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| Monday, May 28th, 2012 |
james_nicoll
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12:07a |
SLOTHS
GO MEEP! WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME SLOTHS GO MEEP? THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING
Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are  comment(s); comment here or there. |
| Sunday, May 27th, 2012 |
james_nicoll
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11:54p |
Question
Is there a point to things like this? Is the judge the sort of person who could be swayed by a petition or would he just double-down and sentence her to a longer sentence to make an example of what happens when people criticize his decisions? Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are  comment(s); comment here or there. |
bexxa
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5:10p |
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fjm
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9:30p |
I'm watching you...
Focus on small orange blob in top right window. He was watching Miss P right to her door. Wary or besotted? She, of course, never gave him a glance. Probably a good thing. 
Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone. |
fjm
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9:28p |
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fjm
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9:26p |
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james_nicoll
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11:41a |
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sartorias
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8:40a |
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james_nicoll
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10:38a |
What was I doing in 2009
That resulted in
And then, they're disappointed and can't seem to understand why casual SFF readers don't give a shit about the John Clute, M. John Harrison, and James Nicoll of this world?
Seriously, if you say "John Clute, M. John Harrison and", "James Nicoll" is not going to be the name that leaps to mind to complete the trio. (For the record, I like a lot of anime, dislike many comics not because of the medium but because many comics are fuck-awful but, and this is the important bit, many are not, and ditto for movies. I prefer SF to F but A: that's more of a chocolate versus butterscotch thing than my god over your heathen beliefs thing and B: F and SF overlap a lot) Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are  comment(s); comment here or there. |
james_nicoll
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10:22a |
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secritcrush
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2:54p |
Among Others is Twilight for Fandom
Of all the novels in the Hugo voters packet, only one of them is in epub form, so that meant I would be reading it first before the dreaded PDFs. (Ok, I've already read Embassytown, but first among the books I got from the voting packet.) Here is a quick plot summary of Among Others by Jo Walton for those who haven't read the book: Mor leaves Wales because she doesn't want to live with her crazy witch mother and to her dad is the only place she can go - she's also suffering because her twin sister died in a car crash while she and Mor (Morganna to her Morwenna) were thwarting her mother's nebulous take-over-the-world plans at the request of fairies (or possibly just running away.) She gets shipped off to a posh boarding school where she's unpopular because she has a limp and is from Wales and is middle class. Books are her only solace, and pretty much her only friend. But then she performs a bit of magic and suddenly she learns of an SF book club and it's all puppies and kittens - she gets friends, a boyfriend, a chance to talk about all the books she loves, makes plans to go to Worldcon, faces down her mum and makes peace with her sister's death. So how is Among Others like Twilight? There are spoilers! 1. The overarching story is basically the same - A young girl (Bella/Mor) leaves her home in a place she loves (Arizona/Wales) to go live in a place she hates (Forks/Oswestry) to go live with her estranged father, who she calls by his first name, (Charlie/Daniel) and finds her OTP (Edward/Fandom.) 2. The only reason why the magic exists in the story is so that we know that Bella/Mor is special. (And by extension, so is fandom - special snowflakes ahoy!) Walton has gone on the record as saying that Among Other is unquestionably fantasy. I think it is a more interesting book if the fairies are simply the way Mor's PTSD manifests, so it's disappointing for Walton to confirm that yes, Mor sees sparkly vampires fairies. In fact, since Mor did magic to find her OTP, it's possible the entirety of fandom was created just so Mor could find it. (Of course, Walton also said it was unquestionably fiction but then let loose the dogs of fandom when Jonathan McCalmont suggested Mor was a bit of a psychopath, so maybe we'll not trust her word so much.) 3. Both Meyer and Walton seem realize late in the book "oh yeah, books need conflict" and there's an almost entirely superfluous scene where Mor has to battle fairies because they think she should kill herself (which she had already made the decision not to once earlier in the book because she wanted to read some Delany. It's nice to know Delany can save lives with his fiction, but that's not going make doing that scene over again very interesting). And then hot on the heels of that, Mor faces down her mother. It's really rubbish closure that feels completely unearned. 4. Any tension in the big facedowns is undercut by the use of a first person narrator - it's never in any doubt that Bella won't get eaten by the evil vampire, just as it is never in any doubt whether Mor will kill herself or fall back under her mother's thumb. 5. Oh the creepytimes. Edward is a creepy stalker and Mor seems to take the things she reads in dodgy SF as without a whit of skepticism. There is a disturbing scene where Mor's father climbs into her bed and tries to get it on with her. Mor muses that she knows that incest isn't always bad because Heinlein said so but her dad is drunk and icky and she's not on the pill. And then it's never brought up again. I had to pick up the pieces of my head after reading this scene, so this review is later than it might have been. 6. This is the real kicker: They are both boring in exactly the same way. Oh the topic is different, so in Twilight you get: “What’s your favorite color?” he asked, his face grave.
