newnumber6 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
newnumber6) wrote2007-05-20 02:11 pm
newnumber6) wrote2007-05-20 02:11 pm
Entry tags:
Let's see, what do we have today...
They've announced the preliminary guest list for the Toronto Fan Expo this year. No Firefly actors. And really, not all that much for me there. Comicwise there'll be Greg Pak and C.B. Cebulski, who are both writers I've enjoyed some in the past, but neither are 'big' to me. None of the few artists I'd particularly care to get anything from either. In terms of actors it's also pretty sparse. Their big advertised thing is 'everyone who's played Darth Vader'. But really the only one I'd be at all interested in is Hayden Christiansen and that's not even for Anakin - that's for his upcoming role as the lead in the film adaptation of the novel Jumper. That's mild. Adam West will be there, and he's kinda cool in a camp way. A couple of Trek stars as usual... Johnathan Frakes (Riker), James Darren (Vic Fontaine) and Dwight Schultz (Barclay). Then there's Tricia Helfert, Number 6 from BSG, but really, she's probably the BSG character I'm not all that interested in. Sean Astin'll be there too. I'm tempted to try to find him just so I can walk up to him and say, "Oh, Sam!", but a) he probably gets that all the time, b) I'd never actually go through with it, and c) It'd probably be hard to wait.
So, the biggest guns of the show, for me personally, are Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia) and Hayden Panettiere (Claire from Heroes). Are they enough for me to go? I don't know. Neither is enough for me to want to pay for the pleasure of their autograph. But they might be cool to see.
Book Foo:
Finished: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, by J.K. Rowling
Started: Worlds, by Joe Haldeman
Still Reading: The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton (Wednesdays)
Thoughts on Harry Potter behind the cut. Some spoilers, but most people who are reading the books are still way ahead of me or already saw the movie.
I probably enjoyed this book most of all the Potter books so far, felt a bit deeper and richer. For the first time it caused me to indulge myself in a little bit of 'what if I went to a school like that' fantasy. Not terribly long, but more than I have from any of the other books.
Still, the plot felt a little iffy to me at places. It would seem, given who the villain was at the school, that it would have been relatively easy to turn something _else_ into a portkey, give it to him, and thus send him into danger long before the whole competition thing, since the goal wasn't to kill him at all. Maybe I skimmed over a part that explained why that couldn't have been.
Also, I was a little disappointed that in a lot of the challenges Potter faced, he had to actually be told how to deal with them. Some of this was understandable, given the plot, but I thought it happened too much and too blatantly - I like my heroes to figure out their problems, rather than just do what they're told.
This is technically the last Potter book I feel _obligated_ to read, due to it being the only one to win the Hugo, but it was enjoyable enough that I'll probably continue getting the other books as I happen to find them used.
Four books done, and I still have no strange desire to 'ship strange character pairings... or even particularly normal character pairings.
With this book read, I am down to only 4 unread Hugo Winning novels:
Spin, by Robert Charles Wilson (2006)
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke (2005)
Paladin of Souls, by Lois McMaster Bujold (2004)
and
Cyteen by CJ Cherryh (1989).
That may go up to 5 this summer depending on who wins this year (but I've already read one of the nominees, and am planning on getting another in the near future). I know Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell's at one of my used bookstores - oversized TPB print, but at the price of a paperback, so might be worth it. (I still have 9 Nebula award winning novels to read)
Since this seems to be the week we get to the last of the Season Finales, I'll save up most my TV thoughts until then and do a big 'the year in TV'/'the coming year in TV' post. However, since Who won't be done then, I'll talk briefly about my thoughts on the latest ep, 42, here.
Every review of this episode I've seen compared it to The Satan Pit/The Impossible Planet, so who am I to buck with a trend. Actually, though, I didn't see too much similarity... yes, okay, the cramped place, danger of hurtling into a big gravitational pull, and possessed people walking around were a little similar, but possessed people goes on in almost every other Who ep in one way or another and the other three are sort of typical for a show set on a space ship, with an all around danger time limit.
Really, the show was much _better_ than SP/IP, because there was no awful 'ultimate evil' plot. This was a (still cliche, but somewhat better) more reasonable plot from the perspective of what I like my SF to be like. So I think the comparisons to SP/IP actually made me think better of it, because I was expecting it to be bad in the way that two-parter was.
