cahn

Pluribus is the new show Vince Gilligan created, and whose first two episodes premiered on Apple TV, with Rhea Seahorn as the main character. After her stunning performance as Kim Wexler in Better Call Saul, it seems Gilligan felt inspired, and no wonder. I still think her not winning any awards of what she did with Kim is one of the great injustices of tv world. Anyway: While the show is set in Albuquerque like Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, it belongs to a quite different genre and in a way has Gilligan go back to his X-Files roots. With the stunning cinematography of BB/BCS, and some (based on those first two eps) great twists on the whole invasion/hive mind/zombie tropes and genre. Also, Gilligan's and his fellow artists ability to quickly create three dimensional feeling side characters with just a few minutes of screen time shines, and the way he can connect visceral emotion and horror on the one hand and black humour otoh.

( Spoilers are wondering just what saving humanity really means )

I'm really looking forward to seeing more of how the show continues to deal with those questions. Well done, Gilligan, I'm hooked!

****

In other news, having recently made a trip to Vienna, I posted a gigantic historically themed pic spam here!

Current Mood: bouncy
Current Location: Munich

primeideal

"Last in a Series" bingo was going to be a tricky one, because what series are there that I haven't read all of/can complete while doing twenty-four other unrelated authors? (Thursday Next almost worked, but "Dark Reading Matter" is now delayed to 2026.) So when I saw a "fantasy mountain climbing" duology among Yuletide fandom recs, it was like, sure, I'll try a duology, we don't need to do hard mode here. "All the Wandering Light" follows directly on from "Even the Darkest Stars," and I wouldn't say the plot/characterization work well as a standalone, so this will really be a (spoilery) dual review.

Kamzin and her sister Lusha live in the village of Azmiri; their mother was a famous mountain climber, and so they know the path to the unclimbed Mount Raksha, the tallest mountain in the world. The renowned Royal Explorer, River Shara, wants to climb it, and Kamzin is desperate to accompany him and have an adventure. In the sequel, Kamzin and Lusha discover a falling star, which holds magical power which might be the key to saving the empire from fearsome witches, so they have to track that down in another mountain range and then deliver it to the emperor.

The "fantasy Himalayas" stuff is more prominent in the first book than the second. Raksha is "only" about twenty thousand feet tall, which is more like the Alps than the Himalayas--no need for fantasy!bottled oxygen, etc. There are some artifacts known as kinnika that are magical bells (I think more like jingle bells and cowbells than musical bells), which was neat. In general, I was more interested in the mountain climbing than the "weird evil creatures" stuff.

I can recommend this if you like cute animal sidekicks. The dragons are kitten-scale, and provide bioluminescence in lieu of lanterns. Kamzin has a fox familiar, and Lusha has several raven friends.

Neat fantasy!Tibetan worldbuilding from book 1:

It was a finely carved wooden chest painted in bright reds and blues, lined with niches for ceramic statues representing generations of ancestors. Most of the little doors were closed, but one was ajar, revealing an empty shelf.

I knelt before the shrine and opened the first door, my fingers brushing against the patterns of overlapping knots carved into the wood. The statue behind it was old—so old that the clay was discolored and crumbling. The statues were not made to be recognizable, however; they were always rough, only vaguely human in shape, and meant to decay over time. I traced the character carved into the base—my great-great-grandmother’s name. I carefully returned the statue to its niche and examined the other shelves.

And realistic consequences of magic from book 2:

I shivered at the reminder of Emperor Lozong’s unnatural life span. It was said that he had ruled for over two centuries, kept alive by some strange shamanic spell. Most outside the Three Cities believed it a tale invented by the first Lozong’s descendants to intimidate his enemies.

The bad news is that a lot of this is what I call "YA as pejorative." First person ambitious teenage girl narration--none of this is a bad thing in and of itself, but in combination with embarrassing misunderstandings, making dumb decisions when drunk, love triangles, just happening to get help from allies who make unnecessary prophecies...it can be kind of painful. (Book 2 was better than 1 in this regard, there was another case of "oops, uncomfortable misunderstanding" but that one felt more like an "okay, well-played.) Kamzin's best friend accompanies her to the high altitudes despite having fantasy asthma and it's like...why are you doing this. Everyone is teenagers and thinking with their hormones, I get it. If we cut out all the "gosh, I don't know if I can trust this person, given everything that's happened, but I really want to!" it would be a lot shorter.

