Brand extensions
I'd say in literature, but zomg it annoys the heck out of me that TvTropes calls all tropes in books "literature." Pratchett, GRRM, Sanderson, et al. may be enjoyable, but they are a different category than Tolstoy, Austen, and Shakespeare. Not that I've recently read Tropes referencing any of the above authors, nosirreeno.
Since we're not getting any more movies/episodes about the Firefly, I started reading the graphic novels. I =know= I reviewed the first one, Serenity: Those Left Behind, but couldn't find it among my 300 most recent posts about books; oops. It kinda told some of the background between the show and the movie, which was nice. The NYPL didn't order the second; I eventually got lucky and got it from my suburban library. It wasn't worth the any effort. It's about a job gone right for the Firefly. I don't know if it's bc I'd been out of the fandom too long or if my coats are insufficiently brown or if it's just my inability to read graphic novels, but I found it incoherent. oh well.
I know Chris Sims seems to be making a living out of mocking the Anita Blake comic books and after reading his annotations, I cannot imagine any way in which I'd like the graphic novels of the books, BUT Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: The First Death is well worth reading if you like the series at all. It's a prequel to Guilty Pleasures and tells a brand new story that shows us how Anita felt about some of our favorite characters. I found it gives a richer understanding of her emotional landscape at the time. It also shares the full story of certain incidents to which she alludes in the early books. The second half is alas an "encyclopedia" that basically retells Guilty Pleasures, but The First Death makes it a worthwhile buy.
I generally don't like Alice Hoffman's young adult books - she writes about families so well, it's hard to cram it all into a shorter story - but enjoyed Green Angel, which is about a girl whose family goes to the market in the City on the island and then barbarians from over the sea attack and the ash from the City covers the bereft folks who don't live on the island. I still think it seems futile to write a book like that - I'm sure by the time it was available in bookstores, any children who would need that parable had already gotten the help they need. The sequel, Green Witch, is more typical Alice Hoffman, with talk of gardens, but is also about coming to peace with the enemy. An interesting read.
I've re-read about half of Wuthering Heights, partially bc mallorys-camera pointed out that it's the plot of Hoffman's Here on Earth and partially bc Hoffman talks about that book as being so formative to her writing, which I adore. And then I read her intro to some edition of Wuthering Heights and I'm sorry, I still don't see it. Why is Heathcliff a romantic figure??? I'd take a GentlemanSnarker with A Heart of Gold every time, if I had to choose a nineteenth century bf.
Since we're not getting any more movies/episodes about the Firefly, I started reading the graphic novels. I =know= I reviewed the first one, Serenity: Those Left Behind, but couldn't find it among my 300 most recent posts about books; oops. It kinda told some of the background between the show and the movie, which was nice. The NYPL didn't order the second; I eventually got lucky and got it from my suburban library. It wasn't worth the any effort. It's about a job gone right for the Firefly. I don't know if it's bc I'd been out of the fandom too long or if my coats are insufficiently brown or if it's just my inability to read graphic novels, but I found it incoherent. oh well.
I know Chris Sims seems to be making a living out of mocking the Anita Blake comic books and after reading his annotations, I cannot imagine any way in which I'd like the graphic novels of the books, BUT Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: The First Death is well worth reading if you like the series at all. It's a prequel to Guilty Pleasures and tells a brand new story that shows us how Anita felt about some of our favorite characters. I found it gives a richer understanding of her emotional landscape at the time. It also shares the full story of certain incidents to which she alludes in the early books. The second half is alas an "encyclopedia" that basically retells Guilty Pleasures, but The First Death makes it a worthwhile buy.
I generally don't like Alice Hoffman's young adult books - she writes about families so well, it's hard to cram it all into a shorter story - but enjoyed Green Angel, which is about a girl whose family goes to the market in the City on the island and then barbarians from over the sea attack and the ash from the City covers the bereft folks who don't live on the island. I still think it seems futile to write a book like that - I'm sure by the time it was available in bookstores, any children who would need that parable had already gotten the help they need. The sequel, Green Witch, is more typical Alice Hoffman, with talk of gardens, but is also about coming to peace with the enemy. An interesting read.
I've re-read about half of Wuthering Heights, partially bc mallorys-camera pointed out that it's the plot of Hoffman's Here on Earth and partially bc Hoffman talks about that book as being so formative to her writing, which I adore. And then I read her intro to some edition of Wuthering Heights and I'm sorry, I still don't see it. Why is Heathcliff a romantic figure??? I'd take a GentlemanSnarker with A Heart of Gold every time, if I had to choose a nineteenth century bf.