Still, I suppose it's a bad sign I was more interested in the idea of ice skating on some other planet that the Doc mentioned at the end, than I was in the plot itself. It's come to this. I'm so hard up for a Who ep set on an actual alien world, that I'm hoping they make an ep out of Ice Skating on Another Planet. Damn you Earth based writers! Also, Earth-biased writers!
Oh, and I never did get around to identifying the last unguessed quote in my movie quotes quiz. It was:
2. "It's a very rare person who is taken for what he truly is."
And it was from The Last Unicorn. But it was unguessed, so... I win, flist! Ha!
So, the biggest guns of the show, for me personally, are Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia) and Hayden Panettiere (Claire from Heroes). Are they enough for me to go? I don't know. Neither is enough for me to want to pay for the pleasure of their autograph. But they might be cool to see.
Book Foo:
Finished: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, by J.K. Rowling
Started: Worlds, by Joe Haldeman
Still Reading: The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton (Wednesdays)
Thoughts on Harry Potter behind the cut. Some spoilers, but most people who are reading the books are still way ahead of me or already saw the movie.
I probably enjoyed this book most of all the Potter books so far, felt a bit deeper and richer. For the first time it caused me to indulge myself in a little bit of 'what if I went to a school like that' fantasy. Not terribly long, but more than I have from any of the other books.
Still, the plot felt a little iffy to me at places. It would seem, given who the villain was at the school, that it would have been relatively easy to turn something _else_ into a portkey, give it to him, and thus send him into danger long before the whole competition thing, since the goal wasn't to kill him at all. Maybe I skimmed over a part that explained why that couldn't have been.
Also, I was a little disappointed that in a lot of the challenges Potter faced, he had to actually be told how to deal with them. Some of this was understandable, given the plot, but I thought it happened too much and too blatantly - I like my heroes to figure out their problems, rather than just do what they're told.
This is technically the last Potter book I feel _obligated_ to read, due to it being the only one to win the Hugo, but it was enjoyable enough that I'll probably continue getting the other books as I happen to find them used.
Four books done, and I still have no strange desire to 'ship strange character pairings... or even particularly normal character pairings.
With this book read, I am down to only 4 unread Hugo Winning novels:
Spin, by Robert Charles Wilson (2006)
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke (2005)
Paladin of Souls, by Lois McMaster Bujold (2004)
and
Cyteen by CJ Cherryh (1989).
That may go up to 5 this summer depending on who wins this year (but I've already read one of the nominees, and am planning on getting another in the near future). I know Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell's at one of my used bookstores - oversized TPB print, but at the price of a paperback, so might be worth it. (I still have 9 Nebula award winning novels to read)
Since this seems to be the week we get to the last of the Season Finales, I'll save up most my TV thoughts until then and do a big 'the year in TV'/'the coming year in TV' post. However, since Who won't be done then, I'll talk briefly about my thoughts on the latest ep, 42, here.
Every review of this episode I've seen compared it to The Satan Pit/The Impossible Planet, so who am I to buck with a trend. Actually, though, I didn't see too much similarity... yes, okay, the cramped place, danger of hurtling into a big gravitational pull, and possessed people walking around were a little similar, but possessed people goes on in almost every other Who ep in one way or another and the other three are sort of typical for a show set on a space ship, with an all around danger time limit.
Really, the show was much _better_ than SP/IP, because there was no awful 'ultimate evil' plot. This was a (still cliche, but somewhat better) more reasonable plot from the perspective of what I like my SF to be like. So I think the comparisons to SP/IP actually made me think better of it, because I was expecting it to be bad in the way that two-parter was.
Still, I suppose it's a bad sign I was more interested in the idea of ice skating on some other planet that the Doc mentioned at the end, than I was in the plot itself. It's come to this. I'm so hard up for a Who ep set on an actual alien world, that I'm hoping they make an ep out of Ice Skating on Another Planet. Damn you Earth based writers! Also, Earth-biased writers!
Oh, and I never did get around to identifying the last unguessed quote in my movie quotes quiz. It was:
2. "It's a very rare person who is taken for what he truly is."
And it was from The Last Unicorn. But it was unguessed, so... I win, flist! Ha!