It's time for another rousing episode of Intercourse with the Vampire!
Title is courtesy of the brilliant twisted writer on the true blood staff who decided to name one of the vampire porno flicks on sookie's tv in her texas hotel room with that title. Really the fact that their is vampire porno flicks at all is kind of awesome.
True Blood 2-04
Ok this episode was AWESOME from start to finish. I've been enjoying the season so far but alot of bits of each episode were boring or moved slowly for me. Now that the stories are starting to converge and really get going, the show is becoming much more fast paced and enjoyable. So much crazy shit happened in this ep, and I'm again reminded of why despite the ridiculous stuff that happens this show never takes itself too seriously, it's FUN to watch and when it's not fun it can really be a terrifying horror esque show. I for one enjoy the flexibility in tone.
Jessica is SO ADORABLE. She actually giggled after she said "turned on" how CUTE is that? and then later on when she glamors some poor sap into shouting crazy phrases. I seriously adore her, she totally does the stuff I would do if I became a vampire one day by some weird twist of fate lol. and I gotta give the actress props she really manages to bring out all of jessica's teen angst, anguish at being a newly made vamp, curiosity of the world she never really got to know, and also her relative innocence despite now being a blood sucking fiend. She's probably one of the most intriguing characters on the show. Which is great cause she EASILY could have been super annoying ala Dawn on buffy the vampire slayer, but she's not at all.
Also I LOVED all the scenes at the fellowship of the sun camp, the writers are totally having a field day with that storyline and it's clear how much fun they are having by how ridiculous yet bizarrely compelling the scenes are. I cracked up so much throughout the whole conversation at the picnic tables. Here, I give you all snippets of the pure GOLD.
Jason: I dont know who Lazarus was but everyone knows the first vampire was dracula (I disagree, everyone knows it was Nosferatu not Dracula)
Luke: It's in the bible moron. Jesus brought Lazarus back from the dead
Random dude: The first vampire was Cain, being a vampire is the mark of cain. it's God's punishment for bringing the first evil into the world by killing his brother
Luke: No, the first evil was eve eating the apple. That's why it's called "evil"
Jason: That wasnt evil, that was skirting the rules. Evil is making the premedicated* choice to be a DICK *gets up to leave*
Luke: Well one thing you can count on. God will make sure evil is punished.
Jason: Oh yeah? Then explain Europe to me.
*that is not a typo btw he really did say premeDICated.
and then jason imagining kremlin's wife doing a sexy dance while she barbecues and then "Louisiana hot sauce" starts playing in the background. I LAUGHED SO HARD. I love who ever is in charge of picking out the music for this show. I've yet to hear an over played or out of place song yet!
Also the Eric and Lafayette scenes? Major WIN. Two of my fave characters in the same room can only lead to greatness. I'm so glad they didnt kill lafayette in the show, like he was in the books. He is too awesome to die.
PS: It's a shame there's alot of people not happy about Evan Rachel wood being cast in the show as the queen vampire of Louisiana. I mean she's one of the few actual southern actors! Or maybe I'm just happy about her being there cause she's from my city and state. North Carolina REPRESENT.
Books:
Currently reading "Dont Tempt Me" (among other things) the latest novel out by the awesome Loretta Chase and the second novel in her "fallen women" series, the first being "Your Scandalous Ways" which was about a courtesan and I have not read yet but plan to. I heard alot of mixed reviews about "dont tempt me" and so I worried I wouldnt like it but it's actually rather lovely so far!
The Hero is delicious and wonderful and the Heroine cracks me up. She does do some kind of annoying things like stamping her foot on occasion when she is mad which is a very big NO for me and also running off when she gets bored and doing reckless things. I dont think having a reckless heroine is bad it and of itself but because of the time period and how they are often written, it's hard to take alot of them seriously. However the tone for the novel is very light and tongue in cheek in alot of cases and I imagine we ARENT supposed to take it very seriously. Some readers at the AAR boards where complaining about it's depiction of harem life and arab culture. Personally I didnt see much focus on arab culture as a whole and what little was mentioned of it did not sound very ugly. With the exception of how as a woman she was really purely a thing and had no value at all but she might have meant it more in the course of harem life than in general though sadly even if she didnt it's not a complete exaggeration. Women's rights then and now have not always been in large supply in the mid east, however I did not see the text assume at any point that because of this all the men of that area are evil bad and all the women are horrible victims. That's never the impression I got and actually when I read about her descriptions of women in the harem and arabs it sounds pretty close to what I know. I mean what she said about arabs wearing their hearts on their sleeves generally is very true, and is yet another reason I sometimes feel like I fail as an arab because I decidedly DO NOT display my emotions openly or often times at all if I'm in public. But I digress. The book to me is in no way offensive and considering the book it self is just supposed to be a light hearted romance romp I do not expect her to dissect, analyze or fully display the complexity of arab culture or life. especially when the novel is set in England.
