August media
Nov. 27th, 2014 02:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jtniehofBen and Me, Homeland, How I Proposed to My Wife: An Alien Sex Story, An Election, Judge Sn Goes Golfing, The Tale of the Wicked, The God Engines, You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop, My Own Kind of Freedom, Voogie's Angel, Barakamon, A Town Where You Live, Looper.
Ben and Me (Robert Lawson) (reread): Wow. I liked this a lot as a kid, but it has not aged well...then I thought it was funny and Amos, clever; now I just think Amos is a smug jerk. What this means for my personality as a kid, we'll leave aside.
Homeland (Cory Doctorow): A worthy followup to Little Brother and just as difficult. Doctorow does an excellent job walking the line between undoing the conclusion of the first book and having to pull a problem out from "everything's fine". Satisfying in start and finish. I do find it perhaps a bit cheap to write biting contemporary commentary on another country.
How I Proposed to My Wife: An Alien Sex Story (John Scalzi): This one is 100% trope, as I hope is obvious from the title. Obviously, also self-aware, and pretty dang funny
An Election (John Scalzi): Looks like this was written around the last midterm election. Okay: Scalzi short, aliens, funny, sold! Actually still up on his blog.
Judge Sn Goes Golfing (John Scalzi): Exemplifies that, when we talk about aliens, we're really talking about humans. Also hilarious, in the style of Jake and Elwood brushing the dust off their clothes after their apartment goes boom.
The Tale of the Wicked (John Scalzi): It could be just what else I'm reading right now, but this reads like Scalzi doing an Asimov-style Robotic Laws story.
The God Engines (John Scalzi): Just...amazing. Disturbing, but not in a particularly moralistic way, and highly unpredictable. The novella length is about right.
You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop (John Scalzi): I appreciate Scalzi's take on writing as a combination of art, craft, and business. Reading his stuff really makes me want to sit down and write. Even better, it's just plain a good fun read. Particularly, chapter 3, "The Schadenfreude Needle is Buried Deep into the Red: On Writers". Particularly the two bits on Bob Greene's ill-advised, er, encounter.
My Own Kind of Freedom (Steven Brust): Yes, Firefly fanfic, but quite good and the characters read just right. About the scope of an episode and worth a read.
Voogie's Angel: Ah, the end of the "we're bored, let's make an OVA" phase of anime. The first episode is fluffy fun of the girls-kicking-ass sort; then episode 2 gets dark fast. Three episodes total isn't enough to actually do anything with all the conspiracy set-up.
Barakamon: Dropped for being all about annoying characters, with a side of parenthood propaganda, in a season that was pretty full of shows we were liking. Lasted one episode.
A Town Where You Live: A pretty good, although not life-changing, romance manga. Best towards the early-middle (i.e., the chapters Crunchyroll doesn't have, for some reason), when the love polygon gets ridiculous and events unflinchingly cruel. Sill, later chapters are noteworthy for keeping the interest going after settling into couples. Disappointed that, after 250+ chapters, the resolution was hastily thrown together over two.
Looper: More clever than I expected, and a pretty solid time-travel movie. Much less about the mind-bending mechanics and more about ethics and implications. The trailer gives only the smallest picture of what's going on and I spent more of the movie than usual with no idea of what was coming next. Worth a watch, even if the ending is a little abrupt.
Ben and Me (Robert Lawson) (reread): Wow. I liked this a lot as a kid, but it has not aged well...then I thought it was funny and Amos, clever; now I just think Amos is a smug jerk. What this means for my personality as a kid, we'll leave aside.
Homeland (Cory Doctorow): A worthy followup to Little Brother and just as difficult. Doctorow does an excellent job walking the line between undoing the conclusion of the first book and having to pull a problem out from "everything's fine". Satisfying in start and finish. I do find it perhaps a bit cheap to write biting contemporary commentary on another country.
How I Proposed to My Wife: An Alien Sex Story (John Scalzi): This one is 100% trope, as I hope is obvious from the title. Obviously, also self-aware, and pretty dang funny
An Election (John Scalzi): Looks like this was written around the last midterm election. Okay: Scalzi short, aliens, funny, sold! Actually still up on his blog.
Judge Sn Goes Golfing (John Scalzi): Exemplifies that, when we talk about aliens, we're really talking about humans. Also hilarious, in the style of Jake and Elwood brushing the dust off their clothes after their apartment goes boom.
The Tale of the Wicked (John Scalzi): It could be just what else I'm reading right now, but this reads like Scalzi doing an Asimov-style Robotic Laws story.
The God Engines (John Scalzi): Just...amazing. Disturbing, but not in a particularly moralistic way, and highly unpredictable. The novella length is about right.
You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop (John Scalzi): I appreciate Scalzi's take on writing as a combination of art, craft, and business. Reading his stuff really makes me want to sit down and write. Even better, it's just plain a good fun read. Particularly, chapter 3, "The Schadenfreude Needle is Buried Deep into the Red: On Writers". Particularly the two bits on Bob Greene's ill-advised, er, encounter.
My Own Kind of Freedom (Steven Brust): Yes, Firefly fanfic, but quite good and the characters read just right. About the scope of an episode and worth a read.
Voogie's Angel: Ah, the end of the "we're bored, let's make an OVA" phase of anime. The first episode is fluffy fun of the girls-kicking-ass sort; then episode 2 gets dark fast. Three episodes total isn't enough to actually do anything with all the conspiracy set-up.
Barakamon: Dropped for being all about annoying characters, with a side of parenthood propaganda, in a season that was pretty full of shows we were liking. Lasted one episode.
A Town Where You Live: A pretty good, although not life-changing, romance manga. Best towards the early-middle (i.e., the chapters Crunchyroll doesn't have, for some reason), when the love polygon gets ridiculous and events unflinchingly cruel. Sill, later chapters are noteworthy for keeping the interest going after settling into couples. Disappointed that, after 250+ chapters, the resolution was hastily thrown together over two.
Looper: More clever than I expected, and a pretty solid time-travel movie. Much less about the mind-bending mechanics and more about ethics and implications. The trailer gives only the smallest picture of what's going on and I spent more of the movie than usual with no idea of what was coming next. Worth a watch, even if the ending is a little abrupt.