Some Random Foo
Dec. 1st, 2007 05:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newnumber6Just a bunch of random stuff. Some segues inserted for your protection.
TVwise we're getting very close to the TV Dead Zone, with nothing new going on. There'll still be Atlantis for a while (and had a pretty good episode this week... yay for Canadian references!), but the strike will cut out most things, if it hasn't already (which it has for many). Brief thoughts on this season? A bit weak. Heroes has had its ups and downs (last ep was a down, hopefully it'll end on an up). GA continues to annoy me more than make me enjoy it. Pushing Daisies has been nice. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles starts in another month or so.
2 For 1 Book Foo...
Finished: The Atrocity Archives, by Charles Stross
Started: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, by Max Brooks
Thoughts on Atrocity Archives behind the cut. Minor conceptual spoilers. Short version: Not bad, but not my favorite Stross and not my style of take on mythosy stuff, so a bit disappointing.
Let's see, the good... some of the tense moments with the plot, particularly the end of the Atrocity Archives, and aspects of the 'problem' of Concrete Jungle were cool and kept me interested.
What I didn't like so much? Well, it veered a bit too much into the silly at times with the bureaucratic madness. I was kind of hoping it would be played more for horror at the blindness (and it did dip into that at times), but it felt to me like it was being played more for attempted laughs.
My one big problem? Everybody seemed to know _waaay_ too much about things Man Was Not Meant To Know. This is a personal issue, as there's certainly nothing conceptually wrong with the take. But I'm more old school about the Mythos, I guess. I'd prefer the idea that the people investigating it, even if they use magic, they really have no clue how any of it works. They might be able to cast spells, but to mass produce magical items ruins the horror of it, and reading paragraphs full of magitechnobabble from someone who is 'in the know' about how this occult superscience operates kind of blunts the impact of it (and yeah, it's a metaphor for computer programmers and such who can talk in terms that would baffle most people, but that doesn't make the story any more appealing). I prefer stories where summoning demons is a last resort, not something to do to supplement staffing. Without that, it all reads a bit silly, with simply magic standing in for secret high tech of other stories.
I may pick up the sequel, but I won't seek it out or buy it new - if I happen to find it in a used bookstore for a decent price I might get it, but that's it.
Finished: Altered Carbon, by Richard Morgan
Started: Quarantine, by Greg Egan
Thoughts for Altered Carbon behind this cut. Not terribly spoilery. Quick verdict: Enjoyed it.
This was reasonably enjoyable, a nice sort of noirish cyberpunk thriller, with some cool concepts peppered throughout. I do think it feels a little too... modern for the time period (said to be something like the 26th century). I'd hope that in 500 years we'd have a bit more technology - this feels like most of the stuff they talk about could be around in 100. But that's a relatively minor concern, and for the most part the story flowed well. I did suspect right away on the general motive for the event the main character was investigating, and so it was a _little_ frustrating to see it not being considered as a possibility until it was time for it (I should totally be a detective, or at least a detective's assistant in a sci-fi world, cause I'd kick ass at it. Much like how I could totally pull off being a scientist's assistant in the Stargate universe, because I may not have the knowledge of how to reprogram the alien technology, but I can usually tell them what clever thing _they_ can do right off way before they think of it. ;)). I already bought the sequel, so I'll read that too, and maybe even any further books in the universe. I wouldn't call it one of my favorites, or spectacularly awesome as some of the reviews I heard, but it was enjoyable.
Speaking of fiction, NaNo is over of course, but I finished a while back so it doesn't feel like a big relief to me. Still, a big congratulations to everybody on my flist who completed the task. And those of you who didn't, well, there's always next time, good for you for doing as much as you did.
Writing wise I've decided my big goal for the next year (this is not a New Year's resolution because I don't make those, I am speaking of it as a goal from now until next December) is to finish up and start submitting some of my short stories.
This is always been a big obstacle for me becuase I have severe fears of judgement which impacts of course on my social phobias, but also makes me put off doing things like submitting stuff. But now that I've actually completed a few works and think I have the discipline built up that I can possibly complete more in the next year, the next step is to submit. Well, technically the next step is editing, then submitting. Of course one of the other reasons I haven't submitted is the editing part - I don't know when a story feels 'done'. You know the old saying, stories are never finished, only abandoned, but I always fear I'm abandoning them too early and thus it sucks. But in the next year I'm really going to try hard to submit some stuff, no matter how sucky it may be. I'll focus on the couple reputable places that you can submit online because I still don't have a working printer, and (cross fingers) if any of them are accepted I can use some of the money for that so I can submit other stuff to wider.
Of course, I'm still a bit away from deciding any of my stories are abandonable. This is just a sort of mission statement for now.
Canadian Content! So, I tried the President's Choice new ruffled potato chips. Buffalo Wings & Blue Cheese was the best - also the one I'd tasted before (not the brand, but that type). Szechuan and General Tao's chicken tasted too close to really warrant having both of them there. There were slight variations (Szechuan tastes slightly better to me, though I like the name of General Tao's Chicken way more), but it felt like a bit of a failure of imagination to do both. Neither would go into my regular rotation, though Buffalo Wings might.
Speaking of Canada, we're supposed to have the coldest winter in 15 years. Well, I'm ready. Maybe it'll inspire me to work more on the plot to Great Canadian Zombie Film.
