welcome to camp telophase

Been sort of slow around here lately. Toby ended up with a terrific cold from the party we went to a week ago, so has been croaking around the house. (He also went down to Austin on Saturday to game, before he realized it was a cold and not just allergies, so is now feeling terribly guilty about infecting anyone down there.)

I also recently finished Zen Cho's Spirits Abroad,( Read more... )

Spirits Abroad was good enough that I had the problem of trying to figure out what to read after it, because anything not as good would seem terrible in comparison. I ended up with Sarah Monette's The Bone Key,( Read more... )

I'd also read Mercedes Lackey's most recent, Closer to Home: Book One of Herald Spy.( Read more... )

And last night we finally sat down and watched the first episode of Constantine. Verdict: ( Read more... )

And one last media review. Toby and I went to see John Wick on Friday night. Verdict: ( Read more... )

And that is all the media I have been consuming recently, aside from the usual steady stream of House Hunters International, Face Off, and Project Runway (which, BTW, is getting suckier and suckier by the minute).

The Bedlam Detective: A Novel by Stephen Gallagher.

Victorian mystery: Sebastian Becker is an ex-Pinkerton who moved with his family (wife, sister-in-law, son) back to England after quitting Pinkertonning. He works for the British government investigating claims of lunacy in wealthy landowners who may not be capable of managing their own affairs. During the course of one of his investigations he encounters the murder of two young girls, which fit into a pattern of attacks and disappearances over years in their village. The wealthy landowner in question claims fantastic beasts attacked them, and Becker seeks the truth.

Verdict: okay until (spoiler: rot13) Orpxre'f jvsr trgf sevqtrq sbe ab ernfba bgure guna gb tvir uvz zber znacnva. Znacnva juvpu svaqf n erfbyhgvba gbb dhvpxyl: juvyr vg'f zbaguf va gur punenpgre'f yvsr, vg'f nobhg 20% bs gur obbx va gur ernqre'f grezf, fb vg frrzf nyzbfg vafgnagnarbhf gung ur jbexf vg bhg. Not sure why the author thought it was necessary: Becker's past, in which he witnessed an execution-style killing of an innocent man and didn't say anything because he didn't want to break cover, offered plenty of manpain for the character to angst over. He didn't need more.

I liked the portrayal of his son, who in modern terms would be somewhere on the autism spectrum: unable to function very well when it comes to normal social niceties, but with great powers of focus on the things that catch his interest. So his parents worry that he won't be able to work, and aren't really sure what's going on with him, and love him as best they can.

Down in Austin right now. Toby's playing his RPGs and I'm over at the house of friends amusing myself while he's over there. I came down with him this time as we spent Friday night in Wimberley visiting family.

Anyway, I took the opportunity to take myself to the Alamo Drafthouse to see Snow White and the Huntsman. I really had the urge to live-tweet it, except that the AD will TOSS YOU OUT ON YOUR EAR if you're doing that. Alas, for the movie sort of called for it.

There were many cool bits in it, but it never really jelled for me into a coherent whole. Chris Hemsworth really does the scruffy looker well, doesn't he?

Also I never had noted the need to create a love triangle in Snow White. Hmmmm.

And also: Name of the Wind - FINISHED. Review: Enh. Readable, but not captivating. I'll probably pick up the sequel when I'm next in the mood for big fat fantasy, but I'm not feeling the urge to immediately read it. It helped that I knew Kvothe was a Gary Stu of Stus going in, otherwise it would probably have put me off.

In the fiction queue: Scalzi's Redshirts, Van Name's Slanted Jack*, and Burgis' Renegade Magic.



* A milSF series about man and his sentient tank. I read the first one some time ago and liked it in that popcorn-reading sort of way. Tried SJ once and wandered off a short way in, but there's a couple more later in the series that sound more interesting so I'm going to give SJ another try first.

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame is a high-budget kick flick based on the legendary figure of Judge Dee (original Chinese historical and fictionalized person, Western popularization). Toby and I went to see it Saturday night.

In short: pretty good kick flick harmed by a crappy translation in the subtitles. It didn't help that the subtitles were very quick on the screen -- I read pretty damn fast, so subtitles usually don't bother me and I usually prefer subtitled versions, but the visuals were so gorgeous that I wanted to spend time looking at them and didn't get much of a chance to if I wanted to follow the plot. Toby reads more slowly than I do, and was sleepy, so kept losing track of what was going on. But he agrees it was visually lush.

The movie is set during the Tang Dynasty, as Empress Wu (historical person), who's been ruling the empire as regent for 8 years, is preparing for her official coronation. Officials are starting to be killed in a mysterious way where they burn up from inside, and nobody can solve the mystery. So she releases Dee (Westernized to "Detective" Dee, presumably because us Westerners would get confused as to why a judge/minister/court official is investigating mysteries) from the prison where he'd been sentenced to hard labor for 8 years for opposing her and leading a revolutionary faction. He sets to work, accompanies by the Empress' right-hand woman and bodyguard Jing'er, and Dongling (I'm using the subtitles' transliteration of the names), whose exact position I managed to completely miss, but who is also a well-trained fighter. As is Dee, which allows for a lot of fights.

Anyway, it drags a bit about the 3/4 mark, when we found ourselves sort of wishing for the fights to stop and the plot to get on with it. It also technically passes the Bechdel test thanks to a conversation between Wu and Jing'er early on, where we learn how much Wu trusts Jing'er and how loyal Jing'er is.

Jing'er is also, for the first 3/4 of the movie, a fantastic character who I really liked, but her characterization falls apart near the end. Until then, she's great and I love that when she hares off after an opponent Dee's reaction is "She knows where to meet us," and he continues doing what he's doing.

When Dongling first appeared on the scene, I thought "Uh-oh!" as the character is an albino, (albinos seem to be portrayed as evil more often than not in fiction), and wasn't much comforted when he was shown to be unnecessarily cruel in his first scenes.* But without revealing too much about the plot, I can say that I thought he ended up as my favorite character by the end. I also liked how Empress Wu is portrayed as a very ambitious woman who is willing to sacrifice everything for power, but without the usual detritus that surrounds portrayals of powerful women and turns them into ball-busting bitches. She is not a nice person by any means, but her primary concern is holding power and she subordinates everything to that and uses any means necessary except seduction.

I also liked the worldbuilding of this fantastical version of the Tang capital, with the ruins of the previous city underneath the current one hosting an underworld, the Phantom Bazaar. It is also, if you accept the premise that Taoist practices/beliefs like acupuncture are science in the world of this movie, a low-magic (or no-magic) world.

Lots of wire-fu, of course. (Sammo Hung was the action director.) There is also ridiculously over-the-top assassination attempts and people try to solve problems by throwing lots of expendable soldiers at them.

There is also, much to my surprise, stag-fu. You'll just have to watch it for yourself.



* He does wear a rather fetching bonnet. And dresses all in black, thus becoming the equivalent of the silver-haired character who dresses in black in Japanese anime.