There are several things in book 1 that I think could have been introduced earlier. Like, we mention something, and then a chapter later we mention it again, and it's like...you could have just given that detail the first time. (Aimo and Dargye are siblings; seers like Yonden (and eventually Lusha) can't really have romantic relationships; Tem and Kamzin briefly dated, but it didn't work out; there's a witch empress who is very scary.)

River comes from a family of four brothers. The boys are Sky, River, Thorn, and...Esha. What's going on here. This is like the "Esha's mom has four sons" puzzle.

Spoilery things:

( Read more... )

Bingo: I plan to use "Wandering Light" for Last In A Series. "Darkest Stars" would count for Generic Title. Both of them are A Book In Parts. I think you could make the case that the "sky city" showing up towards the end of "Wandering Light" counts as Impossible Places.

selenak posting in

rheinsberg

Prologue: "How does a bastard..." Sorry, but the Hamilton influence is strong in this one. In the sense of homage to, not rip off, I hasten to add, but they do have a similar structure: the opening prologue consists of ensemble members talking about the heroine retrospectively and sum up her life achievements, culminating into her main antagonist who is sarcastic and hostile though also admiring. Then the first acts presents us with our young heroine in an underdog position, being told what she (since she's a woman) can't do and being chronically underestimated by near all, safe a few. She meets her true love and her main rival, there is a war in which the odds are against her and her country (though she doesn't sing "outgunned" a la Washington in Hamilton), but after early setbacks our heroine manages to rally everyone and there is a triumphant turnaround. Act 2 presents us with our mature heroine, no longer the underdog in the game but a major power player who still strives for important things, but politics are a dirty game, and her personal obsessions come at an increasing cost for her nearest and dearest. There is a major shock and fallout with her love interest. Then a tragic turn happens, and they reconcile. There is a final confrontation with her main antagonist which points to mutual destruction, ending surprisingly. Then the epilogue, talking to the audience, gives us a "where are they now" for the characters and again sums up our main characters long term legacy. Also, the subject is 18th century but the musical style is decidedly modern, including rap and hip hop. And much like Burr is a firm fan favourite in Hamilton, I wouldn't be surprised if Fritz doesn't emerge as one in Maria Theresia.

The music (by Dieter Falk & Paul Falk, lyrics by Jonathan Zelter, overall libretto Thomas Kahry) is, like in Friedrich: Mythos und Tragödie, workman-level like, i.e. servicable, but not great (unlike Hamilton). The libretto unsurprisingly, given it has to condense the story to two and a half hours, juggles with dates (for example, Fritz is already King and not Crown Prince when introduced at a point of the story that is before the MT/FS marriage), and ruthlessly cuts down characters (MT's kids are all named and show up in a big ensemble number called Working Mum but Joseph and Maria Christina are the only ones with characterisation and dialogue; MT's younger sister, FS' brother and any sibling nof Fritz do not exist, and MT has only one chancellor, whom she inherits from Dad (Bartenstein standing in for all of MT's ministers including Kaunitz). I was pleasantly surprised that MT's beloved governess Countess Fuchs (aka the only non-Habsburg buried in the Kapuzinergruft), by contrast, did make the cut, and was an important character, as was her relationship with MT, and that her mother who at first came across as comic relief turned out to be more interesting and changing in how she relates to her daughter. On the other hand, while Fredersdorf does make his musical debut here, it alas is not an inspiring one, more about this beneath the spoiler cut. The MT-Fritz relationship is absolutely central throughout and the musical manages to incorporate him and keep him on stage in some clever ways given he and MT meet only twice in person (never in history, but never mind that) - sometimes he is a commenter (much like Burr in Hamilton), sometimes there are letters, and sometimes they are in each other's thoughts (i.e. instead of a monologue revealing what the character is thinking, we get a sung dialogue with their arch nemesis who challenges them). Now, on to the spoilers.

( We are all M.T. )

In conclusion: an enjoyable entry into the annals of historically themed musicals.

philomytha

Even more of Manning Coles's Tommy Hambledon books, this is proving a wonderfully entertaining series and I am having a blast with it all - the books are pretty light-hearted, with lots of humour but also plenty of adventure and twists and turns of the plot, and the characters are all vivid and delightful.

The Green Flash
Tommy Hambledon goes undercover in Switzerland trying to find out more about a mysterious Swiss chemist who may have invented a new and exciting form of explosive. Unfortunately, the Nazis also want this Swiss chemist and his explosive, and also the Swiss chemist is not at all who he seems, and within a very few pages Hambledon has been abducted by the Gestapo who believe him to be the Swiss chemist, and is set up with a laboratory in Berlin and ordered to make novel explosives. Excellent undercover hijinks, with Hambledon deciding his best defence against knowing zero chemistry is to be the most bad-tempered, arrogant and annoying scientist ever, while trying to avoid anyone who knew him the last time he was undercover in Berlin in a totally different identity only a few years earlier. Another tremendous undercover adventure with all the frills you can hope for and Hambledon coming up with a superb way to finally extricate himself from the situation. I had a great time with this one.

