, but never really manage. Sure, I try to tell the truth, but I'm weak and occasionally I take the easy way out.
In terms of quotes, there is one thing that I'd completely forgotten. Demosthenes 'Hierarchy of Foreignness', for classifying aliens kinda appeals to me.
"The Nordic language recognizes four orders of foreignness. The first is the otherlander, or utlanning, the stranger that we recognize as being a human of our world, but of another city or country. The second is the framling ... This is the stranger that we recognize as human, but of another world. The third is raman, the stranger that we recognize as human, but of another species. The fourth is the true alien, the varelse, which includes all the animals, for with them no conversation is possible. They live, but we cannot guess what purposes or causes make them act. They might be intelligent, they might be self-aware, but we cannot know it."
(Later they also specifically suggest varelse might apply to a species that is intelligent and we're aware of it, but for some reason are so completely hostile to humanity that there is no recourse but war that would end in the extinction of one or the other, but it's not in that initial quote).
And in connection to that, the following quote:
The difference between raman and varelse is not in the creature judged, but in the creature judging. When we declare an alien species to be raman, it does not mean that they have passed a threshold of moral maturity, it means that we have.
Which strikes me as a very powerful statement.
Of course, OSC's own religious beliefs cause him to exclude people for no good reason - because of them he's publicly opposed homosexuality on a number of occasions, and it's one of the things that really disappoints me about him. He strikes me as someone who otherwise could very easily become accepting and open, but his upbringing prevents it... kind of like how the characters in this book fear humanity will have trouble with the buggers because they are humanity's ancient nightmare.
To that end, though, is the other quote, which I will shamelessly twist and alter in a way OSC would not like. It comes from the tenets of a religious order, Children of the Mind of Christ (my additions/paraphrases in parentheses):
"Fools say, Why should we marry (we allow you to marry)? Love is the only bond (you) my lover and I need. To them I say, Marriage is not a covenant between a man and a woman; even the beasts cleave together to produce their young. Marriage is a covernant between a man and woman (two people) on one side and their community on the other. To marry according to the law of the community is to become a full citizen, to refuse marriage (or to be refused the right of marriage) is to be a stranger, a child, an outlaw, a slave, or a traitor."
Now it becomes a justification to allow people rights they deserve.
Finally, there is the whole idea of the Speaker for the Dead itself. For those unfamiliar with the idea but who are reading this anyway for some reason, the role of the Speaker for the Dead is to tell the truth of the life of a dead person. The whole truth. The good and the bad. Pretending no virtues and hiding no vices. To tell the true story of who they were, at least as near as can be possible.
When I was younger I thought that I might like a Speaker at my own, eventual, funeral. Now... I don't know. I still like the idea of it (goes with the whole 'power of truth' thing I like), but I don't know that I'd want one. Firstly, there's always the fact that I doubt anyone would get the truth. I keep too much to myself and never even commit it to my private thoughts. And even if they were, I'm not sure I'd care for people to know my worst sides, and I suppose part of it is that I feel that, on balance, the good of my life doesn't outweigh the bad. Maybe somewhere down the line. I suppose I wouldn't care so much if I would know that, when it happened, I had no family left alive, but I wouldn't want the event to hurt them as I'm sure it would. I care a lot for truth, but if the truth about me would hurt my family (even if it was a 'maybe I could have done more to help') I think I'd prefer for them to know the half-truth that they know.
Anyway, moving on to the book I just started.
Xenocide of course is the sequel to Speaker, and really it's here the plot sort of falls apart into a little too much Deus Ex Machina and, IMHO, a bit too mystical and, occasionally, silliness for my liking. However, I find I'm more interested in the story of Gloriously Bright than I was the first time around. One of the central concepts of that subplot (of mistaking the feelings generated by an OCD-like disease as the will of the 'gods') is a good one, and sticks in my mind.
