brainwane | Reading

so, we have a sudoku app on the ipad. this week, sarah and i have been playing a few games together in bed before she falls asleep, and it's fascinating to watch how our brains work so incredibly differently when it comes to problem solving. (she reasons out from first principles and does a lot of complex if-this-then-that decision trees; i do more intuitive pattern-matching and spotting hidden pairs and triads.)

since the app it has auto-pencil-marks and "touch a number to highlight all the squares that could be that number", it saves a lot of time while solving the puzzles, and makes it easier for us to play on "hard" and "expert" modes. there's been a few times this week when we'd be stuck on the regular solving techniques and looking at the patterns of which squares were lit up, and i'd give it a good stare and finally go "oh, that square there has to be an 8", or whatever, and she'd stare at me and say "why?" and i'd be completely unable to explain it. i tried a few times -- it has to do with the lit-up squares forming a larger square in a certain way, with one other square in a certain pattern also lit -- but i couldn't identify the exact criteria no matter how hard i tried; all i knew was that box was an eight because it had to be, and over hundreds of puzzles, when i see those "it has to be that" situations i've always been right.

tonight she brought me a puzzle she'd been trying to solve at work and gotten stuck on, and when i identified two squares through that pattern-matching and she couldn't follow (and i couldn't explain!) she was determined to figure out why it had to be that way, and what my pattern-matching brain was doing, so we were looking up advanced sudoku solving techniques, and found one that was close. (not quite, i think, but close.) so we solved a few puzzles together to see if she could follow what i was doing and apply the reasoning from the explanation of that technique, and i started trying to figure out why my pattern-matching brain was spotting the patterns, and we hit one that my pattern-matching brain woke up and said "that's a 1" or whatever...

...and for the first time, i was wrong.

a bunch more puzzles after she fell asleep, and i wound up being wrong about half the time now. say, ms centipede, how do you move all those legs at once?

missmediajunkie

Many "Lord of the Rings" fans have long championed the notion that Andy Serkis, the actor who provides the motion capture performance and voice of Gollum, should have been seriously considered for Academy Awards and other honors for his work on the Tolkein trilogy. However, the Academy has traditionally avoided recognizing anything short of a full onscreen performance by an actor, though plenty of other smaller awards have. The Emmy Awards and the Annies, the animation industry's own awards, have categories recognizing voice-over performances. However, the only time I've heard of a voice-only performance being seriously considered for honors alongside a traditional one was the time Eddie Murphy was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor BAFTA Award for playing Donkey in the first "Shrek" movie. BAFTA is the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

This year the controversy has arisen again, thanks to the well-received performance of Scarlett Johansson in Spike Jonze's "Her," where she voices a Siri-like computer operating system that they film's hapless hero falls in love with. Johnasson never appears on screen, but her character is fully formed, entirely through her vocal performance. The Academy hasn't said anything definitive one way or another about whether Johansson is eligible for a nomination, but the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, who put on the Golden Globes, have ruled that she's out of contention. The "Her" team has appealed the decision on her behalf, still pending at the time of writing. However, her prospects don't look very good. Even if she did secure nominations, she would surely be at a disadvantage with only a vocal performance being measured up against traditional performances from the other actresses.

My stance is that voice-only performances should be eligible, even if it's highly unlikely that they'd ever be able to be truly competitive. Others awards commentators have pointed out that nobody has any problems recognizing performances from silent films, or mute performances, or performances in different languages. A vocal performance is undeniably a performance that requires skill and talent, and should be recognized as such. A separate category for voice-only performances would be ideal, but it's not feasible for the bigger award shows, so they should be covered by the existing performance categories. Out of all the different types of specialized performances and artistry people have argued ought to get their own Oscar categories - motion capture, stunt work, performances by animals and children, animators, and puppeteers - voice-over work is one of the easiest to parse.

