rose_griffes

FILMS and TV:
There was a new Wallace and Gromit movie, Vengeance Most Fowl. Apparently the studio made a deal with Netflix, but the film itself was in movie theaters for a brief window. During which I saw it! It wasn't up to the level of, say, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Still a fun and entertaining film, though. Next time I sign up for Netflix, I’ll be sure to rewatch it.

Later I rewatched Jurassic Park, which housemate A had never seen. We both enjoyed it, although some elements didn't age very well. I’m thinking specifically of the whole “Dr Grant doesn't like children but Dr Sattler wants him to like children.” Also, still can't quite believe they cast someone 20 years younger than Neil what's his face as his love interest. I mean, I can, but… Anyway, the special effects held up well, and the overall story was still super entertaining.

(Neil whatsisface is a babe, don’t get me wrong. And Dr. Sattler is obviously a consenting adult, and yadda yadda yadda - but generally speaking it’s not a romance that works for me within the story, so I’m happy to nitpick it.)

Oh! And I rewatched beloved film Arrival with housemate A - another movie she’d never seen. A. noticed Denis Villeneuve’s distinct lack of ANY HUMOR AT ALL, which is accurate to all of his films that I’ve seen so far. A bit of levity wouldn’t go amiss, Villeneuve! But we both (still) loved it.

Finally finished rewatching Rings of Power, which works even better on its second round: the story arcs are more perceptible now that the story is more complete. Good cast, good visuals, interesting takes on the source materials.

[edited to add: I haven't had time for Andor, season two yet! Hoping to watch it in June.]

BOOKS:
Seanan McGuire published book 18 (!!!) in her Toby Daye series - The Innocent Sleep. This one differs from previous books – the story is told from Tybalt’s POV rather than Toby’s. It worked well for me, and was a good change of pace.

I’ve read and/or listened to all of the novellas and novels in the Murderbot series by Martha Wells. Lots of fun even though I accidentally read them out of order. I’ll give the new show on AppleTV+ a try once I have any time for TV. Maybe next month? I have no idea when that's gonna be.

Alison Goodman has a trilogy that can be loosely described as Regency-Era Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Fewer quips, more anguish about maintaining social standing in a highly stratified (and dangerous) society. I enjoyed all three. The first book is called The Dark Days Club.

Ben MacIntyre wrote The Spy and the Traitor, about Oleg Gordievsky, who worked for the KGB and then began feeding information to the West, due to ideological differences. His escape from Russia was thrilling–a nice sustained gallop within the story. I then read MacIntyre’s Rogue Heroes, about the history of Britain's SAS. Both worthwhile books.

T. Kingfisher continues to create both creative fantasy romance and the most hair-raising dark fairytales. Paladin’s Faith was the former and A Sorceress Comes to Call the latter. I’ll keep reading Kingfisher for both. (She also writes straight-up horror, which I sometimes have to avoid due to general squeamishness.)

Common theme in this post: revisiting familiar media. I re-read a couple of novels by Dick Francis, and listened to audiobook versions of two more novels by him. They’re very much centered in the time frame when they were written, which is… both good and bad, I guess. But Francis always did his homework for story settings and details, and while there are commonalities between the male protagonists, he also managed to make them distinct enough to feel worth reading. And hey–sometimes you want to read about a morally good guy dealing with bad situations.

Media update Jan-Mar 24

Audiobooks! I still find them a bit frustrating at times, especially when I miss a word or don’t know how to spell a character’s name. But I’ve listened to a few of them lately.

Ben Aaronovitch has a collection of short stories set in the Rivers of London universe. I enjoyed them; Kobna Holbrook-Smith is widely appreciated for his work on the Peter Grant novels, and most of these short stories were from Peter’s point of view.

I listened to a Miss Marple novel. Given my frustration with not knowing how to spell character names, or the occasional missed word, I figured I would go with a story that would be slightly familiar to me. A good plan, it turns out: I wasn’t so distracted by “how is that spelled” and it was ok to drift away from the story for a few seconds now and then.

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Book-books. E-books in this case. I’ve read several historical romance novels by Grace Burrowes, and she’s a “yay” for me. Meredith Durant was more frustrating, given the good plot mixed with ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE anachronisms.

Rachel Aaron’s By a Silver Thread trilogy is, well, complete with three books. Her stories don’t have the depth of prose that, say, Seanan McGuire can achieve, but the plots are coherent, the action works well within those plots, and I was rooting for the lead character. So: future Detroit with magic and gods. If that seems intriguing, give her books a try.

Lois McMaster Bujold has an eleven novella / twelfth book in her Penric & Desdemona series. Still consistently enjoyable!