The Fifth Man
Five British soldiers are taken from POW camps in Germany and persuaded to return to England as spies for the Nazis. Four of them surrender to the British police or are killed as soon as they arrive. The fifth does something very different. I am really liking how Manning & Coles are introducing new sets of characters for their books as well as having continuity with the recurring characters, and the lead character of this book, Anthony Colemore, is fantastic. Colemore was a petty criminal and smuggler who broke out of prison in England, fled to the Continent, decided he wanted to fight Nazis so wound up in the French army just in time for the fall of France, quickly changed identities and uniforms with a dead British officer to get better treatment and promptly ended up in a POW camp where the Germans identified his newly assumed identity as a close relation of a British Fascist and invited him to spy for them. And it only gets more complicated from there, Manning & Coles love playing with false identities for all their characters and wringing every possible trope they can out of them, and it's great. Hambledon is largely in the background for this, running Colemore as an agent but not doing much in the plot, but Colemore is more than strong enough as a character to carry the story, he is the sort of character who should get recruited by Miles Naismith for the Dendarii Mercenaries, he loves taking initiative and showing off how good he is and is endlessly resourceful at making his schemes work. I also shipped him tremendously with another fascinating character, the ingenuous young German officer he escapes with from a British POW camp, who is also not all he seems.

A Brother For Hugh (also titled With Intent to Deceive; also online lists vary about the order the series should go in, but this one is definitely next)
The first post-war adventure, again with new characters. James Hyde has had a very boring life working for his father's business and never going anywhere. But when his father dies, James sells the business and discovers he's a rich man, and starts to think he wants adventure. Meanwhile, Hugh Selkirk looks extremely like James, but while James has barely left Yeovil in his life, Selkirk is dashing and well-travelled British-Argentine businessman with a serious problem: a gang of mafia-style crooks stole some Nazi gold stashed in Argentina, Selkirk stole it from them, and both the gang and the remaining Nazis are hunting him. Selkirk and James meet, James tells Selkirk he wants adventure, and since they resemble each other, Selkirk suggests they have a mini-adventure by swapping identities for a few days. He doesn't mention to James that he's being hunted by both the mafia and also the Nazis. James Hyde settles down in Selkirk's hotel with Selkirk's devastatingly competent manservant Adam looking after him (they are very shippable, and Adam is Not What He Seems) and it's all going well until someone shoots Selkirk and a crook tries to break in through James's hotel window. Another one where Hambledon's role in the plot is largely confined to following around collecting up the assorted gangsters that are being left giftwrapped around the place. Also there's an adorable heavily-implied-to-be-gay couple in this who run a model railway shop together and have a fantastic time aiding and abetting Selkirk and his friends and thwarting the police.

Let The Tiger Die
I have no idea what relationship the title has to the book, but it's a great title. After all the new characters, we're back to Hambledon taking the lead when his Swedish holiday is interrupted by his own urge to run around investigating things that look a little weird. Being Tommy Hambledon, within a chapter he's wanted for murder and been abducted twice in rapid succession and in possession of some mysterious documents, and he doesn't know why. It turns out some communists are trailing around Europe assassinating stray wanted Nazis, and because Hambledon stepped in when he saw an assassination taking place in the street, now the stray wanted Nazis think he's one of them, and the communists want to assassinate him too. This involves a ridiculous and fantastic chase across Europe from Stockholm to Cadiz. Even better, Hambledon decides to call in James Hyde and the gay model railway couple from the previous book to help him with his scheme to avoid the assassins while unravelling the entire fugitive Nazi organisation and its plan to restore the Third Reich all in one go. Tremendous fun and even more identity porn as Hambledon pretends to be himself, the guy just adores his fake identities and they're always fun to watch.

selenak posting in

rheinsberg

Vienna was unseen by our antihero, but home to his arch nemesis, and to this day very much imprinted by her and her family. Have the pictorial result of three days following their footsteps:

( Hofburg: Buildings, Books and Instruments )

While we're talking the generation of MT's Dad, the big hero of the era was Eugene of Savoy, famous general , thorn in Louis XIV's side and "wise advisor to three Emperors" as the plaque beneath his statue calls him, whose main residence, the Belvedere, was later sold by his niece and heir to MT. The Belvedere is separated in the Lower and Upper Belvedere. Both look gorgeous, but courtesy of a fire the Upper Belvedere inside is mostly modern and used as an art museum, though each room shows a print of how it looked in Eugene's day and to which purpose he used it. Some, a very few, survive in their original setting or could be restored. The Upper Belvedere is also where the Second Austrian Republic was declared after WW2.