It's not so easy, for instance, to figure out how best to recognize Andy Serkis for his work as Gollum. Scarlett Johansson was entirely responsible for her own performance in "Her," but Gollum was the product not just of Serkis, but of hundreds of unseen animators and VFX artists and technicians behind the scenes who helped to turn that motion-capture performance into the digital character who appeared onscreen. Motion-capture technology hasn't developed to the point where an actor can simply put on the ping-pong ball sensors, and a fully finished, movie-ready performance is generated. These performances have to be "tweaked" and "plussed" endlessly. In some cases, the motion capture is really just a guide for animators who have to deviate considerably from the actor's performance to get something that looks right.

So do we credit the people who worked behind the scenes alongside the motion capture performer? Do we try to somehow separate out the performance from all the effects work that enhanced it? If so, how do you compare that to a traditional performance by a non-enhanced actor? And is it really fair to single out the actor when he was part of a team of people who all contributed to the performance? These kinds of basic categorization issues are probably why recognizing motion capture performances is so hard, and mostly hasn't caught on. Notably the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award has a Best Digital Acting Performance, and the MTV Movie Awards have Best Virtual Performance, both of which Serkis has won, but others seem content putting Serkis's performances in the usual acting categories.

It's also important to remember that the Academy does go out of its way at times to recognize individuals that it feels are deserving of kudos, but don't fit into its rigid categories. Special Oscars and Honorary Oscars have gone to all kinds of different artists, including puppeteers, stunt men, choreographers, animators, makeup artists (before their category was instituted), historian Kevin Brownlow, and scholckmeister Roger Corman. I'm willing to bet that if Andy Serkis keeps up the good work and remains popular, the Academy isn't going to let him go unrecognized in the long run, especially if motion capture performances become more important and prominent in the years to come.

As for Scarlett Johansson, I don't think this is her year, but she'll have plenty of chances at a statuette in the future, and those chances will undeniably be better if she appears onscreen.
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whump

I've been woefully bad about posting and responding here, and just saw folks doing this December Open House idea. If you haven't seen it, you propose a topic and a day for me to post about it.

As dates and topics are claimed, I'll fill in the roster below, and mark them off as I write them.

December 5th
December 6th
December 7th
December 8th
December 9th
December 10th: littlebutfierce — Top 5 Bands
December 11th
December 12th
December 13th
December 14th
December 15th
December 16th
December 17th
December 18th
December 19th
December 20th
December 21st
December 22nd
December 23rd
December 24th
December 25th
December 26th
December 27th
December 28th
December 29th
December 30th
December 31st: holyoutlaw — Hopes for the future

badgerbag

OK, this sucks but I am headed to the hospital tomorrow. My doc, who is nice and seems very smart, is getting me admitted to CPMC Davies. hilariously i think that's where my friend Ron will also be for his surgery and for the next few weeks. Well. I hate hospitals. Somebody blew a vein on me yesterday and I have GOOD veins. now i have a giant painful inner elbow bruise and will have to have an iv and probably more grody metal-tasting freaky contrast ct scans. I like my new doctor, he communicates well and stuff, but man, I do not like having to go to the hospital. i super million times love that he managed ot get me admitted instead of callously sending me to the ER for another 12 hour voyage through the bureaucratic underbelly of the beast. also that he let me go home to sleep and have some zofran and broth. not sure what i think about the zofran. blrrrgh?

i am so tired.

amelia and rachel came over. amelia is gonna spend the night with me for moral support and to take me to the hospital. then my sister will take over in the afternoon after she gets out of class. rachel says people will come keep me company and she will feed the cat and fish. i have had a hospital bag packed since nov 14th when this stuff started. (the Night of Pain) Because god knows i ahve all this long wooly underwear and also when going into a hospital you better bring like 6 pairs of clean underwear in case they get anywhere near your back end.

doc today was like ummmm is this peritonitis? do they even have "walking peritonitis"? WTF. Immunosuppressants can mess up your blood work results. I never thought of that part. Or, maybe it is my magic, elusive ovaries. the first time i went to the ER for an ectopic (this, pre-Moomin) they didn't see it on the ultrasound or ct scan. then a week later they finally saw it. maybe it is like that. there can also be a weird abcess (says my helpful new doc) but he would think they should show up on the scan.

zofran makes me feel a little woozy. but not any more inclined to drink this broth.

i hope cpmc has good internets or that i can get phone coverage in there and tether off my phone.

i accidentlly opened d.'s presetnt to me and it is a kindle so i am evilly contemplating putting a bunch of stuff on it and taking it with me.

i will take my manual chair rather than scoot. its smaller and will just work out better. theyll still make me go round in their clunkers anyway if i have to get pushed. but i will feel better with my favorite chair with its sparkley front casters signifying i am a badass.