One of y’all mentioned Barbara Hambly’s novels recently, and the name struck a chord. The last time I looked for her books, my local library had ZERO e-books of hers. That has changed, so I read the first of her vampire novels, set in the early 1900s. Hambly is a dedicated researcher, and one of her goals is to achieve a certain level of period appropriate characters and behaviors–even with the vampires, whose attitudes and comportment align well with their original cultures and languages. Book one of the vampire series is called Those Who Hunt the Night. I plan to read more, but I may have to go to the ACTUAL library (*gasp*)--they have books 1, 3 and 7 available as e-books, but not the others.

Hambly’s series featuring protagonist Benjamin January begins with A Free Man of Color. January, or rather Janvier, is a black man living in 1800s New Orleans. I’m in the middle of book three, so this is also a successful-for-me series. Both this series and the vampire novels have a mystery at the heart of each book; solving, or at least mitigating, the problem is essential to at least one character’s survival in each story. They’re not, however, classic whodunits. Characters clash and there’s usually not a clean-cut happy ending. Just people moving forward, sometimes carrying scars.

Didn’t finish: A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, by Suzanne Collins. Not due to a lack of quality in the writing; it was more about not necessarily wanting to read through a villain arc, especially knowing in broad strokes where the story would go.

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With the current Disney+ subscription, I rewatched the Narnia films from the 2000s. All enjoyable, although the third one had a lower budget, which was visible in the FX quality. Also, just and less-effective writing. But still good enough.

Ahsoka series: I’ve made it through most of the episodes of season one. So far my grade is “mixed”.

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FINALLY: Dune, part two: aaaaaah! The narrative loves Paul Atreides. It made a Paul-shaped space JUST FOR HIM. He says he doesn’t love the narrative back, but he’s lying to himself. LINK ME TO YOUR POSTS ABOUT DUNE!

Aaaaand this post has been in progress for weeks, so I’m stopping now. Whatever I missed, I can write about next time whenever I come up for air again.

I've seen all three Disney+ Doctor Who episodes. Not much sticking in my brain after them--as in, I've forgotten details and I don't have time to refresh my memory before typing this--but the villain in the 3rd episode was a delight. As was Ncuti Gadwa as the new doctor. I'm not cutting for that as a spoiler, given that the news has been out for... a year, maybe? At any rate: if episodes continue to show up on Disney+ when I'm still subscribing to that platform, I'll probably watch. But Doctor Who is unlikely to be the show that motivates me to keep / resubscribe to Disney+.

Housemate A and I watched the 80s movie Ladyhawke. I'd forgotten that Matthew Broderick was in it, which is hilarious, given his key role in the film. Still a delight, if extremely dated due to its soundtrack.

I reread almost all of Lois McMaster Bujold's World of the Five Gods series. Ista, my beloved! Penric, my darling! And, er, those other two novels that aren't about Ista or Penric, which I therefore didn't re-read. At any rate: WHAT A TREAT. AGAIN. In fact, I'm listening to the audiobook of Paladin of Souls, even though I just re-read it. (Thinking about it: reading a text and then listening to it may be the way to get me to enjoy audiobooks. Hm.)

And now it's time to work again. Bah, humbug.

Annular eclipse tomorrow! Very exciting! I’m not in the path for complete annularity, but it should still have enough coverage to be interesting.

TV stuff:
I resubscribed to Disney+ the other day; I’m planning to watch Loki, season two, as it airs. More or less, anyway. And continue watching most or all of Star Wars: Rebels, and then Ahsoka, season one. Plus whatever else strikes my fancy - probably some Muppet movies and older Disney films.

OH! And a rewatch of my beloved Andor, of course. Maybe I’ll make progress on my Ferrix refugees fic.

Books:
Ben Aaronovitch has been branching out from his Rivers of London series - exploring characters other than the RoL narrator, Peter Grant. Winter’s Gifts was a short novel featuring Kim Reynolds, the FBI agent who makes a few cameos in the RoL series. Unfortunately for Aaronovitch, his “American woman working for a federal agency” voice is just… not quite right. But I still read all of it, and was entertained.

I went on a whole re-read and new-read binge of Kay Hooper’s Bishop/Special Crimes Unit novels. She’s now up to 20 books - the first was published in 1997, the most recent in 2020. They feature psychic investigators - working for a special branch of the FBI - and sometimes-psychic murderers, if that seems like it might be of interest. These are sort of like the Law & Order of murder books. Very much in line with my “too tired to devote my reading brain to anything too taxing” reading tastes of late.

Roommate A’s favorite film is the 2002 adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby. Having watched it, I can see why she loves it--it’s delightfully earnest as well as visually appealing. Young Charlie Hunnam and Anne Hathaway make a gorgeous couple; Jamie Bell as Smike pulls real pathos into a character that could have been one-note.

