Book Foo, Dalek Foo, other Foo.
Apr. 22nd, 2010 12:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newnumber6Finished: Saturn's Children, by Charles Stross
Started: Revelation Space, by Alastair Reynolds (reread)
Saturn's Children is supposedly a bit of a late Heinlein pastiche/homage. Which kinda worried me, because late Heinlein was not very good. But I've liked Stross before, so I wanted to give it a chance. Furthur thoughts and back-of-the-book style synopsis spoilers behind cut. The book's about a sexbot designed to be a human companion... unfortunately, humans have been extinct for hundreds of years now. The solar system is run by robots, one who imitate men in many of their behaviors, including their tendency towards oppression and owning other people when they can.
It's somewhat of a spy thriller SF with a lot of twists and turns, and of course, robots everywhere. Robots being one of my favorite SF themes, it's a bit of a natural, especially since it touched on a number of other themes I tend to gravitate towards - the fight against obselescence, modifying yourself, freedom vs programming.
Overall I quite liked it. Sometimes the spy plot got a bit too convoluted for my attention, and the sexual aspects veered a bit between amusing and eyerolling, but the core of the plot was entertaining and I never really wanted to stop reading, and Stross fills his world with lots of little details. Characters felt a little bit flat (yeah, they're all robots, so that may be part of it), and I would have liked a little more variety in how humans were depicted (in the past, that is... it seemed pretty firmly on the 'humans were pretty thoughtless and look at the mess we're in now because of it', while I have trouble buying the notion that at least some humans wouldn't have tried to provide real freedom for their robots).
It's probably my least favorite Stross novel, but it's not bad. I wouldn't mind reading more in the universe or a continuation of it sometime.
Finished: Fisherman's Hope, by David Feintuch (reread)
Started: Voices of Hope, by David Feintuch (reread)
Reread, so nothing really much to say. Next book in the series is the kind of lame one, but then the series starts to pick up again and focus on the main character.
The latest Who was Victory of the Daleks. And it was a bit lame, but it felt like they were SO close to having a good Dalek story. The elements were there, but it didn't work together. (Thoughts, spoilers, ahoy).
One of the biggest sins of the episode is that it had so many potentially good elements and wasted them. The Eleventh Doctor's first meeting with the Daleks. Daleks fighting on the Allies' side in WWII. Winston Churchill. Spitfires in Space. A pleasant dalek-created robot! All could have been great, but now that great plot that the previews promised can never be because it wasn't very good. The WWII plot was just basically the introduction and set up, the moment the Doctor screamed at the Daleks it became "The Doctor in a Dalek standoff on their ship" episode with WWII as just window dressing for Amelia to hang around while he did so. Grrr... I so wanted to see the Doctor actually deal with Daleks who either didn't know who they were or were good enough at hiding it that he had to consider the ethics of using them despite their doubts (perhaps if the Germans also had some super-weapon that they shouldn't have). Instead it was just 'stand around and yell'.
And don't get me started on "The Robot has a bomb in it but if you talk to him nicely he won't explode." I mean, that's RTD level bull!@$@. Makes no sense at all. If he'd gone in a zombie-like trance from Dalek orders to detonate himself and was talked out of it with the power of being human, I could have bought it. But lying down as his timer counts down and suddenly human memories make him not explode seems like very poor design on the part of the Daleks.
New Dalek design wasn't great, but I'm not as opposed to it as others seem to be. I don't really like the rainbow colors, but I could get behind it, especially if they're sort of a ruling class of Daleks and the rank and file have more consistent color schemes (or different colors for different functions).
There were some good points. I like that this was one of those cases where the Doctor lost against the Daleks, something we haven't seen in a long time. Yeah, he saved the Earth, but that wasn't really the Daleks plan to destroy it. That was just them being Daleks. "Yeah, might as well." The first Daleks wanted to access the progenitor device to create more Daleks, and they succeeded. Those Daleks wanted to escape into time, and they succeeded. It wasn't one of those lame cases where at the last minute, the Doctor presses a button and DESTROYS ALL THE DALEKS again (except "one ship survived"... again).
