Linkspam has thoughts on Sayers, and romance

[cofax7]

A little bit of sci-fi geekery: James Nicoll shows why throwing rocks at Earth from the Moon is less of a threat than you think.

For those who like this sort of thing, Domenika Marzione is writing Avengers gen. Second part here, since she doesn't have a tag for it.

XKCD, man. Getting kind of complicated...

I don't quite understand why Xena:

Comments

[miss_porcupine]

Thank you for the mention.

I'm intrigued by the Google tablet, although I really haven't had the frustrations with my Fire that you seem to be plagued by. Are there apps I'd like to have and can't? Sure, but that's true for all platforms and it has several features (notably flash ability) that, say, Apple does not. Also, I have third-party apps on my Fire, including items like Dropbox that Amazon swears I can't, without voiding the ToS.

I do, however, question whether a Google tablet will be any kind of freeing from corporate tethering. Google, as we all know from the Buzz and Google+ shenanigans (and lesser messes like their ever-uglier redesigns of Gmail and Gdocs), is not above doing unpleasant things by fiat and without warning and then telling us to love it or leave it.

[cofax7]

Good points, although Google doesn't seem as invested in tethering one to a specific content provider...

[adaese]

Have you tried Lindsay Davis's Falco novels? Ancient Roman private eye, ticks your required boxes against a foreground of murder and mayhem.

[cofax7]

I have, and enjoyed them, although I did rather run out of enthusiasm after 8 or so...

[eregyrn]

I'd second the rec of the Falco series by Lindsey Davis. I feel like -- as with many long mystery series, or come to that, many long series, period; but mysteries do seem to be prone to going on forever, don't they? -- they lose steam after a while, perhaps not coincidentally after the characters finally get together. But I really enjoyed the early books

[cofax7]

Oh, Campion, there's an idea. I suspect I might have read one or two when I was younger, but I have no recollection of them. I didn't know they were a parody of Wimsey, though--that's really funny.

Have you ever read Kate Ross' Julian Kestrel mysteries? They're very much in the Wimsey/Lymond line, and you can see the female love interest getting set up well in advance--and then Ross died, suddenly and quite young. And now we'll never know how it was going to play out. That said, what there is, is rather entertaining.

[sartorias]

Oh, yes--you can see Sayers' inspiration all through the Dunnett books. I used to wonder if the ur-hero (the inspiration for Sayers) was Sir Percy Blakeney: a brilliant idea in the hands of an awful writer. (One situation where I feel that all the films are better than the original book)

I would like to read that kind of romance, too. The closest to mind right now would be Diana and Maturin in Patrick O'Brian's series. It's interesting to me that it was written by a man, and it almost reverses the roles: Diana is brilliant and dangerous and elusive, but slowly matures, and the adventures bring the two closer together, until at last, they make a successful partnership. (I hate what O'Brian did in the last couple of books, which fail, for me, for so many reasons. I just never reread them.)

[cofax7]

you can see Sayers' inspiration all through the Dunnett books.

It was actually rather striking--especially the anvil moment on a boat while the object of affection is sleeping/unconscious. That, I thought, was rather explicit. But Francis is rather more of a bloody-minded bastard than Peter is.

I haven't read much of the O'Brians--I really need to do that. It's just that it's so very long... But you tempt me!

[sartorias]

My advice: stick it out to the halfway point in the third. It's good adventure stuff before--though the first, you can see the Cochrane's life footprint, and the second contains amazing adventure with a heavy leavening of Jane Austen. The third . . . shifts into brilliance.

[vonniek]

You know me and my weakness for USTy male/female law enforcement partnerships on TV, some of which may fit your bill. Have you tried the Skiffy series, Haven? In all honesty, I can't recommend it without reservation because the writing is not what I'd call fantastic (I'd say it's probably on par with the other Skiffy series like Eureka and Warehouse 13 -- it starts off facepalmy but improves quite a bit). I love the characters though. Audrey and Nathan start off as partners first, with the romantic feelings blossoming very slowly over the course of 2 seasons, and the romance really comes secondary to the overreaching plot and the emphasis on teamwork anyway.

[cofax7]

I haven't, but that sounds tempting! Hmmm.

Speaking of partners, did you ever watch The Unusuals? It's streaming for free on Amazon right now, and I'm really enjoying it, although there is no UST between Renner & Tamblyn--they both get romantic partners of their own. It's a bit of a shame it didn't get more time.

[vonniek]

I did! I really liked that show and was very sad when it was cancelled. Jeremy Renner was very appealing in it, and I liked his partnership with Amber Tamblyn's character (and yeah, refreshing that it was a solid partnership with zero romantic overtones). My favourite thing about it, hands down, was the partnership between Banks and Delahoy though. The stuff they got into together occasionally went past weird, all the way into Magic Realism territory -- probably one of the reasons why it did not last very long, but I loved that show was willing to be so off kilter sometimes.