Mix of stuff...
Oct. 13th, 2012 05:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newnumber6So, lots of stuff on a lot of different fronts, that... well, I don't know that I have a whole lot to say, but sometimes you just gotta talk even if it's just to say nothing. So, TV, comics, a bit of overdue book foo, and even a bit of life (not that I really have one).
Normally I start with Book foo, but let's change it up a little and end with it. Because I am "wacky" like that.
So, comics. I've been... drifting away from comics. Like I'm on a inflatable raft and the tide's dragging me away. Except, a lot of it is the comic companies pushing me away. I mean, what with DC rebooting everything, into crap, and removing my favorite characters/concepts in favor of "iconic" crap, and Marvel... just not being very good. Not 'drive me away' bad, but not 'getting me into the store' good, with no concepts or characters that make me want to pick up the book. The last ongoing I had been reading (New Mutants), just pretty well turned to crap when they shifted creative team and removed a bunch of cast members I liked and replaced them with ones I don't care about or dislike (not to mention some pretty bad art and a few stories that I just do not care for at all). So I dropped it, and haven't been in a comic store in months. In fact, this month, I actually LOST more comics than I gained - I decided to toss a few of the more forgettable issues of X-Men Unlimited, dropping them off on the 'free to take' table on the Laundry Room, maybe some kid will like them.
However, one recent development makes me just the teensiest bit excited about Marvel again... not right now, perhaps, but for the future (unfortunately, it's paired with another development that will quite possibly drive me further away). Spoilers for comics in the last 2-3 weeks I think, behind cut, and ones that are announced but not yet appearing.
So, at the end of the latest AvX (Avengers vs X-Men) event, one that seemed generally dumb and from what I've seen of most of the aftermath, not much better, but that have done ONE thing that I've wanted for a while. They finally seem to have undone M-Day. They started with the introduction of Hope, but from what I understand, they went further now, and now loads of people have been powered at once, instead of just a few popping up in the wake of Hope.
To me, random mutants, the possibility of stumbling on a new character and following them through their entire life and eventually joining the X-Men, and, hell, let's be honest, imagining yourself discovering yourself as a mutant and in a bad fanfic (or good MUSHing) way, being able to fantasize yourself into the canon, were part of the magic of X-Men. Once you removed that aspect and focused it on a never-ending struggle against total extinction (not to mention removing loads of characters I liked), I just didn't care. I'd always said that I didn't see myself getting invested in the X-Men universe (Which was my major interest in Marvel as a whole) until mutants became a going concern again.
Well, it seems that it's happened.
And yet... still nothing's speaking to me. Not yet.
But at least there's some hope for the future... except, one of the stupid upcoming miniseries is "Avengers Arena", where Arcade abducts a bunch of super-powered teens and forces them to fight to the death, Battle Royale style (and they knocked-off Battle Royale's logo, too, so it's very deliberate). Normally, I'd think it's a dumb, bad idea, but I could ignore it, except for one thing. Two of the characters drafted into it are from Runaways, one of my favorite teams from the last decade of comics... Chase and Nico are abducted and presumably will be forced to kill or be killed.
Marvel, if you permanently kill off either of them in a stupid knockoff mini, I will mostly likely drop you. 90% of the reason I dropped DC was because they removed Oracle to make room for Batgirl, so don't think I won't do it. I already imagine my own stories to replace the horrible last runs of Runaways, if you make me imagine around the deaths of two of my favorite characters, I'll just stick to the Marvel Universe in my imagination.
On to TV, and sticking to comics theme, I checked out Arrow and... I'm whelmed. I'm not sold, it seems a little... heartless (not cruel, but just that it doesn't have the zing of a movie that the people in it really enjoy doing). The main character especially is a bit flat and his action moves a bit over-the-top. But, it was a pilot, so I'll give it a few episodes to get going before I make a final decision.
Also watched Doctor Horrible again, on TV when it aired on the CW on Tuesday... enjoyed it of course, but adding commercials really messes with the pacing. Between the act breaks is fine, but there's one more commercial per act and it just doesn't... flow right. Anyway, still was fun to catch up, although, with a few exceptions, my memory had faded on many of the lyrics.
Other shows, new, old, and upcoming...
WALKING DEAD THIS WEEK. That is all I have to say on that subject, but I hope my caps lock has conveyed my excitement properly.
Supernatural: I'm not sure if it gets worse every year these days, or if it's about the same level of badness, only I get used to it and then in the summer months off I lose my resistance, but it starts feeling stupid again. Watching on pure inertia (and a little, to mock).
