Books, Computers, and a Sudden Loss
Apr. 15th, 2009 04:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newnumber6No comic day of course, as it seems I only pick up comics every other week.
Work was okay.
In other news, today was the day. It comes once a year. Children around the world look forward to it. Well, okay, not the last one, unless my life is a lot weirder than I expected. It's... Haircut Day. Yes, I got my annual haircut (I like my hair longish during the winter for warmth, short during the summer for coolness). No pictures though, you'll just have to imagine.
In other other news, remember way back when my old new computer died and I had to get a new one? Well, left wondering all that time was the status of my data, which existed on a HD that was dying and possibly precipitated the total death of the computer. Anyway, I finally got an IDE External HDD enclosure (late B-Day gift), so I could connect that drive to my new computer through USB. It's very slow, chiefly because, every once in a while, the drive decides it'll go to sleep for an hour or two and not transmit any data at all (when it's working well it's a little slow but a respectable speed). And sometimes it just doesn't recognize it at all. But I eventually got the most critical stuff copied over, and am now slowly copying over the non-essentials (the "yeah, I could probably download this again but it'd be a pain to find it all and remember what I had and why" stuff), and then I will perform an autopsy, reclaim the vital internal organs, and give the HD its final rest. Technically even if I couldn't recover data off it it wasn't that big a deal, I'd already backed up the essential stuff some months back, on my old old computer. About what I would have lost is something like 5 months worth of the writing I did on the old new computer (but I do most of my writing on my old old computer so that wasn't much), and maybe a couple passwords.
However, my new computer came close to getting me evicted! Well, and my own stupidity. See, yesterday we got a notice from the landlord company, basically saying the rent cheque bounced and we had 24 hours to give them a money order or they'd start eviction proceedings. As it turned out, I'd forgotten to deposit my paycheck at the end of the last month (actually, my last two). I thought I had enough money to cover it regardless, but as it turned out, I had just _slightly_ less. As in, 'much less than the cost of my computer', so if I didn't have to buy one of those a couple months back, it really would have been fine. Embarassing, but, ah well, one rushed trip to the bank later and it got sorted out.
And, Book Foo. 3-for-1 special! Or technically 4-4-1 special.
Finished: Chasm City, by Alastair Reynolds
Started: Altered Carbon, by Richard K. Morgan (Reread)
So I didn't much care for Revelation Space, the first novel by Alastair Reynolds. But I figured, it was his first novel, maybe I'll give him another chance. Short version: Not bad. Wouldn't be one of my favorites, but I liked it enough that I'm more willing to try more books by him. I don't really have much in the way of long or spoilery comments, though.
Finished: Shadow and Claw, The First Half of the Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
This actually counts as two books, "Shadow of the Torturer" and "Claw of the Concilliator", which were, I believe, originally published separately. However, it's also clear that they're all intended to be part of one book. Still, I'm counting it as two, mostly because I didn't much care for it. I can see skill there, but it falls into that category of "Not My Thing". (Minor spoilers beyond, mostly just furthur thoughts) It wasn't all bad. The book is set in the distant, distant future, one of those "so much time has passed, it's almost like a fantasy world again". It follows a member of the Torturer's Guild, who is exiled, and has a variety of adventures and encounters in the wider world, which is an Earth that has forgotten most of the tech it had and considers it much like magic was. And at times, I was very interested. At times I was bored. It went back and forth. The bored times outnumbered the interested times, though. Too many times he just went through encounters that felt rather pointless to me, or a long time was spent on something of limited interest. Anyway, Claw of the Conciliator part was a Nebula Award winner which means I had to read it eventually. I probably won't finish it though, unless I happen to find the next parts really cheap.
Started and Finished: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
Started: Lady of Mazes, by Karl Schroeder (reread)
We all know the plot of PaPaZ, at least in broad strokes. It's mostly Pride and Prejudice, but with zombies. And 'mostly Pride and Prejudice' is, for good or ill, truly what it was. I think after reading this I can satisfy myself that Jane Austen also falls into the category of "not my thing". I can certainly see how other people, people who are not me, can really dig it, but it leaves me cold. Zombies were the only thing that could have gotten me to read it at all. I will be talking more specifically about how they managed the introduction of that element, and so that may count as spoilers, behind the cut, but for my 'short version', I will only need two lines. The first of which is exactly the same as what my review would probably be for Pride and Prejudice. The other is likely not. The two line review: "Needed more zombies. Also, (and I cannot believe I am typing this) needed fewer ninjas." Or, to ensure the efficacy of my universal advice (I know of only two pieces of advice that are universal, that can help in good times or bad, for any situation. The first is "This, too, shall pass." The other is "Add More Ninjas"), "Better utilized ninjas."
