Reading roundup (with False Value) and watching roundup
6. T.Kingfisher, Swordheart -- this was a really fun romance, and I enjoyed it as such, and yet, the first thing I said to Best Chat about it was, "Rat god!!!" and my second thing, upon finishing it, was "I am so happy to hear it will be a trilogy because I can't wait for the Dervish book!"
I mean, look, it was a perfectly nice romance, kind of Bujoldean in the sense of it being a cute take on two people who have been through some rough things finding each other and being good for each other, set in a world that, well, it's not like Discworld, but feels to me to occupy a similar niche in terms of being grounded in everyday things and the kind of morality it operates under. I liked Sarkis the grizzled mercenary-slash-magic sword, who feels that he's spent the last 400+ years failing everybody who mattered. I found Halla pleasant; I liked what the book had to say about questions and babbling as coping strategy and defense mechanism for an otherwise powerless woman, and I liked the way her mother's voice in her head, "No use dithering. Roll up your sleeves" serves her in all circumstances, SPOILERS from here! from deciding suicide is the best of bad options she has to running away from home to starting a physical relationship with a new partner to going after kidnappers. I thought the degree of misunderstanding and mutual pining was at a very reasonable level, in that Sarkis had a good reason for not saying something sooner, and wanting to hide the truth about his past was also very believable, and I thought Halla's past experience of marriage made it plausible that she would think Sarkis was dismissive of her. I thought her reaction to finding out the truth he had been concealing from her (by omission) was very well done: "anger at Sarkis for lying, anger at herself for still caring about that, anger at herself for not caring enough about that." And they are cute together (although even in this case, as lightly and humorously handled as it was, I caught myself thinking several times that while I appreciate romance authors making an effort at making consent very explicit in these new style stories, I don't find it intrinsically sexy, the way some people seem to?)
But, yeah, the character I really liked in this book were not actually Sarkis and Halla but Zale, the priest of the Order of the White Rat, who was a wonderful addition to the cast when they joined Halla's party a third of the way through the book. I mean, I am obviously predisposed to love a Rat god, especially such a very practical Rat God, and I liked the whole structure, but Zale in particular was also great, and their and Halla's experimentation with Sarkis, as well as coming up with such an obvious birth control solution for Halla's particular situation (which I myself had also totally overlooked) was one of my favorite things in the book. (I also quite liked Brindle the gnole.) And then, as mentioned above, the Dervish, one of Sarkis's lieutenants, who isn't even IN this book, except in some brief flashbacks, somehow managed to steal this book for me ANYWAY. I kept expecting Halla and Sarkis to find the other two magic swords/captains and un-enchant them, and then as the book was getting to the end without any motions in that direction, I figured it would turn out that the other two swords hadn't worked out and Angharad and the Dervish being dead would be an extra source of angst for Sarkis, but then I read the afterword and that we were getting a trilogy, and that's SO MUCH BETTER!
Other things: I liked that the bishop of the Rat God checks in separately with Halla and Sarkis to make sure neither is being abused by the other, very sensible! I liked the way Sarkis's translation magic worked most of the time but not quite always properly, and language stuff in general, and other cultural differences. The rune (the stag-people) were interesting, and I assume we'll be seeing more of them before the end of the trilogy, as I guess they will be instrumental in un-enchanting everybody and the Vagrant Hills were CREE-PAY overall, with the oily swimmers *brrr*
Also, I was very amuse by the part of the author's note that explained the idea of this book was inspire by grumpiness at Moorcock's Elric. See, I had been getting vague Dragaera feels from the sentient swords, although the manifestation of the actual magic is quite different, and this explains it, possibly, because I know Brust was consciously drawing on Moorcock's tropes. I was also amused that Vernon wrote that "I had already written a short story called "Sun,Moon,dust" about a gardener who inherited a magic sword with warriors who lived in it and I thought that had been my last word on the subject" -- because I'd had the same thought when I heard about this book, or that it was the short story expanded to novel length, alternatively, and was surprised that it was entirely different from that.
Quotes:
Halla re: her mother-in-law: "Halla had tried to love her and then had tried to like her and then had tried to be dutiful and compliant, and finally had settled for not being too obviously relieved when the woman had dropped dead."
"I am Sarkis of the Weeping Lands!" roared the servant of the sword, in a voice loud enough to shake the walls. "And you are in my way!"
[...]
"It is so gratifying when that works," murmured Sarkis.
"Does it not usually work?"
"Not on actual warriors, no. [...] Normally they just yell back, 'No one cares, come and die.'"
"Don't embarrass yourself in front of the magic sword."
"Cities were basically wildernesses with too many witnesses anyway."
"No one really keeps goats, do they? They just have goats. Like having in-laws, if your in-laws climbed on the roof and kicked."
"If you'd just take the cloak," said Halla, "we could stop having this horrible conversation."
Zale on necromancy: "It's not a thing you punish. It's a thing you stop."
"Love was a patient, exasperated emotion, and she knew it well. [...] What she felt for Sarkis was something wildly different, as if a branch had been grafted on a familiar tree and had grown a bizarre and unexpected fruit."
Zale at court: "Zale grinned like a shark that had eaten the cat, the canary, and several innocent bystanders."
"You are sure that everyone means well," said Zale, clearly amused. "Which is why I think you are perhaps well matched with Sarkis after all. He's sure that everyone is determined to kill everyone else in their sleep. Between the two of you, you average out to a nicely functional outlook."
7. Andrew Smith, Exile from Eden -- this is the sequel to Grasshopper Jungle, which I read last year with ikel89's encouragement. I'm not sure what I expected from a sequel, but it probably wasn't this. Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy it -- I did! and it was a fast and fun read. In fact, while I didn't find the narration of this one as interesting and unusual, it also didn't grow to grate on me the way Grasshopper Jungle's did, long before the end. But it's also not nearly as memorable.Spoilers, I guess?