Fringe: Oh, what has happened to you show? Although I wasn't quite as into it as other shows, or other people, but there were moments of brilliance and at least a real spark. But this season with your shift into the Observer plotline, it's just not the same show anymore.
And I'm okay with a show changing dramatically... heck, I always used to think that the West Wing should have, in its final year, gone all out and dealt with a alien first contact, or 24 deal with a zombie apocalypse in its last year. But it should at least be as good as what it was before. Instead, we're treated to the billionth iteration of "fighting against an evil dictatorship" when there were so many cooler stories dealing with multiple universes. I'll keep watching because I have an sbsurd loyalty to shows I used to enjoy (see above re: Supernatural), but I don't really care much anymore.
Last Resort: Giving it a try. Interesting premise, not entirely sure it works as a series, but I'm interested, at least.
Revolution: Started out okay. Not great, and with flaws in the premise (electricity doesn't work, fine, but if guns work, then at least some kind of steam-run technology should be possible... not steam powered electronics, but just simple "expanding hot air/water vapour moving things", and even some very simple vehicles). The main problem, in the latest episode (spoilers) they killed off the character with the most compelling story. I should have known they'd do it when they gave her access to her iPhone for a few seconds in the episodes before, but... still. She had the most personally invested if the power comes back on, she has ties with the main character and had a chance to make her more sympathetic, she was cool and inventive in a crisis, and poof, just treated her like cannon fodder. And they didn't even think to make it an emotional moment by having her talk to former-dot-com-billionaire alone as she's dying and asking him to figure out how to turn the power back on again so she could have one last look at her kids. I don't really care about the other characters, they're all right, but they seem too... forced. Like the show's saying "Here, these are the characters you're supposed to like! Aren't they awesome? He's cool and mysterious and practically Batman-level fighting skills, she's the caring girl just out to save her brother who when the chips are down can make the tough decisions, and this other guys' the loveable sceince guy! Except, despite it clear that I'm intended to, I don't ACTUALLY like any of them overly much. They're okay. About the most interesting besides the one they just killed off is one of the bad guys. So, we'll see where they go, but dumb move, writers.
Doctor Who: A bit weak this season, and with a lot more plotholes than I'd like. And I think... hey, I like Moffat. And in my world, he'd always be welcome to write an episode. But I think I'm ready for him to move on as a showrunner and get somebody else. Somebody who can write without plots either full of insanely complicated twisting time-branches, or hopelessly plot-hole-riddled things that look like he wrote in an afternoon. Just stories of average complexity that hold together well past a moment's though. And someone who can think of the consequences of what he puts together. Still, I'm interested in seeing how the show changes with the Christmas special and beyond.
Once Upon a Time: I haven't talked about this much because I was never that into it in the first year. A bit silly, and too much dillydallying, where you knew they were stretching out the plot and so
any time you THOUGHT there would be development, it would all be undone by a "surprise" revelation that the person you thought was getting their comeuppance was actually aware of what was going on all the time, stuff like that. I had a bad feeling that they were going to follow that pattern for the whole five years (or more) of the show. It just barely held my attention, mostly because there's just nothing else on Sunday nights (that doesn't come on another channel were I have to download it later).
But I've gotta give them credit. They made a big move in the season finale, a big change, and it's improved the prospects of the show dramatically, and the first couple episodes have actually got me more interested than I had been anywhere in the last year.
Grimm: Another show on the 'I don't love it, but I watch it' bubble. They made one big good change this year (letting the partner in on the secret), and one big bad change this year (the whole Juliet plot... just... just let her go, write her out. It's stupid and painful to watch (and not in a good way), and worst of all... you teased a DREAM SEQUENCE of her problem this year being resolved. Amnesia wasn't hacky enough, you have to pull the ultra-hacky "look, plot development... nope, dream!" in a teaser. If there's one person handling that plot, they should be gently let go.
I think that's it for TV... there are a few other shows I watch but they're usually more episodic formula and so, although there are a few ongoing plotlines, you could miss bunches of episodes and it not really matter much and so they're kind of immune to my being particularly disappointed by or excited by them, and as such, don't feel the need to talk about them.
So I think that's it for TV and comics... any movies? Well, I did watch the Dark Knight Returns, Part 1. That's the animated adaptation of the classic story. I enjoyed it for the most part. I always though the general ideas were good but I didn't much like Millar's presentation of it, but as an actual movie it looks and feels a lot better. Voices are good except Weller's a little flat as Batman. Don't know that it needed to be two parts, considering part one's only 45 minutes of actual runtime (and another half hour or so of Making-Of features it looks like), they could have put it together into one.
