books, movies
Kiss of Crimson, Lara Adrian.
Hmm, well, I tried book 2 in this series, but I didn't get pulled in
enough to try book three. Especially as the preview at the end for
book three shows that it's going to focus on one of the characters
that I didn't find intriguing at all. Though the heroine seems
interesting in her new incarnation... we'll see. :) In any case, this
one was about Dante, but it tore down his tough guy image as he fell
for a vet. He was more interesting from the outside. Jul
2.
Micah, Laurell K. Hamilton.
I had a hankering to revisit this book, after reading it once when I
bought it. It's really short compared to the other Anita Blake books,
she and Micah go off to raise a zombie. They try to work through some
relationship stuff, as well, which reminded me of my confusion that
Micah was pretty much absent in Skin Trade. Jul 6/09
Obsidian Butterfly, Laurell K. Hamilton. Revisiting
Bernard and Olaf and Edward, with a paranormal mystery thrown in. Jul
7/09
Narcissus in Chains, Laurell K. Hamilton. Sucked into
the series, but it was interesting to see how the ardeur
started. Not quite as sex heavy as I remembered, but the torture
scenarios are still disturbing. Jul 8/09
Cerulean Sins, Laurell K. Hamilton. And one more
before I move on (aka I don't have the next one at home).
Some fall out from Obsidian Butterfly, and a visit from Belle Morte's
lieutenant are complicating Anita's life this time. The Mary-Sue
quotient spiked as well, as it felt like LKH was treating Richard like
an ex she was disappointed in. Despite taking a month long break,
we definitely get the sense that Anita's burning out on all the
horror's she's been forced to witness. But at least she gets to
raise a zombie in this book. :) The Mother of All Darkness stirs as
well. Jul 9/09
The Sharing Knife: Legacy, Lois McMaster Bujold.
The mis matched pair go home to his family, and figure out the mystery
of the knife. Jul 11/09
A Lion Among Men, Gregory Maguire.
Got better as it went along, took me a while to get into it. The Lion
isn't a very sympathetic character, but that's what Maguire was
aiming for. Covers Brr's life from cubhood to adulthood, with a very
short section overlapping The Wizard of Oz. He enters the world of
men to try and return a medal to a dying soldier's father and
stumbles from situation to situation, making things worse each time.
The tale jumps from the present with Munchinlander forces meeting
those from the Emerald City right where Brr is interviewing Yackle to
try and track down Liir. Jul 18/09
Hugo:
Paladin of Souls, Lois McMaster Bujold. Took me most of
the book to remember that I'd read it before, but I enjoyed it a lot
anyway. :) Bujold has a way of writing characters that makes me smile
with them and empathise and root for them. A noble woman with a
troubled past decides abruptly to go on a pilgrimage. She's side
tracked by a foreign raiding party and eventually brought to a keep
where she has to unentangle a twisted bit of demon magic. I read the
prequel, the Curse of Chalion, in 2005, but have even less memory of
it.
Spin, Robert Charles Wilson.
The author is very adept at weaving together the two time lines, the
first one starting from the night that the stars disappeared, the
second starting in the narrator's present. Don't read the back cover
if you get a hold of the paperback, I glanced at it when I was halfway
through the book and everything that had happened so far was detailed
in the blurb. I would qualify this as hard science fiction, but
written in an accessible manner. The narrator is a doctor but his best
friend is the genius behind the Perihelion Foundation which is doing
cutting edge research on the Spin membrane. The Earth has been
encapsulated by a shroud and slowed down, to the tune of 3 years
passing outside the membrane for every second that passes on Earth.
The transition of the sun to a red giant, where it will cook the solar
system out past the orbit of the earth, is no longer an abstract event
billions of years in the future. It's a few decades away. Jul 15.
Movies:
Public Enemies: Lots of attention to detail (I was taking
fashion notes on the 1930's hairstyles and dresses), but it fell down
in the editing department. There was one wonderfully tense sequence,
but the final scenes just dragged out too long. Bale and Depp both put
in masterful performances, Dillinger's courtship methods as delivered
by Depp had me swooning at one point (though I hope I wouldn't have
fallen for them). They tried to balance the good and bad in Dillinger,
and I think succeeded in the portrayal. Jul 11/09
See my Fantasia
report for movies from the festival.
Torchwood: Children of Earth: I'll count this as a movie since
I want to. :) Ianto is still my favourite character after Captain
Jack, but he's edging Jack out. I loved how he turned pink when
talking to his sister about Jack, and the look in his eyes at one
point where he knew Jack was dying, but Ianto was determined to get
him back, that gave me shivers. Add in his coming to terms with what
it means to love Jack, and yeah, dreamy. :) Gwen was a shade annoying
this time around, her behaviour felt really fake. Jack was so buttoned
up, it was good to see cracks appearing where Ianto was prying at him.
I loved how "we need a child" panned out (eta: the first time). :) The
discussions of how to pick the 10% were chilling. The head of the
special ops team reminded me of the Israeli team leader in Y The Last
Man.
Bollocks. I wrote the previous stuff when I got to the middle
of Day 4. :/ Wow, yeah, dark, and I understand now some of the teaser
comments people were making. :/ Oh, Jack, you're so broken. :/ "An
injury to one is an injury to all" indeed. Finished the series on Jul
29/09
Our Town: a Korean Fantasia catch up movie. This one really
benefited from being watched with friends in a living room, we could
work together to figure out what was going on. It involves a serial
killer, a writer working on a novel about serial killers who kills his
landlady and copy cats the serial killer, and the writer's boyhood
friend who is the cop working the serial killer case. I twigged to the
serial killer right away, but untangling the ties that bound up the
three men took more debate, things were moving quickly and clues would
slip by us. The use of The Little Prince as a minor theme was a bit
disconcerting, the story is almost sullied by association with the
twisted stuff that went on. I'm afraid that I'm desensitised now, the
description
led me to expect a lot more gore and violence and nimfe was
surprised when I said that I didn't find the movie that gory. I blame
Evil Aliens. :) Jul 29/09
Kissed: this was my "catch up on missed movies" movie this
month. Wow. Necrophilia was just what she did, it was treated very
respectfully. The other people at the funeral home were barely
sketched in, just enough to label them the Catholic cleaning guy, and
the creepy director. Her boyfriend Matt started off as a kindred
spirit, but I think he went way off the deep end. Jul 30/09