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Feb. 10th, 2015 05:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jtniehofHow Lovely Are Thy Branches, The End of Eternity,
The Positronic Man, Nightfall, Nemesis, Caliban, Foundation's Fear, Foundation and Chaos, Foundation's Triumph, Warehouse 13 Season 5, Samurai Warriors, Gourmet Girl Grafitti, Rolling Girls, Project Blue Earth SOS, Death Parade, Military!, Spirit of the Marathon, The Interview, Hyperdimension Neptunia.
How Lovely Are Thy Branches (Diane Duane): Straight-up fanservice, particularly for Filif fans who have been waiting for this the whole time. Terrible place to enter the YW universe, great fun if you're already in it. One jarring dig at Virgin Galactic really should have been edited out, given the release date.
The End of Eternity (Isaac Asimov): Fantastic book; not necessarily Asimov's best but among the best. The worldbuilding is masterful; details of setting and plot appear at exactly the right pace. Every time it looks like the story is nearing an end, it turns and new vistas open up. And I'm a sucker for a good time travel story. There's one serious flaw: the protagonist (or at least POV character) is an obsessive, self-centered, paranoid, who receives an almost completely unmerited reward. Indeed, all the characters are a bit flat: this is one for the plot, which is intricate and weaving and driven seemingly by fate.
The Positronic Man (Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg): The first half, roughly, is clearly inferior to Bicentennial Man, which was tightly and brilliantly written. The extra detail undermines the ethereal quality of the original, and I was less willing to buy into the central concept. On the back half, having more detail made for a more engaging plot, although in the end that didn't make up for the damage to the emotion. I also think the original works better because it can be read in a sitting, piling up gradually but inexorably in the reader's mind.
Nightfall (Isaac Asimov): I misremembered the reference in Foundation and Earth read this instead of Nemesis, Funny way to get around to one of Asimov's classics that I'd managed to miss. The story is almost entirely in the concept, although he plays with some of the same ideas as the original Foundation.
Nemesis (Isaac Asimov): For all the claims that this isn't meant to tie into the greater Foundation universe, it sure tries (and there's the reference in Earth later), although it contradicts the Robot shorts on a key technical development. Pretty solid and I rather liked how conspiracy and manipulation intersected with more personal interactions. The resolution sadly ignores the characters' stories in favor of the Grand Sweeping History; for a novel that was fairly intimate and character-oriented (by Asimov standards), this is a substantial weakness.
Caliban: Even getting a third of the way through this was a slog, and I wouldn't have given it even ten pages without the Asimov tie-in. Most of the space goes to tedious semi-philosophical internal monologues. There's hints of an interesting plot in there, but it's completely bogged down in word baggage. Example: it takes about a quarter of the book to get to the explanation why there's even a mixed Spacer/Settler society that's causing all this trouble.
Foundation's Fear: A decent read but a bit of a poor fit to the Foundation Universe. Two very important bits of tech were nowhere to be seen in Asimov's own work set at the same time: wormhole travel and simple robots. These are tightly integrated into the hypothetical Galactic civilization, so how did we not see them before? Also contradicting existing canon: a claim that Seldon never used the word "psychohistory" (huh?). Further hampered by a really disruptive insertion of Benford's own contemporary political views (which he crows about a bit in the afterword.) The story's okay, although it's a bit hard to see what the plot is supposed to be for about two-thirds of the book; it bogs down under its own weight.
Foundation and Chaos (Greg Bear): A better book, and a better Foundation book, than Fear. Whereas Fear felt more like a big retcon of the Foundation universe for its own sake, Chaos picks up questions that were definitely implicit in Asimov's work.
Foundation's Triumph (David Brin): Of the new trilogy, the best effort at connecting to the rest of the universe, including the Empire novels. It gets a bit dense, particularly in the back half. Trying to cram in too much made it a bit less readable, and the ambitious level of retcon put me off. On the whole I'm glad to have read the new trilogy, but can't consider it canon, and now have the difficult task of holding things separate in my mind.
Warehouse 13 Season 5: It appears the writers managed to be surprised by the cancellation we all saw coming, and crammed in every plot point and wacky premise (they're stuck in a telenovela!) ever conceived. The last episode is a clip show of episodes that never happened. One really stupid characterization decision overturned a huge part of what made the show great, souring the whole experience. Seasons two and three were fairly strong once they hit their stride and found the characters, four was mediocre, and five was just bad.