( Belvedere )

Many a dead Habsburg ended up in the famous Capuchin Crypt, the Kapuzinergruft (or most of their bodies anyway; the Habsburgs famously had their hearts and inwards buried in different churches from the rest of the bodies). We're talking 400 years of dead Habsburgs, with the latest entries being Otto of Habsburg (Member of the European Parliament), I believe, and starting in 1618 with the Empress Anna.

( Capuchin Crypt: Dead Habsburgs and great tombs )

The most famous church in Vienna, the Stefansdom (St. Stephen's Cathedral) was where Joseph and Isabella got married, and usually when they show you a picture of the Stephansdom in the 18th century from inside, it's the depiction of that wedding. This it how the church looks today:

( Stefansdom and views from same )

Before going to the Vienna outskirts (today - back then it was really separate from the city) for Schönbrunn, a trip to the Maria Theresia Square, where she's depicted with her most important generals (like Traun) and advisors (like Kaunitz), but also Dr. Van Swieten, he who promoted anti smallpox inocculation.

( MT and family as statues )

Now, onto Schönbrunn. Which like Versailles started out as hunting lodge. It was given to MT as a summer residence by her father and she then turned into her favourite residence and into a major palace.

( Schönbrunn Splendour )

selenak

Busy, busy days. Some media consumed in the last weeks were:

The Diplomat, Season 3: I was afraid the same would happen as with The West Wing - which series creator Deborah Cahn had also been involved in - , i.e. the reality I live in would make it impossible for me to watch a show in which the people working for the US administration might be fucked up in varying degrees, but all sincerely dedicated to the common good in terms of their motivation, and by implication the US public would not vote a creature like the Orange Menace into office (twice). (Hence my personal impossibility of a WW rewatch right now.) This turned out not to be the case. By and large, I enjoyed the season, though its global dangers not withstanding, I would still rather live in that reality (where the US President might ( do spoilery things ), but would not want to change the US into a mixture of ultimate corruption and theocratic autocracy, and the British PM is still a Boris Johnson expo with the thinnest of egos, but at least Nigel Farage doesn't exist. (BTW: it's not clear where The Diplomat's timeline departs from ours; resident Rayburn was clearly a Joe Biden avatar when the show started and there is some occasional talk about restoring the US image abroad, but they never say from what, and whether the Orange Menace's first assault on democracy happened or whether something else did.) Seaosn 3 deals with the fallout from season 2's cliffhanger ending, throws in some new twists (and characters), andwhile wrapping up its seasonal storyline again throws in a tag scene with a big new reveal/hook, while playing to its two strengths, i.e. bringing its central character into a series of convoluted political situations in which she has to extricate not just herself but others (including the US and GB), and her screwed up but intense relationship with her husband. ( More spoilery observations to follow. ) In conclusion, I continue to like this entertaining AU. I hope it gets another season, though if it doesn't, this finale despite its last moment reveal would also work as a finale.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps : Which I missed in the cinema but which is now on Disney +. Personal state of knowledge: I saw none of the earlier Fantastic Four movies, to which this one isn't connected anyway; the comicverse characters I encountered a) in an historical AU version via the comics 1602, and b) in the comicverse Civil War storylilne, which means I hardly saw them at their best. (Unforgotten: Reed Richards fanboying Joe McCarthy.) I'm happy to report these latest MCU versions are a delightful bunch, living in a canonical alternate universe (818) in the 1960s, and keeping in trend with both MCU Spiderman and the latest DCU Superman, we're not going through the origin story again but the movie introduces us to the character(s) when they're already superheroiing, albeit not that long. The cast includes Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm, Pedro Pasqual as Reed Richards, and Joe Quinn, since Stranger Things a Geek celebrity, as Sue's brother Johnny, with the unknown-to-me Ebon Moss-Bachrach playing Ben Grimm. Something that struck me as very sympathetic is that the movie treats the four as a true ensemble, i.e. Johnny and Ben aren't the sidekicks, and that the central dilemna when it's revealed ( and which is spoilery )

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: Munich

schneefink

I found out I have iron-deficiency anemia (again.) Looking at the list of possible symptoms explains a lot about my last few weeks: I thought it was stress at first and then started to get concerned after the exam. Mostly it's reassuring because it's treatable with simple iron tablets, but a little frustrating too because it'll take a while and I would like to be cured immediately, thank you, I'm getting really sick of being so tired and struggling to focus.
And I'm feeling a bit extra whiny today because I got vaccinated and my arm hurts.