The novel from what I've read so far, I would say is not her best work or even close but it is GOOD. IMHO. It's a good decent fun read. The witty banter of hers I love so much is out and about in this book and I laughed out loud in a few places.. The secondary characters are also really awesome and each is memorable and unique in their own way. The servants have real personalities and are there to be more than just the hired help in the book, and again family members have some importance and relevance to them beyond just being THERE or to promote some kind of conflict in the novel. Even the mistress actually comes off as kind of a cool fun person and I was actually sad she wasnt in the book more! I hope she gets her own novel in the series at some point.
Frankly I'm happy Chase has started this series cause while I loved Mr Impossible, the rest of the Heroines of the carsington series books (her last series), were kind of boring. They pretty much all had that same stuffy super practical keep their emotions close to the vest thing going even if deep down they were much more lively that particular trait just gets old after a while, and it's cool if it was one heroine or two but pretty much every single one of them was like that (well admittedly not as much bathsheba the heroine of Lord Perfect, though she was nothing extraordinary either), while there was a much greater variation in the personalities of the Carsington brothers. So Chase writing heroines that are alot different from the ones she's had in the past is a very good thing. and Really it's about time the not so pristine and virtuous ladies of romancelandia got some love too!
The next book in this series incidentally is a continuation of Peregrine and Olivia's story. Who were both precocious quirky teenagers back in the Carsington series book "Lord Perfect' and despite being secondary characters in that novel they were what made it worth reading for me. So I am VERY excited to see what happened to them after 8 or some years. Yet another reason to look forward to 2010, it just cant come quick enough for me now.
True Blood 2-04
Ok this episode was AWESOME from start to finish. I've been enjoying the season so far but alot of bits of each episode were boring or moved slowly for me. Now that the stories are starting to converge and really get going, the show is becoming much more fast paced and enjoyable. So much crazy shit happened in this ep, and I'm again reminded of why despite the ridiculous stuff that happens this show never takes itself too seriously, it's FUN to watch and when it's not fun it can really be a terrifying horror esque show. I for one enjoy the flexibility in tone.
Jessica is SO ADORABLE. She actually giggled after she said "turned on" how CUTE is that? and then later on when she glamors some poor sap into shouting crazy phrases. I seriously adore her, she totally does the stuff I would do if I became a vampire one day by some weird twist of fate lol. and I gotta give the actress props she really manages to bring out all of jessica's teen angst, anguish at being a newly made vamp, curiosity of the world she never really got to know, and also her relative innocence despite now being a blood sucking fiend. She's probably one of the most intriguing characters on the show. Which is great cause she EASILY could have been super annoying ala Dawn on buffy the vampire slayer, but she's not at all.
Also I LOVED all the scenes at the fellowship of the sun camp, the writers are totally having a field day with that storyline and it's clear how much fun they are having by how ridiculous yet bizarrely compelling the scenes are. I cracked up so much throughout the whole conversation at the picnic tables. Here, I give you all snippets of the pure GOLD.
Jason: I dont know who Lazarus was but everyone knows the first vampire was dracula (I disagree, everyone knows it was Nosferatu not Dracula)
Luke: It's in the bible moron. Jesus brought Lazarus back from the dead
Random dude: The first vampire was Cain, being a vampire is the mark of cain. it's God's punishment for bringing the first evil into the world by killing his brother
Luke: No, the first evil was eve eating the apple. That's why it's called "evil"
Jason: That wasnt evil, that was skirting the rules. Evil is making the premedicated* choice to be a DICK *gets up to leave*
Luke: Well one thing you can count on. God will make sure evil is punished.