I most enjoyed the part of this that showed Robby got a sort of happily every after with Austin, including a marriage ceremony of sorts, even though I wish we'd gotten to see Austin grow up into the sort of person who deserved it. He appears to have done, in the intervening 16 years, but I wish we'd actually gotten THAT book. As it was, Robby was still my favorite part of this book, only he wasn't in it for most of it. His sister, Mel, was also pretty cool -- apparently it's genetic -- but I wasn't emotionally invested in her already the way I was in Robby. Wendy and Shann's behavior in the "hole" is unfortunately quite plausible, but not what I'd been hoping for, and Wendy in particular comes across as an antagonist in this, which was a bit too facile. Arrek was... a bit tedious, to be honest, and it was hard for me to believe that Mel couldn't do better, in a world that had more than one person her age in it. (But then, I never stopped thinking that Robby could've done better, too.) Maybe I'm just well beyond a point where I can find ?realistic? teenage boy POV sympathetic, I dunno... Also, I felt like the things Arrek knew and didn't know about the before-the-hole world didn't make much coherent sense. A bunch of it can be blamed on Austin curating his knowledge in an idiosyncratic way, but come on, hot dogs? Surely that would've come up in some media he was consuming.
Of the new characters this book introduces, hm. I liked Olive, the chimpanzee? (the reveal that she was a chimpanzee was a really well done surprise, I thought). Breakfast... a little of him went a long way, I found -- he was kind of one-note.
This book was my introduction to Max Beckmann, so that's something, anyway.
8. Patricia Marx, Why Don't You Write My Eulogy Now So I Can Correct It?: A Mother's Suggestions -- I was borwsing the shelves at the library and the title caught my eye, an the book was short enough that I could read it right there in the stacks. It was reasonably entertaining, though the kind of person Marx's mother is is pretty damn alien to me. There's a similar-sounding book for/about couples from the same author/illustrator team, You Can Only Yell at Me for One Thing at a Time, and I might keep an eye out for that one, too.
9. Jonathan Kellerman, The Museum of Desire -- it was a "Lucky Day" book that I was able to grab off the shelf, and read in just a couple of sittings. Not earthshattering, but Alex Delaware cases are always fun. Non-spoilerly, I noticed a couple of things for the march of progress files: Alex and Robin are texting each other now, and Uber has become a thing. Spoilerly, I guess it was about time we got Nazis? The Nazi art angle made me think of White Collar, but of course it was a totally different setup. It was unusual to have a case where the confrontation came relatively far from the end, and the bad guys weren't really caught -- I mean, they didn't get away with the murders, but it also wasn't really a win for the police. I did find the case overly complicated, with the multiple victims and the long game and complicated motivations, but it was still a fun read. I always enjoy meeting the random side characters in these books, the witnesses and neighbors and so on. In this one, I particularly liked Joan Blunt, the ex-miliatry turned lawyer, who jokingly tells Milo to salute her on the way out, Mel the comedy waiter, and the breast cancer charity old lady who was so eager to tell Alex all the prurient details and the fancy provenance of her food. The character I didn't much like was Crispin the autistic kid, so I wasn't thrilled Alex had to talk to him twice. Also, it was unexpecte to learn Alex's middle name is Dumas XD It was also interesting to see one of the cops Alex works with suffering from actual PTSD and doing something about it.
10. Ben Aaronovitch, False Value -- YAY, new Peter Grant! It's actually not out in the US just yet, but meathiel hooked me up, so I was able to finish the book before I could get my hands on a legitimately obtained copy I've had on preorder for ages :P I confess the beginning threw me off a bit, but once I figured out the non-linear structure of the first part and what it meant, I really enjoyed it. It felt like a good mix of personal and plot, and a good way to kick off the next series arc. Spoilers!
Aw, damn, look at Peter being all grown up, as a policeman, as a practitioner, and as a person. He disarms a demon trap on his own! (when he answered that "Somebody did," I was totally expecting that to mean that it had been Nightingale, and he didn't want to let Stephen know there was a stronger wizard around, too, but no! that was Peter concealing the extent of his abilities!) When I think about it compared to the first one he ran into, he's come so far! And he holds his own in a magical fight, and the big magical thing at the end, he and Nightingale are standing (well, and running) side by side, working as a team, instead of Peter letting Nightingale do all the magic when he's around. Sure, Nightingale still has that undeniable finesse, and sure, "going full Nightingale" is still Plan C if less drastic options fail, but I am really starting to see them as magical colleagues instead of master and apprentice. And look at how much of the new protocols of the Folly are Peter's own initiatives, and he is studying for his sergeant's exam (or whatever). And he tries to arrest the AGI and tells off the Librarians for coming into his city and endangering his people -- Samuel Vimes would be right proud! I was worried that the undercover thing might stretch beyond just this book, but Nightingale and Seawoll and everyone was right -- Peter is definitely not the undercover sort, and I was relieved when he put on his uniform, just as he was -- and what a lovely gesture that was. But most impressively of all, Peter seems to be actually getting in touch with his emotions: taking his shrink's advice about examining them more, saying the word "love" and talking to other people about emotions, even. And everything about Peter the expectant father was wonderful! I can't wait to meet the twins (twins!!!) and see just how Peter deals with them. It's going to be glorious!
I'm still very meh on Peter/Bev as a relationship... I like Bev herself quite a lot by this point: she's smart and funny. And how could I not like someone who "once popped a beetle in her mouth just to show off" -- that is totally something I would do, btw, around someone who was creepy-crawlies-phobic (like Peter, aww). Peter is clearly really in love with her, and she's been good for him, and there are a lot of things I like about how their relationship is portrayed: from the serious, where they have a talk about professional ethics (as a cop and as a goddess), to the amusing, where Peter sneaks out to reorder the dishwasher because Bev is doing it wrong. It's adorable that they do her prenatal exercises together, and he rubs her feet, and she is learning Krio for him, and that his mother is super protective of her. But, like, as a character dynamic, they just don't resonate with me. If they were my friends, I'd be happy for them! But on a character level, I would like something more interesting. Well, would have liked, because I've certainly accepted this by now. And there are certainly worse things than a character I love being happy in their chosen domestic partnership. (I was also wondering if the two of them were planning to get married, but the explanation for why not makes sense.) And the scene where she encases his werelight in water was really lovely and symbolic.
