I don’t believe that anything lasts forever
I have spent my morning so far in a tizzy of scheduling and rescheduling. I have bent Outlook to my will and all bow before me.
Or something, anyway.
***
Wednesday reading meme:
What I just finished reading
Literally, this morning on the subway, I just finished This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz, which is a collection of related short stories about Yunior and his inability to keep it in his pants. Diaz's writing is fantastic - vivid and immersive and funny and sly - but I just had zero sympathy for Yunior's lady problems since he basically brings them all on himself (yes, I get that his upbringing and culture and the examples of his father and brother are supposed to be part of the problem, but I also don't really care because he apparently doesn't learn even after he does the same thing over and over with the same results. And it would be one thing if the women were shown to be happy, but most of them are barely resigned to this behavior if not outright unhappy about it, so no.).
I hope that in whatever Diaz writes next, there is much less focus on someone being a player-player and more on other, more interesting things. Because he's a fantastic writer.
I also finished Thicker Than Water, the fourth Felix Castor book, by Mike Carey. I liked this one okay, but I feel like having the demon turn out to be Felix's brother's sekrit self-harming baby was a little much to swallow. Or maybe not hard to swallow, but I always get irritated when there are too many personal connections in detective or cop style mysteries - I feel like the villain having a personal (usually grudgy and vengeance-wanting) connection to the detective (often previously unmentioned) is a well that writers go to too often. I mean it makes sense because it gives the protagonist and the reader a personal investment but I feel like Felix already has that, and let's be real, if I weren't invested, I wouldn't be reading the fourth book. (and also, it's one thing when you're dealing with a civilian/non-professional detective; but if someone does it for a living or is a cop, EVEN THOUGH I understand that they would make enemies who would come back at them, I still feel like you shouldn't go to that well too often; they're not superheroes who have nemeses, you know?)
So that didn't quite work for me, though I really liked the general idea of human souls becoming demons via torment and also how it infested the whole housing project and just kept getting stronger. I just didn't feel the need for that extra personal connection here, though I am interested to see how it affects Felix's relationship with his brother (if it does), and whether the Anathemata people will be back, considering the next book has to be about Rafi and Asmodeus. Also, I really liked the nurse, so I hope she shows up again and doesn't die if she does. I think if you liked the first three, you'll like this one too? I liked it but not as much as the others, but I'm fully aware that this is one of my own peeves about the mystery genre.
And I finished my reread of Lord of the Two Lands by Judith Tarr, this time on the kindle edition, which had some unfortunate typos in it. But I do love her Alexander and Hephaistion - I can't tell you how often I've reread the section after Gaza - and I also enjoy Meriamon and Niko's relationship. Plus a large part of it is set at Tyre and you know I love the siege of Tyre.
What I'm reading now/What I'm reading next
I don't know! I will pick something at lunch. Probably that fifth Felix Castor book. And if there are any comics today, I'll read those tonight.
I'm still waiting for a kindle edition of Quintana of Charyn to be available for pre-order on Amazon. I don't want to buy a paper book, you guys. I'm so over stuff that takes up more space, at least until I get rid of the ton of books already overtaking my apartment. Let us not even discuss all the books I keep adding to my to read/wishlist because of this meme every week now.
***
This song! <333 Where is the Steve/Bucky vid to this song?!
***
So, the Iron Man 3 trailer. PEPPER. I swear to god Pepper better survive this movie and they better still be together - EVEN STRONGER THAN BEFORE - or I'm going to be really pissed. I know, RDJ ships it, so it should be safe, but I worry. Because ♥PEPPER♥ If you don't like her, I don't think we can be friends.
I'm not really happy about the Mandarin, especially since they'd earlier acknowledged how racist it would be to use the character and then went ahead and did it anyway. They're also shoving, like, five different comics storylines into this movie, at least according to speculation that I've read (Extremis, the Mandarin/Ten Rings, Five Nightmares, Rescue, possibly Demon in a Bottle?) and that is too much for one movie to handle. Also, I didn't really care for most of IM2 and rewatching didn't make it better. It had none of the charm of the first movie, and even RDJ couldn't really save it for me. And third movies are generally crappy. So I have concerns that even some of the awesome stuff in the trailer (Rhodey! "There're my boys.") hasn't really assuaged. I guess we'll see.