So I guess now it's time for Book Foo.
Finished: Absolution Gap by Alastair Reynolds
The third part in a space opera involving machines dedicated to wiping out all sentient life, this one much of the action centers on a small icy moon of a gas giant that has a religion sprung up around it, because the gas giant, occasionally, vanishes for a few split seconds. And the people from the last books continue on and stuff. Trying to be vaguey and non spoilery here, but there will be fairly big spoilers after the cut.
It was okay, except the ending really left me with a sense of "wait, that's IT?", and in the worst possible way.
Okay, so, here's the thing. The last few books have introduced this big threat of the Inhibitors, machines that want to wipe out intelligent life (but for a Good Cause!)... anyway, the refugees of the last system destroyed by the inhibitors take a trip to the planet Hela because they believe there they can contact a group of aliens that might have the power to defeat them, but there's a risk that they may be trying to fight one enemy by letting in something worse, the thing is, they don't know.
And after a lot of ongoing plot (which, to be fair, is, while not great, at least good and enjoyable and kept me engaged), they finally get into a position were they can make that deal with these 'Shadows'. Only one of them realizes (with rather spurious reasoning on the scantest of scant evidence) that there's ANOTHER alien race that is watching all this and that if they try to let the Shadows in, this other alien race will destroy them because... I don't know, I guess you don't do that. Maybe they just happen to know that anything called "Shadows" are bad news by default. And that if they decide NOT to let the Shadows in, this other alien race will help them, despite having shown no inclination towards doing so before.
And, okay, if that was the end of the book, the third part in a four book series, okay, I can deal with that as an end point, they make a decision not to let in the Devil They Don't Know that's promising all these nice things and decide to go seek out somebody who's promising nothing but watching.
Except... it seems that this is the end of the series as a WHOLE. We jump ahead in time to find that, yes, they made a deal with the watchers who hated the Shadows, the Inhibitors were destroyed hundreds of years ago, and, oh yeah, there's now another major infestation in the galaxy that sort of threatens humanity and may be the same thing that plagued the shadows, except it's all very slow and arguably not all that bad at all. But... yeah, PLOT OVER GUYS GO HOME! It's like the author just said "You know what, screw this, I'm tired of this plot. Hey, I'm the writer... I can just write "And then the undefeateable badguys were defeated."" We don't even get significant character closure on the few characters who were sympathetic.
Imagine if Tolkien decided after Gandalf the White came back to just say "And with his help, the Orc Army was defeated and Frodo and Sam had no trouble destroying the ring."
Finished: Broken Angels by Richard K. Morgan (Kovacs trilogy, #2) (reread)
Not much to say here, read it a couple times before and commented on it then.
Finished: 7th Sigma by Steven Gould
This novel centers on a teen living on his own in the Territory: an area of the southwestern US running on low technology... because of a race of self-reproducing robotic bugs that seek out all metal/electronics and devour it to make more of themselves (even if that means digging into your body to grab your pacemaker). The novel isn't really about the bugs, they're just an ever-present background (and it's sort of set up for a sequel where they take a bigger role), it's mostly just an excuse for a series of low-tech adventures, a little like a western. The series is highly inspired by the story Kim by Rudyard Kipling, and like that (supposedly) it's a bit of a picaresque... loosely connected series of events as the hero grows up. He also gets involved in undercover work for the law.
Now, the teen is uber-competent, which is okay I guess because this really kind of does feel like teen fiction, but it's a little grating after a while. The book didn't grab me like some of the author's other work, but I'd read a sequel if it came out.
In other news from this author, in a few months the third book in the Jumper series is due to be released, and I'm very excited, since I love that series.
Finished: Woken Furies by Richard K. Morgan (Kovacs trilogy, #3) (reread)
Again, reread, nothing especially new to say.
Finished: Little Fuzzy by John Scalzi
A sort of "reboot"/reimagining of the Fuzzy books by H. Beam Piper. I've never read them, though I always had them on my 'look for' list in used bookstores. I probably will check out the original too. Anyway, the story concerns a prospector on an alien planet who strikes it rich with a discovery, and then makes another discovery... a race of primitive animals nobody's discovered there yet, which is interesting but nothing special... until he lets his ex-GF know and she starts to believe that they may actually be an intelligent species. That means the planet belongs to them and all commercial exploitation of the planet has to stop. And since people stand to make hundreds of billions of credits off the planet, it's in a lot of people's best interests, including the main character's, to not see them as people.