Lessee, what else. Oh, I was channel surfing and saw Katherine Heigl (Izzie Stevens from Grey's Anatomy and... Isabel EVANS from Roswell. Why have I never noticed that before? OMG IZZIE IS AN ALIEN, SHE JUST CHANGED HER NAME SLIGHTLY, THEY'RE SECRETLY SET IN THE SAME UNIVERSE!!!!) in a movie. Weird one with Gerard Depardiu as her father who she is pretending is her lover to impress another guy. I don't even want to think about the plot. But anyway, it was cool to see her, so I watched for a few minutes, but it wasn't worth continuing.
I think fairly soon I'm going to rewatch The Prisoner, have a bit of a hankering for that.
Oh, and I'm now on LJtalk sometimes. Feel free to say hi.
Neither really wowed me this week. SG1 was a Baal plot that sort of continued that thread but was kinda ehhish and relied a little too much on manufactured problems (I mean, really? A bunch of Baal clones armed with weapons they picked up on site can hold the base hostage? And there's no quick way to distribute symbiote poison? You'd think that would be priority 1 of any difficult facilities! Hell, by now you'd think huffing symbiote poison would be a standard procedure in secure facilities, although I suppose it still could be)
But there was some nice work, particularly with Vala (I liked her creative way to ring into Baal's base), and of course with all the Baal jokes. And I've gotta hand it to the writers, I guess, it certainly takes a lot of Baals to do an episode like this.
Atlantis was kinda a stock tough-guy plot. Highlights were Shepherd upwardly revising his count of how many Wraith he killed, and the final destruction of baldy-wraith.
But... remember when the Wraith were supposed to be scary? I mean, not just numbers, but remember the first episode where they went on about how they had remarkable regenerative powers and that they'd be very, very hard to kill? It's kinda sad how they've gotten to the point that you can basically have three people take out 25 of them with no trouble.
Meh.
Book Foo!
Finished: Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman (reread) &
Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card (reread)
Started: Xenocide, by Orson Scott Card (reread)
Minor not terribly spoilery thoughts behind the cut, and some of my favorite quotes from the book.
Neverwhere, well, some books I enjoy more or about the same the more I read them, and some I enjoy a little less - I still enjoy it, mind you, but it's not as good as my memory of it. This was one of the latter type. I still think it'd be cool to see a movie and tv series based on it (ideally a movie that's very faithful to the book, and an ongoing tv series based on some of the loose threads, perhaps travelling to the Belows of other cities in search of Door's sister). And yeah, I've seen the mini, but it was a bit rough, production quality wise.
Few quotes from this stuck me this time... most of them I remembered from prior rereadings:
"Do you like cat?"
"Yes, I quite like cats."
"Breast, or thigh?"
And, more 'image' than 'quote', I've always liked the idea that if you walk a certain path in a certain way, you might wind up in a different place than the rules of logic (and geography) would indicate. Sometimes I actually sort of halfheartedly test it out, taking strange detours and so on, on the off chance I might stumble on a magical world by stumbling on the right path, but it never works.
Oh, and the whole scene with the marquis that I iconned from the miniseries:
With Speaker, I was relieved to find this time around no trouble keeping the kids straight. I still much prefer Ender's Game (and for that matter, most of the Bean books), but Speaker's still an enjoyable book. There is something appealing about characters whose main 'power' is that they speak the truth, even when it hurts, even when it's hard. I suppose that's one of the reasons I was drawn to the Seafort novels (because without the strict code of honor, the regular canings of crewmembers would be a bit cruel!). It's compelling to see a character of such honesty, in part because that's really the kind of person I wish I could be, but never really manage. Sure, I try to tell the truth, but I'm weak and occasionally I take the easy way out.
In terms of quotes, there is one thing that I'd completely forgotten. Demosthenes 'Hierarchy of Foreignness', for classifying aliens kinda appeals to me.
"The Nordic language recognizes four orders of foreignness. The first is the otherlander, or utlanning, the stranger that we recognize as being a human of our world, but of another city or country. The second is the framling ... This is the stranger that we recognize as human, but of another world. The third is raman, the stranger that we recognize as human, but of another species. The fourth is the true alien, the varelse, which includes all the animals, for with them no conversation is possible. They live, but we cannot guess what purposes or causes make them act. They might be intelligent, they might be self-aware, but we cannot know it."