I'd have liked it loads better if they were doing what I allowed myself to hope for a split second - that the Daleks no longer had time travel as an option, maybe even lost the technology of how to build it, they'd recreated themselves but would have to rebuild their empire slowly, allowing the Doctor to encounter them again, repeatedly, in many different contexts, without it being 'defeat them all or the universe is doomed' every time. Pretty much as I outlined previously here in this journal. I suppose there's still room for this type of thing, slightly modified, as part of a Dalek plan to protect their race by seeding 'stuck in one time' Daleks throughout history, so that the Doctor can't simply wipe them all out, because doing so would change loads of history. Maybe we could see a story, possibly called "Colony of the Daleks" dealing with the establishment of a new Skaro for timestuck Daleks. (Or maybe that's part of what the crack and Amy's memories about... the Daleks have rewritten history, except where the Time Lords, when they intervened, altered the timeline with precision tools, the Daleks, in typical dalek manner, did it with brute force, and left cracks)... anyway, maybe this will be expanded upon in the video game "City of the Daleks", released for free on June 5th, which will probably suck but I'll certainly play it if my system can handle it.
And even though I thought the Robo-Doc-Bomb was handled stupidly, I like the character himself, and kind of hope he shows up again (he wouldn't necessarily age so he could appear again in any time period the writers like).
In more general Who, I think this was probably the poorest example to date of Matt Smith as the Doctor, although I still like him in general (and suspect this was one of the earliest episodes filmed of the season, so he may have been finding his TimeVortex-Legs), and I'm still not sold on Amy Pond at all. She still seems to me to be Plucky-Average-Girl-Companion Iteration #32. And looking to be "yet another crush on the doctor" example, too. At least when I thought she was a cop that might have given her some distinction, but now she's just an ordinary girl who happens to be brave and smart and travel with the Doctor. Meh. She's pretty, but so are a lot of companions, I want somebody who brings something to the table without seeming a little ridiculous for doing so (being an average girl who somehow always figures out the right thing to say or do).
Anyway, Moffat... I know you didn't write this episodes, but you're the executive producer, you should be exerting a bit more quality control!
What else to talk about?
In comics, New Mutants Forever was finally solicited, though I think I forgot to mention it when it was announced. Claremont picking up from the original New mutants #50-something when he left the book, and continuing the plots he had in place. It may be that I'll only be buying two comics, and both of them will be New Mutants. Weird. Also, there's a new Young Justice cartoon coming, with Miss Martian (who was one of my favorite characters in Teen Titans One Year Later, but wasn't enough for me to not drop the book), and rumors of a new Avatar: The Last Airbender (cartoon) project, possibly a Book Four have been flowing around the last few days. Unfortunately, it looks like not only has Spectacular Spider-Man been cancelled (in favor of "Ultimate Spider-Man" on Disney in 2011), but so has Wolverine and the X-Men, despite it being previously announced that they were getting a second season. Financing fell through, I guess. It sucks, but I kind of hope they do the same thing as Spider-Man - immediately start an Ultimate X-Men cartoon in production, even one set in the same universe (so we could get Kitty Pryde crossover in like the second season, ideally!).
Writing wise I've been kind of slacking, ideas have been coming but I haven't been able to turn them into stories. In the last couple months I've only finished one thing (a semi-humorous story entitiled "Cthulhu is a Wimp"), and most of the others I've had to scrap in frustration, some chugging along and not going anywhere. I have recently at least made some progress editing the short story I had Karl Schroeder comment on. Not quite finished, but I think I integrated some of the themes a bit more explicitly, and I do think it's a little bit stronger for it... though not as much as I'd hoped. Still, I might be ready to try sending it out again in a little bit.
And, the X-Box. Still quite enjoying it. I finished the 72 hour mode of Dead Rising, now ready to tackle Overtime Mode. Quite a fun game overall, a few glitches and strange moments, but I like it and will probably play it again a second time, and any time I just get in the mood to slaughter some zombies I'm sure I'll be picking it up. Finally took a look at Fable 2, which looks rather pretty but so far at least has been pretty linear and the control scheme will take some getting used to. Still only a little bit into GTA4 and Halo, been really focusing on Dead Rising. And, I've been enjoying using the X-Box to let me watch things I download through... magic, on my TV instead of my computer screen. That's how I watched the new Who. I'm actually thinking of getting some old TV shows I enjoyed (or maybe even ones I heard were good but missed out on) and watching it there, although I'm not sure which one yet.
Started: Revelation Space, by Alastair Reynolds (reread)
Saturn's Children is supposedly a bit of a late Heinlein pastiche/homage. Which kinda worried me, because late Heinlein was not very good. But I've liked Stross before, so I wanted to give it a chance. Furthur thoughts and back-of-the-book style synopsis spoilers behind cut. The book's about a sexbot designed to be a human companion... unfortunately, humans have been extinct for hundreds of years now. The solar system is run by robots, one who imitate men in many of their behaviors, including their tendency towards oppression and owning other people when they can.