It's competently done, I guess. It feels more like a short story padded out rather than a novel, by which I mean a little simplistic and lean, but not in a bad way, just kind of a feelgood tale (with some decidedly not feelgood parts to get you there) tightly focused on exploring one particular idea and everything else being in service to that. Enjoyable without being particularly deep (even if some of the issues explored kind of call out for a little more deepness).
Started: Battle Royale by Koushun Takami (reread)
Started: How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
And with books out of the way, what's left? Well, I guess I can do a life update, such as it is. Well, last weekend was Thanksgiving (in Canada)... just had a small one with my dad, stepmom, and grandmother (and of course, brother and sister-in-law who I live with anyway). Instead of the traditional turkey, they decided to do something different and have steak and spare ribs. Very good meal of course, though I felt a little disconnected from everything. Today we're actually having turkey, since I bought a small one in the pre-Thanksgiving sales just for me and the roommates because we figured, why miss out?
Otherwise... my life continues. That's about all I can say. I guess I'm depressed. I say I guess, because I feel rather numb about it all, disconnected as I mentioned above... I don't actually feel (or consciously feel) any 'oh my god I'm so sad' feelings, at least no more than I usually do, but there's other evidence. I've been sleeping more, with longer naps during the day. I haven't been doing much of what normally I enjoy, like writing... been about a week since I wrote more than a few words at a time. Don't think I'll be doing my "100 Words of Horror" thing this year, nothing's coming to me, and very few others ever took up the challenge anyway, so I doubt it'd be missed.
And as you can see I've been a bit blah on TV and books lately, which may be them, but also may be me. And I tend to wind up either doing nothing (or napping) instead because I'm just not interested enough to do anything, and I have nothing really to replace it with, either. Not like I really have friends to go out with or anything.
Other possible evidence... I don't know if this is related or not, since my eyes have always been a bit funky, but I've noticed a sort of... weirdness to my vision. Like, things are too bright and a little... off. And the thing is, it only happens when I'm somewhere other than home/work. Sometimes on the walk to/from work, but mostly on the rare times I deviate from the routine. It's a little uncomfortable and distracting, but hard to describe... the best I can come with is... there's a certain thing like it in dreams, where it's almost like my view is moving slightly independently from my eyes. Like, there's a screen projected right in front of my eyes, and normally I don't notice that it's a screen because everything moves like it's supposed to and reacts to my movements instantly, but every once in a while, it's a little laggy, and my eyes move more than my view and it's jarring. It's a little like that. Or maybe like my eyes have figured out that everything I'm seeing is fake and is trying to move a little too fast on purpose in order to catch the lag, which, even if it doesn't actually do that (and if it does, I can only hope it'd let me wake up), is still disorienting.
Or maybe I'm just going crazy(er). Regardless. It's not ever present, it's just every once in a while and just the possible evidence of depression. So yeah, I'm comfortable in declaring that I'm a lot more depressed than usual, even if I'm not actually feeling it much. I've been trying to combat it, trying to force myself into writing hoping that it'll just work over the bump, and limiting the unnecessary sleep (which I know can be corrosive) and even by deliberately making an effort to check Facebook regularly instead of only every few weeks. I'm honestly not sure if that last one's helping or hurting. But it's doing something.
And to leave it on random moments of happiness and things that make me smile, right now I'm watching The Incredible Hulk on TV, and they just had the scene where Bruce dumps all Betty's stuff on the bed and tells her "Basically we can't use any of this stuff without being tracked." And then she says "What about my lip gloss can we use that?" And then points out her glasses. And then he realizes, yes, most of the stuff THEY can use (including CASH), just a few things that they can't. It's such a little scene but it's probably my favorite one in the movie (which I feel is a little underrated overall).
Normally I start with Book foo, but let's change it up a little and end with it. Because I am "wacky" like that.
So, comics. I've been... drifting away from comics. Like I'm on a inflatable raft and the tide's dragging me away. Except, a lot of it is the comic companies pushing me away. I mean, what with DC rebooting everything, into crap, and removing my favorite characters/concepts in favor of "iconic" crap, and Marvel... just not being very good. Not 'drive me away' bad, but not 'getting me into the store' good, with no concepts or characters that make me want to pick up the book. The last ongoing I had been reading (New Mutants), just pretty well turned to crap when they shifted creative team and removed a bunch of cast members I liked and replaced them with ones I don't care about or dislike (not to mention some pretty bad art and a few stories that I just do not care for at all). So I dropped it, and haven't been in a comic store in months. In fact, this month, I actually LOST more comics than I gained - I decided to toss a few of the more forgettable issues of X-Men Unlimited, dropping them off on the 'free to take' table on the Laundry Room, maybe some kid will like them.