The other person who is looking hapier these days is Nightingale, and that's really nice to see -- he's grinning more often, and seems to be enjoying himself with Abigail, restoring the forge and so on. It was very good to see him and Peter working together again, having him give Peter a pep talk and some very nice compliments after the demon trap, face the darkness down as a team at the climax. I don't want to hear any of this talk about retirement, though, even if Peter's coming along as a practitioner!
The cast of characters is getting so big, it's really hard to keep track of everyone, but I particularly enjoyed the several Seawoll sightings and Stephanopoulos giving Peter relationship advice. Oh, and seeing how Foxglove has settled into the Folly, and the Folly has settled in around her, with regular sacrifices of people for her to draw, and that Molly has added Polish food to her repertoire, and is now a well-known reason for people to want to gather at the Folly. The Skype calls with Reynolds were also pretty cute, especially their tradition of leaving pauses so that the NSA can speak up for itself. The Maksim cameo was also nice, and, LOL, he's taught Peter to make grenki, and Peter and Bev call it by the right name (which, I had no idea French toast was called "eggy bread" in the UK, huh). And, even though Guleed is still not my favorite, the rapport between her and Peter, both professionally (the interrogation routines, including the one nixed by the DCIs where they pretend to speak Wakandan) and personally, talking about relationships and families.
Speaking of families, extended families being the samethe world over, I liked that as a theme -- that Guleed says Michael's Hong Kong family "strangely familiar" (but of course that doesn't mean there's no prejudice or friction), and the way Dennis Yoon's Korean parents take readily to bossing Peter around when it comes to carrying things for his folks, the way the picnic works, and the visit to the Johnsons with their foster kids.
Since Peter embeds himself in a brand new environment at the start, there were a lot of new characters in this one, and a whole new setting. Nobody at the tech firm was a standout for me, but I did like Tyrel Johnson. Victor seemed nice, too, but more than liking him as a character I appreciated the way his transness was handled, with Peter adjusting his pronouns as soon as Victor introduced himself with no remark at all, and helping to set him up with the cute bodyguard. I did like Stephen, with his magical sucker punches and his concern for books. And Peter's equanimity in being hit on by a guy, in combination with the male!Beverley Brook kiss in the previous book, is really making me think bi!Peter is, if not canonical, easy enough to justify. Oh, and was Alona Silver already in something, like the comics? (I wondered if she was Israeli, between the first name and her Mediterranean complexion, but doesn't seem like that's what BA had in mind.)
OK, but plot! I really liked the "industrial magic" thing that the Mary Engine introdues, the music-bookbeing a program, magical drones, all that. It makes sense that Skinner's AGI was actually a ghost (or two), but that was nicely played. And the glimpse we got at the allokosmoi/alternate dimensions or whatever was nicely creepy. (Oh, and I kept trying to guess what the "Fuck me" exclamation was going to be this time, and duh, of course, "Fuck me! You've got a working AI.")
And speaking of magic, I also loved the revelation that the cursed weapons and rings of Scandinavian lore were something akin to demon traps: another form of weaponized ghosts. And of course the Soviet army did statistical analysis to determine that, like with a regular mine field, you might as well march aross a field laid with demon traps, because "you lost fewer troops charging across a minefield than allowing the Germans to funnel you into a killing ground. Which was good solid Russian pragmatism and no bloody use at all when it's you standing with your foot on the prospect of an agonising death."
The Librarians as an organization I'm kind of unsold on (not as a player to back, just, worldbuilding-wise). I assume we'll be seeing more of them, so they'll presumably get another chance to win me over, and I would guess a more Puritanical approach to magic makes sense for the US, but so far I'm not particularly impressed, even if Nightingale said Mrs Chin was the toughest opponent he's gone up against. Oh, but one thing I did like was the mutual blind spots the Americans and the Brits had, both magically and culturally. That part felt very true. And it also makes sense that there would be a backlash against practitioners, like we're starting to see, among people who know about them (and who sound crazy to everyone else).
The hi tech firm was quite ridiculous, with its silly names for everything and its towel tradition and its huge selection of vending machines (e.g. the Hot Nosh 24/6 machine that sells kosher hot dogs, and a "Yorkshire-themed Japanese machine"), but in a way I enjoyed. And lol, poor Peter having to look through all that hentai XD Oh, and of ourse I enjoyed all the H2G2 references, and the other AI ones I recognized, though I did have to look up some, like
But... a book featuring a clandestine group called the Librarians and an organutan, and no Discworld reference? I could barely believe it!
Like the character he was speaking to, I was surprised that Peter didn't know what a punch card was. Oh, and Peter chose to put his rant blog on Livejournal! Does that mean LJ is still relevant in the UK? XD
Back on a more serious note, Peter finally got to see the Black Library, along with us. I'm guessing whatever was happening in the barracks at Ettersberg is going to turn out to be significant, somewhow? Possibly in the Toby Winter books?
Also, apparently Mellenby had speculated that "any omplex system could become a genius loci -- the telephone network was the example he'd given". The blue electric angels! This really needs to be a crossover :D
Also, note to self: this book takes place in Jan 2016 (as placed by Bowie's death an the Litvinenko murder inquiry).
Quotes:
"the inevitable overspill of books and papers that have plagued libraries since Alexander the Great decided to give historians a really good place to write up his exploits."
"Further advances in sience have done littleto help our understanding [of where magic comes from], except to ad a growing temptation to attach the word 'quantum' to everything."
"The Flly had once had its very own school of witchcraft and wizarry -- well, wizardry, because obviously women hadn't been invented until 1945."
