Random Stuff: Book Foo and Other Stuff
Jan. 19th, 2006 04:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newnumber6In an attempt to do more substantive updates, I'm cramming together a bunch of stuff that I wouldn't normally feel worthy of an update alone:
I can't wait till this election is over, so we can once again be rid of those stupid 'why not speak up when everybody's listening' commercials. Die. Unfortunately, it looks like the Dark One will gain power and Canada will take a few steps backwards, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. Hopefully it'll just be a minority gov and before they can do too much damage there'll be another election where people'll forget why they wanted to punish the liberals (or actually turn to the NDP).
Still the most redundantly annoying tv program slogan: "Prime News Tonight, Tonight on Headline News Prime." Gah. Why not just go that one more step, stop trying entirely, and make it "Prime prime prime news news news tonight tonight tonight!"
Belated Book Foo:
Finished: The Healer's War, by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
Started: Wild Cards Book 9: Jokertown Shuffle (various authors).
(minor spoilers under the cut, but nothing too dramatic)
I read the Healer's War solely because it was a Nebula winner, so I could tick one more Nebula Winner off my list, rather than from a particular interest in the plot or subject matter, but I actually got into it pretty easily. It's set during the Vietnam war, and is about a nurse there who, in the course of her story, is given a magical amulet that lets her read auras and helps her heal. Of course, it takes a fair while to get to that point, much of the early book is taken up by a fairly interesting story from the point of view of a nurse (the writer was also a nurse in Vietnam). But it did a good job of showing the horrors and casual dehumanization involved in war without painting either side as entirely good or bad. I'm a bit iffy on the ending, but on the whole I liked it and would probably read it again at some point.
Wild Cards of course continues the story of people gifted with special abilities or cursed with deformed appearances (and occasionally both at once) from a virus released in the 40s. This continues the Jumpers plot, about a group of people all with the ability to swap bodies with any target they see, and all the social havok this causes and a number of groups trying to stop them or getting unwillingly involved. So far it's pretty good... once again it does dip a bit too much in the 'really kinky sexual plots' for my tastes, but I do really like the main story and ideas and it's good at immersing me in the world. It's another mosaic novel, so the viewpoint characters in the early sections might advance the plot but not have much to do for the rest of the novel, which is kind of cool but has the effect of kind of disappointing you in tiny ways when you realize that it's another character who's going to follow up on Plot Thread X, rather than the one who introduced it. Still, fun, and am glad there's more books in the series to read. I'll be disappointed when it's over. They should do a movie, or miniseries or TV series.
What else... today on the way home from the grocery store (had to pick up dinner), passed by a cutish girl, looked sort of familiar. Then she said hi to me and I realized who it was - one of the girls who works Sunday mornings where I do delivery. Didn't recognize her because she had her hair out rather than tied back (not to mention that she wasn't in a uniform). I said hi back of course, so yay, I've got my quota of social interaction for the week. ;)
Participated in this friending meme and got (so far) one new friend out of it, mainly since I'm too shy to ask other people that seem interesting (silly, ain't it?), but hi there anyway to new friend and anyone who happens to read this journal to see if I'm interesting or not! I hope I fooled you into thinking I am!
I can't wait till this election is over, so we can once again be rid of those stupid 'why not speak up when everybody's listening' commercials. Die. Unfortunately, it looks like the Dark One will gain power and Canada will take a few steps backwards, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. Hopefully it'll just be a minority gov and before they can do too much damage there'll be another election where people'll forget why they wanted to punish the liberals (or actually turn to the NDP).
Still the most redundantly annoying tv program slogan: "Prime News Tonight, Tonight on Headline News Prime." Gah. Why not just go that one more step, stop trying entirely, and make it "Prime prime prime news news news tonight tonight tonight!"
Belated Book Foo:
Finished: The Healer's War, by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
Started: Wild Cards Book 9: Jokertown Shuffle (various authors).
(minor spoilers under the cut, but nothing too dramatic)
I read the Healer's War solely because it was a Nebula winner, so I could tick one more Nebula Winner off my list, rather than from a particular interest in the plot or subject matter, but I actually got into it pretty easily. It's set during the Vietnam war, and is about a nurse there who, in the course of her story, is given a magical amulet that lets her read auras and helps her heal. Of course, it takes a fair while to get to that point, much of the early book is taken up by a fairly interesting story from the point of view of a nurse (the writer was also a nurse in Vietnam). But it did a good job of showing the horrors and casual dehumanization involved in war without painting either side as entirely good or bad. I'm a bit iffy on the ending, but on the whole I liked it and would probably read it again at some point.
Wild Cards of course continues the story of people gifted with special abilities or cursed with deformed appearances (and occasionally both at once) from a virus released in the 40s. This continues the Jumpers plot, about a group of people all with the ability to swap bodies with any target they see, and all the social havok this causes and a number of groups trying to stop them or getting unwillingly involved. So far it's pretty good... once again it does dip a bit too much in the 'really kinky sexual plots' for my tastes, but I do really like the main story and ideas and it's good at immersing me in the world. It's another mosaic novel, so the viewpoint characters in the early sections might advance the plot but not have much to do for the rest of the novel, which is kind of cool but has the effect of kind of disappointing you in tiny ways when you realize that it's another character who's going to follow up on Plot Thread X, rather than the one who introduced it. Still, fun, and am glad there's more books in the series to read. I'll be disappointed when it's over. They should do a movie, or miniseries or TV series.
What else... today on the way home from the grocery store (had to pick up dinner), passed by a cutish girl, looked sort of familiar. Then she said hi to me and I realized who it was - one of the girls who works Sunday mornings where I do delivery. Didn't recognize her because she had her hair out rather than tied back (not to mention that she wasn't in a uniform). I said hi back of course, so yay, I've got my quota of social interaction for the week. ;)
Participated in this friending meme and got (so far) one new friend out of it, mainly since I'm too shy to ask other people that seem interesting (silly, ain't it?), but hi there anyway to new friend and anyone who happens to read this journal to see if I'm interesting or not! I hope I fooled you into thinking I am!