The MCSR Midoffs s2 have started and are live right now: the first match was already absolute cinema, so many plot twists in one match. I watched the first two and I definitely want to watch Cub play later, but I took a break to play more Silksong (and other stuff.) I'm practicing the final boss rn a few attempts at a time, very cool fight.

Tomorrow season 11 of Hermitcraft starts! I'm excited. Can't wait to find out what new gimmick they've come up with, who bases with who (fingers crossed for a few neighbors I'm hoping for - mostly Buttercups tbh), all their plans...
(come to think of it, didn't Joe want to post more s10 videos at some point? ^^)
Side effect, this is not going to help my "too many things and never enough time" problem at all.

I finally managed to read a book that's been on my to-read list for a long time: Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.
( Thoughts with spoilers )
Another book in the category of "if I hadn't had high expectations because I saw so many recs I wouldn't have felt disappointed." I still enjoyed it overall.

pumpkinkingmod posting in

trickortreatex

Creators are now revealed, and you can continue enjoying the collection here.

The final tally on the treat sheet was 79 out of the starting 225 -- that puts us just shy of reaching tier 2 (75 remaining). That's still a very good percentage, so cheers to the valiant treaters!

Thank you everyone for another wonderful Trick or Treat!

ashkitty

Today is my parents' 54th wedding anniversary. Given how the last month went, I'm glad and relieved they're both here for it. My dad and I arranged to have flowers delivered to my mom in hospital, and we went up to see her. She's looking better! (And was out of bed and dressed, which isn't a small thing at this point.) One of the nurses had braided her hair. They're both so cute.

Horrendous traffic on the way back - Apple Maps suggested the ferry might be faster, and it probably would have been had we been able to get to it before departure. We thought we might need a treat afterward so went for drinks at a local place they used to visit a lot, pre-pandemic, for a snack and a drink. I'm glad my dad is up to going and doing stuff, because he was shutting down pretty hard for a bit.

I'm headed back to Wales next week, and really hoping it's safe to leave them alone to get better for a while.

psocoptera

When We Were Real, Daryl Gregory, 2025 sf novel. Comedy-drama about an alternate world otherwise like our own that has been informed, several years prior to the start of the novel, that they are a simulation; the novel tells the story of a group of people taking a bus tour of physics-denying Impossibles that show ways that the simulation has been or can be manipulated. Gregory takes a goofier tone than someone like Greg Egan might (although there is also very much some big violence in the climax) - this is closer to John Scalzi, although not so page-turny. Gregory's character work felt a little pre-fab - there's a computational neuroscientist/programmer who is "trying to cure Alzheimer's, autism, schizophrenia" in the way that movie scientists are all-purpose science things experts, a Marvel comics writer aging dudebro (on the one hand, it's weird for me to read things like "the craft of writing comics... bored the shit out of most wives and girlfriends" when for me the world of comics mostly *is* "wives and girlfriends" (some with wives or girlfriends themselves) and on the other hand I'm sure I would also be bored if I had to listen to this dude talk), an indecisive rabbi, teens who are dumb and annoying and dangerous. But there's a neat little thought experiment about the chance to take a break in a pocket universe, and while I might wish he had thought a little more deeply or clearly about subjectivity and narrative and entertainment, it was enough of a conclusion/punchline for the weight of the book.

Harmattan Season, Tochi Onyebuchi, 2025 noir-fantasy novel. I didn't give this the fairest possible shake as I kind of lost track of its due date and ended up skimming heavily past a certain point, but I had been struggling with it before then. Sometimes I enjoy it when authors don't explain and define and just expect you to pick it up and figure it out, or, you know, are writing for an audience who is not you and you get to enter into their context-of-assumptions for a bit, but, man, I don't know, where are we, when are we, what should I be picturing this place is like, what do all these words mean, what's going on, what am I hoping for or anticipating here, how should I be feeling about this, I need *something*. Was that whole bit where the street kid was describing a possible heist a satire or spoof or were we supposed to take that seriously. Possibly if someone made a movie of it and had to visually specify the place and time and give us music and lighting mood clues I would be like oh this is an amazing story actually? (And I feel like it would make a really good movie? Sending this wish out into the world...)

littlefics posting in

seasonsofdrabbles

As we are still seeking pinch hitters, the collection will be delayed: we will now aim to open the collection on Saturday, November 15 @ 1:00pm Eastern Standard time (Countdown).