Now, Pride and Prejudice does not naturally mix well with zombies. It's a mash-up, mixed-theme. And there are generally two ways to mix two disparate elements. Because I'm a comic guy, I'll refer to them as Elseworlds and What If. Elseworlds were DC's "alternate universe" type tales, "What If...?" were Marvel's take, and although my descriptions don't actually apply across the board to either category in terms of the actual products, in the broad strokes that's how I think of them.
In Elseworlds, you put, say, Batman, in, say, a post-apocalyptic wasteland. But you're generally not changing much of the basic story. His parents might die at the hands of a mutant instead of a criminal, but he probably still faces someone called the Joker, probably still has a Robin of some sorts, maybe even an Alfred. Often characters like Wonder Woman or Superman or Green Lantern also appear, but they're mostly the same old characters and the same old stories, put in a post-apocalyptic context. Sometimes, you do it the other way around, and take a classic story like Tarzan, and shoehorn the DC characters into it, and they're filling the role of the characters in the classic story, and it's the DC elements that are only superficial. Tarzan has heat vision and super strength and jumping, but it's still the Tarzan story.
In "What If...?", you take one moment of change ("What if... Spider-Man had saved Gwen Stacy?") and follow how that change warps the stories that would follow. Certain elements stay the same, others are wildly different.
PaPaZ was Elseworlds, when I was hoping it would be "What If...?". I wanted to see "What If... Zombies started invading during Pride and Prejudice?". Everything would proceed normally and then a moment might come where the dead start to rise and people start freaking out and reacting normally, and the story starts to go off the rails. Maybe characters have to hole up together in a particular estate instead of being wildly separated. Maybe conversations that take place over months or weeks during the book might take a few nights. Characters in the book might die. The romance might still proceed, but it's a totally different world from the point the dead start to rise.
Instead, the writer changed the bare minimum, and set the story in a world where zombies have been rising for something like 50 years. Everybody accepts them. People still go out, they just often have militiamen or ninjas on hand in case there's a zombie attack. In order to make the main characters survive, he makes Elizabeth and her family experts in the 'deadly arts', having been trained in China in martial arts and weaponry. So, all that it is, is Pride and Prejudice, in a world where occasionally, a zombie comes randomly out of the text and they have to kill it, and then move on as if nothing has happened. For all that they affect the story, they might as well be a problem with highwaymen. Hell, they probably make more reference to Elizabeth's training in China and doing traditional martial arts tricks like balancing on one finger than they do actually having anyone kill zombies. I wanted to read about characters who aren't necessarily experts in zombie killing dealing with a zombie uprising. I wanted characters to die, not just characters who's part in the story was done, but a large number of them. Not a story that was exactly Pride and Prejudice except for a couple added passages that might as well have not been there for all they felt like they impacted things.
So yes, needed more zombies, more important zombies, and less ninjas (or ninjas that were more than wallpaper or disposable henchmen for the main character to casually murder in order to show their own prowess in the Shaolin school).
So although I didn't much enjoy reading it, I did get it for free and am kinda happy I own it, as a conversation piece if nothing else, if I was the type who had conversations with people or indeed had people over at all. Actually, one of the best parts of the book were the tongue-in-cheek "discussion questions" at the end, which might be perfect if your book club wound up choosing it,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
locker_monster. ;)
And finally, most of the TV rumor mills are saying Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is dead. I'll wait until official word from somebody involved before losing all my hope, but if its true, I can't say it was unexpected, although it really is too bad. It had a weak middle of the season, but it picked up significantly and I really wanted to see where they'd go from where they left off. It'll probably the show I miss most of this year's cancellations (including likely or even possible cancellations). You know, sooner or later, somebody's going to move a series from TV, and, upon cancellation, take the risk and become a DVD-only TV series. Not a series of DVD movies like Stargate, but an actual series with different episodes. Somebody's gotta be the first. And it'll probably be a SF series that does it. I wish it would be this one, but I doubt it. Oh well, if it does end up here, at least it frees up Summer Glau to play Ninja Ballerina (shut up, I live in my own little fantasy world, the rent's cheap and I have an in with the landlord).
I don't even really blame Fox this time around, because, for whatever reason (and again, I can't blame Fox), the ratings just sunk after a phenomenal premiere. I guess it just wasn't everybody's tastes in a Terminator series. We were lucky to get a full second season at all.
Work was okay.
In other news, today was the day. It comes once a year. Children around the world look forward to it. Well, okay, not the last one, unless my life is a lot weirder than I expected. It's... Haircut Day. Yes, I got my annual haircut (I like my hair longish during the winter for warmth, short during the summer for coolness). No pictures though, you'll just have to imagine.