Crossposts: http://badgerbag.livejournal.com/567671.html

littlebutfierce

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badgerbag

Yesterday's rheumatology appointment where I expected to be told to go back on Enbrel and perhaps get magic enlightenment as to whether this whole abdominal pain thing is autoimmune or not turned into an all day diagnostic marathon (again). Dr. Rheum sent me upstairs to an appendix yanking surgeon which scared me. I worried they were going to just admit me in order to rummage amongst my innards to see where the action is. Not for the first or last time I wished that during the other 18 million laparascopies someone had snipped out my appendix along the way. Dr. Appendix Surgeon did not whet his knives. He sent me for another CT scan and some more blood tests.

A weird bit: last week the urgent care doc told me the radiologist said they could not find my appendix and my colon was inflamed and she diagnosed me with colitis. Yesterday, the report that that clinic sent to Dr. Rheum (and Doc Appendix) said that my appendix and colon both looked normal. That sounds good, except it makes me feel like how do I trust who was right? Did someone inexperienced look at it the first time, then someone else came along to correct them? If zond7 had not been with me I would feel really strange as if people would think I had made up the whole thing. But he was there and I did not.

SO glad I am not in the hospital right now and I was so happy to come home. My only "glad game" thought about possible hospitalization was that at least maybe they would treat my nausea and I would be actually hydrated from the IV. In every other way... nightmare...

Val came with me (driving my car and schlepping the scooter in and out of it) which was very helpful both on a practical level and for moral support and keeping my head together.

I am reading Barbara Hambly "Darkmage" and lying in bed. Woke up with a feeling like a horrible hangover, maybe from the CT scan contrast dye. Had a cup of warm milk, some tapioca, a sort of shot glass of coffee, some sips of Ensure (which tastes ok but which sits in my stomach like a goddamn anvil) and lots of small glasses of water. i might try like 1/4 cup of congee before this appointment today. New primary care doc (the old one stopped his primary care practice... alas) I hope this new guy is nice and scientifically minded and will take on the actual coordination and analysis of things.

All things considered i am doing ok and as usual appreciating my warm, cosy house, cat, and access to infinite books. Extra deeply appreciating my friends. Thank you for all coming over to visit and bringing soup and taking out the trash and so on.

Crossposts: http://badgerbag.livejournal.com/567369.html

metaphortunate

Also,

Dear lady at the Tate Modern two years ago, who moved seats from sitting next to me in the cafeteria when I started nursing the Junebug, saying that you didn't want to intrude on our "intimate time":

At the time, I thought you were being hilariously precious. Last night, as I was nursing Rocket in a sling while simultaneously cooking dinner (and let's be clear, when I say "cooking dinner" I mean "boiling pasta and heating up frozen meatballs in jarred pasta sauce") and resignedly playing my part in the Junebug's attempt to determine whether his magnetic letters will stick only to the refrigerator and the dishwasher or whether they will also stick to Rocket or me, I thought of your consideration, and it nearly moved me to tears.

Crossposts: http://metaphortunate.livejournal.com/58337.html

cofax7

The temperatures have finally dropped here, and I'm huddled on the futon in one of my mother's oversized cashmere sweaters, too lazy to go turn the heat up. I really need to get up, though, and walk the dog.

In the meantime, here's some links:

So this is cool. If you like mashups and indigenous music. And hip-hop. And lots more. Very cool!

I'm not entirely sure what this is like, but it's a Christmas mashup album, and that sounds interesting to me, and seasonally-appropriate.