Samurai Warriors: Started with the TV special/OVA from last year and made it about fifteen minutes in; the story was very much told in summary narration with occasional drops into real-time dialogue. Jumped to the first TV episodes and it was rather the same way, so axed in five minutes. When I'd decided to check this out, I was thinking more from the historical angle and less from the video game angle. Clearly one of those "for the fans" shows.
Gourmet Girl Grafitti: I was hoping for something like Encouragement of Climb, cute little relationship building around some topic. Well, not so much. First episode was very little cooking, very little characterization, just some very sexualized eating. Rather dull and dropped.
Rolling Girls: There's a fine line between random-hilarious and random-bad, and here we're into the latter. After one episode I couldn't describe what's going on at all (despite exposition dumps), other than we seem to be going for politics via sentai. Dropped.
Project Blue Earth SOS: Very much a 1950s Tom Swift gee-whiz vibe and rather fun for that, even if there's nothing particularly special about the plot or characters.
Death Parade: Dropped after two. The second episode was a rehash of the first with some exposition to explain away the questions. Dull as dirt. Also crossed over from amgibuous morality into completely amoral...for something that's basically a morality play, that's fatal.
Military!: We got to the weaponized kotatsu in episode 3 and that seemed about as reasonable a place to stop as any. It was amusing but not consistently, and the pervy fanservicey bits were disturbing.
Spirit of the Marathon: Just...okay. Lacked a strong narrative thread: "you run a lot and eventually you run a twenty-miler and then it's the big day!". I thought they could have done more to make the phases of training more obviously distinct and draw out the commonalities among the runners. Although any footage of Boylston Street is now enough to make me tear up.
The Interview: I was both feverish and on cold meds when I watched this, but it wasn't that bad. It avoided two typical problems with parody: one, there was enough plot to sustain the film (even if it was pretty predictable); two, the jokes weren't all front-loaded and it stayed funny throughout. The big problem, of course, is that it was played pretty straight: is this really a topic we should even be joking about? James Franco delivered perfect scenery-munching: as Liz pointed out, you need a pretty seriously pretentious blowhard to make Seth Rogen work as your straight guy.
Hyperdimension Neptunia: Plot, setting, and characters were completely forgettable: less parody, more reference-dropping. The system was intriguing but very poorly explained; I figured out how to spam big combo chains and ignored the rest. All the tactics then move into setting up the combos, rather than making any decisions in battle. Couple that with going through essentially the same dungeon five or six times, I was bored and done after about six hours.
The Positronic Man, Nightfall, Nemesis, Caliban, Foundation's Fear, Foundation and Chaos, Foundation's Triumph, Warehouse 13 Season 5, Samurai Warriors, Gourmet Girl Grafitti, Rolling Girls, Project Blue Earth SOS, Death Parade, Military!, Spirit of the Marathon, The Interview, Hyperdimension Neptunia.
How Lovely Are Thy Branches (Diane Duane): Straight-up fanservice, particularly for Filif fans who have been waiting for this the whole time. Terrible place to enter the YW universe, great fun if you're already in it. One jarring dig at Virgin Galactic really should have been edited out, given the release date.
The End of Eternity (Isaac Asimov): Fantastic book; not necessarily Asimov's best but among the best. The worldbuilding is masterful; details of setting and plot appear at exactly the right pace. Every time it looks like the story is nearing an end, it turns and new vistas open up. And I'm a sucker for a good time travel story. There's one serious flaw: the protagonist (or at least POV character) is an obsessive, self-centered, paranoid, who receives an almost completely unmerited reward. Indeed, all the characters are a bit flat: this is one for the plot, which is intricate and weaving and driven seemingly by fate.
The Positronic Man (Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg): The first half, roughly, is clearly inferior to Bicentennial Man, which was tightly and brilliantly written. The extra detail undermines the ethereal quality of the original, and I was less willing to buy into the central concept. On the back half, having more detail made for a more engaging plot, although in the end that didn't make up for the damage to the emotion. I also think the original works better because it can be read in a sitting, piling up gradually but inexorably in the reader's mind.
Nightfall (Isaac Asimov): I misremembered the reference in Foundation and Earth read this instead of Nemesis, Funny way to get around to one of Asimov's classics that I'd managed to miss. The story is almost entirely in the concept, although he plays with some of the same ideas as the original Foundation.
Nemesis (Isaac Asimov): For all the claims that this isn't meant to tie into the greater Foundation universe, it sure tries (and there's the reference in Earth later), although it contradicts the Robot shorts on a key technical development. Pretty solid and I rather liked how conspiracy and manipulation intersected with more personal interactions. The resolution sadly ignores the characters' stories in favor of the Grand Sweeping History; for a novel that was fairly intimate and character-oriented (by Asimov standards), this is a substantial weakness.
