newnumber6 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
newnumber6) wrote2008-12-11 03:04 pm
newnumber6) wrote2008-12-11 03:04 pm
Entry tags:
- books,
- doctor who,
- heroes,
- tv
Book Foo and TV Foo
Finished: Wild Cards, Vol 4: Aces Abroad, edited by George R. R. Martin (reread)
Started: Wild Cards, Vol 5: Down and Dirty, edited by George R. R. Martin (reread)
Aces Abroad's the next in the series, but not really one of my favorites. (minor spoilers behind the cut)
It deals with a WHO delegation of humans, aces, and jokers, (and Doctor Tachyon) going around the world to oversee the treatment of Wild Card victims. In story terms, mainly it's an excuse to look at super characters based on all sorts of different cultures, since Wild Card manifestations are based on the subconscious which includes cultural programming. So in Central America, for example, a person might manifest powers similar to the ancient mayan Gods. I don't know how well they succeeded in portraying the different cultures, but to me it felt a little false. Then again, what do I know. Moreover, it just didn't interest me for the most part. Too many of the stories of different countries involved people with strange prophetic dreams, which is okay once or twice but felt repetetive by the third or fourth time (this is possibly in part due to the multiple author problem).
My favorite parts of the book was the Journal of Xavier Desmond, a joker who is along for the trip. His reactions feel the most honest and real and paint the most vivid picture of that world as it's changed. Some of the shorter stories are okay, too. But none really grabbed me.
Finished: Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman
Started: Parable of the Talents, by Octavia Butler
Thoughts on AB behind cut, minor spoilers. Short version: Liked it, but probably the weakest Gaiman novel I've read.
Anansi Boys deals mostly with Charles Nancy, an average, although rather shy, guy, who's overly embarassing and flamboyant father just died. Except, he didn't know that his father was actually a God, nor that he has a brother, Spider, who shows up and makes his life hell.
Gaiman's one of the very few fantasy authors I read, and one of the few excessively humorous ones I read. A lot of times I read something particularly silly and it turns me off, but with Gaiman I feel comfortable with the silly. And this has dollops of both. But I didn't care for this one as much as Neverwhere or American Gods. It was pleasant, but dare I say a little forgettable. Part of it was that it was a little predictable, I kind of figured out where most of the things were going, relationships wise, and they ended up there without much in the way of surprises. It was a pleasant journey, but
So, since I'm writing this offline while my net is out, I might as well talk about a few more things. Let's start with Wolverine and the X-Men, because apparently, it will be no more. Well, at least, in Canada, on YTV. Teletoon bought exclusive Marvel rights, so YTV isn't airing it any more, and Teletoon will be, starting in January. But that _probably_ means they'll have to rerun the first 12 episodes again, and so it might be a long time before a new one. Grr. Maybe they'll recognize that many people have seen it already and do a marathon or something to get through them quickly.
Saw my first episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures. I only watched it because this was the ep with (spoilers) The Brigadier. Ah, it was nice to see him again. Aside from one or two still pictures, I haven't really seen what he looks like since the early Tom Baker era. He's changed quite a bit, but still very recognizable, and it warms my heart. I would like to see him show up on Doctor Who, though, because that'se where he belongs.
As to SJA? It's okay, more kiddy-oriented than Who and not something I'm going to make a habit of watching. A little too light for my tastes, and hard to believe certain aspects (an extremely low security high security facility), everybody (good, bad, and ancient) being idiots at times in the service of the plot, and the true plans of the bad guys were pretty well obvious right away. Again, fine for kids, but not really worth downloading the series regularly unless there's something cool in it like the Brig.
Terminator wasn't bad this week, but the timeline's pretty screwed up. There's no way there's been 6 months since the series started (unless they decided to take a 3 month jump with this episode). Minor point though.
Heroes? My god it's gotten train-wreck bad again. I have one non-spoilery thing to say. LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEEB! This wasn't his episode, but I'm blaming him anyway. (More major spoilers beyond the cut)
Okay, trailing off the 'eclipses are magic' philosophy of the Heroesverse from the last episode, they seem to have completely abandoned anything other than Magic as an explanation. I mean, seriously. The "Catalyst" that makes the 'give people superpowers' formula work, isn't some biological compound that's kept inside a living human body. It's LITERALLY MAGIC GLOWING LIGHT that passes from one person to the next. My god, how craptacular can you get? Why not include aliens? Or a magic wizard? And now that Hiro is depowered I have no faith in any of the other depowerings 'sticking'. It might have worked (and worked well) for Peter, and although it's probably _necessary_ for Hiro, I don't see it happening. I'm actually a little relieved that Kristin Bell's character got killed off, best she get off that sinking ship before it drags her down with it.