DJ Earworm has released his 2013 United States of Pop mashup. Which I would grab, except that the only way to get the MP3 is apparently to buy all the individual tracks through Legitmix, and I'm not spending $30 on a single song. (Is this the new business model for mashups?) So I guess I'll just watch the video.

This supercut of 2013 movie trailers is also cool. Have patience: it gets better as it goes along.

NPR has a guide to good books of 2013 which, surprisingly, includes books I have, like Rose Under Fire and Hyperbole and a Half. Bravo, NPR.

Forget where I found this link: 25 years of Poirot.

The Paris Review interviews Ursula Le Guin.

*

In things more fannish, Caramelsilver has re-started the Three Sentence Ficathon! Check it out: lots of prompts, and lots of fills.

Oh, here's a bunch of Fringe stories and vids.

In case you have 100 hours to kill (and more tolerance for Kevin Sorbo than I have), here is a Metafilter guide to Andromeda, with links to every episode on Youtube. You're welcome. :D

And there's another clip from the Veronica Mars movie out now. Damn, I'm going to have to rewatch the first season at least, won't I? I don't recognize anyone but Veronica, Keith, Wallace, Weevil, Mac, and Logan... and Dick.

*

So I've been doing Zombies, Run! for about three weeks now, and I think I have a pretty good handle on how it works. Would anyone be interested in an overview from my perspective? I know that when I started, I was pretty frustrated by the lack of guidance on the website.

Crossposts: http://cofax7.livejournal.com/918498.html

metaphortunate

Internets, I come to you for advice.

In my previous incarnation as a much more attractive person who had no children, I didn't come into contact with a lot of kids. And when I did, in retrospect, I realize, I kind of interacted with them on their own level. I didn't do much dealing with them as an authority figure. I set boundaries more in the way that kids set boundaries with each other: rather than as parents do, with rules.

Now that I have kids, I have rules. No spitting in the house, spitting is only for outside. Use your inside voice inside, outside voice is for outside. You may only throw things if they are squishy. You can climb into the baby's crib but not stand in it because it is not stable enough. You can poke Mama gently but not hard. You must be gentle with the baby. If food lands on the floor, your meal is over. You must ask before picking up my phone. That sort of thing.

So that's easy enough to do with my child - relatively speaking, I mean. Mr. E and I decide what the rules are, and the Junebug decides whether he would rather follow them or take the consequences, and we decide what the consequences are and enforce them.

But then there are other people's kids. Other people's kids come over to our house or whatever, and now there are questions. Do they have to follow our rules? If they don't have to follow our rules, why does the Junebug have to? Especially if it's rules about not grabbing toys or hats from each other/taking turns/not hitting: I want to enforce good manners from my child, but I really do not want to teach him that I will enforce rules about respect on him but not on anyone else. If other kids have to follow our rules, do I enforce consequences if they choose not to? Their parents will have Opinions about that. If I had infinite time to discuss with the parents in advance, I'm sure we could come to reasonable agreements, because my friends are all reasonable people: but we don't, and consequences need to happen in real time for kids to take them onboard.

And how do I back up other parents' consequences? If a kid does something to me or my stuff that their parent has told them not to do, how do I reaffirm that it's bad and I don't like it without implying that their kid is bad or that their parenting is bad?

Internets, how do you deal with other people's kids, when you're not in an official position of authority over them? (Nannying is different, I expect.)

This question brought to you by the frequent interaction of:

Junebug: *grabs at someone on the bus, or at their phone*
Me: Stop. Do not grab at the people. They do not want to be grabbed.
Stranger: Oh, it's okay, it's fine.
Stranger: *wants to make me feel better about my ill-mannered child*
Junebug: *learns that Mama is making up rules for no reason*
Me: *is frustrated*

Crossposts: http://metaphortunate.livejournal.com/57884.html

tim

For the second year in a row, I'm fundraising for the Ada Initiative (TAI) for my birthday. I'll be 0x21 years old on December 18 (that's 33 in base ten, but who's counting?) If you would like to celebrate with me, please make a donation and let me know. Since I'm turning 33, I suggest a donation of $33 if you can afford it -- but seriously, any amount matters, even $1.