(Later they also specifically suggest varelse might apply to a species that is intelligent and we're aware of it, but for some reason are so completely hostile to humanity that there is no recourse but war that would end in the extinction of one or the other, but it's not in that initial quote).
And in connection to that, the following quote:
The difference between raman and varelse is not in the creature judged, but in the creature judging. When we declare an alien species to be raman, it does not mean that they have passed a threshold of moral maturity, it means that we have.
Which strikes me as a very powerful statement.
Of course, OSC's own religious beliefs cause him to exclude people for no good reason - because of them he's publicly opposed homosexuality on a number of occasions, and it's one of the things that really disappoints me about him. He strikes me as someone who otherwise could very easily become accepting and open, but his upbringing prevents it... kind of like how the characters in this book fear humanity will have trouble with the buggers because they are humanity's ancient nightmare.
To that end, though, is the other quote, which I will shamelessly twist and alter in a way OSC would not like. It comes from the tenets of a religious order, Children of the Mind of Christ (my additions/paraphrases in parentheses):
"Fools say, Why should we marry (we allow you to marry)? Love is the only bond (you) my lover and I need. To them I say, Marriage is not a covenant between a man and a woman; even the beasts cleave together to produce their young. Marriage is a covernant between a man and woman (two people) on one side and their community on the other. To marry according to the law of the community is to become a full citizen, to refuse marriage (or to be refused the right of marriage) is to be a stranger, a child, an outlaw, a slave, or a traitor."
Now it becomes a justification to allow people rights they deserve.
Finally, there is the whole idea of the Speaker for the Dead itself. For those unfamiliar with the idea but who are reading this anyway for some reason, the role of the Speaker for the Dead is to tell the truth of the life of a dead person. The whole truth. The good and the bad. Pretending no virtues and hiding no vices. To tell the true story of who they were, at least as near as can be possible.
When I was younger I thought that I might like a Speaker at my own, eventual, funeral. Now... I don't know. I still like the idea of it (goes with the whole 'power of truth' thing I like), but I don't know that I'd want one. Firstly, there's always the fact that I doubt anyone would get the truth. I keep too much to myself and never even commit it to my private thoughts. And even if they were, I'm not sure I'd care for people to know my worst sides, and I suppose part of it is that I feel that, on balance, the good of my life doesn't outweigh the bad. Maybe somewhere down the line. I suppose I wouldn't care so much if I would know that, when it happened, I had no family left alive, but I wouldn't want the event to hurt them as I'm sure it would. I care a lot for truth, but if the truth about me would hurt my family (even if it was a 'maybe I could have done more to help') I think I'd prefer for them to know the half-truth that they know.
Anyway, moving on to the book I just started.
Xenocide of course is the sequel to Speaker, and really it's here the plot sort of falls apart into a little too much Deus Ex Machina and, IMHO, a bit too mystical and, occasionally, silliness for my liking. However, I find I'm more interested in the story of Gloriously Bright than I was the first time around. One of the central concepts of that subplot (of mistaking the feelings generated by an OCD-like disease as the will of the 'gods') is a good one, and sticks in my mind.
Lessee, what else. Oh, I was channel surfing and saw Katherine Heigl (Izzie Stevens from Grey's Anatomy and... Isabel EVANS from Roswell. Why have I never noticed that before? OMG IZZIE IS AN ALIEN, SHE JUST CHANGED HER NAME SLIGHTLY, THEY'RE SECRETLY SET IN THE SAME UNIVERSE!!!!) in a movie. Weird one with Gerard Depardiu as her father who she is pretending is her lover to impress another guy. I don't even want to think about the plot. But anyway, it was cool to see her, so I watched for a few minutes, but it wasn't worth continuing.
I think fairly soon I'm going to rewatch The Prisoner, have a bit of a hankering for that.
Oh, and I'm now on LJtalk sometimes. Feel free to say hi.
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no subject
Date: 2006-08-06 03:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-07 02:44 am (UTC)For an added pun, the Alien Baby looks like a Roswell Grey. Then the title "Roswell Grey's Anatomy" becomes the title of it. ;)
no subject
Date: 2006-08-07 02:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-07 12:47 pm (UTC)