However, one recent development makes me just the teensiest bit excited about Marvel again... not right now, perhaps, but for the future (unfortunately, it's paired with another development that will quite possibly drive me further away). Spoilers for comics in the last 2-3 weeks I think, behind cut, and ones that are announced but not yet appearing.
So, at the end of the latest AvX (Avengers vs X-Men) event, one that seemed generally dumb and from what I've seen of most of the aftermath, not much better, but that have done ONE thing that I've wanted for a while. They finally seem to have undone M-Day. They started with the introduction of Hope, but from what I understand, they went further now, and now loads of people have been powered at once, instead of just a few popping up in the wake of Hope.
To me, random mutants, the possibility of stumbling on a new character and following them through their entire life and eventually joining the X-Men, and, hell, let's be honest, imagining yourself discovering yourself as a mutant and in a bad fanfic (or good MUSHing) way, being able to fantasize yourself into the canon, were part of the magic of X-Men. Once you removed that aspect and focused it on a never-ending struggle against total extinction (not to mention removing loads of characters I liked), I just didn't care. I'd always said that I didn't see myself getting invested in the X-Men universe (Which was my major interest in Marvel as a whole) until mutants became a going concern again.
Well, it seems that it's happened.
And yet... still nothing's speaking to me. Not yet.
But at least there's some hope for the future... except, one of the stupid upcoming miniseries is "Avengers Arena", where Arcade abducts a bunch of super-powered teens and forces them to fight to the death, Battle Royale style (and they knocked-off Battle Royale's logo, too, so it's very deliberate). Normally, I'd think it's a dumb, bad idea, but I could ignore it, except for one thing. Two of the characters drafted into it are from Runaways, one of my favorite teams from the last decade of comics... Chase and Nico are abducted and presumably will be forced to kill or be killed.
Marvel, if you permanently kill off either of them in a stupid knockoff mini, I will mostly likely drop you. 90% of the reason I dropped DC was because they removed Oracle to make room for Batgirl, so don't think I won't do it. I already imagine my own stories to replace the horrible last runs of Runaways, if you make me imagine around the deaths of two of my favorite characters, I'll just stick to the Marvel Universe in my imagination.
On to TV, and sticking to comics theme, I checked out Arrow and... I'm whelmed. I'm not sold, it seems a little... heartless (not cruel, but just that it doesn't have the zing of a movie that the people in it really enjoy doing). The main character especially is a bit flat and his action moves a bit over-the-top. But, it was a pilot, so I'll give it a few episodes to get going before I make a final decision.
Also watched Doctor Horrible again, on TV when it aired on the CW on Tuesday... enjoyed it of course, but adding commercials really messes with the pacing. Between the act breaks is fine, but there's one more commercial per act and it just doesn't... flow right. Anyway, still was fun to catch up, although, with a few exceptions, my memory had faded on many of the lyrics.
Other shows, new, old, and upcoming...
WALKING DEAD THIS WEEK. That is all I have to say on that subject, but I hope my caps lock has conveyed my excitement properly.
Supernatural: I'm not sure if it gets worse every year these days, or if it's about the same level of badness, only I get used to it and then in the summer months off I lose my resistance, but it starts feeling stupid again. Watching on pure inertia (and a little, to mock).
Fringe: Oh, what has happened to you show? Although I wasn't quite as into it as other shows, or other people, but there were moments of brilliance and at least a real spark. But this season with your shift into the Observer plotline, it's just not the same show anymore.
And I'm okay with a show changing dramatically... heck, I always used to think that the West Wing should have, in its final year, gone all out and dealt with a alien first contact, or 24 deal with a zombie apocalypse in its last year. But it should at least be as good as what it was before. Instead, we're treated to the billionth iteration of "fighting against an evil dictatorship" when there were so many cooler stories dealing with multiple universes. I'll keep watching because I have an sbsurd loyalty to shows I used to enjoy (see above re: Supernatural), but I don't really care much anymore.
Last Resort: Giving it a try. Interesting premise, not entirely sure it works as a series, but I'm interested, at least.