I rolled my eyes. “It changes from day to day.”
“What’s your favorite color today?” He was still solemn.
“Probably brown.” I tended to dress according to my mood.
He snorted, dropping his serious expression. “Brown?” he asked skeptically.
“Sure. Brown is warm. I miss brown. Everything that’s supposed to be brown — tree trunks, rocks, dirt — is all covered up with squashy green stuff here,” I complained.
He seemed fascinated by my little rant. He considered for a moment, staring into my eyes.You get in Among Others: Actually, James Tiptree, Jr.’s Warm Worlds and Otherwise gives The Wind’s Twelve Quarters, Vol II a run for its money. I’d say the Le Guin is still ahead, but it’s not as clear-cut as I thought it was. The other two books in the package from my father today are both Zelazny. I haven’t started them yet. Creatures of Light and Darkness was awfully peculiar.Teen girls squee at the idea of all-consuming love and fans squee at the mention of books they also love. Which is to say neither book has much interesting to say about the one they love. In fact, they are pretty darn tedious. SF may have been a touchstone to Walton when she was young, but she's basically cashing in with people who already find it interesting - the mere mention is enough, rather than doing the heavy lifting of making the discussion interesting in and of itself. That Among Others would be so awful was an unpleasant surprise - considering how much praise it's gotten and that Walton is an excellent book blogger, I'd really hoped for more. Apparently fans (and SF critics) wanted a Twilight of their own. |
communicator
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9:20a |
Epistle from a thistle
At work we get several newspapers in the staff canteen. All of them were being read the other day except the Telegraph (right wing Tory paper), so I picked that up. The previous day Nick Clegg had been criticised as a communist for saying that working people with good exam grades (like myself) shouldn't be automatically excluded from higher education and the professions. In other words what you might call a centrist Tory perspective. Personally I would criticise him from the left - social mobility is not enough, and the liberal Tory dream of social mobility without respect for other working class people is impossible. However nowadays even centrist Toryism is called 'Communism' (like Obama is called a Socialist) by that tiny group who actually think they have the world by the balls and can do what they like with us. And the Daily Telegraph had this cartoon. The cartoon shows a man with a clipboard talking to a gardener. The caption says 'Nick Clegg wants more thistles nettles and dandelions to get into the Chelsea Flower Show.' That's what they think of us - we are weeds, we are vermin. Letting us into University is like letting thistles into a flower show. And if you think I am overrreacting, think how you would feel if that cartoon referred to black people, or gay people. If it showed the Home Secretary saying 'No wonder there are queues at Heathrow, all these rats pouring off the planes.' Or if it said that gay people sitting in church were like weeds growing in a garden. I would be sickened by that, and I am sickened by this. And let us not forget, the proposal which is being criticised is to select a few students on the basis of ability, not to open the doors of Oxbridge to people who can't read and write. Every class I have ever been in, I outperformed the middle class public school boys I sat among. Every single exam I took I got the best marks, and yet it is somehow 'communist' even to allow me to be there in the class with them. Why? Why am I a thistle at a flowershow? PS - Ray of hope. How long before people start to think 'well, if it's communism for me to get an education, let's try that'. |
selenak
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9:13a |
Of novels, repeating constellations and recs
Travelling with various air planes and trains through Italy left me with time to read Lindsey Davis' newest novel, Master and God. Now Lindsey Davis is most famous for her series of Roman mysteries centered around one Marcus Didius Falco, but she also writes non-Falco historical novels, of which this, as far as I know, is the third. The first one, The Course of Honour, about Caenis, the slavegirl-going-freedwoman who starts out working for Antonia and ends up as Vespasian's life long lover, I enjoyed but fund it oddly dry for what is definitely an interesting subject. The second one, Rebels and Traitors, set during the English Civil War I loved until the last 40 pages or so, which was when the story took a turn that felt like an incredibly let down and very bizarre. But until then, it was everything I had hoped the tv series The Devil's Whore would be and wasn't, the story of an interesting determined woman making her way between parties during the Civil War, with characters from both sides written more dimensionally and sympathetically. Now, with Master and God she is back in the Rome of the Flavians again. If you know your history, this is what Domitian called himself - dominus et deus - and the book covers his reign, though the main characters are two more or less invented ones, Gaius Vinius Clodianus (spending most of the book as a Pretorian) and Flavia Lucilla (hairdresser and freedwoman of the Flavians). They're the archetypical Davis pairing of wise-cracking guy and no-nonsense, unimpressed woman, and this time around, the result is enjoyable throughout the novel, so I don't always buy the obstacles Davis throws in their path. Now, the the third volume of what is one of my all time favourite trilogy of historical novels by Lion Feuchtwanger also deals with the reign of Domitian, and is a vivid and chilling depiction of a dictatorship written during the Third Reich which nonetheless manages to avoid making Domitian into a Hitler avatar (which