Recommended Reads/TVs/Movies: Utterly Miscellaneous Edition

[retsuko]

In Books:

The Curse of Chalion, by Lois McMaster Bujold: This was an excellent book, although reading it, at first, felt like a real slog. Bujold is a highly accomplished storyteller, of course, but her prose is so dense that the first quarter of the book felt like an overstuffed lasagna. Just when I thought I'd finished with one layer, bam!

Comments

[anagramofbrat]

I would also not mind more of Nefertiti. Not only was she badass and awesome that actress was rather painfully cute and I want to see more of her.

[retsuko]

IA, +1, "Like", etc.

I really loved her awkward conversation with Amy about being Queen. :D

[alexeia_drae]

In other, random notes, I have seen two horror movie trailers recently that involve people moving into a house, finding a box of old movie reels/VHS tapes and watching them to REVEAL HORRORS that happened to the previous residents of said house.

I've not seen the trailers in question, but is it a spin on the mockumentary (something I'm getting tired of). The "lost" footage thing is getting tiring. I also think it makes things less suspenseful for the viewer, especially if you're cutting to see someone else's reaction.

People are pretty voyeuristic, though, so I can see that happen. It's also how lost movies from the silent era get found, and they found lost footage of the Titanic survivors boarding the Carpathia that way.

[retsuko]

Neither of these was a mockumentary. One of them is entitled "Sinister" starring Ethan Hawke and the other was some scare film making the festival rounds, but the title has gone from my head. In the case of the Ethan Hawke one, it looked like it went like this:

1) Man with adorable family buys creepy-looking house
2) In the attic, there is a box with old movie reels
3) For no apparent reason, he watches them
4) In said movies, adorable families previously residing in the house are shown being happy and then being killed in gruesome ways
5) In each film reel, there is a scary monster and IT TURNS AND LOOKS AT ETHAN HAWKE AND THEN IT'S IN THE REAL WORLD MURDERING HIS FAMILY TOO AWWWW SNAP!

So... yeah. The other one was along the same lines. I understand that people are voyeurisitic, but I can't help thinking this beggars credibility. I guess it's my ingrained sense of leaving well enough alone. ;p

[tammabanana]

Curse of Chalion is one of my favorite books! I love how all the little things fit together.

I also recommend Bujold's Paladin of Souls, which takes place immediately after the events of Curse and features Ista as a main character. I think it's not quite the same tone as Curse, but Ista as a character is amazing.

(There's a third, too, The Hallowed Hunt, which is OK. It's set in the same world, with the Brother as the god of focus, but it doesn't use any of the same characters or even the same country or time period, so it doesn't hook into the other two as neatly. I've heard that she eventually would like to write one book for each of the gods, but I don't think the other two are actually in the works yet.)

[retsuko]

Ooo, neat, I'll have to check that out. Ista was a layered figure, and I'd be curious to see where a story featuring her went. She wasn't my favorite side character (Umegat!) but I can see how she'd be equally compelling in her own right.

ETA: Fixed spelling/word fail. :p

[orichalcum]

And part of the Ista plot is really the question of "what do you do as a noblewoman after your kids are grown up and able to take care of themselves?"

[tammabanana]

I think the aspect I liked best was: How do you reach for what you want in life, when the people who love you keep trying to protect you from yourself? And how do you even begin to know what you want, when it's been so long since you had any hope of getting it?

[owlfish]

The Dr Who "commercial" was an extra just for US iTunes customers - I know a number of UK fans who were jealous and/or coming up with alternative ways of getting ahold of it.