Revolution: Started out okay. Not great, and with flaws in the premise (electricity doesn't work, fine, but if guns work, then at least some kind of steam-run technology should be possible... not steam powered electronics, but just simple "expanding hot air/water vapour moving things", and even some very simple vehicles). The main problem, in the latest episode (spoilers) they killed off the character with the most compelling story. I should have known they'd do it when they gave her access to her iPhone for a few seconds in the episodes before, but... still. She had the most personally invested if the power comes back on, she has ties with the main character and had a chance to make her more sympathetic, she was cool and inventive in a crisis, and poof, just treated her like cannon fodder. And they didn't even think to make it an emotional moment by having her talk to former-dot-com-billionaire alone as she's dying and asking him to figure out how to turn the power back on again so she could have one last look at her kids. I don't really care about the other characters, they're all right, but they seem too... forced. Like the show's saying "Here, these are the characters you're supposed to like! Aren't they awesome? He's cool and mysterious and practically Batman-level fighting skills, she's the caring girl just out to save her brother who when the chips are down can make the tough decisions, and this other guys' the loveable sceince guy! Except, despite it clear that I'm intended to, I don't ACTUALLY like any of them overly much. They're okay. About the most interesting besides the one they just killed off is one of the bad guys. So, we'll see where they go, but dumb move, writers.
Doctor Who: A bit weak this season, and with a lot more plotholes than I'd like. And I think... hey, I like Moffat. And in my world, he'd always be welcome to write an episode. But I think I'm ready for him to move on as a showrunner and get somebody else. Somebody who can write without plots either full of insanely complicated twisting time-branches, or hopelessly plot-hole-riddled things that look like he wrote in an afternoon. Just stories of average complexity that hold together well past a moment's though. And someone who can think of the consequences of what he puts together. Still, I'm interested in seeing how the show changes with the Christmas special and beyond.
Once Upon a Time: I haven't talked about this much because I was never that into it in the first year. A bit silly, and too much dillydallying, where you knew they were stretching out the plot and so
any time you THOUGHT there would be development, it would all be undone by a "surprise" revelation that the person you thought was getting their comeuppance was actually aware of what was going on all the time, stuff like that. I had a bad feeling that they were going to follow that pattern for the whole five years (or more) of the show. It just barely held my attention, mostly because there's just nothing else on Sunday nights (that doesn't come on another channel were I have to download it later).
But I've gotta give them credit. They made a big move in the season finale, a big change, and it's improved the prospects of the show dramatically, and the first couple episodes have actually got me more interested than I had been anywhere in the last year.
Grimm: Another show on the 'I don't love it, but I watch it' bubble. They made one big good change this year (letting the partner in on the secret), and one big bad change this year (the whole Juliet plot... just... just let her go, write her out. It's stupid and painful to watch (and not in a good way), and worst of all... you teased a DREAM SEQUENCE of her problem this year being resolved. Amnesia wasn't hacky enough, you have to pull the ultra-hacky "look, plot development... nope, dream!" in a teaser. If there's one person handling that plot, they should be gently let go.
I think that's it for TV... there are a few other shows I watch but they're usually more episodic formula and so, although there are a few ongoing plotlines, you could miss bunches of episodes and it not really matter much and so they're kind of immune to my being particularly disappointed by or excited by them, and as such, don't feel the need to talk about them.
So I think that's it for TV and comics... any movies? Well, I did watch the Dark Knight Returns, Part 1. That's the animated adaptation of the classic story. I enjoyed it for the most part. I always though the general ideas were good but I didn't much like Millar's presentation of it, but as an actual movie it looks and feels a lot better. Voices are good except Weller's a little flat as Batman. Don't know that it needed to be two parts, considering part one's only 45 minutes of actual runtime (and another half hour or so of Making-Of features it looks like), they could have put it together into one.
So I guess now it's time for Book Foo.
Finished: Absolution Gap by Alastair Reynolds
The third part in a space opera involving machines dedicated to wiping out all sentient life, this one much of the action centers on a small icy moon of a gas giant that has a religion sprung up around it, because the gas giant, occasionally, vanishes for a few split seconds. And the people from the last books continue on and stuff. Trying to be vaguey and non spoilery here, but there will be fairly big spoilers after the cut.
It was okay, except the ending really left me with a sense of "wait, that's IT?", and in the worst possible way.
Okay, so, here's the thing. The last few books have introduced this big threat of the Inhibitors, machines that want to wipe out intelligent life (but for a Good Cause!)... anyway, the refugees of the last system destroyed by the inhibitors take a trip to the planet Hela because they believe there they can contact a group of aliens that might have the power to defeat them, but there's a risk that they may be trying to fight one enemy by letting in something worse, the thing is, they don't know.