means he's a far better drawn character than Feuchtwanger's deliberate Hitler avatar in another novel he wrote at the same time, The False Nero), so my standard of writing for this era was pretty high. Nonetheless, Lindsey Davis managed to convincingly present her own version. Domitian, like Caligula, Nero or Caracalla, became a byword for the mad, bad and dangerous to know type of emperor, though not having the obvious madness of Caligula or the theatricalness of Nero (which reminds me: in Naples they show up the remains of the theatre where Nero performed - th roughout an earthquake, no less, where he insisted the audience was to stay in order not to miss his performance), he doesn't get nearly as much fictional treatment. What surprised me is that Davis is subtle about him. As opposed to his appearance in her Falco novels, where he is already a villain during the reign of his father, her take on Domitian here is somewhat different; he starts out as a mixture of good and bad, and actually quite competent as an emperor, but the combination of paranoia, resentments from days past and absolute power with no more checks and balances combine to turn him and the Rome he rules more and more into a nightmare. Because these days inevitably I have the cinematic Marvelverse on the brain, it hit me that Davis' Domitian is in many ways Loki without the fannish woobie glasses, if, you know, Loki were to actually succeed/remain successful, aka how his uncontested rulership would turn out. Older brother (Titus) with military success, beloved by many, much closer to their father, father preferring same, while self is looked at as a sly schemer by social circle? Check. Traumatic event changing world view? (Domitian nearly gets roasted while his uncle is torn apart by the mob during the year of the four emperors.) Check. Short taste of rulership until Dad and Older Brother take it away again? (After Vespasian, still campaigning with Titus in Judea, is voted Emperor, 18 years old Domitian got to represent him in Rome until Vespasian was back in Italy.) And the narrative as well as Gaius Vinius isn't without sympathy for Domitian on that score, but it at no point excuses him for what he does therafter, and when Lucilla, who is an immensely adaptable survivor, finally says "whatever it takes, he has to be stopped", you're more than with her. If I have one complaint, it's that Davis' auctorial voice, which is that of an Olympian, all-knowing narrator who occasionally points out that, for example, governor Trajan is going to end up as an emperor himself, is a bit of an odd choice, not least because such interjections are few and far; had she chosen to stick to the usual third person personal narrative, with no very occasional comments, it would have been just as effective. All in all: a good novel, and so far her best non-Falco one. **** Speaking of avatars, history, fictionalisations of same and Marvelverse cross connections, Shakespeare's histories have been filmed yet again, and here's Tom Hiddleston as Hal and Jeremy Irons as Henry IV from Henry IV, Part I. Colour me amused that the clip they choose is Hal getting chewed out by his father, not, say, any of the many other scenes where Hal is being in control and having a go at Falstaff. Maybe I'm paranoid (though as Domitian would say, it's not paranoia if they're really after you), but imo the choice reflects the popularity of Hiddleston's most successful role. Anyway, here they are: Incidentally, ![[profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) angevin2 will appreciate that the way with which Irons!Henry IV rants about the late cousin Richard's behaviour allows for all sorts of subtext. **** Lastly, some links: The Skins: a great multifandom vid about the various doppelgangers, clones and other selves haunting sci fi and fantasy. Creepy fun. Avengers: To shawarma or not to shawarma : Natasha’s still getting used to rubbing shoulders with living legends. One of the terrific results of The Avengers fandom post-movie release is that the film makes any combination of characters interacting interesting, and the resulting fanfic actually reflects that. Here, we get the combination of Natasha and Steve Rogers, with the rest of the ensemble making strong appearances as well. This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/782172.html. Comment there or here, as you wish. Current Mood:  satisfied |
nwhyte
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8:52a |
2012 Hugos: Best Professional Artist
This is another category that I don't think I have ever voted in before, but the Hugo Voters Package has enabled me to educate myself. I found this very difficult to choose; while I didn't much care for any of the Don Dos Santos pieces, each of the others had submitted at least one work that I found breathtaking, and I rearranged the order of my top four several times. In the end, my ranking is as follows: | 5) Don Dos Santos. Four sexy people looking more or less combative. My favourite was the slightly improbably dressed heroine of J.A. Pitts' Forged in Fire. I found the zombie girl with a cigarette a bit disturbing and the other two a bit derivative. Nothing very surprising in any of them. |  |
 | 4) Next up is Bob Eggleton, who has won eight times before, presumably because he tends to deliver what the punters want; this is from the Analog cover illustration for Brad Torgersen's story "Ray Of Light", and whatever the other faults of the story and editorial process, the front cover did it proud. The cover for Heinlein's Starman Jones is also excellent, though I was less convinced by the monsters and dinosaurs of the other two entries. |
| 3) John Picacio. Three interesting pictures of people, two of them illustrations of two of the Stark kids for the GRRM Song of Ice and Fire calendar, and also this excellent cosmic front cover for a Poul Anderson collection, Admiralty. (I did not much like the other piece, a cluttered cover for Ian McDonald's Planespinner.) |  |