"Seawoll, who counts alcohol appreciation amongst hist many cultural refinements -- the others, from what I can tell, being competitive searing, blues music, and Doctor Who."
"Johnson and Maksim were relishing the chance to be manly men and prove their one-generation-from-the-soil credentials."
Victor: "If the clergy were the original IT support, doesn't that mean we're the new clergy? [...] Ah, but Peter here believes in technology. That makes him a Knight Templar."
*
So in one of my Snowflake posts I expressed my love for the Vitriolic Best Buds trope, and
thisbluespirit commented to say that Blake's 7 was a very good fandom for that. Now, I've been vaguely aware of Blake's 7 for a while, but it was always sort of part of a heap of "old cult shows I've never seen" along with Farscape and Red Dwarf, with no sense of which characters belonged to which show or anything about the universes. Then I actually watched some Farscape (and this has been making me want to go back to where I left off), and then I started picking up at least some sense of the B7 characters by osmosis from
thisbluespirit's character memes/random prompt generator fun, so by now I actually can tell them apart (and who knows, maybe in another ten years, I'll actually give Red Dwarf a shot, too. Anyway, so it turns out that B7 is up on YouTube currently, which made it really easy to check out. And now I've watched the first series, which seems like a good place to pause and set down my thoughts.
Blake's 7, series 1: The one character from B7 I knew about before I fully deconvoluted it from Farscape and Red Dwarf was Avon -- I'd seen the thing about my beloved Galeni being based on him (not sure what the original source for this was, but it seems to be common knowledge; here's a comparison, though, which also covers Servalan // Cavillo, which I hadn't heard before, but damn that makes a lot of sense!), so I was predisposed to be intrigued. Unsurprisingly, he is currently my favorite. He was the first character I really liked, and while Vila has occasionally caught up with him and even bypassed him briefly, I think Avon is pretty clearly my favorite on the whole. Which, like I said, is not a surprise. Competence, acerbic wit, deadpan demeanor that Vila keeps comparing to being a machine, and a healthy sense of priorities in combination make for very much my kind of character!
Vila, as I said, is my second favorite, because guile hero and lovable coward are also types I like. Well, and he's plenty competent too, and funny. In third place I would put Jenna, and then Blake, whom I still don't necessarily like all that much on his own, but he has a great dynamic with Avon (I ship it a little bit, as of "Duel"). The rest of the Liberator crew I remain unsold on. It seems like Cally's main purpose at this point is to be a damsel in distress when they need one (I mean, Jenna also did get kidnapped and threatened a couple of times, but she does other things, too. Cally seems to mostly get knocked out and attacked.) And I still haven't figured out any purpose to Gan at all, and in fact thought the show dynamic was improved by him being unconscious for most of an episode. Sorry, Gan! Maybe youll grow on me (but I doubt it). Oh, and if Orac is going to be a permanent addition to the crew, I like him, too.
Who I do enjoy very much are the villains. I had high expectations for Servalan, based on her appearance in
thisbluespirit's memes, and she's certainly lived up to them: damn, the lady has style! I also like Travis and his idee fix, and I especially like their dynamic together -- having Servalan around actually makes me feel sorry for him, the poor sod XD
In addition to characters, this series also has special effects. I actually wish it had rather fewer of them, because they are really ridiculous. I get that it's a 70s show on a shoestring budget, and I've been able to sort of amusedly enjoy most of them by thinking back to the sci-fi SFX of my childhood, stuff like Gostya iz buduschego. But they're not good, not the teleportation, accomplished by means of static, not the "space battle" or even space backdrop, not the fights, not the robots, not the people made up to look like aliens or whatever. And everything is so loud!
Individual episodes I particularly liked were "Duel" (the one with the Liberator attempting a ram maneuver and Blake and Jenna on the planet with Travis and the vampire lady) and "Deliverance" (for being Avon-heavy, as you might guess, and Vila getting in some nice cracks), plus I liked the aftereffects of that episode, too (the radiation sickness and how everybody -- well, specifically Avon and Vila -- bore up under it).
**
I also, probably thanks to both the Kellerman and Peter Grant reads, felt like going back for more Person of Interest and watched a few more season 2 eps: 2x12-18, with spoilers
Which means I've gotten to meet Shaw, whom I like a lot! And I know that Root/Shaw is a thing, at least in fandom;I'm not totally sure if it's canonical or not, but based on their very first interaction, uh, I wouldn't be surprised? In any case, intriguing!
I'm really amused that Leon Tao has become a kind of bratty sidekick, since they keep coming across him anyway. I wonder if the Machine is fond of him and looking out for him especially or something... or he is just prone to making bad decisions.
I liked the episode which was like a country house mystery, with the storm on the island and a small group of suspects many of whom were guilty of unrelated things. I started suspecting the FBI agent of being the actual killer long before Finch figured it out, though. And I kept thinking he looked familiar, but it wasn't until I looked up his name that I realized why -- it's D'av from Killjoys! (I am not totally face blind, but Im very bad at recognizing faces outside of their usual context. Which also means that Root assuming various identities also trips me up.)
I'm finding all the shadowy government and rogue FBI agents and other conspiracy stuff not very interesting because it requires more attention than I want to expend -- I prefer the "bad guy of the week" structure. So the Kara episodes were not very much to my taste. But it was neat to see Elias again in the episode where Reese is in prison. Of the "bad guy of the week" eps, the last one in this batch was my favorite -- I liked Lou the old card shark, and his dynamic with Finch (and the $2M watch from the tech millionaire coming back).
But in plot developments more interesting to me (i.e. character arc stuff), Reese and Finch now go to movies together, apparently (that Finch gets to pick), and share an umbrella.
Oh, and for the purposes of my continued attempt to Sorting Hat Chats John Reese, I note that in the game of Russian roulette, it was when the gun was pointing at Finch that he spring into action (not Lou or Leon). Now, granted, maybe he couldn't have reached the bad guy before he moved next to Finch, and the odds do get worse with each turn, and by #3 they're really not great, but still, that was interesting timing.