My post from last year about why I support TAI still applies. The events of the past year have just strengthened that conviction. From the harassment and firing of Adria Richards for daring to be a Black woman in tech who spoke up against inappropriate behavior at a software conference, to last month's appalling dispute about whether or not software documentation should marginalize women, to the news that open-source community leader Michael Schwern committed domestic violence, to some stuff in my own life that I'm not quite ready to write about yet, it's been clear that there's a lot more work that remains to make it safe for women to work in the tech industry, especially intersectionally marginalized women.

The Ada Initiative is one of the few groups that exists solely to work on that problem, and they have been very effective at it so far. TAI "specifically welcomes trans women and genderqueer women" and "[strives] to be an intersectional social justice organization" (quoting directly from the About Us page).

As with last year, I'm asking that people donate directly to TAI, using their donation form, and then let me know. My goal for this year is for 30 people to donate (why 30? Last year, my goal was 20, but 27 people actually donated, so I think I can improve on that this year). If you don't let me know, I won't be able to know if I reached my goal, and I'll be sad. You can let me know by commenting on this post, tweeting at me or commenting on my Facebook wall, or -- if you prefer to be private -- emailing me (catamorphism at gmail.com) or sending me a private message on any of the services I use. Also, I will assume it's okay to thank you in a public post by the name or pseudonym that I know you by unless you tell me otherwise. You don't have to tell me the amount that you donated.

If you've donated to the Ada Initiative this year already, great! If you can, please donate a little more for my sake :-)

As with last year, I am going to try to post something on my blog every day until I reach my goal of 30 donors, even if it's a link to a post written by someone else or an older post of mine. I'll have the first installment -- my thoughts on the aforementioned libuv gendered pronouns patch dispute -- up either tonight or tomorrow!

To make things more fun, I'm issuing a challenge: write a blog post (doesn't have to be long) about anything related to diversity and inclusion in open-source, software more generally, computer science academia, or free culture (e.g. Wikipedia), broadly construed. Then, comment here with a link to it, before 00:01 Pacific time on December 18. I happen to have an extra Ada's Angel T-shirt that I will send to the person who writes the best post (in my opinion). Another option is to add a page to the Geek Feminism Wiki or improve an existing one -- in that case, leave a link to your edit. The T-shirt is black, size XL straight-cut, with the Ada's Angel design on the back and a smaller design at the hip.

Thanks!

Thanks to those who have donated so far:

alexandraerin

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Crossposts: http://alexandraerin.livejournal.com/519057.html

qian

atropinesulfate: I would love to hear about postcolonial fluff for booknerds, and any plans for a sequel to Jade Yeo/her descendants.

O postcolonial fluff for booknerds, made-up genre of my heart! Postcolonial is a big term and maybe not that accurate, but I use it because I think of this imaginary genre as being a reactive one, a thing that I am producing as part of a long slow recovery process. What I am doing with it is, I am processing my childhood reading — all the stuff that was really influential and enjoyable, but also kind of secretly toxic — and I am trying to extract the poison from it while preserving the things I loved. Jade is a reaction to Wodehouse and Daddy-Long-Legs and I Capture The Castle. The novel I am working on is a reaction to Georgette Heyer and Susanna Clarke.

It is questionable how much you can do to save a trope. There have been times when I have reflected that a Regency novel is going to be dodgy whichever way you slice it. You can’t get away from the fact that the original of this delightful fictionalised polite society was built on the proceeds of slavery and conquest. I think it’s important to recognise that.

But there’s this idea that fiction by or about people who are traditionally underrepresented in Western literature is kind of innately worthy and dull. Things are getting better obviously, but you know how if you are looking for an Asian-American book you’ll get 8 out of 10 that are memoirs of cultural conflict or immigration or whatever, and if you are looking for a LGBT book a lot of them are about coming out and whatnot, and you throw up your hands and say, Can’t I just read about PIRATES?

Don’t get me wrong, I like reading the serious things as well, but PIRATES have their place. I think people constitute themselves through stories and it’s really important to have trashy enjoyable fiction about you, as well as worthy epics. Anyway, that is what postcolonial fluff for booknerds is partly about. It is mostly about having fun!