That means the pinch hits are now due Friday, November 14, noon Eastern time (Countdown), about a day before the collection is scheduled to open, though we can be flexible if needed. The minimum is 100 words.

If you would like to claim a pinch hit, please comment to this post with the name/number of the pinch hit you would like. Make sure to include your AO3 username! Comments are screened.

( PH 8 - Psychonauts (Video Games), Umineko no Naku Koro ni | When the Seagulls Cry, No Straight Roads (Video Game), Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types )

( CLAIMED - PH 10 - The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension (1984), Crossing Jordan (TV 2001), NCIS: Los Angeles )

( PH 20 - Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Limbus Company (Video Game), 機動戦士ガンダムサンダーボルト | Gundam Thunderbolt )

thistleingrey

That is, a friend observed that it's mostly white men. To me it looks remarkably like a subset of my prep list for the GRE subject exam in English lit, mid 1990s, with a lot of the good stuff left out (and a few bestsellers tossed in haphazardly); the GRE did better than this meme. I couldn't stand Thomas Hardy.

I've left a copy of the original instructions, and I've changed #1 and #3 to suit myself. #2 is stet--there's four, I think. For my convenience (less fuss for fingers/hands), the numbers have been swept up as well.

. . .

Original instructions:

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.

What I've marked:

1) Bold what you've read independently.
2) Italicize what you intend to read.
3) Underline what was imposed on you by canon or peer pressure.

( Read more... )

glitteryv posting in

recthething

Every Thursday, we have a community post, just like this one, where you can drop a rec or five in the comments.

This works great if you only have one rec and don't want to make a whole post for it, or if you don't have a DW account, or if you're shy. ;)

(But don't forget: you can deffo make posts of your own seven days a week. ;D!)

So what cool fics/fancrafts/fanart/fanvids/podfics/other kinds of fanworks have we discovered this week? Drop it in the comments below. Anon comment is enabled.

BTW, AI fanworks are not eligible for reccing at recthething. If you aware that a fanwork is AI-generated, please do not rec it here

littlefics posting in

seasonsofdrabbles

Hi all, we have 3 post-deadline pinch hits still up for grabs! These are all due Friday, November 7, noon Eastern time (Countdown), a day before the collection is scheduled to open, though we can be flexible if needed. The minimum is 100 words.

If you would like to claim a pinch hit, please comment to this post with the name/number of the pinch hit you would like. Make sure to include your AO3 username! Comments are screened.

( PH 8 - Psychonauts (Video Games), Umineko no Naku Koro ni | When the Seagulls Cry, No Straight Roads (Video Game), Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types )

( PH 10 - The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension (1984), Crossing Jordan (TV 2001), NCIS: Los Angeles )

( PH 20 - Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Limbus Company (Video Game), 機動戦士ガンダムサンダーボルト | Gundam Thunderbolt )

isis

What I've recently finished reading:

Europe at Dawn by Dave Hutchinson, and thus finishes the Fractured Europe Sequence. I enjoyed it a lot, though sometimes it made me feel as though I just wasn't smart enough for it; there are a lot of chapters which begin so completely in medias res that you just have to soldier on until you hit the background/flashback that explains what is going on. Although the last book ties up some of the loose ends, they are only loosely tied, so to speak, and it feels very open-ended. (To be fair, there was no overarching action plot here, just generally tying up ends and solving mysteries. Also I didn't realize for far too long that some of the POV chapters were actually in the past relative to present action (or rather, took place at the same time that some of the events in other books took place; time has passed.)

What I've recently finished listening to:

The Strange Case of Starship Iris wrapped up its final season a few weeks ago. I liked it overall, though I definitely preferred the political action/adventure parts more than the personal relationships parts, other than the general bonding of the crew as a unit. I also found it rather on the nose with respect to Current Political Events, but hey, it's not Jessica Best's fault that she wrote an SF podcast about freedom-fighting rebels up against a juggernaut of an iron-fisted government just when, you know. waves hand around helplessly

What I've recently finished playing:

Dragon Age: The Veilguard! I enjoyed playing but I was ready for it to be over. I (female Qunari mage) romanced Harding, but the romance content is -->.<-- (Though admittedly there was some nice emotional content relative to the romance near the end.) On the one hand, the fact that most of the decisions about what to do and say don't seem to have much effect on things made it feel less fraught and scary, like - I often look up spoilers for major decisions because I don't replay games and so I want to make sure I don't end up with some horrible ending. On the other hand, it probably contributed to me feeling less involved with the game on an emotional level.