This entry was originally posted at https://hamsterwoman.dreamwidth.org/1121822.html. Comment wherever you prefer (I prefer LJ).
I mean, look, it was a perfectly nice romance, kind of Bujoldean in the sense of it being a cute take on two people who have been through some rough things finding each other and being good for each other, set in a world that, well, it's not like Discworld, but feels to me to occupy a similar niche in terms of being grounded in everyday things and the kind of morality it operates under. I liked Sarkis the grizzled mercenary-slash-magic sword, who feels that he's spent the last 400+ years failing everybody who mattered. I found Halla pleasant; I liked what the book had to say about questions and babbling as coping strategy and defense mechanism for an otherwise powerless woman, and I liked the way her mother's voice in her head, "No use dithering. Roll up your sleeves" serves her in all circumstances, SPOILERS from here! from deciding suicide is the best of bad options she has to running away from home to starting a physical relationship with a new partner to going after kidnappers. I thought the degree of misunderstanding and mutual pining was at a very reasonable level, in that Sarkis had a good reason for not saying something sooner, and wanting to hide the truth about his past was also very believable, and I thought Halla's past experience of marriage made it plausible that she would think Sarkis was dismissive of her. I thought her reaction to finding out the truth he had been concealing from her (by omission) was very well done: "anger at Sarkis for lying, anger at herself for still caring about that, anger at herself for not caring enough about that." And they are cute together (although even in this case, as lightly and humorously handled as it was, I caught myself thinking several times that while I appreciate romance authors making an effort at making consent very explicit in these new style stories, I don't find it intrinsically sexy, the way some people seem to?)
But, yeah, the character I really liked in this book were not actually Sarkis and Halla but Zale, the priest of the Order of the White Rat, who was a wonderful addition to the cast when they joined Halla's party a third of the way through the book. I mean, I am obviously predisposed to love a Rat god, especially such a very practical Rat God, and I liked the whole structure, but Zale in particular was also great, and their and Halla's experimentation with Sarkis, as well as coming up with such an obvious birth control solution for Halla's particular situation (which I myself had also totally overlooked) was one of my favorite things in the book. (I also quite liked Brindle the gnole.) And then, as mentioned above, the Dervish, one of Sarkis's lieutenants, who isn't even IN this book, except in some brief flashbacks, somehow managed to steal this book for me ANYWAY. I kept expecting Halla and Sarkis to find the other two magic swords/captains and un-enchant them, and then as the book was getting to the end without any motions in that direction, I figured it would turn out that the other two swords hadn't worked out and Angharad and the Dervish being dead would be an extra source of angst for Sarkis, but then I read the afterword and that we were getting a trilogy, and that's SO MUCH BETTER!
Other things: I liked that the bishop of the Rat God checks in separately with Halla and Sarkis to make sure neither is being abused by the other, very sensible! I liked the way Sarkis's translation magic worked most of the time but not quite always properly, and language stuff in general, and other cultural differences. The rune (the stag-people) were interesting, and I assume we'll be seeing more of them before the end of the trilogy, as I guess they will be instrumental in un-enchanting everybody and the Vagrant Hills were CREE-PAY overall, with the oily swimmers *brrr*
Also, I was very amuse by the part of the author's note that explained the idea of this book was inspire by grumpiness at Moorcock's Elric. See, I had been getting vague Dragaera feels from the sentient swords, although the manifestation of the actual magic is quite different, and this explains it, possibly, because I know Brust was consciously drawing on Moorcock's tropes. I was also amused that Vernon wrote that "I had already written a short story called "Sun,Moon,dust" about a gardener who inherited a magic sword with warriors who lived in it and I thought that had been my last word on the subject" -- because I'd had the same thought when I heard about this book, or that it was the short story expanded to novel length, alternatively, and was surprised that it was entirely different from that.
Quotes:
Halla re: her mother-in-law: "Halla had tried to love her and then had tried to like her and then had tried to be dutiful and compliant, and finally had settled for not being too obviously relieved when the woman had dropped dead."
"I am Sarkis of the Weeping Lands!" roared the servant of the sword, in a voice loud enough to shake the walls. "And you are in my way!"
[...]
"It is so gratifying when that works," murmured Sarkis.
"Does it not usually work?"
"Not on actual warriors, no. [...] Normally they just yell back, 'No one cares, come and die.'"
"Don't embarrass yourself in front of the magic sword."
"Cities were basically wildernesses with too many witnesses anyway."
"No one really keeps goats, do they? They just have goats. Like having in-laws, if your in-laws climbed on the roof and kicked."
"If you'd just take the cloak," said Halla, "we could stop having this horrible conversation."
Zale on necromancy: "It's not a thing you punish. It's a thing you stop."
"Love was a patient, exasperated emotion, and she knew it well. [...] What she felt for Sarkis was something wildly different, as if a branch had been grafted on a familiar tree and had grown a bizarre and unexpected fruit."
Zale at court: "Zale grinned like a shark that had eaten the cat, the canary, and several innocent bystanders."
"You are sure that everyone means well," said Zale, clearly amused. "Which is why I think you are perhaps well matched with Sarkis after all. He's sure that everyone is determined to kill everyone else in their sleep. Between the two of you, you average out to a nicely functional outlook."
7. Andrew Smith, Exile from Eden -- this is the sequel to Grasshopper Jungle, which I read last year with ikel89's encouragement. I'm not sure what I expected from a sequel, but it probably wasn't this. Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy it -- I did! and it was a fast and fun read. In fact, while I didn't find the narration of this one as interesting and unusual, it also didn't grow to grate on me the way Grasshopper Jungle's did, long before the end. But it's also not nearly as memorable.Spoilers, I guess?