I probably shouldn’t say too much about sequels to Jade Yeo, because I don’t really know what they will look like yet. But what I’d like to do is write three or four more novellas for self-publication. Each will be romance and revolve around one of her female descendants/relations. I have really only thought about the next one, about her daughter, but I want to use a very similar voice for all of them. I will need to capture that sort of private cackling mood of self-indulgence in which I wrote Jade to do it — but first I’ve got to finish my book!

Mirrored from Zen Cho.

Crossposts: http://qian.livejournal.com/118480.html

littlebutfierce

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wild_irises

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Crossposts: http://wild-irises.livejournal.com/125457.html

missmediajunkie

In the television world it's development season, which means that there's been a lot of chatter about a lot of projects, most of which are never going to make it to air. This year, we have all the usual suspects - remakes, adaptations of movies and books, spinoffs, and big star-driven vehicles. However, there's one particular piece of source material that it seems like everyone is jumping on: "The Wizard of Oz." According to Deadline, there are currently no less than five potential "Oz" adaptations in the works, none of them remotely similar to the original L.Frank Baum novel or the MGM theatrical musical. Instead, they're "reimaginings" and "revisionist" versions, intended to play on the audience's familiarity with a children's story that has become as universal as most fairy tales. However, looking at how each project is trying to tackle "Oz" provides some interesting insights on the creative process and the current trends in television.

Emerald City - An NBC drama described as a dark take on the "Oz" story similar to "Game Of Thrones," without the HBO content, of course. It's being put together by Matt Arnold, the showrunner of the recent "Siberia," for Universal Television. I'm the most interested in this one, because it's been suggested that it will actually look beyond the original "Wonderful Wizard of Oz," to some of the material in the other thirteen "Oz" books that L. Frank Baum wrote in the "Oz" series. One of the few real successes for NBC lately has been its steady Friday night performer "Grimm," but they've had mixed results with other genre properties like "Hannibal" and "Dracula." "Emerald City" is pretty amorphous at the moment - we don't know when it's set, if there will be many fantasy elements, or if it's going to be a limited series or a proper serial. Invoking "Game of Thrones" suggests some ambitions, but then again, all the new fantasy dramas are invoking "Game of Thrones."

Dorothy - A CBS medical drama from the executive producers of "Elementary." This looks to be the farthest removed from the original story, with modern day characters loosely inspired by the "Oz" characters, and incorporating a few similar themes. Despite the possibility of retaining a few fantasy flourishes, I suspect that "Dorothy" is going to end up looking an awful lot like "Grey's Anatomy" or "Private Practice," except all the doctors have punny names. Our heroine will surely be stuck trying to choose between potential beaus who lack in smarts, heart, and courage, respectively. There's nothing wrong with sticking to a formula - procedurals may be unglamorous, but they get ratings, and medical soaps are tried and true performers. However, of all the "Oz" projects in the works, it's the most obviously a gimmick here. Sherlock was a detective, so a mystery series makes sense. Where's the connection between the "Wizard of Oz" and doctors in love triangles?

Dorothy Must Die - The CW is adapting Danielle Paige's young adult novel that turns the original "Wonderful Wizard of Oz" on its head. In this semi-sequel, Dorothy and her friends have become power-hungry villains that our young heroine must defeat in order to save The Land of Oz. The Wicked Witch of the West? Not so wicked, as it turns out. Tim Kring and several "Heroes" vets are involved in the development of this one. I'm rooting for it because while it's giving us mostly evil versions of all our favorite "Oz" characters, at least we know this one is going to be a straight action fantasy series that actually takes place in the Land of Oz. The CW is also much friendlier to genre projects than most, and this sounds like exactly the kind of story that would appeal to their younger-skewing audience. I'm worried about CW's notorious penchant for teen soapiness invading the works, but for now I'm focusing on the positive. Evil power-mad Dorothy takes over Oz. Neat.