And after a lot of ongoing plot (which, to be fair, is, while not great, at least good and enjoyable and kept me engaged), they finally get into a position were they can make that deal with these 'Shadows'. Only one of them realizes (with rather spurious reasoning on the scantest of scant evidence) that there's ANOTHER alien race that is watching all this and that if they try to let the Shadows in, this other alien race will destroy them because... I don't know, I guess you don't do that. Maybe they just happen to know that anything called "Shadows" are bad news by default. And that if they decide NOT to let the Shadows in, this other alien race will help them, despite having shown no inclination towards doing so before.
And, okay, if that was the end of the book, the third part in a four book series, okay, I can deal with that as an end point, they make a decision not to let in the Devil They Don't Know that's promising all these nice things and decide to go seek out somebody who's promising nothing but watching.
Except... it seems that this is the end of the series as a WHOLE. We jump ahead in time to find that, yes, they made a deal with the watchers who hated the Shadows, the Inhibitors were destroyed hundreds of years ago, and, oh yeah, there's now another major infestation in the galaxy that sort of threatens humanity and may be the same thing that plagued the shadows, except it's all very slow and arguably not all that bad at all. But... yeah, PLOT OVER GUYS GO HOME! It's like the author just said "You know what, screw this, I'm tired of this plot. Hey, I'm the writer... I can just write "And then the undefeateable badguys were defeated."" We don't even get significant character closure on the few characters who were sympathetic.
Imagine if Tolkien decided after Gandalf the White came back to just say "And with his help, the Orc Army was defeated and Frodo and Sam had no trouble destroying the ring."
Finished: Broken Angels by Richard K. Morgan (Kovacs trilogy, #2) (reread)
Not much to say here, read it a couple times before and commented on it then.
Finished: 7th Sigma by Steven Gould
This novel centers on a teen living on his own in the Territory: an area of the southwestern US running on low technology... because of a race of self-reproducing robotic bugs that seek out all metal/electronics and devour it to make more of themselves (even if that means digging into your body to grab your pacemaker). The novel isn't really about the bugs, they're just an ever-present background (and it's sort of set up for a sequel where they take a bigger role), it's mostly just an excuse for a series of low-tech adventures, a little like a western. The series is highly inspired by the story Kim by Rudyard Kipling, and like that (supposedly) it's a bit of a picaresque... loosely connected series of events as the hero grows up. He also gets involved in undercover work for the law.
Now, the teen is uber-competent, which is okay I guess because this really kind of does feel like teen fiction, but it's a little grating after a while. The book didn't grab me like some of the author's other work, but I'd read a sequel if it came out.
In other news from this author, in a few months the third book in the Jumper series is due to be released, and I'm very excited, since I love that series.
Finished: Woken Furies by Richard K. Morgan (Kovacs trilogy, #3) (reread)
Again, reread, nothing especially new to say.
Finished: Little Fuzzy by John Scalzi
A sort of "reboot"/reimagining of the Fuzzy books by H. Beam Piper. I've never read them, though I always had them on my 'look for' list in used bookstores. I probably will check out the original too. Anyway, the story concerns a prospector on an alien planet who strikes it rich with a discovery, and then makes another discovery... a race of primitive animals nobody's discovered there yet, which is interesting but nothing special... until he lets his ex-GF know and she starts to believe that they may actually be an intelligent species. That means the planet belongs to them and all commercial exploitation of the planet has to stop. And since people stand to make hundreds of billions of credits off the planet, it's in a lot of people's best interests, including the main character's, to not see them as people.
It's competently done, I guess. It feels more like a short story padded out rather than a novel, by which I mean a little simplistic and lean, but not in a bad way, just kind of a feelgood tale (with some decidedly not feelgood parts to get you there) tightly focused on exploring one particular idea and everything else being in service to that. Enjoyable without being particularly deep (even if some of the issues explored kind of call out for a little more deepness).
Started: Battle Royale by Koushun Takami (reread)
Started: How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
And with books out of the way, what's left? Well, I guess I can do a life update, such as it is. Well, last weekend was Thanksgiving (in Canada)... just had a small one with my dad, stepmom, and grandmother (and of course, brother and sister-in-law who I live with anyway). Instead of the traditional turkey, they decided to do something different and have steak and spare ribs. Very good meal of course, though I felt a little disconnected from everything. Today we're actually having turkey, since I bought a small one in the pre-Thanksgiving sales just for me and the roommates because we figured, why miss out?