I didn't like that the choice of race and faction didn't have a whole lot to do with anything. I mean, I had extra Shadow Dragons dialogue, but mostly I didn't know anything extra about Minrathous. And I was Qunari - but an adopted war orphan with zero connection to anything remotely Qun, so I felt really dumb talking to Taash (and especially Shathann) about Qunari customs.

I did really love the graphics, and all the very interesting landscapes, the different cities and landscapes (the Ossuary!!!) and especially the Crossroads. The companion banter is super fun and I sort of wanted to set them all up with each other! I especially loved Taash and Lucanis talking about capes, hee. I did everybody's quests, of course, and got everyone to Hero status, and all my factions to three stars.

I did the Regrets of the Dread Wolf questline and met Mythal, and...I really tried to give good answers, but every time I failed, to the point where I figured there was no way of avoiding the fight. So I ended up having to fight her and hoo boy that was tough. And then! I looked at an "endings" walkthrough and it said I had to have resolved the quest peacefully to get the best ending, so I resigned myself to having screwed up, but haha it turns out they recommended that only because that is such a tough fight, yay, I got the best ending.

(I did not look up spoilers for the rest of the endgame, but fortunately I managed to not get my sweetheart killed.)

Anyway, it was fun, but when I finished I didn't want to jump into another epic right away, so I started playing Monument Valley, which several of you had recommended to me - and that was delightful! It's like, what if M. C. Escher had designed a puzzle game? I finished the first game and am now doing the "appendices". I also have the second game, so that's probably next.

B is playing Horizon Forbidden West, and I can't resist looking over his shoulder every once in a while. The Horizon games are still my favorites! (He's still in early days, not yet to the Embassy, just doing stuff in Chainscrape.)

seekingferret

The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association by Caitlin Rozakis

This book, about the parents at an elite Connecticut private elementary school for magic users, was a blast to read. It had such a sharp sendup of the pressure for parents to make sure their young children are academically successful, and of parents playing pointless low stakes status games against each other.

I also enjoyed a couple of side digs directed at JKR. For all of its issues, the school in this book would make a much better place to send your mage-to-be or werewolf pup than that castle that shall not be named.

And I liked so many of the characters, this is a setting where I would definitely read further books about side characters... the badass werewolf matriarch, the vampire kindergarten teacher, the done with this shit former headmaster, the former warrior mage turned stay at home dad.

A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett

A worthy followup to The Tainted Cup, this offered another satisfying mystery and investigation, and deeper worldbuilding and exploration of the Empire and both its virtues and failings.

Lisa and Lottie Erich Kastner

The original source for the Parent Trap! This was adorable.

The House of Found Objects by Jo Beckett-King

Thirteen year old girls go on a treasure hunt in Paris! Delightfully low stakes puzzle adventure with reasonable, fair puzzles.

The Magician of Tiger Castle by Louis Sachar

Read for Jewish Science Fiction Book Group. Eh...I liked it better than others in the group, I thought it had some good Sachar humor, and the moral enigmas were straightforward but tense. But it wasn't super memorable.

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

A piece of garbage. Do not recommend.

sineala

What I Just Finished Reading

Still nothing.

What I'm Reading Now

Comics Wednesday!

( Alien vs. Captain America #1, Avengers #32, Ultimate X-Men #21 )

What I'm Reading Next

No idea. Feeling like I might actually be able to get my brain to read books, though.

Current Mood: tired

rachelmanija

This book is very hard to describe without spoilers, so I'll just cover the setup. Aspiring actress/current waitress Jess is having a bad night that gets much worse when she finds a scared little boy who's run away from his father. Things get extremely strange from there. This book is a wild ride.

I read it in a single sitting, so it's very propulsive. It's also very dark/bleak, despite some absurdist humor arising from the premise. I enjoyed it a lot while I read it, but it's now months later and it hasn't quite stuck with me the way some other books have. Nestlings is still my favorite of his.

Content notes: Child abuse/harm is central to the story. So is an accidental needle-stick with a possibly contaminated needle.

Spoilers! Also contains some light spoilers for Stephen King's Firestarter.

( Read more... )

zdenka

I have voted!