Red Brick Road - Artist Rob Prior and writer Timm Schlattman of "Dexter" fame are bringing their revisionist "Oz" concept to Warner Horizon and Lifetime, drawing more iffy comparisons to "Game of Thrones." This time Dorothy is headed down the red brick road that we glimpsed in the "Wizard of Oz" movie instead of the yellow one, which promises to take her to darker and more forbidding places. As a fan of the original Oz books, I have to point out that the red brick road actually leads to Quadling Country and likely Glinda the Good's place, but where would the fun be in that? There's some interesting concept art for "Red Brick Road" floating around the internet featuring a redheaded Dorothy wielding a sword, and high fantasy versions of the Tin Man and the Wicked Witch. Frankly, the part I'm the most skeptical about is Lifetime's involvement. I know they've embraced high concept shows recently, but I haven't seen them do anything this high concept.

Warriors of Oz - "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" director Timur Bekmambetov has this set up as a miniseries over at Syfy. "Warriors" will introduce us to a new version of the "Wizard of Oz" story, where our hero travels through a post-apocalyptic version of the Land of Oz with three companions named - and I'm not kidding here - Brainless, Heartless, and Coward, on his quest to defeat the evil Wizard. Yep, this one has a male lead, and seems oddly male-centric. It's too early to say anything more than that for now, but this is certainly shaping up to be the least interesting of the five "Oz" projects so far. Bekmambetov's films tend to be flashy, but fairly shallow action flicks, and I expect this to be more of the same. This isn't the first time Syfy has delved into the "Oz" universe. They were also responsible for the last attempt at an edgy "Oz" miniseries, "Tin Man," in 2007.
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wired

Finnikin of the Rock (Lumatere Chronicles, #1)

Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hmm. I think I liked The Lost Prince better the first time I read it.

Finnikin is an exile shut out from his kingdom by magic. He and the prime minister have been wandering the world for 10 years, trying to find a way to get enough room for the six thousand or so refugees of the magical cataclysm. Along the way, he has learned all the languages and also become a swordsman and translated the mystical curse and is generally a pretty bad-ass twenty-something.

Then he meets up with a woman name Evanjalin (really? authorial telegraph, it's for you), who is going to lead him back to the trapped country and it's all going to get fixed.

I didn't object to the grittiness of this book. It is rapey, but it's moooostly offscreen and really about The Bad Guys doing Bad Things, unlike in Bitterblue where the problem is that everyone in the affected country has done bad things. Sectioning the rape off into a thing that Bad Guys do makes it more war crime and less visceral, at least for me. Watching a character get rejected for becoming pregnant by rape, not that got to me.

No, what I objected to in this book was how trite it was. It didn't surprise me, it didn't make me think anything new, it didn't charm me with novelty or even a particularly impressive riff on an established story. Lumatere reminded me irresistably of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, from The Mouse that Roared. It was tiny, maybe ten thousand people, and small enough to get across in a day (which, given that part of it was mountainous, makes it less than 20 miles). Despite all that, each of the separate areas had distinctive phenotypes that allowed people from each area to identify each other. I kept getting distracted thinking about the inbreeding problems. Well, I kept getting distracted, period.

Read if: You loved The Lost Prince. You are not bothered by obvious plots.

Skip if: You will be distracted by thinking of inbreeding problems. You will be incited into rage by the obviousness of a character named Evanjalin.

Read instead: Bitterblue. The Mouse that Roared. The Lost Prince

View all my reviews

wired

Newt's Emerald by Garth Nix

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I pre-ordered this book the moment I realized that one of my favorite authors (Nix) had written in one of my favorite genres (Regency). I was only more charmed to find out that the story involved a cross-dressing girl. When we added in buccaneers, evil sorceresses, and callbacks from everything ranging from Heyer (an attributed inspiration) to Beau Geste (not attributed, but present), well, gentle review consumer, I stayed up late to read and I have no regrets.