I most enjoyed the part of this that showed Robby got a sort of happily every after with Austin, including a marriage ceremony of sorts, even though I wish we'd gotten to see Austin grow up into the sort of person who deserved it. He appears to have done, in the intervening 16 years, but I wish we'd actually gotten THAT book. As it was, Robby was still my favorite part of this book, only he wasn't in it for most of it. His sister, Mel, was also pretty cool -- apparently it's genetic -- but I wasn't emotionally invested in her already the way I was in Robby. Wendy and Shann's behavior in the "hole" is unfortunately quite plausible, but not what I'd been hoping for, and Wendy in particular comes across as an antagonist in this, which was a bit too facile. Arrek was... a bit tedious, to be honest, and it was hard for me to believe that Mel couldn't do better, in a world that had more than one person her age in it. (But then, I never stopped thinking that Robby could've done better, too.) Maybe I'm just well beyond a point where I can find ?realistic? teenage boy POV sympathetic, I dunno... Also, I felt like the things Arrek knew and didn't know about the before-the-hole world didn't make much coherent sense. A bunch of it can be blamed on Austin curating his knowledge in an idiosyncratic way, but come on, hot dogs? Surely that would've come up in some media he was consuming.
Of the new characters this book introduces, hm. I liked Olive, the chimpanzee? (the reveal that she was a chimpanzee was a really well done surprise, I thought). Breakfast... a little of him went a long way, I found -- he was kind of one-note.
This book was my introduction to Max Beckmann, so that's something, anyway.
8. Patricia Marx, Why Don't You Write My Eulogy Now So I Can Correct It?: A Mother's Suggestions -- I was borwsing the shelves at the library and the title caught my eye, an the book was short enough that I could read it right there in the stacks. It was reasonably entertaining, though the kind of person Marx's mother is is pretty damn alien to me. There's a similar-sounding book for/about couples from the same author/illustrator team, You Can Only Yell at Me for One Thing at a Time, and I might keep an eye out for that one, too.
9. Jonathan Kellerman, The Museum of Desire -- it was a "Lucky Day" book that I was able to grab off the shelf, and read in just a couple of sittings. Not earthshattering, but Alex Delaware cases are always fun. Non-spoilerly, I noticed a couple of things for the march of progress files: Alex and Robin are texting each other now, and Uber has become a thing. Spoilerly, I guess it was about time we got Nazis? The Nazi art angle made me think of White Collar, but of course it was a totally different setup. It was unusual to have a case where the confrontation came relatively far from the end, and the bad guys weren't really caught -- I mean, they didn't get away with the murders, but it also wasn't really a win for the police. I did find the case overly complicated, with the multiple victims and the long game and complicated motivations, but it was still a fun read. I always enjoy meeting the random side characters in these books, the witnesses and neighbors and so on. In this one, I particularly liked Joan Blunt, the ex-miliatry turned lawyer, who jokingly tells Milo to salute her on the way out, Mel the comedy waiter, and the breast cancer charity old lady who was so eager to tell Alex all the prurient details and the fancy provenance of her food. The character I didn't much like was Crispin the autistic kid, so I wasn't thrilled Alex had to talk to him twice. Also, it was unexpecte to learn Alex's middle name is Dumas XD It was also interesting to see one of the cops Alex works with suffering from actual PTSD and doing something about it.
10. Ben Aaronovitch, False Value -- YAY, new Peter Grant! It's actually not out in the US just yet, but meathiel hooked me up, so I was able to finish the book before I could get my hands on a legitimately obtained copy I've had on preorder for ages :P I confess the beginning threw me off a bit, but once I figured out the non-linear structure of the first part and what it meant, I really enjoyed it. It felt like a good mix of personal and plot, and a good way to kick off the next series arc. Spoilers!
Aw, damn, look at Peter being all grown up, as a policeman, as a practitioner, and as a person. He disarms a demon trap on his own! (when he answered that "Somebody did," I was totally expecting that to mean that it had been Nightingale, and he didn't want to let Stephen know there was a stronger wizard around, too, but no! that was Peter concealing the extent of his abilities!) When I think about it compared to the first one he ran into, he's come so far! And he holds his own in a magical fight, and the big magical thing at the end, he and Nightingale are standing (well, and running) side by side, working as a team, instead of Peter letting Nightingale do all the magic when he's around. Sure, Nightingale still has that undeniable finesse, and sure, "going full Nightingale" is still Plan C if less drastic options fail, but I am really starting to see them as magical colleagues instead of master and apprentice. And look at how much of the new protocols of the Folly are Peter's own initiatives, and he is studying for his sergeant's exam (or whatever). And he tries to arrest the AGI and tells off the Librarians for coming into his city and endangering his people -- Samuel Vimes would be right proud! I was worried that the undercover thing might stretch beyond just this book, but Nightingale and Seawoll and everyone was right -- Peter is definitely not the undercover sort, and I was relieved when he put on his uniform, just as he was -- and what a lovely gesture that was. But most impressively of all, Peter seems to be actually getting in touch with his emotions: taking his shrink's advice about examining them more, saying the word "love" and talking to other people about emotions, even. And everything about Peter the expectant father was wonderful! I can't wait to meet the twins (twins!!!) and see just how Peter deals with them. It's going to be glorious!
I'm still very meh on Peter/Bev as a relationship... I like Bev herself quite a lot by this point: she's smart and funny. And how could I not like someone who "once popped a beetle in her mouth just to show off" -- that is totally something I would do, btw, around someone who was creepy-crawlies-phobic (like Peter, aww). Peter is clearly really in love with her, and she's been good for him, and there are a lot of things I like about how their relationship is portrayed: from the serious, where they have a talk about professional ethics (as a cop and as a goddess), to the amusing, where Peter sneaks out to reorder the dishwasher because Bev is doing it wrong. It's adorable that they do her prenatal exercises together, and he rubs her feet, and she is learning Krio for him, and that his mother is super protective of her. But, like, as a character dynamic, they just don't resonate with me. If they were my friends, I'd be happy for them! But on a character level, I would like something more interesting. Well, would have liked, because I've certainly accepted this by now. And there are certainly worse things than a character I love being happy in their chosen domestic partnership. (I was also wondering if the two of them were planning to get married, but the explanation for why not makes sense.) And the scene where she encases his werelight in water was really lovely and symbolic.