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/549994.html.
people have commented there.
Or something, anyway.
***
Wednesday reading meme:
What I just finished reading
Literally, this morning on the subway, I just finished This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz, which is a collection of related short stories about Yunior and his inability to keep it in his pants. Diaz's writing is fantastic - vivid and immersive and funny and sly - but I just had zero sympathy for Yunior's lady problems since he basically brings them all on himself (yes, I get that his upbringing and culture and the examples of his father and brother are supposed to be part of the problem, but I also don't really care because he apparently doesn't learn even after he does the same thing over and over with the same results. And it would be one thing if the women were shown to be happy, but most of them are barely resigned to this behavior if not outright unhappy about it, so no.).
I hope that in whatever Diaz writes next, there is much less focus on someone being a player-player and more on other, more interesting things. Because he's a fantastic writer.
I also finished Thicker Than Water, the fourth Felix Castor book, by Mike Carey. I liked this one okay, but I feel like having the demon turn out to be Felix's brother's sekrit self-harming baby was a little much to swallow. Or maybe not hard to swallow, but I always get irritated when there are too many personal connections in detective or cop style mysteries - I feel like the villain having a personal (usually grudgy and vengeance-wanting) connection to the detective (often previously unmentioned) is a well that writers go to too often. I mean it makes sense because it gives the protagonist and the reader a personal investment but I feel like Felix already has that, and let's be real, if I weren't invested, I wouldn't be reading the fourth book. (and also, it's one thing when you're dealing with a civilian/non-professional detective; but if someone does it for a living or is a cop, EVEN THOUGH I understand that they would make enemies who would come back at them, I still feel like you shouldn't go to that well too often; they're not superheroes who have nemeses, you know?)
So that didn't quite work for me, though I really liked the general idea of human souls becoming demons via torment and also how it infested the whole housing project and just kept getting stronger. I just didn't feel the need for that extra personal connection here, though I am interested to see how it affects Felix's relationship with his brother (if it does), and whether the Anathemata people will be back, considering the next book has to be about Rafi and Asmodeus. Also, I really liked the nurse, so I hope she shows up again and doesn't die if she does. I think if you liked the first three, you'll like this one too? I liked it but not as much as the others, but I'm fully aware that this is one of my own peeves about the mystery genre.
And I finished my reread of Lord of the Two Lands by Judith Tarr, this time on the kindle edition, which had some unfortunate typos in it. But I do love her Alexander and Hephaistion - I can't tell you how often I've reread the section after Gaza - and I also enjoy Meriamon and Niko's relationship. Plus a large part of it is set at Tyre and you know I love the siege of Tyre.
What I'm reading now/What I'm reading next
I don't know! I will pick something at lunch. Probably that fifth Felix Castor book. And if there are any comics today, I'll read those tonight.
I'm still waiting for a kindle edition of Quintana of Charyn to be available for pre-order on Amazon. I don't want to buy a paper book, you guys. I'm so over stuff that takes up more space, at least until I get rid of the ton of books already overtaking my apartment. Let us not even discuss all the books I keep adding to my to read/wishlist because of this meme every week now.
***
This song! <333 Where is the Steve/Bucky vid to this song?!
***
So, the Iron Man 3 trailer. PEPPER. I swear to god Pepper better survive this movie and they better still be together - EVEN STRONGER THAN BEFORE - or I'm going to be really pissed. I know, RDJ ships it, so it should be safe, but I worry. Because ♥PEPPER♥ If you don't like her, I don't think we can be friends.
I'm not really happy about the Mandarin, especially since they'd earlier acknowledged how racist it would be to use the character and then went ahead and did it anyway. They're also shoving, like, five different comics storylines into this movie, at least according to speculation that I've read (Extremis, the Mandarin/Ten Rings, Five Nightmares, Rescue, possibly Demon in a Bottle?) and that is too much for one movie to handle. Also, I didn't really care for most of IM2 and rewatching didn't make it better. It had none of the charm of the first movie, and even RDJ couldn't really save it for me. And third movies are generally crappy. So I have concerns that even some of the awesome stuff in the trailer (Rhodey! "There're my boys.") hasn't really assuaged. I guess we'll see.
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/549994.html.
people have commented there.