The ironically-named Truthful is an engaging character both as a woman and a man, and her cast of supporting characters is both amusing and well-drawn. She is modest and open-eyed (except for the inevitable confusion with the romantic interest, of course).
~~"She feared her beauty was a purely local phenomenon, the result of a scarcity of young ladies of quality."~~

I really applaud Nix's efforts with costuming everyone, too. I do love the clothes descriptions:
~~"changed her rather dull travelling dress of dove grey muslin for a more fetching promenade dress of pale green with a tall collar, matched with a charming merino coat in a darker shade of green with saffron edges and silver-buttoned epaulettes, topped with a charming straw bonnet adorned with a silver ribbon."~~
It was probably a pelisse, not a coat, but what the hey, we know what he means.

The plot is heavily Maguffin-driven, but I don't mind. It is rolicking and fast-paced and although we never doubt the outcome, it's pleasant to see the way it gets worked through. Truthful gets rescued and does some quick-thinking and rescuing of her own, and so she never feels like a damsel in distress for the benefit of the romantic story.

Read if: You like Heyer's Regencies, or you are looking for a light romance suitable for your parent to read.

Skip if: You are a curmudgeon. No, really, it's not /substantive/, just enjoyable.

Also read: Shades of Milk and Honey, for a more mature but equally interesting take on magic use in the Regency upper classes.

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wired

One Con Glory by Sarah Kuhn

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is exactly the book it was advertised to be -- that is, an in-joky story about a nerd girl and the tv star she thinks she hates, and the action figure that brings them together.

I enjoyed the pacing, the mild but engaging plotline, the extremely nerdy verisimilitude of the characters arguing about Starbuck and Team Edward and Marvel plotlines. And I liked the romance. It was not completely improbable, and the meet-cute is pretty adorable, really. Julie is guarded and suspicious and authentic feeling, but I suspect that would be less true if you were not in tune with the analogies she uses to describe her life. There's an original Star Trek episode about that..... anyway.

Read if: This book seems like it's talking about Your People. You enjoy female characters who stay snarky even when their hearts are melting.

Skip if: You find nerd culture more annoying than endearing.

Also read: Princess Ben. Not at all the same genre, but the women reminded me of each other.

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raanve

For today,

wild_irises suggested: "a brief profile of someone who matters to you in a good way, and why."

I spent a lot of time wrestling over who to write about! Probably I was making it much, much harder than it needed to be. (Because apparently that's my process?) So ultimately, I decided to write just a little about my grandma.

( ..read more.. )

copperbadge

We went to dinner at Red Lobster this evening.

Mum: Be careful with the menu, apparently that's where all the germs are.
Me: So...no licking the menu, is that what you're saying?
Mum: Just don't smear your hands all over it and then eat with them.
Me: I'm going to rub the menu directly on my surgical incisions.
Mum: We are going to get thrown out of Red Lobster.

I don't know if any of you have been to a Red Lobster recently (or if you're outside the US, ever) but I hadn't been to one in probably ten years. They got really expensive, or so I thought; seafood is pricey but not THAT pricey. But then they actually brought out our food and I realised.

Red Lobster is where you go if you have a powerful hunger.

I ordered a half-plate of crab linguine, expecting maybe a cup, and they brought me twice as much as I would fix for myself at home. Because I was expecting a little cup of pasta, I ordered a skewer of shrimp as well, expecting maybe six or eight. I got an enormous spear covered in shrimp, a JAVELIN of shrimp.

Needless to say, my stepdad is taking a shrimp po'boy to work tomorrow, and I'll be eating linguine probably until I leave for Chicago on Thursday.

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My primary public blog, its syndicated LJ feed, and pointers to my other writing

November 2013

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the centipede's dilemma

Voice-Overs, Motion Capture, and the Oscars

Topic Open House

Headed to the land of blown veins

an eternal green field

Liquid brick

leveling up

linkspam is grateful for cashmere

advice: other people's children?

Birthday wish: please donate to the Ada Initiative

Wednesday, December 4th

On postcolonial fluff for booknerds, made-up genre of my heart

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Topic Open House: December 3: The Benefits of Aging

TV's "Oz" Overload

Book review: Finnikin of the Rock

Book review: Newt's Emerald

Book review: One Con Glory

Meme Prompt: Dec 3

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