The other person who is looking hapier these days is Nightingale, and that's really nice to see -- he's grinning more often, and seems to be enjoying himself with Abigail, restoring the forge and so on. It was very good to see him and Peter working together again, having him give Peter a pep talk and some very nice compliments after the demon trap, face the darkness down as a team at the climax. I don't want to hear any of this talk about retirement, though, even if Peter's coming along as a practitioner!
The cast of characters is getting so big, it's really hard to keep track of everyone, but I particularly enjoyed the several Seawoll sightings and Stephanopoulos giving Peter relationship advice. Oh, and seeing how Foxglove has settled into the Folly, and the Folly has settled in around her, with regular sacrifices of people for her to draw, and that Molly has added Polish food to her repertoire, and is now a well-known reason for people to want to gather at the Folly. The Skype calls with Reynolds were also pretty cute, especially their tradition of leaving pauses so that the NSA can speak up for itself. The Maksim cameo was also nice, and, LOL, he's taught Peter to make grenki, and Peter and Bev call it by the right name (which, I had no idea French toast was called "eggy bread" in the UK, huh). And, even though Guleed is still not my favorite, the rapport between her and Peter, both professionally (the interrogation routines, including the one nixed by the DCIs where they pretend to speak Wakandan) and personally, talking about relationships and families.
Speaking of families, extended families being the samethe world over, I liked that as a theme -- that Guleed says Michael's Hong Kong family "strangely familiar" (but of course that doesn't mean there's no prejudice or friction), and the way Dennis Yoon's Korean parents take readily to bossing Peter around when it comes to carrying things for his folks, the way the picnic works, and the visit to the Johnsons with their foster kids.
Since Peter embeds himself in a brand new environment at the start, there were a lot of new characters in this one, and a whole new setting. Nobody at the tech firm was a standout for me, but I did like Tyrel Johnson. Victor seemed nice, too, but more than liking him as a character I appreciated the way his transness was handled, with Peter adjusting his pronouns as soon as Victor introduced himself with no remark at all, and helping to set him up with the cute bodyguard. I did like Stephen, with his magical sucker punches and his concern for books. And Peter's equanimity in being hit on by a guy, in combination with the male!Beverley Brook kiss in the previous book, is really making me think bi!Peter is, if not canonical, easy enough to justify. Oh, and was Alona Silver already in something, like the comics? (I wondered if she was Israeli, between the first name and her Mediterranean complexion, but doesn't seem like that's what BA had in mind.)
OK, but plot! I really liked the "industrial magic" thing that the Mary Engine introdues, the music-bookbeing a program, magical drones, all that. It makes sense that Skinner's AGI was actually a ghost (or two), but that was nicely played. And the glimpse we got at the allokosmoi/alternate dimensions or whatever was nicely creepy. (Oh, and I kept trying to guess what the "Fuck me" exclamation was going to be this time, and duh, of course, "Fuck me! You've got a working AI.")
And speaking of magic, I also loved the revelation that the cursed weapons and rings of Scandinavian lore were something akin to demon traps: another form of weaponized ghosts. And of course the Soviet army did statistical analysis to determine that, like with a regular mine field, you might as well march aross a field laid with demon traps, because "you lost fewer troops charging across a minefield than allowing the Germans to funnel you into a killing ground. Which was good solid Russian pragmatism and no bloody use at all when it's you standing with your foot on the prospect of an agonising death."
The Librarians as an organization I'm kind of unsold on (not as a player to back, just, worldbuilding-wise). I assume we'll be seeing more of them, so they'll presumably get another chance to win me over, and I would guess a more Puritanical approach to magic makes sense for the US, but so far I'm not particularly impressed, even if Nightingale said Mrs Chin was the toughest opponent he's gone up against. Oh, but one thing I did like was the mutual blind spots the Americans and the Brits had, both magically and culturally. That part felt very true. And it also makes sense that there would be a backlash against practitioners, like we're starting to see, among people who know about them (and who sound crazy to everyone else).
The hi tech firm was quite ridiculous, with its silly names for everything and its towel tradition and its huge selection of vending machines (e.g. the Hot Nosh 24/6 machine that sells kosher hot dogs, and a "Yorkshire-themed Japanese machine"), but in a way I enjoyed. And lol, poor Peter having to look through all that hentai XD Oh, and of ourse I enjoyed all the H2G2 references, and the other AI ones I recognized, though I did have to look up some, like
But... a book featuring a clandestine group called the Librarians and an organutan, and no Discworld reference? I could barely believe it!
Like the character he was speaking to, I was surprised that Peter didn't know what a punch card was. Oh, and Peter chose to put his rant blog on Livejournal! Does that mean LJ is still relevant in the UK? XD
Back on a more serious note, Peter finally got to see the Black Library, along with us. I'm guessing whatever was happening in the barracks at Ettersberg is going to turn out to be significant, somewhow? Possibly in the Toby Winter books?
Also, apparently Mellenby had speculated that "any omplex system could become a genius loci -- the telephone network was the example he'd given". The blue electric angels! This really needs to be a crossover :D
Also, note to self: this book takes place in Jan 2016 (as placed by Bowie's death an the Litvinenko murder inquiry).
Quotes:
"the inevitable overspill of books and papers that have plagued libraries since Alexander the Great decided to give historians a really good place to write up his exploits."
"Further advances in sience have done littleto help our understanding [of where magic comes from], except to ad a growing temptation to attach the word 'quantum' to everything."
"The Flly had once had its very own school of witchcraft and wizarry -- well, wizardry, because obviously women hadn't been invented until 1945."
"Seawoll, who counts alcohol appreciation amongst hist many cultural refinements -- the others, from what I can tell, being competitive searing, blues music, and Doctor Who."
"Johnson and Maksim were relishing the chance to be manly men and prove their one-generation-from-the-soil credentials."