 | 2) Michael Komarck's pieces are all about people either readying themselves for combat or actually fighting. But they are beautifully done of that sub-genre, with lavish attention paid to the protagonists and both foreground and background detail. I've chosen the cover from the new edition of Wild Cards II: Aces High, which has the only woman and the only urban setting of the submitted works, but the other three are all good action pieces with misty backgrounds and swirling debris. |
| 1) Stefan Martinere. There's a good bit of sensawunda and fantastic detail in all four of Martiniere's peices; this is his cover for the Nelson / Rutti comic Rage, where an inverted alien and a young woman seem to accept each other's presence in a sparsely realised structure. Two of the other pieces feature vast futuristic machines; the last shows the hero of Diane Duane's Omnitopia series contemplating his lot. I'd be tempted to buy all of them based on the cover art, which I guess is the key test. (Martiniere has won once before, in 2008.) |  |
So, once again I have been educated by the Hugo Voter Package and will vote in a category I would previously have left blank.. See also: Best Novel | Best Novelette | Best Short Story | Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) | Best Fan Artist |
james_nicoll
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12:25a |
Time Team
A: I had no idea it was nearly 20 years old. B: I completely missed the fuss in February. C: I also missed the fatality in 2007. Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are  comment(s); comment here or there. |
| Saturday, May 26th, 2012 |
james_nicoll
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6:41p |
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bexxa
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4:27p |
Saturday Happy Thing
The Avengers! Knowing to stay until the very end of the credits, for not one, but TWO bonus scenes! |
james_nicoll
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3:35p |
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cofax7
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12:10p |
some final thoughts on the Lymond Chronicles
I finally finished listening to the audiobooks of the Lymond Chronicles last weekend: it took me since February. Slower than reading them, but I do think I got more out of them that way, although on the down side I couldn't reference the maps or the character lists. I have random thoughts on the series, given that this is the first time I've actually read them in about fifteen years (or at least ten). This is rather teal-deery: don't say I didn't warn you! ( some thoughts, critical & otherwise )( thoughts on Lymond fanfiction )( The perpetual casting game )... well, that was long! I hope anyone with the fortitude to soldier through all that enjoyed it. Crossposted from DW, where there are  comments; comment here or there. |
james_nicoll
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3:28p |
A reminder
June 18 is the 200th anniversary of beginning of the War of 1812. Not really sure what the official memorials will be up here: are there little papier-mâché White Houses one can purchase to burn? Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are  comment(s); comment here or there. |
james_nicoll
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12:48p |
Contest at the Comics Curmudgeon!
Seen at the Comics Curmudgeon
I love Rex and June’s facial expressions SO MUCH that that I’ve decided to revive an ancient (yes, five years ago is “ancient,” on the Internet) Comics Curmudgeon tradition: a comics panel lookalike contest! You might recall the finger-quotin’ Margo and self-clubbing Tyler lookalike contests; now it’s time for a Hilariously Overwrought Rex and June Facial Expression Lookalike contest! Here, here’s a close-up of the panel:
 Take a photo of you and a friend imitating Rex and June here (no need to include Iris and Mabel, but feel free if you think its important for your take on the tableau) and send éem to me at bio@jfruh.com. The top entry will be arbitrarily chosen by me and whatever friends or family members I rope into helping me pick, and wins … eternal glory? Sure, let’s say that. Eternal glory PLUS your choice of one item from the Comics Curmudgeon merch store, which yes, still exists, even though I haven’t updated it in a long time. Go forth and look like that panel, everybody! Points for style, execution, amusing variations, etc.! I am not legally responsible if you sprain your face trying to match Rex and June’s expressions.
Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are  comment(s); comment here or there. |
sartorias
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9:30a |
Two things
First, you people who recommended The Exotic Marigold Hotel film, two thumbs up! I went last night with some of my Jane Austen discussion group. We all loved it. Tonight: Avengers with the family. A juicy discussion of fanfiction and literature by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) alecaustin here. |
selenak
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5:51p |
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james_nicoll
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9:13a |
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selenak
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10:59a |
Pompeji
Loading up all my Naples pictures before June will max out the monthly bandwidth, but I thought I might try just the Pompeji ones, and lo and behold, I'm still within the limit. So, on the continuation of the ancient world theme ( Volcano Day ) This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/781706.html. Comment there or here, as you wish. Current Mood:  impressed |
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