It's somewhat of a spy thriller SF with a lot of twists and turns, and of course, robots everywhere. Robots being one of my favorite SF themes, it's a bit of a natural, especially since it touched on a number of other themes I tend to gravitate towards - the fight against obselescence, modifying yourself, freedom vs programming.
Overall I quite liked it. Sometimes the spy plot got a bit too convoluted for my attention, and the sexual aspects veered a bit between amusing and eyerolling, but the core of the plot was entertaining and I never really wanted to stop reading, and Stross fills his world with lots of little details. Characters felt a little bit flat (yeah, they're all robots, so that may be part of it), and I would have liked a little more variety in how humans were depicted (in the past, that is... it seemed pretty firmly on the 'humans were pretty thoughtless and look at the mess we're in now because of it', while I have trouble buying the notion that at least some humans wouldn't have tried to provide real freedom for their robots).
It's probably my least favorite Stross novel, but it's not bad. I wouldn't mind reading more in the universe or a continuation of it sometime.
Finished: Fisherman's Hope, by David Feintuch (reread)
Started: Voices of Hope, by David Feintuch (reread)
Reread, so nothing really much to say. Next book in the series is the kind of lame one, but then the series starts to pick up again and focus on the main character.
The latest Who was Victory of the Daleks. And it was a bit lame, but it felt like they were SO close to having a good Dalek story. The elements were there, but it didn't work together. (Thoughts, spoilers, ahoy).
One of the biggest sins of the episode is that it had so many potentially good elements and wasted them. The Eleventh Doctor's first meeting with the Daleks. Daleks fighting on the Allies' side in WWII. Winston Churchill. Spitfires in Space. A pleasant dalek-created robot! All could have been great, but now that great plot that the previews promised can never be because it wasn't very good. The WWII plot was just basically the introduction and set up, the moment the Doctor screamed at the Daleks it became "The Doctor in a Dalek standoff on their ship" episode with WWII as just window dressing for Amelia to hang around while he did so. Grrr... I so wanted to see the Doctor actually deal with Daleks who either didn't know who they were or were good enough at hiding it that he had to consider the ethics of using them despite their doubts (perhaps if the Germans also had some super-weapon that they shouldn't have). Instead it was just 'stand around and yell'.
And don't get me started on "The Robot has a bomb in it but if you talk to him nicely he won't explode." I mean, that's RTD level bull!@$@. Makes no sense at all. If he'd gone in a zombie-like trance from Dalek orders to detonate himself and was talked out of it with the power of being human, I could have bought it. But lying down as his timer counts down and suddenly human memories make him not explode seems like very poor design on the part of the Daleks.
New Dalek design wasn't great, but I'm not as opposed to it as others seem to be. I don't really like the rainbow colors, but I could get behind it, especially if they're sort of a ruling class of Daleks and the rank and file have more consistent color schemes (or different colors for different functions).
There were some good points. I like that this was one of those cases where the Doctor lost against the Daleks, something we haven't seen in a long time. Yeah, he saved the Earth, but that wasn't really the Daleks plan to destroy it. That was just them being Daleks. "Yeah, might as well." The first Daleks wanted to access the progenitor device to create more Daleks, and they succeeded. Those Daleks wanted to escape into time, and they succeeded. It wasn't one of those lame cases where at the last minute, the Doctor presses a button and DESTROYS ALL THE DALEKS again (except "one ship survived"... again).
I'd have liked it loads better if they were doing what I allowed myself to hope for a split second - that the Daleks no longer had time travel as an option, maybe even lost the technology of how to build it, they'd recreated themselves but would have to rebuild their empire slowly, allowing the Doctor to encounter them again, repeatedly, in many different contexts, without it being 'defeat them all or the universe is doomed' every time. Pretty much as I outlined previously here in this journal. I suppose there's still room for this type of thing, slightly modified, as part of a Dalek plan to protect their race by seeding 'stuck in one time' Daleks throughout history, so that the Doctor can't simply wipe them all out, because doing so would change loads of history. Maybe we could see a story, possibly called "Colony of the Daleks" dealing with the establishment of a new Skaro for timestuck Daleks. (Or maybe that's part of what the crack and Amy's memories about... the Daleks have rewritten history, except where the Time Lords, when they intervened, altered the timeline with precision tools, the Daleks, in typical dalek manner, did it with brute force, and left cracks)... anyway, maybe this will be expanded upon in the video game "City of the Daleks", released for free on June 5th, which will probably suck but I'll certainly play it if my system can handle it.