Victor: "If the clergy were the original IT support, doesn't that mean we're the new clergy? [...] Ah, but Peter here believes in technology. That makes him a Knight Templar."
*
So in one of my Snowflake posts I expressed my love for the Vitriolic Best Buds trope, and
thisbluespirit commented to say that Blake's 7 was a very good fandom for that. Now, I've been vaguely aware of Blake's 7 for a while, but it was always sort of part of a heap of "old cult shows I've never seen" along with Farscape and Red Dwarf, with no sense of which characters belonged to which show or anything about the universes. Then I actually watched some Farscape (and this has been making me want to go back to where I left off), and then I started picking up at least some sense of the B7 characters by osmosis from
thisbluespirit's character memes/random prompt generator fun, so by now I actually can tell them apart (and who knows, maybe in another ten years, I'll actually give Red Dwarf a shot, too. Anyway, so it turns out that B7 is up on YouTube currently, which made it really easy to check out. And now I've watched the first series, which seems like a good place to pause and set down my thoughts.
Blake's 7, series 1: The one character from B7 I knew about before I fully deconvoluted it from Farscape and Red Dwarf was Avon -- I'd seen the thing about my beloved Galeni being based on him (not sure what the original source for this was, but it seems to be common knowledge; here's a comparison, though, which also covers Servalan // Cavillo, which I hadn't heard before, but damn that makes a lot of sense!), so I was predisposed to be intrigued. Unsurprisingly, he is currently my favorite. He was the first character I really liked, and while Vila has occasionally caught up with him and even bypassed him briefly, I think Avon is pretty clearly my favorite on the whole. Which, like I said, is not a surprise. Competence, acerbic wit, deadpan demeanor that Vila keeps comparing to being a machine, and a healthy sense of priorities in combination make for very much my kind of character!
Vila, as I said, is my second favorite, because guile hero and lovable coward are also types I like. Well, and he's plenty competent too, and funny. In third place I would put Jenna, and then Blake, whom I still don't necessarily like all that much on his own, but he has a great dynamic with Avon (I ship it a little bit, as of "Duel"). The rest of the Liberator crew I remain unsold on. It seems like Cally's main purpose at this point is to be a damsel in distress when they need one (I mean, Jenna also did get kidnapped and threatened a couple of times, but she does other things, too. Cally seems to mostly get knocked out and attacked.) And I still haven't figured out any purpose to Gan at all, and in fact thought the show dynamic was improved by him being unconscious for most of an episode. Sorry, Gan! Maybe youll grow on me (but I doubt it). Oh, and if Orac is going to be a permanent addition to the crew, I like him, too.
Who I do enjoy very much are the villains. I had high expectations for Servalan, based on her appearance in
thisbluespirit's memes, and she's certainly lived up to them: damn, the lady has style! I also like Travis and his idee fix, and I especially like their dynamic together -- having Servalan around actually makes me feel sorry for him, the poor sod XD
In addition to characters, this series also has special effects. I actually wish it had rather fewer of them, because they are really ridiculous. I get that it's a 70s show on a shoestring budget, and I've been able to sort of amusedly enjoy most of them by thinking back to the sci-fi SFX of my childhood, stuff like Gostya iz buduschego. But they're not good, not the teleportation, accomplished by means of static, not the "space battle" or even space backdrop, not the fights, not the robots, not the people made up to look like aliens or whatever. And everything is so loud!
Individual episodes I particularly liked were "Duel" (the one with the Liberator attempting a ram maneuver and Blake and Jenna on the planet with Travis and the vampire lady) and "Deliverance" (for being Avon-heavy, as you might guess, and Vila getting in some nice cracks), plus I liked the aftereffects of that episode, too (the radiation sickness and how everybody -- well, specifically Avon and Vila -- bore up under it).
**
I also, probably thanks to both the Kellerman and Peter Grant reads, felt like going back for more Person of Interest and watched a few more season 2 eps: 2x12-18, with spoilers
Which means I've gotten to meet Shaw, whom I like a lot! And I know that Root/Shaw is a thing, at least in fandom;I'm not totally sure if it's canonical or not, but based on their very first interaction, uh, I wouldn't be surprised? In any case, intriguing!
I'm really amused that Leon Tao has become a kind of bratty sidekick, since they keep coming across him anyway. I wonder if the Machine is fond of him and looking out for him especially or something... or he is just prone to making bad decisions.
I liked the episode which was like a country house mystery, with the storm on the island and a small group of suspects many of whom were guilty of unrelated things. I started suspecting the FBI agent of being the actual killer long before Finch figured it out, though. And I kept thinking he looked familiar, but it wasn't until I looked up his name that I realized why -- it's D'av from Killjoys! (I am not totally face blind, but Im very bad at recognizing faces outside of their usual context. Which also means that Root assuming various identities also trips me up.)
I'm finding all the shadowy government and rogue FBI agents and other conspiracy stuff not very interesting because it requires more attention than I want to expend -- I prefer the "bad guy of the week" structure. So the Kara episodes were not very much to my taste. But it was neat to see Elias again in the episode where Reese is in prison. Of the "bad guy of the week" eps, the last one in this batch was my favorite -- I liked Lou the old card shark, and his dynamic with Finch (and the $2M watch from the tech millionaire coming back).
But in plot developments more interesting to me (i.e. character arc stuff), Reese and Finch now go to movies together, apparently (that Finch gets to pick), and share an umbrella.
Oh, and for the purposes of my continued attempt to Sorting Hat Chats John Reese, I note that in the game of Russian roulette, it was when the gun was pointing at Finch that he spring into action (not Lou or Leon). Now, granted, maybe he couldn't have reached the bad guy before he moved next to Finch, and the odds do get worse with each turn, and by #3 they're really not great, but still, that was interesting timing.
This entry was originally posted at https://hamsterwoman.dreamwidth.org/1121822.html. Comment wherever you prefer (I prefer LJ).