January/February media
Mar. 10th, 2009 09:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jtniehofWinter hiking season's in full swing, so not as much media.
Deverry series (Daggerspell, Darkspell, The Bristling Wood, The Dragon Revenant) (Katharine Kerr) (reread): These get lumped together because it's a pretty tightly integrated plot.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lady_fae introduced me to the series a few years ago. A few more are now out in mass paper, so I picked them up with Christmas money and decided to reread the rest first. The short review is "Read 'em." It's top-notch fantasy, with a sprawling world but individual stories that are reasonably manageable. The narrative "gimmick" (flashbacks to previous lives--sorry, I just spoiled page 20) works very well once you get used to it. Weaknesses: the morality is a bit simplistic (mind, I've been reading Black Company, so that colours it a bit) and these first four have a tinge of homophobia (that lifts later in the cycle). Sadly, Kerr also commits The Cardinal Sin of Speculative Fiction. Strengths: It's fantasy with characters and plot and decent writing. Put Eragon down for a bit and pick this up. It's not like A Song of Ice and Fire is going to get a new installment anytime soon.
Westlands series (A Time of Exile, A Time of Omens, Days of Blood and Fire, Days of Air and Darkness) (Katharine Kerr) (reread): Second series in the cycle, although it doesn't end quite as tidily as the first. So far I like this part of the cycle best. It's several decades along, coming back to the main characters after some time to mature. Lots of fun to see the change over time, with the same characters at the core, similar to watching their various incarnations. Alas, as the scope of the world expands, it encompasses a few more fantasy tropes, but what can you do. To a certain extent, mythic storytelling is about the tropes.
100 Bullets GN#12: Looking forward to the end of this one. The story's just disintegrated into a mess that I can't follow at this rate. I'll probably do a full reread when #13 comes out and see if that helps.
Serenity: Better Days: More Firefly is a good thing. Series that have come to an end but just fizzle along episodically, never advancing the world or the characters...not so good. Using comics as a dumping ground for stuff that doesn't make it in other media...also not so good. So it's a fun story, well-done, pretty good art, but totally dripping in what might have been. Hard to see past that.
Enchanter GN#1: Er...I barely remember it. Mysterious girl shows up and reveals that ordinary boy has secret powers. I grabbed a bunch of volumes cheap; probably will chainsmoke a few more at some point, see if it starts to distinguish itself.
Get Smart: (Disclaimer: never watched any of the original.) Loved it! Steve Carell worked out great as the deadpan buffoon--sure, it's a similar character type as in The Office, but a fairly different character. He's only a little typecast. I can see where a lot of people wouldn't find it funny: the humour's an odd combination of dry and lowbrow, in the context of action scenes that are hardly understated. But man, Alan Arkin!
Carrier: PBS series following the 2005 deployment of Nimitz to the Gulf. Started strong but floundered a bit in the last few episodes, once everything to be said had been said. I think it's very worth seeing as one snapshot of the day-to-day life in the service these days. The Amazon comments on the DVD are a hoot--from complaining about "obvious" censorship, to "I can't believe people swear in the Navy," to "Too much teen drama--this isn't high school." Hmmm, put a bunch of 18 year olds together on a ship, what do you expect?
Top Gear Season 12: Just go, watch episode 6. Cut forward to maybe 40,45 minutes in if you're short on time...the Fiesta review. Snippets of it are on YouTube, but you really need to see the whole review.
Greatest Raid of All: Clarkson-hosted documentary on the St. Nazaire Raid of WWII. Excellent piece...my only quibble was the use of too much CGI. I don't like historical documentaries that focus too much on recreation rather than making the best use of available materials.
Deverry series (Daggerspell, Darkspell, The Bristling Wood, The Dragon Revenant) (Katharine Kerr) (reread): These get lumped together because it's a pretty tightly integrated plot.
lady_fae introduced me to the series a few years ago. A few more are now out in mass paper, so I picked them up with Christmas money and decided to reread the rest first. The short review is "Read 'em." It's top-notch fantasy, with a sprawling world but individual stories that are reasonably manageable. The narrative "gimmick" (flashbacks to previous lives--sorry, I just spoiled page 20) works very well once you get used to it. Weaknesses: the morality is a bit simplistic (mind, I've been reading Black Company, so that colours it a bit) and these first four have a tinge of homophobia (that lifts later in the cycle). Sadly, Kerr also commits The Cardinal Sin of Speculative Fiction. Strengths: It's fantasy with characters and plot and decent writing. Put Eragon down for a bit and pick this up. It's not like A Song of Ice and Fire is going to get a new installment anytime soon.Westlands series (A Time of Exile, A Time of Omens, Days of Blood and Fire, Days of Air and Darkness) (Katharine Kerr) (reread): Second series in the cycle, although it doesn't end quite as tidily as the first. So far I like this part of the cycle best. It's several decades along, coming back to the main characters after some time to mature. Lots of fun to see the change over time, with the same characters at the core, similar to watching their various incarnations. Alas, as the scope of the world expands, it encompasses a few more fantasy tropes, but what can you do. To a certain extent, mythic storytelling is about the tropes.
100 Bullets GN#12: Looking forward to the end of this one. The story's just disintegrated into a mess that I can't follow at this rate. I'll probably do a full reread when #13 comes out and see if that helps.
Serenity: Better Days: More Firefly is a good thing. Series that have come to an end but just fizzle along episodically, never advancing the world or the characters...not so good. Using comics as a dumping ground for stuff that doesn't make it in other media...also not so good. So it's a fun story, well-done, pretty good art, but totally dripping in what might have been. Hard to see past that.
Enchanter GN#1: Er...I barely remember it. Mysterious girl shows up and reveals that ordinary boy has secret powers. I grabbed a bunch of volumes cheap; probably will chainsmoke a few more at some point, see if it starts to distinguish itself.
Get Smart: (Disclaimer: never watched any of the original.) Loved it! Steve Carell worked out great as the deadpan buffoon--sure, it's a similar character type as in The Office, but a fairly different character. He's only a little typecast. I can see where a lot of people wouldn't find it funny: the humour's an odd combination of dry and lowbrow, in the context of action scenes that are hardly understated. But man, Alan Arkin!
Carrier: PBS series following the 2005 deployment of Nimitz to the Gulf. Started strong but floundered a bit in the last few episodes, once everything to be said had been said. I think it's very worth seeing as one snapshot of the day-to-day life in the service these days. The Amazon comments on the DVD are a hoot--from complaining about "obvious" censorship, to "I can't believe people swear in the Navy," to "Too much teen drama--this isn't high school." Hmmm, put a bunch of 18 year olds together on a ship, what do you expect?
Top Gear Season 12: Just go, watch episode 6. Cut forward to maybe 40,45 minutes in if you're short on time...the Fiesta review. Snippets of it are on YouTube, but you really need to see the whole review.
Greatest Raid of All: Clarkson-hosted documentary on the St. Nazaire Raid of WWII. Excellent piece...my only quibble was the use of too much CGI. I don't like historical documentaries that focus too much on recreation rather than making the best use of available materials.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-10 09:05 pm (UTC)I was a huge fan of the Get Smart series, and I really enjoyed the movie, despite the fact that it essentially reversed the basic premise of the series (Max really *is* mind-bogglingly dumb and incompetent, and yet somehow he always triumphs against evil AND is loved by the marvelous and competent Agent 99 -- as opposed to the movie, where everyone, including 99, perceives him incompetent when in fact underneath the surface he IS competent, and he defeats evil and wins 99's love for that reason). But I liked it anyway!