Jason: Oh yeah? Then explain Europe to me.
*that is not a typo btw he really did say premeDICated.
and then jason imagining kremlin's wife doing a sexy dance while she barbecues and then "Louisiana hot sauce" starts playing in the background. I LAUGHED SO HARD. I love who ever is in charge of picking out the music for this show. I've yet to hear an over played or out of place song yet!
Also the Eric and Lafayette scenes? Major WIN. Two of my fave characters in the same room can only lead to greatness. I'm so glad they didnt kill lafayette in the show, like he was in the books. He is too awesome to die.
PS: It's a shame there's alot of people not happy about Evan Rachel wood being cast in the show as the queen vampire of Louisiana. I mean she's one of the few actual southern actors! Or maybe I'm just happy about her being there cause she's from my city and state. North Carolina REPRESENT.
Books:
Currently reading "Dont Tempt Me" (among other things) the latest novel out by the awesome Loretta Chase and the second novel in her "fallen women" series, the first being "Your Scandalous Ways" which was about a courtesan and I have not read yet but plan to. I heard alot of mixed reviews about "dont tempt me" and so I worried I wouldnt like it but it's actually rather lovely so far!
The Hero is delicious and wonderful and the Heroine cracks me up. She does do some kind of annoying things like stamping her foot on occasion when she is mad which is a very big NO for me and also running off when she gets bored and doing reckless things. I dont think having a reckless heroine is bad it and of itself but because of the time period and how they are often written, it's hard to take alot of them seriously. However the tone for the novel is very light and tongue in cheek in alot of cases and I imagine we ARENT supposed to take it very seriously. Some readers at the AAR boards where complaining about it's depiction of harem life and arab culture. Personally I didnt see much focus on arab culture as a whole and what little was mentioned of it did not sound very ugly. With the exception of how as a woman she was really purely a thing and had no value at all but she might have meant it more in the course of harem life than in general though sadly even if she didnt it's not a complete exaggeration. Women's rights then and now have not always been in large supply in the mid east, however I did not see the text assume at any point that because of this all the men of that area are evil bad and all the women are horrible victims. That's never the impression I got and actually when I read about her descriptions of women in the harem and arabs it sounds pretty close to what I know. I mean what she said about arabs wearing their hearts on their sleeves generally is very true, and is yet another reason I sometimes feel like I fail as an arab because I decidedly DO NOT display my emotions openly or often times at all if I'm in public. But I digress. The book to me is in no way offensive and considering the book it self is just supposed to be a light hearted romance romp I do not expect her to dissect, analyze or fully display the complexity of arab culture or life. especially when the novel is set in England.
The novel from what I've read so far, I would say is not her best work or even close but it is GOOD. IMHO. It's a good decent fun read. The witty banter of hers I love so much is out and about in this book and I laughed out loud in a few places.. The secondary characters are also really awesome and each is memorable and unique in their own way. The servants have real personalities and are there to be more than just the hired help in the book, and again family members have some importance and relevance to them beyond just being THERE or to promote some kind of conflict in the novel. Even the mistress actually comes off as kind of a cool fun person and I was actually sad she wasnt in the book more! I hope she gets her own novel in the series at some point.
Frankly I'm happy Chase has started this series cause while I loved Mr Impossible, the rest of the Heroines of the carsington series books (her last series), were kind of boring. They pretty much all had that same stuffy super practical keep their emotions close to the vest thing going even if deep down they were much more lively that particular trait just gets old after a while, and it's cool if it was one heroine or two but pretty much every single one of them was like that (well admittedly not as much bathsheba the heroine of Lord Perfect, though she was nothing extraordinary either), while there was a much greater variation in the personalities of the Carsington brothers. So Chase writing heroines that are alot different from the ones she's had in the past is a very good thing. and Really it's about time the not so pristine and virtuous ladies of romancelandia got some love too!
The next book in this series incidentally is a continuation of Peregrine and Olivia's story. Who were both precocious quirky teenagers back in the Carsington series book "Lord Perfect' and despite being secondary characters in that novel they were what made it worth reading for me. So I am VERY excited to see what happened to them after 8 or some years. Yet another reason to look forward to 2010, it just cant come quick enough for me now.