We get 9th Wonder once again being used as a Deus Ex Machina. Not only does it explain exactly what's happening (in the past), but also gives them the right ideas about what they need to do to fix it. Glimpses of the future should be used to drive plots or not at all, not to solve them.
About the one minor bright point to the episode is evil Sylar. "Ooh, cake!" But then he leads to even more stupidity. He kills Arthur Petrelli. And then... HE WALKS AWAY. Here is a character who's whole schtick is "I want as many powers as I can get", so here, he kills a character not only with probably 50 different powers, but also with the power to STEAL powers at a touch... and is all, ho-hum, today I'm not even going to bother cutting off his head and stealing his power, I'm just going to insult Peter and walk away.
Since I talked about Sylar, I think I should talk about one of the major overall problems with the writing this season. They can't seem to write characters struggling very well. Take Sylar, who's supposedly been trying to walk the line between good and evil. Except, as written, he seems to be someone who's one day acting like a boy scout, other days like a psychopath, and still others like tough guy criminal type. Instead of struggle, we get a character who wholeheartedly changes his opinion at the drop of a hat. Any hat. He's not the only one with this problem, but it's most obvious there. The show has no direction for characters, and that's because the characters don't drive the plot, the plot drives the characters. They need Sylar to work with the good guys, so he reforms temporarily! They need him evil again, killy killy! They don't want him to have Petrelli's powers, so he decides to walk away after killing him! Likewise with other characters. They want Mohinder to work with Petrelli? So he decides doing evil experiments on humans is AOK!
LOOOOOOOOOOOEB!
Of minor interest, one of the stars of the (now far superior) show "The 4400" played the soldier. This'll make the second series (possibly in a row) where he's played a character who gains super-powers from an injection. Amused me.
Anyway, Jeph Loeb will be gone soon but next ep is one he's writing, which of course worries me. And Bryan Fuller is going to be back on the writing staff... starting episode 20... WTF? That's like 2 before the end. And there's no guarantee he'll be back next year. That's not time to turn the Craptanic away from the Iceberg. Meh.
Oddly enough, the only show I've been _excited_ about lately is Survivors, on the BBC. It's not perfect but it hits a lot of my fiction enjoyment buttons. And only a few episodes left about that. Terminator's probably second place but has been a good deal weaker this year.
That's about it.
Started: Wild Cards, Vol 5: Down and Dirty, edited by George R. R. Martin (reread)
Aces Abroad's the next in the series, but not really one of my favorites. (minor spoilers behind the cut)
It deals with a WHO delegation of humans, aces, and jokers, (and Doctor Tachyon) going around the world to oversee the treatment of Wild Card victims. In story terms, mainly it's an excuse to look at super characters based on all sorts of different cultures, since Wild Card manifestations are based on the subconscious which includes cultural programming. So in Central America, for example, a person might manifest powers similar to the ancient mayan Gods. I don't know how well they succeeded in portraying the different cultures, but to me it felt a little false. Then again, what do I know. Moreover, it just didn't interest me for the most part. Too many of the stories of different countries involved people with strange prophetic dreams, which is okay once or twice but felt repetetive by the third or fourth time (this is possibly in part due to the multiple author problem).
My favorite parts of the book was the Journal of Xavier Desmond, a joker who is along for the trip. His reactions feel the most honest and real and paint the most vivid picture of that world as it's changed. Some of the shorter stories are okay, too. But none really grabbed me.
Finished: Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman
Started: Parable of the Talents, by Octavia Butler
Thoughts on AB behind cut, minor spoilers. Short version: Liked it, but probably the weakest Gaiman novel I've read.
Anansi Boys deals mostly with Charles Nancy, an average, although rather shy, guy, who's overly embarassing and flamboyant father just died. Except, he didn't know that his father was actually a God, nor that he has a brother, Spider, who shows up and makes his life hell.
Gaiman's one of the very few fantasy authors I read, and one of the few excessively humorous ones I read. A lot of times I read something particularly silly and it turns me off, but with Gaiman I feel comfortable with the silly. And this has dollops of both. But I didn't care for this one as much as Neverwhere or American Gods. It was pleasant, but dare I say a little forgettable. Part of it was that it was a little predictable, I kind of figured out where most of the things were going, relationships wise, and they ended up there without much in the way of surprises. It was a pleasant journey, but
So, since I'm writing this offline while my net is out, I might as well talk about a few more things. Let's start with Wolverine and the X-Men, because apparently, it will be no more. Well, at least, in Canada, on YTV. Teletoon bought exclusive Marvel rights, so YTV isn't airing it any more, and Teletoon will be, starting in January. But that _probably_ means they'll have to rerun the first 12 episodes again, and so it might be a long time before a new one. Grr. Maybe they'll recognize that many people have seen it already and do a marathon or something to get through them quickly.