Caliban: Even getting a third of the way through this was a slog, and I wouldn't have given it even ten pages without the Asimov tie-in. Most of the space goes to tedious semi-philosophical internal monologues. There's hints of an interesting plot in there, but it's completely bogged down in word baggage. Example: it takes about a quarter of the book to get to the explanation why there's even a mixed Spacer/Settler society that's causing all this trouble.
Foundation's Fear: A decent read but a bit of a poor fit to the Foundation Universe. Two very important bits of tech were nowhere to be seen in Asimov's own work set at the same time: wormhole travel and simple robots. These are tightly integrated into the hypothetical Galactic civilization, so how did we not see them before? Also contradicting existing canon: a claim that Seldon never used the word "psychohistory" (huh?). Further hampered by a really disruptive insertion of Benford's own contemporary political views (which he crows about a bit in the afterword.) The story's okay, although it's a bit hard to see what the plot is supposed to be for about two-thirds of the book; it bogs down under its own weight.
Foundation and Chaos (Greg Bear): A better book, and a better Foundation book, than Fear. Whereas Fear felt more like a big retcon of the Foundation universe for its own sake, Chaos picks up questions that were definitely implicit in Asimov's work.
Foundation's Triumph (David Brin): Of the new trilogy, the best effort at connecting to the rest of the universe, including the Empire novels. It gets a bit dense, particularly in the back half. Trying to cram in too much made it a bit less readable, and the ambitious level of retcon put me off. On the whole I'm glad to have read the new trilogy, but can't consider it canon, and now have the difficult task of holding things separate in my mind.
Warehouse 13 Season 5: It appears the writers managed to be surprised by the cancellation we all saw coming, and crammed in every plot point and wacky premise (they're stuck in a telenovela!) ever conceived. The last episode is a clip show of episodes that never happened. One really stupid characterization decision overturned a huge part of what made the show great, souring the whole experience. Seasons two and three were fairly strong once they hit their stride and found the characters, four was mediocre, and five was just bad.
Samurai Warriors: Started with the TV special/OVA from last year and made it about fifteen minutes in; the story was very much told in summary narration with occasional drops into real-time dialogue. Jumped to the first TV episodes and it was rather the same way, so axed in five minutes. When I'd decided to check this out, I was thinking more from the historical angle and less from the video game angle. Clearly one of those "for the fans" shows.
Gourmet Girl Grafitti: I was hoping for something like Encouragement of Climb, cute little relationship building around some topic. Well, not so much. First episode was very little cooking, very little characterization, just some very sexualized eating. Rather dull and dropped.
Rolling Girls: There's a fine line between random-hilarious and random-bad, and here we're into the latter. After one episode I couldn't describe what's going on at all (despite exposition dumps), other than we seem to be going for politics via sentai. Dropped.
Project Blue Earth SOS: Very much a 1950s Tom Swift gee-whiz vibe and rather fun for that, even if there's nothing particularly special about the plot or characters.
Death Parade: Dropped after two. The second episode was a rehash of the first with some exposition to explain away the questions. Dull as dirt. Also crossed over from amgibuous morality into completely amoral...for something that's basically a morality play, that's fatal.
Military!: We got to the weaponized kotatsu in episode 3 and that seemed about as reasonable a place to stop as any. It was amusing but not consistently, and the pervy fanservicey bits were disturbing.
Spirit of the Marathon: Just...okay. Lacked a strong narrative thread: "you run a lot and eventually you run a twenty-miler and then it's the big day!". I thought they could have done more to make the phases of training more obviously distinct and draw out the commonalities among the runners. Although any footage of Boylston Street is now enough to make me tear up.
The Interview: I was both feverish and on cold meds when I watched this, but it wasn't that bad. It avoided two typical problems with parody: one, there was enough plot to sustain the film (even if it was pretty predictable); two, the jokes weren't all front-loaded and it stayed funny throughout. The big problem, of course, is that it was played pretty straight: is this really a topic we should even be joking about? James Franco delivered perfect scenery-munching: as Liz pointed out, you need a pretty seriously pretentious blowhard to make Seth Rogen work as your straight guy.
Hyperdimension Neptunia: Plot, setting, and characters were completely forgettable: less parody, more reference-dropping. The system was intriguing but very poorly explained; I figured out how to spam big combo chains and ignored the rest. All the tactics then move into setting up the combos, rather than making any decisions in battle. Couple that with going through essentially the same dungeon five or six times, I was bored and done after about six hours.