Current Mood: determined

dolorosa_12

Somewhat belatedly, let me catch up on TV logging. I watched five shows this month (although I'm cheating a bit as I only finished the fifth this evening), which were the usual mishmash of genres and tones. The shows in question were:

Season 3 of Blue Lights, a BBC police procedural miniseries set in Belfast. Although the characters are a familiar mix of well-worn stereotypes (the idealistic rookie, the maternal type who cares too much, the one who's joined the police in spite of a backlash from her community, the world-weary old hand, the maverick), they're written with heart and humanity. The true pleasure in this series, however, lies its sense of place — it's deeply grounded in its Belfast setting, and does a great job of showing the various political and social currents buffetting the city, and the wider region. The real villain, though, is austerity, in a way that I don't think I've seen explored so bluntly on UK TV in contemporary times.

A Thousand Blows, a fabulous historical miniseries by Steven Knight (the creator of Peaky Blinders), set in the East End of London in Victorian times. Here we encounter a variety of deprived, traumatised, down-on-their luck characters, who converge both in a series of boxing matches (initially bare-knuckled affairs in the local pub, later more genteel competitions organised by the aristocracy in the West End), and in a heist plot. The characters are fantastic, the writing is as lurid and melodramatic as a penny dreadful, and in essence it's a great retread of two concepts that Knight explored well in Peaky Blinders: certain people who were made to feel vulnerable and afraid become singlemindedly relentless in pursuing an existence where they will never feel fear or vulnerability again, even if they have to burn down the world and destroy all their meaningful relationships in the process, and communities battered by poverty, exploitation and lack of opportunity who accept a certain degree of violence and exploitation done to them (e.g. by gangs offering their 'protection') as long as it's people they perceive as being from their own community doing the violence. This is familiar ground for Steven Knight, and he explores it to great effect here — and hopefully in subsequent seasons!

Film Club, a sweet little six-part BBC miniseries about two rather lost twentysomethings who started a rather intense film club (no phones during the viewing, full thematic fancy dress, elaborate snacks, etc) during their university years and are desperately trying to keep its magic going some years after their graduation, when the realities of professional adult life have begun to wear them down. One character has had some form of psychological breakdown and moved back into the family home with her mother and sister, and remains trapped there by agoraphobia, and the other character is on the verge of leaving for a new job in a new city, and worrying how it will affect their friendship. It's a sweet-natured love story, with teeth, and in spite of a somewhat cinematic sense of heightened reality, the depiction of quarter life crisis existential angst is grounded in a truth that resonates a bit too much.

The latest season of Only Murders in the Building, which I thought was a massive return to form. This time, our trio of true crime podcast sleuths investigate the death of their apartment complex's doorman, which inevitably uncovers sometime much bigger, managing to skewer local New York politics (prior to today's election), oligarchy, housing pressures, and more. My patience with this series had been wearing thin two seasons ago, and I felt it was fast approaching over-milked cash cow territory, so I'm delighted to have been proved wrong. Your patience for this latest outing will probably hinge on your tolerance for New York (and New Yorker fiction about New York) nonsense, which it continues to lampoon with affection.

Riot Women, Sally Wainwright's latest love letter to the north of England and the strong, complex women who live there — this time, our cast of characters are a multigenerational group of misfits who start an all-woman punk band, with songs about menopause, feeling invisible and underappreciated, and so on. All of them are dealing with struggles at once soap operatic and banal: family tensions, empty-nested loss of sense of purpose, sandwiched pressure between troubled adult children and elderly parents in nursing homes, or showing early signs of dementia. Women's invisible labour is front and centre, but also women's anger, turned inwards and outwards. As always with Wainwright, the characters feel painfully real, and she does an incredible job of capturing the stories of the types of older women working ceaselessly (and often without much acknowledgement) upholding messy, multigenerational family households, doing all the work that no one ever notices, but whose absence would certainly be noticed. It's an absolute masterpiece — with an incredible soundtrack. (And, since this is not always a given with ostensibly feminist British cultural figures, it was fantastic to have unambiguous confirmation that Sally Wainwright's feminism is most definitely trans-inclusive.)

I don't think there was a single dud in this collection of shows!

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Reading

Pluribus

(SFF Bingo): All the Wandering Light, by Heather Fawcett

Maria Theresia - Das Musical (Review)

undercover hijinks galore

18th Century Habsburg Vienna: A Pic Spam

The Diplomat S3 and The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Cells and blocks and amoeba

The masks are off! Creators are revealed!

(no subject)

books

Delay and Remaining Pinch Hits

throwback bookmeme

Community Recs Post!

3 Remaining Pinch Hits

wednesday reads and things

Books

Wednesday Reading Meme

When the Wolf Comes Home, by Nat Cassidy

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October TV shows

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October 2025

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