Seanan McGuire published her final InCryptid novel this month; books eleven and twelve are both written from grandmother Alice Healy’s point of view. She’s, uh, NOT a traditional grandmother. I appreciated the slow revelation of the villain in eleven, and the comeuppance for that villain. Book twelve pulled most of the family back together with some well-earned reconciliations. (And some well-earned rejections of reconciliation.)

Anyway, if you like monsters and fighting and planet-hopping and a smidge of romance now and then, I recommend the series.

So. Shadow and Bone, season two.

retraction of high-pitched scream

Remember how I said that episode six felt like a good place to end the season? Perhaps they should have. Episodes seven and eight were wildly uneven. Ultimately I was okay with where Mal’s part of the story went, even though it’s different from the novels. But that might be my problem with other elements: I know (roughly) how the original trilogy goes, and my expectations, even at a subconscious level, probably ran parallel to those ideas.

Still not a fan of Mathias. He was a hard-to-sell character in the books. Most of the Fjerdan storyline in the duology is a least-favorite part. Also, enemies to lovers is not my favorite trope.

I do wish Inej had gotten more backstory. It will be truly disappointing if she doesn’t get more development in season three. Assuming there is one. Because season two was a bit too messy.

Halfway through season two of Shadow & Bone. Mulling over how, yet again, the ability to binge-watch impedes fannish activity. The week-to-week wait is a shared experience!

a few thoughts of a somewhat spoilery nature (through episode 4)

The actor who plays Jesper continues to be the strongest of the main cast, IMO. His budding romance with Wylan is cute; Wylan is adorable in every way.

Lots of fight scenes in episodes 1-3. I did a fair amount of looking away from the screen, even though some of the fights were quite stylized.

Love Tamar and Tolya - very good introduction to them. As (nearly) always with this show, the aesthetics of character design (hair, makeup, clothing) were done well. Tamar is... *mwah* love it when a woman rocks a short haircut.

Poor Alina is being pursued by ALL the men. Hee. I mean, yeah, it's actually a terrible problem to have, but on the other hand, kinda funny in a low-key way. Although she's not being wooed for her Alina-ness, but for the power she possesses, so. Not fun for her.

I wonder how episode 4 would play out for a viewer unfamiliar to the book story: would Kaz seem like a plausible baby-burier? I think yes. At any rate, good job on giving the audience - and Pekka Rollins - confirmation that no living babies were actually buried.

Genya! Genya with Baghra!

I can't give a final judgment for now, but so far I'd say this season is stronger than season one. For one thing, the larger pieces of world-building have been established, which leaves more room for characters and nuance.

Watching Lockwood & Co. is currently on hold. I'll get back to that soon enough.

One more day of Disney Plus. I'll probably watch the finale of Andor again - I won't have time to do much else. Currently my Tuesday and Thursday evenings are taken up by a weird work obligation, so I have even less free time than usual for the next several weeks.

Oh! I should mention that I finally found an animated Star Wars show that works for me. Rebels is adorable; I like the storylines, I like the characters, and the pacing is quick with only 20 minutes per episode. Alas, the animation is not great, but I'm, er, looking past that. Plenty left to watch when I finally subscribe to Disney again: I've only made it to early season two. By the way, I have been using an episode guide I found online - there are a few episodes that I've skipped, based on that guide. But not many!

One big plus that also fills me with curiosity: the timeline for Rebels lines up pretty well with Andor. So far Andor hasn't done anything to contradict the timeline of events established in Rebels (that I know of). Will they continue that? Will Andor directly acknowledge anything from Rebels in its second season?

Moving on. At some point in the next week or so, I'll re-up my subscription to Netflix for a month. Season two of Shadow and Bone is coming out mid-March. I'm planning to rewatch season one (a fun favorite!) in preparation for it.

Related to talk of streaming services: huh, I didn't realize that Rian Johnson is the executive producer for that Hulu (??) show Poker Face, starring Natasha Lyonne. The guest cast is very impressive, yet the trailer kinda annoyed me. The aesthetic sense was... weird. And then, BEHOLD THE DISCOVERY - it's Rian Johnson. Who, as y'all probably know, is more miss than hit for me.

I could probably say the same of Natasha Lyonne's work, and she's the star of Poker Face. A double whammy in that show of "probably not for me".

Back to Johnson: I will give Glass Onion a try while I have Netflix this time around, but I'm not gonna force it; either it's enjoyable watching or I'll stop.

Also on my list of things to watch on Netflix: Warrior Nun, season two. Possibly season three of The Umbrella Academy, but maybe not. Will attempt Peaky Blinders, mostly out of curiosity and Cillian Murphy. Oh, and Sandman, although Neil Gaiman's work is also more miss than hit for me. No animosity there, unlike with Rian Johnson's work; Gaiman didn't participate in ruining Star Wars for me.