Otherwise... my life continues. That's about all I can say. I guess I'm depressed. I say I guess, because I feel rather numb about it all, disconnected as I mentioned above... I don't actually feel (or consciously feel) any 'oh my god I'm so sad' feelings, at least no more than I usually do, but there's other evidence. I've been sleeping more, with longer naps during the day. I haven't been doing much of what normally I enjoy, like writing... been about a week since I wrote more than a few words at a time. Don't think I'll be doing my "100 Words of Horror" thing this year, nothing's coming to me, and very few others ever took up the challenge anyway, so I doubt it'd be missed.
And as you can see I've been a bit blah on TV and books lately, which may be them, but also may be me. And I tend to wind up either doing nothing (or napping) instead because I'm just not interested enough to do anything, and I have nothing really to replace it with, either. Not like I really have friends to go out with or anything.
Other possible evidence... I don't know if this is related or not, since my eyes have always been a bit funky, but I've noticed a sort of... weirdness to my vision. Like, things are too bright and a little... off. And the thing is, it only happens when I'm somewhere other than home/work. Sometimes on the walk to/from work, but mostly on the rare times I deviate from the routine. It's a little uncomfortable and distracting, but hard to describe... the best I can come with is... there's a certain thing like it in dreams, where it's almost like my view is moving slightly independently from my eyes. Like, there's a screen projected right in front of my eyes, and normally I don't notice that it's a screen because everything moves like it's supposed to and reacts to my movements instantly, but every once in a while, it's a little laggy, and my eyes move more than my view and it's jarring. It's a little like that. Or maybe like my eyes have figured out that everything I'm seeing is fake and is trying to move a little too fast on purpose in order to catch the lag, which, even if it doesn't actually do that (and if it does, I can only hope it'd let me wake up), is still disorienting.
Or maybe I'm just going crazy(er). Regardless. It's not ever present, it's just every once in a while and just the possible evidence of depression. So yeah, I'm comfortable in declaring that I'm a lot more depressed than usual, even if I'm not actually feeling it much. I've been trying to combat it, trying to force myself into writing hoping that it'll just work over the bump, and limiting the unnecessary sleep (which I know can be corrosive) and even by deliberately making an effort to check Facebook regularly instead of only every few weeks. I'm honestly not sure if that last one's helping or hurting. But it's doing something.
And to leave it on random moments of happiness and things that make me smile, right now I'm watching The Incredible Hulk on TV, and they just had the scene where Bruce dumps all Betty's stuff on the bed and tells her "Basically we can't use any of this stuff without being tracked." And then she says "What about my lip gloss can we use that?" And then points out her glasses. And then he realizes, yes, most of the stuff THEY can use (including CASH), just a few things that they can't. It's such a little scene but it's probably my favorite one in the movie (which I feel is a little underrated overall).
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Date: 2012-10-13 10:00 pm (UTC)Same with the others you mention above, although, I have gone a step farther and started watching the New Normal, which is so offensive, it really shouldn't be on.
My tv view habits have come down to this: it's like a bad train wreck that you can't help but watch. It isn't good, but there's nothing else on... and my brain cells keep dying.
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Date: 2012-10-14 07:03 pm (UTC)And you don't have loads of people who look exactly the same in flashbacks 15 years ago as they do in the present day.
About the only thing you miss out with 5 years instead of 15 is having adults/near adults who have no memories of the world before the change... and while that's valuable, it's a) not been exploited very much, even Charlie seems to have flashbacks, and b) I'd prefer everything else more.
I'm not sure off hand what electronics work with electricity... I mean, plenty that work without the INPUT of electricity from a power plant or battery but they all, as far as I know, still work with electricity, and I always saw the event as something widespread, like, it suppressed the flow of electrons through wires (but not through biological processes of course)
But still, even with all that, burning wood (or coal) boils water. boilling water creates steam. steam can physically push physical objects and make them move. That hasn't changed. So there should be some steam technology operating.
If they want to say that somehow the laws of physics changed even more than we know and that DOESN'T happen, then they shouldn't have guns working either, because it's pretty much the same principle: rapidly expanding gases moving something.
The "Dies the Fire" novels by S.M. Stirling have this condition (where gunpowder doesn't work because it, like oil, burns far more slowly than it should, and there's one scene in one of the later books where they create a Stirling engine which absolutely SHOULD still work because there's no electricity or fast-burning required, it's based solely on heat exchange, only to find that it doesn't, the energy is just disappearing), and it works fine enough because it's clear the writer thought it through and is aware of it and is saying "Yes, I know, it's basically magic, but just go with me here.". Here (especially because it's looking like it's meant to be some kind of man-caused event, rather than the magic/godlike Alien Space Bats everyone assumes is behind things in DTF), I don't get the impression that anybody thought about it much at all.