Dear Santa, thank you for the dolls and pencils and the fish. It's Easter now, so I hope I didn't wake you but... honest, it is an emergency. There's a crack in my wall. Aunt Sharon says it's just an ordinary crack, but I know its not cause at night there's voices so... please please can you send someone to fix it? Or a policeman, or...
Back in a moment.
Thank you Santa.
Back in a moment.
Thank you Santa.
Saturday, July 22
Ninefox Gambit
So, what we have here is a space opera kind of thing set in a universe where dialectical materialism is true. That is, the laws of physics are (to some extent) what you can convince other people to believe them to be.
So, what we have here is a space opera kind of thing set in a universe where dialectical materialism is true. That is, the laws of physics are (to some extent) what you can convince other people to believe them to be.
As a science-fictional premise this is fine, and the author follows through on his premise pretty robustly. Most of the characters are idiots, and the society they live in is awful. But this is because being a charismatic sociopath is the only reliable path to power, so all the leaders - all of them - are of that nature. They treat their soldiers and citizens as pawns, or less than pawns, because that actually works.
Our heroine, Kel Cheris, is an up-and-coming infantry captain with a flair for mathematics unusual in the army. She is co-opted into a plot by some of the central political figures in the Hexarchate to do... Something. I've finished the first book, and it's still not entirely clear who is trying to do what to whom.
On now to book two, Raven Stratagem.
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Wednesday, April 12
Story Notes
My name is Zoe Fairchild, though everyone calls me Minx. I live in Tarrytown, on the border of the fairy lands and the human world. I'm the city's top female private investigator, which means most months I can make the rent, or eat, my choice.
My name is Zoe Fairchild, though everyone calls me Minx. I live in Tarrytown, on the border of the fairy lands and the human world. I'm the city's top female private investigator, which means most months I can make the rent, or eat, my choice.
My parents abandoned me here to look after myself when I was twelve. They had their reasons, and I've mostly stopped hating them for it. Before they walked out, each one left me with a gift.
My mother, the practical one, gave me an ebony-handled Colt 45 Special, saying only that a girl needed to know at least three ways to knock a man dead.
My other mother gave me the Nine Words of Unbinding.
That's where all the trouble began.
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Sunday, March 26
The No Good Place
Imagine that Douglas Adams had written a TV show set in Heaven, starring an acerbic Peter Capaldi as Archangel Gabriel and Eve Myles as a lying cheating alcoholic who got routed to the wrong afterlife. And that Adams used this premise to produce a biting satire of the hypocrisies of modern liberal society while at the same time keeping it whip-crack funny.
Imagine that Douglas Adams had written a TV show set in Heaven, starring an acerbic Peter Capaldi as Archangel Gabriel and Eve Myles as a lying cheating alcoholic who got routed to the wrong afterlife. And that Adams used this premise to produce a biting satire of the hypocrisies of modern liberal society while at the same time keeping it whip-crack funny.
Now imagine that one of the US networks had decided to remake this little gem, only tweaked just a little so as not to ruffle American sensibilities, with a hapless Ted Danson in the Capaldi role (with all the interesting characteristics filed off) and a watery Kristen Bell playing the misplaced soul. And that there was absolutely no chemistry between any of the cast members, and that the script was even more relentlessly formulaic than usual. And that the resulting mess was just painfully unfunny.
That would be NBC's The Good Place.
Avoid.
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Friday, October 28
Class
Doctor Who won't be back until Christmas, but in the meantime we have the third spinoff of New Who, Class.
Doctor Who won't be back until Christmas, but in the meantime we have the third spinoff of New Who, Class.
It's set at Coal Hill School - now Coal Hill Academy - and features a group of plucky teenagers and their maths teacher (who isn't quite what she seems) facing down alien threats coming through the Hellmouth time rift caused by fifty years of previous alien threats.
So, very Sarah Jane Adventures? In fact, no; it's more Torchwood than anything else. But since this is about and targeted at teenagers, and is a British TV series, they've turned down the sex and turned up the violence to compensate.
And I'm not sure I like it. The obvious comparison is to Buffy, but the dialog in Buffy sparkled in a way that is so far missing from Class. It's not awful, and I'm not the target audience, but on the other hand I don't feel that it expands the scope of the shared fictional universe the way Torchwood managed (particularly in its first two seasons).
I don't honestly see the point of it.
I give it two blood splatters out of four, subject to later review.
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Wednesday, July 20
Not All Monsters
Art by Tallychyck.
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Tuesday, April 05
Wonders Never Cease
Turns out that there's a recent film adaptation of Heinlein's All You Zombies that reportedly doesn't suck.
Turns out that there's a recent film adaptation of Heinlein's All You Zombies that reportedly doesn't suck.
All You Zombies was short, but very dense; there should be enough there to make a full-length film without cutting or padding.
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Saturday, January 16
Star Wars: The Force Awakens Pre-Review
Good film. Beautiful. Loud.
Good film. Beautiful. Loud.
Whether it's a great film depends on what comes after. Time will tell. For now, if you like Star Wars at all, this is worth seeing.
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Friday, January 15
Arrietty Pre-Review
Ah, that's more like it.
Ah, that's more like it.
Perhaps not Ghibli's best film, but Ghibli's best films are transcendent, and this actually doesn't fall that far short.
So it's slow moving, and the only real tension is surface tension (which they got right!), but it is beautifully animated and lyrically directed and utterly charming.
Recommended.
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300 Pre-Pre-Review
Thermopylae as myth? I can handle that.
Thermopylae as myth? I can handle that.
(20 minutes in.) No I can't. I'm going to watch Arrietty instead.
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05:42 PM
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Wednesday, January 13
Frozen Pre-Review
Disappointingly by-the-numbers Disney flick.
Disappointingly by-the-numbers Disney flick.
Two things no-one seems to notice.
One: The entire mess is the trolls' fault. Don't take advice from rocks.
Two: Elsa is basically Doctor Manhattan in heels.
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