Saw my first episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures. I only watched it because this was the ep with (spoilers) The Brigadier. Ah, it was nice to see him again. Aside from one or two still pictures, I haven't really seen what he looks like since the early Tom Baker era. He's changed quite a bit, but still very recognizable, and it warms my heart. I would like to see him show up on Doctor Who, though, because that'se where he belongs.
As to SJA? It's okay, more kiddy-oriented than Who and not something I'm going to make a habit of watching. A little too light for my tastes, and hard to believe certain aspects (an extremely low security high security facility), everybody (good, bad, and ancient) being idiots at times in the service of the plot, and the true plans of the bad guys were pretty well obvious right away. Again, fine for kids, but not really worth downloading the series regularly unless there's something cool in it like the Brig.
Terminator wasn't bad this week, but the timeline's pretty screwed up. There's no way there's been 6 months since the series started (unless they decided to take a 3 month jump with this episode). Minor point though.
Heroes? My god it's gotten train-wreck bad again. I have one non-spoilery thing to say. LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEEB! This wasn't his episode, but I'm blaming him anyway. (More major spoilers beyond the cut)
Okay, trailing off the 'eclipses are magic' philosophy of the Heroesverse from the last episode, they seem to have completely abandoned anything other than Magic as an explanation. I mean, seriously. The "Catalyst" that makes the 'give people superpowers' formula work, isn't some biological compound that's kept inside a living human body. It's LITERALLY MAGIC GLOWING LIGHT that passes from one person to the next. My god, how craptacular can you get? Why not include aliens? Or a magic wizard? And now that Hiro is depowered I have no faith in any of the other depowerings 'sticking'. It might have worked (and worked well) for Peter, and although it's probably _necessary_ for Hiro, I don't see it happening. I'm actually a little relieved that Kristin Bell's character got killed off, best she get off that sinking ship before it drags her down with it.
We get 9th Wonder once again being used as a Deus Ex Machina. Not only does it explain exactly what's happening (in the past), but also gives them the right ideas about what they need to do to fix it. Glimpses of the future should be used to drive plots or not at all, not to solve them.
About the one minor bright point to the episode is evil Sylar. "Ooh, cake!" But then he leads to even more stupidity. He kills Arthur Petrelli. And then... HE WALKS AWAY. Here is a character who's whole schtick is "I want as many powers as I can get", so here, he kills a character not only with probably 50 different powers, but also with the power to STEAL powers at a touch... and is all, ho-hum, today I'm not even going to bother cutting off his head and stealing his power, I'm just going to insult Peter and walk away.
Since I talked about Sylar, I think I should talk about one of the major overall problems with the writing this season. They can't seem to write characters struggling very well. Take Sylar, who's supposedly been trying to walk the line between good and evil. Except, as written, he seems to be someone who's one day acting like a boy scout, other days like a psychopath, and still others like tough guy criminal type. Instead of struggle, we get a character who wholeheartedly changes his opinion at the drop of a hat. Any hat. He's not the only one with this problem, but it's most obvious there. The show has no direction for characters, and that's because the characters don't drive the plot, the plot drives the characters. They need Sylar to work with the good guys, so he reforms temporarily! They need him evil again, killy killy! They don't want him to have Petrelli's powers, so he decides to walk away after killing him! Likewise with other characters. They want Mohinder to work with Petrelli? So he decides doing evil experiments on humans is AOK!
LOOOOOOOOOOOEB!
Of minor interest, one of the stars of the (now far superior) show "The 4400" played the soldier. This'll make the second series (possibly in a row) where he's played a character who gains super-powers from an injection. Amused me.
Anyway, Jeph Loeb will be gone soon but next ep is one he's writing, which of course worries me. And Bryan Fuller is going to be back on the writing staff... starting episode 20... WTF? That's like 2 before the end. And there's no guarantee he'll be back next year. That's not time to turn the Craptanic away from the Iceberg. Meh.
Oddly enough, the only show I've been _excited_ about lately is Survivors, on the BBC. It's not perfect but it hits a lot of my fiction enjoyment buttons. And only a few episodes left about that. Terminator's probably second place but has been a good deal weaker this year.
That's about it.