In other other news, remember way back when my old new computer died and I had to get a new one? Well, left wondering all that time was the status of my data, which existed on a HD that was dying and possibly precipitated the total death of the computer. Anyway, I finally got an IDE External HDD enclosure (late B-Day gift), so I could connect that drive to my new computer through USB. It's very slow, chiefly because, every once in a while, the drive decides it'll go to sleep for an hour or two and not transmit any data at all (when it's working well it's a little slow but a respectable speed). And sometimes it just doesn't recognize it at all. But I eventually got the most critical stuff copied over, and am now slowly copying over the non-essentials (the "yeah, I could probably download this again but it'd be a pain to find it all and remember what I had and why" stuff), and then I will perform an autopsy, reclaim the vital internal organs, and give the HD its final rest. Technically even if I couldn't recover data off it it wasn't that big a deal, I'd already backed up the essential stuff some months back, on my old old computer. About what I would have lost is something like 5 months worth of the writing I did on the old new computer (but I do most of my writing on my old old computer so that wasn't much), and maybe a couple passwords.
However, my new computer came close to getting me evicted! Well, and my own stupidity. See, yesterday we got a notice from the landlord company, basically saying the rent cheque bounced and we had 24 hours to give them a money order or they'd start eviction proceedings. As it turned out, I'd forgotten to deposit my paycheck at the end of the last month (actually, my last two). I thought I had enough money to cover it regardless, but as it turned out, I had just _slightly_ less. As in, 'much less than the cost of my computer', so if I didn't have to buy one of those a couple months back, it really would have been fine. Embarassing, but, ah well, one rushed trip to the bank later and it got sorted out.
And, Book Foo. 3-for-1 special! Or technically 4-4-1 special.
Finished: Chasm City, by Alastair Reynolds
Started: Altered Carbon, by Richard K. Morgan (Reread)
So I didn't much care for Revelation Space, the first novel by Alastair Reynolds. But I figured, it was his first novel, maybe I'll give him another chance. Short version: Not bad. Wouldn't be one of my favorites, but I liked it enough that I'm more willing to try more books by him. I don't really have much in the way of long or spoilery comments, though.
Finished: Shadow and Claw, The First Half of the Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
This actually counts as two books, "Shadow of the Torturer" and "Claw of the Concilliator", which were, I believe, originally published separately. However, it's also clear that they're all intended to be part of one book. Still, I'm counting it as two, mostly because I didn't much care for it. I can see skill there, but it falls into that category of "Not My Thing". (Minor spoilers beyond, mostly just furthur thoughts) It wasn't all bad. The book is set in the distant, distant future, one of those "so much time has passed, it's almost like a fantasy world again". It follows a member of the Torturer's Guild, who is exiled, and has a variety of adventures and encounters in the wider world, which is an Earth that has forgotten most of the tech it had and considers it much like magic was. And at times, I was very interested. At times I was bored. It went back and forth. The bored times outnumbered the interested times, though. Too many times he just went through encounters that felt rather pointless to me, or a long time was spent on something of limited interest. Anyway, Claw of the Conciliator part was a Nebula Award winner which means I had to read it eventually. I probably won't finish it though, unless I happen to find the next parts really cheap.
Started and Finished: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
Started: Lady of Mazes, by Karl Schroeder (reread)
We all know the plot of PaPaZ, at least in broad strokes. It's mostly Pride and Prejudice, but with zombies. And 'mostly Pride and Prejudice' is, for good or ill, truly what it was. I think after reading this I can satisfy myself that Jane Austen also falls into the category of "not my thing". I can certainly see how other people, people who are not me, can really dig it, but it leaves me cold. Zombies were the only thing that could have gotten me to read it at all. I will be talking more specifically about how they managed the introduction of that element, and so that may count as spoilers, behind the cut, but for my 'short version', I will only need two lines. The first of which is exactly the same as what my review would probably be for Pride and Prejudice. The other is likely not. The two line review: "Needed more zombies. Also, (and I cannot believe I am typing this) needed fewer ninjas." Or, to ensure the efficacy of my universal advice (I know of only two pieces of advice that are universal, that can help in good times or bad, for any situation. The first is "This, too, shall pass." The other is "Add More Ninjas"), "Better utilized ninjas."
Now, Pride and Prejudice does not naturally mix well with zombies. It's a mash-up, mixed-theme. And there are generally two ways to mix two disparate elements. Because I'm a comic guy, I'll refer to them as Elseworlds and What If. Elseworlds were DC's "alternate universe" type tales, "What If...?" were Marvel's take, and although my descriptions don't actually apply across the board to either category in terms of the actual products, in the broad strokes that's how I think of them.