And even though I thought the Robo-Doc-Bomb was handled stupidly, I like the character himself, and kind of hope he shows up again (he wouldn't necessarily age so he could appear again in any time period the writers like).
In more general Who, I think this was probably the poorest example to date of Matt Smith as the Doctor, although I still like him in general (and suspect this was one of the earliest episodes filmed of the season, so he may have been finding his TimeVortex-Legs), and I'm still not sold on Amy Pond at all. She still seems to me to be Plucky-Average-Girl-Companion Iteration #32. And looking to be "yet another crush on the doctor" example, too. At least when I thought she was a cop that might have given her some distinction, but now she's just an ordinary girl who happens to be brave and smart and travel with the Doctor. Meh. She's pretty, but so are a lot of companions, I want somebody who brings something to the table without seeming a little ridiculous for doing so (being an average girl who somehow always figures out the right thing to say or do).
Anyway, Moffat... I know you didn't write this episodes, but you're the executive producer, you should be exerting a bit more quality control!
What else to talk about?
In comics, New Mutants Forever was finally solicited, though I think I forgot to mention it when it was announced. Claremont picking up from the original New mutants #50-something when he left the book, and continuing the plots he had in place. It may be that I'll only be buying two comics, and both of them will be New Mutants. Weird. Also, there's a new Young Justice cartoon coming, with Miss Martian (who was one of my favorite characters in Teen Titans One Year Later, but wasn't enough for me to not drop the book), and rumors of a new Avatar: The Last Airbender (cartoon) project, possibly a Book Four have been flowing around the last few days. Unfortunately, it looks like not only has Spectacular Spider-Man been cancelled (in favor of "Ultimate Spider-Man" on Disney in 2011), but so has Wolverine and the X-Men, despite it being previously announced that they were getting a second season. Financing fell through, I guess. It sucks, but I kind of hope they do the same thing as Spider-Man - immediately start an Ultimate X-Men cartoon in production, even one set in the same universe (so we could get Kitty Pryde crossover in like the second season, ideally!).
Writing wise I've been kind of slacking, ideas have been coming but I haven't been able to turn them into stories. In the last couple months I've only finished one thing (a semi-humorous story entitiled "Cthulhu is a Wimp"), and most of the others I've had to scrap in frustration, some chugging along and not going anywhere. I have recently at least made some progress editing the short story I had Karl Schroeder comment on. Not quite finished, but I think I integrated some of the themes a bit more explicitly, and I do think it's a little bit stronger for it... though not as much as I'd hoped. Still, I might be ready to try sending it out again in a little bit.
And, the X-Box. Still quite enjoying it. I finished the 72 hour mode of Dead Rising, now ready to tackle Overtime Mode. Quite a fun game overall, a few glitches and strange moments, but I like it and will probably play it again a second time, and any time I just get in the mood to slaughter some zombies I'm sure I'll be picking it up. Finally took a look at Fable 2, which looks rather pretty but so far at least has been pretty linear and the control scheme will take some getting used to. Still only a little bit into GTA4 and Halo, been really focusing on Dead Rising. And, I've been enjoying using the X-Box to let me watch things I download through... magic, on my TV instead of my computer screen. That's how I watched the new Who. I'm actually thinking of getting some old TV shows I enjoyed (or maybe even ones I heard were good but missed out on) and watching it there, although I'm not sure which one yet.
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no subject
Date: 2010-04-22 04:10 pm (UTC)I'm hoping for better things from the Van Gogh episode later in the series.
Amy's not lived up to her early potential yet, I don't think. It didn't help that she was given very little to do this episode, probably.
I'm wondering about an Ultimate X-men cartoon since you mentioned it, but it doesn't seem to be on the cards at the moment, from what was said over the weekend. Something along the lines of not giving up on the idea of an X-men cartoon but not having anything lined up currently. But it does make sense that if they try for an X-men cartoon again, they'd want to be keeping in the same basic universe as other Marvel-based cartoons in production.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-23 09:37 am (UTC)Professor Bracewell didn't work so well for me, but I did appreciate the TNG shout out. 'Positronic brain' made me laugh. And Bill Paterson is always classy, no matter the rubbish lines he has to work with.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-23 11:12 pm (UTC)