Media round-up before I forget
On movies:
* I saw Carnage last weekend -- funny, A++ cast, definite "stage play on film" feeling -- and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close this weekend, which was better than I thought it was going to be.
* And with that, I'm drawing a line on movies to consider in my own top 10 list for 2011. There are some on my wish list that I missed, and some that still haven't come out yet (seriously, please start showing these in October!), but we can only drag this out so long. :-P Post to follow.
On books:
* I seem to be alternating non-fiction and fiction books or series, which is different for me. I'm a bit more than halfway through The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which is fasciating.
* Before Henrietta, I read Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series, which I would recommend. It's standard fantasy in some ways, but it breaks the mold in lots of interesting ones. His metal-based magic system is really cool, and I love the main characters. It suffers really badly on the female characters front; although women theoretically have a good amount of power in this world and the main character of the series is a woman (who is awesome, to be fair), she's surrounded by dudes. A few other female characters pop in but never make much noise.
* After I finished the series, I went running off to find the fanfic, and there is almost nothing. Like, one story on AO3, one page of ff.net nothing. Given the number of prominent male characters, I at least expected to find buckets of slash. There are certainly enough missing scene and continuation opportunities. I can't imagine that Sanderson is anti-fic given that he was charged with finishing WoT, but maybe? I don't know. It was strange.
On TV:
* Downton Abbey ILU
* Ended up watching a million hours of Psych yesterday because a random channel was showing S1. Also I was tired from going to bed late and getting up early to be first in line for an oil change. It was nice to enjoy the damp morning but not after a 1 AM bedtime.
* Most of that wasn't about TV, and neither is this line.
* I saw Carnage last weekend -- funny, A++ cast, definite "stage play on film" feeling -- and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close this weekend, which was better than I thought it was going to be.
* And with that, I'm drawing a line on movies to consider in my own top 10 list for 2011. There are some on my wish list that I missed, and some that still haven't come out yet (seriously, please start showing these in October!), but we can only drag this out so long. :-P Post to follow.
On books:
* I seem to be alternating non-fiction and fiction books or series, which is different for me. I'm a bit more than halfway through The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which is fasciating.
* Before Henrietta, I read Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series, which I would recommend. It's standard fantasy in some ways, but it breaks the mold in lots of interesting ones. His metal-based magic system is really cool, and I love the main characters. It suffers really badly on the female characters front; although women theoretically have a good amount of power in this world and the main character of the series is a woman (who is awesome, to be fair), she's surrounded by dudes. A few other female characters pop in but never make much noise.
* After I finished the series, I went running off to find the fanfic, and there is almost nothing. Like, one story on AO3, one page of ff.net nothing. Given the number of prominent male characters, I at least expected to find buckets of slash. There are certainly enough missing scene and continuation opportunities. I can't imagine that Sanderson is anti-fic given that he was charged with finishing WoT, but maybe? I don't know. It was strange.
On TV:
* Downton Abbey ILU
* Ended up watching a million hours of Psych yesterday because a random channel was showing S1. Also I was tired from going to bed late and getting up early to be first in line for an oil change. It was nice to enjoy the damp morning but not after a 1 AM bedtime.
* Most of that wasn't about TV, and neither is this line.