In Elseworlds, you put, say, Batman, in, say, a post-apocalyptic wasteland. But you're generally not changing much of the basic story. His parents might die at the hands of a mutant instead of a criminal, but he probably still faces someone called the Joker, probably still has a Robin of some sorts, maybe even an Alfred. Often characters like Wonder Woman or Superman or Green Lantern also appear, but they're mostly the same old characters and the same old stories, put in a post-apocalyptic context. Sometimes, you do it the other way around, and take a classic story like Tarzan, and shoehorn the DC characters into it, and they're filling the role of the characters in the classic story, and it's the DC elements that are only superficial. Tarzan has heat vision and super strength and jumping, but it's still the Tarzan story.
In "What If...?", you take one moment of change ("What if... Spider-Man had saved Gwen Stacy?") and follow how that change warps the stories that would follow. Certain elements stay the same, others are wildly different.
PaPaZ was Elseworlds, when I was hoping it would be "What If...?". I wanted to see "What If... Zombies started invading during Pride and Prejudice?". Everything would proceed normally and then a moment might come where the dead start to rise and people start freaking out and reacting normally, and the story starts to go off the rails. Maybe characters have to hole up together in a particular estate instead of being wildly separated. Maybe conversations that take place over months or weeks during the book might take a few nights. Characters in the book might die. The romance might still proceed, but it's a totally different world from the point the dead start to rise.
Instead, the writer changed the bare minimum, and set the story in a world where zombies have been rising for something like 50 years. Everybody accepts them. People still go out, they just often have militiamen or ninjas on hand in case there's a zombie attack. In order to make the main characters survive, he makes Elizabeth and her family experts in the 'deadly arts', having been trained in China in martial arts and weaponry. So, all that it is, is Pride and Prejudice, in a world where occasionally, a zombie comes randomly out of the text and they have to kill it, and then move on as if nothing has happened. For all that they affect the story, they might as well be a problem with highwaymen. Hell, they probably make more reference to Elizabeth's training in China and doing traditional martial arts tricks like balancing on one finger than they do actually having anyone kill zombies. I wanted to read about characters who aren't necessarily experts in zombie killing dealing with a zombie uprising. I wanted characters to die, not just characters who's part in the story was done, but a large number of them. Not a story that was exactly Pride and Prejudice except for a couple added passages that might as well have not been there for all they felt like they impacted things.
So yes, needed more zombies, more important zombies, and less ninjas (or ninjas that were more than wallpaper or disposable henchmen for the main character to casually murder in order to show their own prowess in the Shaolin school).
So although I didn't much enjoy reading it, I did get it for free and am kinda happy I own it, as a conversation piece if nothing else, if I was the type who had conversations with people or indeed had people over at all. Actually, one of the best parts of the book were the tongue-in-cheek "discussion questions" at the end, which might be perfect if your book club wound up choosing it,
locker_monster. ;)And finally, most of the TV rumor mills are saying Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is dead. I'll wait until official word from somebody involved before losing all my hope, but if its true, I can't say it was unexpected, although it really is too bad. It had a weak middle of the season, but it picked up significantly and I really wanted to see where they'd go from where they left off. It'll probably the show I miss most of this year's cancellations (including likely or even possible cancellations). You know, sooner or later, somebody's going to move a series from TV, and, upon cancellation, take the risk and become a DVD-only TV series. Not a series of DVD movies like Stargate, but an actual series with different episodes. Somebody's gotta be the first. And it'll probably be a SF series that does it. I wish it would be this one, but I doubt it. Oh well, if it does end up here, at least it frees up Summer Glau to play Ninja Ballerina (shut up, I live in my own little fantasy world, the rent's cheap and I have an in with the landlord).
I don't even really blame Fox this time around, because, for whatever reason (and again, I can't blame Fox), the ratings just sunk after a phenomenal premiere. I guess it just wasn't everybody's tastes in a Terminator series. We were lucky to get a full second season at all.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-04-15 09:32 pm (UTC)Thanks for the warning. I was close to buying it, for the same reason you did - zombies are the only thing that could get me to read Austen. Actually, I've tried to read Austen, tried to watch Austen and only managed to get through one story in either medium without being totally bored - Emma aka "what the movie Clueless was based on. So I'll not bother with that. P&P was one of the books I tried so many times and just couldn't force myself through, without the hint of zombies.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-15 11:40 pm (UTC)This is Lia in my RPG account...too lazy to log in and out
Date: 2009-04-16 05:51 am (UTC)