Oh, and we've informed that our rent is going up. By $12.91, or some absurd number like that. Weird. But not a problem.
TVwise we're getting very close to the TV Dead Zone, with nothing new going on. There'll still be Atlantis for a while (and had a pretty good episode this week... yay for Canadian references!), but the strike will cut out most things, if it hasn't already (which it has for many). Brief thoughts on this season? A bit weak. Heroes has had its ups and downs (last ep was a down, hopefully it'll end on an up). GA continues to annoy me more than make me enjoy it. Pushing Daisies has been nice. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles starts in another month or so.
2 For 1 Book Foo...
Finished: The Atrocity Archives, by Charles Stross
Started: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, by Max Brooks
Thoughts on Atrocity Archives behind the cut. Minor conceptual spoilers. Short version: Not bad, but not my favorite Stross and not my style of take on mythosy stuff, so a bit disappointing.
Let's see, the good... some of the tense moments with the plot, particularly the end of the Atrocity Archives, and aspects of the 'problem' of Concrete Jungle were cool and kept me interested.
What I didn't like so much? Well, it veered a bit too much into the silly at times with the bureaucratic madness. I was kind of hoping it would be played more for horror at the blindness (and it did dip into that at times), but it felt to me like it was being played more for attempted laughs.
My one big problem? Everybody seemed to know _waaay_ too much about things Man Was Not Meant To Know. This is a personal issue, as there's certainly nothing conceptually wrong with the take. But I'm more old school about the Mythos, I guess. I'd prefer the idea that the people investigating it, even if they use magic, they really have no clue how any of it works. They might be able to cast spells, but to mass produce magical items ruins the horror of it, and reading paragraphs full of magitechnobabble from someone who is 'in the know' about how this occult superscience operates kind of blunts the impact of it (and yeah, it's a metaphor for computer programmers and such who can talk in terms that would baffle most people, but that doesn't make the story any more appealing). I prefer stories where summoning demons is a last resort, not something to do to supplement staffing. Without that, it all reads a bit silly, with simply magic standing in for secret high tech of other stories.
I may pick up the sequel, but I won't seek it out or buy it new - if I happen to find it in a used bookstore for a decent price I might get it, but that's it.
Finished: Altered Carbon, by Richard Morgan
Started: Quarantine, by Greg Egan
Thoughts for Altered Carbon behind this cut. Not terribly spoilery. Quick verdict: Enjoyed it.
This was reasonably enjoyable, a nice sort of noirish cyberpunk thriller, with some cool concepts peppered throughout. I do think it feels a little too... modern for the time period (said to be something like the 26th century). I'd hope that in 500 years we'd have a bit more technology - this feels like most of the stuff they talk about could be around in 100. But that's a relatively minor concern, and for the most part the story flowed well. I did suspect right away on the general motive for the event the main character was investigating, and so it was a _little_ frustrating to see it not being considered as a possibility until it was time for it (I should totally be a detective, or at least a detective's assistant in a sci-fi world, cause I'd kick ass at it. Much like how I could totally pull off being a scientist's assistant in the Stargate universe, because I may not have the knowledge of how to reprogram the alien technology, but I can usually tell them what clever thing _they_ can do right off way before they think of it. ;)). I already bought the sequel, so I'll read that too, and maybe even any further books in the universe. I wouldn't call it one of my favorites, or spectacularly awesome as some of the reviews I heard, but it was enjoyable.
Speaking of fiction, NaNo is over of course, but I finished a while back so it doesn't feel like a big relief to me. Still, a big congratulations to everybody on my flist who completed the task. And those of you who didn't, well, there's always next time, good for you for doing as much as you did.
Writing wise I've decided my big goal for the next year (this is not a New Year's resolution because I don't make those, I am speaking of it as a goal from now until next December) is to finish up and start submitting some of my short stories.
This is always been a big obstacle for me becuase I have severe fears of judgement which impacts of course on my social phobias, but also makes me put off doing things like submitting stuff. But now that I've actually completed a few works and think I have the discipline built up that I can possibly complete more in the next year, the next step is to submit. Well, technically the next step is editing, then submitting. Of course one of the other reasons I haven't submitted is the editing part - I don't know when a story feels 'done'. You know the old saying, stories are never finished, only abandoned, but I always fear I'm abandoning them too early and thus it sucks. But in the next year I'm really going to try hard to submit some stuff, no matter how sucky it may be. I'll focus on the couple reputable places that you can submit online because I still don't have a working printer, and (cross fingers) if any of them are accepted I can use some of the money for that so I can submit other stuff to wider.
Of course, I'm still a bit away from deciding any of my stories are abandonable. This is just a sort of mission statement for now.
Canadian Content! So, I tried the President's Choice new ruffled potato chips. Buffalo Wings & Blue Cheese was the best - also the one I'd tasted before (not the brand, but that type). Szechuan and General Tao's chicken tasted too close to really warrant having both of them there. There were slight variations (Szechuan tastes slightly better to me, though I like the name of General Tao's Chicken way more), but it felt like a bit of a failure of imagination to do both. Neither would go into my regular rotation, though Buffalo Wings might.
Speaking of Canada, we're supposed to have the coldest winter in 15 years. Well, I'm ready. Maybe it'll inspire me to work more on the plot to Great Canadian Zombie Film.
Oh, and we've informed that our rent is going up. By $12.91, or some absurd number like that. Weird. But not a problem.
