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Why do I always forget to do this on wednesdays?
So, I'm starting to snoop around in the Yuletide tagset, see if there's anything fun. So far I've noticed that somebody's nominated Medieval Manuscript Illustrations as a fandom. That sounds fun.
What I've recently finished reading
Ginn Hale: Champion of the Scarlet Wolf book one
A fairly straightforward m/m fantasy novel. The fantasy worldbuilding isn't the deepest I've ever seen, but I like both main characters and their interactions and I'm looking forward to reading the second book.
Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor: It Devours!
I'm sad to say this mostly confirmed for me that I've fallen out of the Welcome to Night Vale fan state of mind. I think the podcast lost its appeal for me around the time Cecil and the rest started acknowledging that Night Vale is a weird, unnatural place, which - I liked how all the weirdness was matter-of-fact and everyday for them. The book is - I dunno. It has a giant centipede and a mystery and scientists.
J. Dufaux: Sioban
Kieron Gillen: Phonogram: Rue Britannia
This felt like somebody tried to recreate Hellblazer to a Britpop theme. Maybe it would have worked for me if I cared about Britpop. As is? It felt like a dull sort of ripoff.
Brandon Montclare: Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur: The Smartest There Is
Ben Aaronovitch: Rivers of London: Detective Stories
Ruthanna Emrys: Deep Roots
I'm sorry to say I didn't like this nearly as much as the first novel. This one - instead of focusing on the found family of Aphra Marsh and her confluence, and on her work reclaiming Innsmouth, this novel centers on them all going to New York looking for a long lost cousin and stumbling across a Mi-Go colony.
Martha Wells: All Systems Red
It was a fun, albeit short read, but I don't quite get why people apparently got so excited about it.
Linea Bjerrum Nielsen: Ankors amulet
Greg Rucka: Batwoman: Elegy
Kazuo Koike: Path of the Assassin: Serving in the dark
I liked the manga I'd previously read by KK - "Lone Wolf & Cub" is amazing. This? Two immature teenage boys and a rape played for fun? No. I was all set for a long series and now I won't touch any more of it.
Simon Spurrier: The Power of the Dark Crystal vol. 1.
Gorgeous artwork. I think the emotional impact of the story would have carried more power if I hadn't only just watched the movie.
Nella Larsen: Quicksand
Not my usual fare. It's a story about an African-American woman of mixed race trying to figure out where she belongs and never quite being satisfied anywhere for very long and ending up falling down, down, down. It's funny - the foreword spent most of its time placing Nella Larsen among the Harlem Renaissance and fair enough, but the author was a 2nd generation Danish-American (possibly on both sides, since her father hailed from the Danish West Indies) and she did live in Denmark for some years, and frankly, what struck me the most while reading this was that Helga Crane, if she be anything, is a descendant of Marie Grubbe.
Joseph Moncure Marsh: The Wild Party
What I've recently watched
51. The Greatest Showman
52. To Catch A Thief
53. Der amerikanische Freund
So far, my least favourite Ripley movie.
54. Gräns
This is a very good movie. It's Swedish and pretty faithful to the short story it's based on (by John Ajvide Lindqvist, who also wrote Let the right one in). It's - well, not very urban - but present day fantasy about a woman who has been used to thinking she was just weird and ugly and wrong, until she meets a man just like her and gradually learns that she's a troll. It's got some lovely nature scenes, a sex scene that is getting it slapped with an R rating if it ever gets even close to the US, and some very neat, somewhat understated fantasy. It's good.
55. The Dark Crystal
There. Seen another of those "everybody else (at least all the Americans on the internet who assume their childhood experiences are universal somehow) had seen it as kids" movies. It's very pretty and fun and I'd have adored it as a kid. Oh well...
56. Wellington Paranormal season 1.
Short episodes set in the same universe as the movie What we do in the shadows. It even has a character guest starring in one episode. It's all about the Wellington police's special unit investigating paranormal and supernatural events. Let's just say - Mulder and Scully they ain't. I think my favourite was the werewolf episode.
57. Hell
Very un-original bit of German post-apocalypse. Never rises above the cliches.
What I'm reading now
Connie Willis's The best of... and Nella Larsen's Passing (which I just saw is getting the movie treatment).
Total number of books and comics read this year: 20
So, I'm starting to snoop around in the Yuletide tagset, see if there's anything fun. So far I've noticed that somebody's nominated Medieval Manuscript Illustrations as a fandom. That sounds fun.
What I've recently finished reading
Ginn Hale: Champion of the Scarlet Wolf book one
A fairly straightforward m/m fantasy novel. The fantasy worldbuilding isn't the deepest I've ever seen, but I like both main characters and their interactions and I'm looking forward to reading the second book.
Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor: It Devours!
I'm sad to say this mostly confirmed for me that I've fallen out of the Welcome to Night Vale fan state of mind. I think the podcast lost its appeal for me around the time Cecil and the rest started acknowledging that Night Vale is a weird, unnatural place, which - I liked how all the weirdness was matter-of-fact and everyday for them. The book is - I dunno. It has a giant centipede and a mystery and scientists.
J. Dufaux: Sioban
Kieron Gillen: Phonogram: Rue Britannia
This felt like somebody tried to recreate Hellblazer to a Britpop theme. Maybe it would have worked for me if I cared about Britpop. As is? It felt like a dull sort of ripoff.
Brandon Montclare: Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur: The Smartest There Is
Ben Aaronovitch: Rivers of London: Detective Stories
Ruthanna Emrys: Deep Roots
I'm sorry to say I didn't like this nearly as much as the first novel. This one - instead of focusing on the found family of Aphra Marsh and her confluence, and on her work reclaiming Innsmouth, this novel centers on them all going to New York looking for a long lost cousin and stumbling across a Mi-Go colony.
Martha Wells: All Systems Red
It was a fun, albeit short read, but I don't quite get why people apparently got so excited about it.
Linea Bjerrum Nielsen: Ankors amulet
Greg Rucka: Batwoman: Elegy
Kazuo Koike: Path of the Assassin: Serving in the dark
I liked the manga I'd previously read by KK - "Lone Wolf & Cub" is amazing. This? Two immature teenage boys and a rape played for fun? No. I was all set for a long series and now I won't touch any more of it.
Simon Spurrier: The Power of the Dark Crystal vol. 1.
Gorgeous artwork. I think the emotional impact of the story would have carried more power if I hadn't only just watched the movie.
Nella Larsen: Quicksand
Not my usual fare. It's a story about an African-American woman of mixed race trying to figure out where she belongs and never quite being satisfied anywhere for very long and ending up falling down, down, down. It's funny - the foreword spent most of its time placing Nella Larsen among the Harlem Renaissance and fair enough, but the author was a 2nd generation Danish-American (possibly on both sides, since her father hailed from the Danish West Indies) and she did live in Denmark for some years, and frankly, what struck me the most while reading this was that Helga Crane, if she be anything, is a descendant of Marie Grubbe.
Joseph Moncure Marsh: The Wild Party
What I've recently watched
51. The Greatest Showman
52. To Catch A Thief
53. Der amerikanische Freund
So far, my least favourite Ripley movie.
54. Gräns
This is a very good movie. It's Swedish and pretty faithful to the short story it's based on (by John Ajvide Lindqvist, who also wrote Let the right one in). It's - well, not very urban - but present day fantasy about a woman who has been used to thinking she was just weird and ugly and wrong, until she meets a man just like her and gradually learns that she's a troll. It's got some lovely nature scenes, a sex scene that is getting it slapped with an R rating if it ever gets even close to the US, and some very neat, somewhat understated fantasy. It's good.
55. The Dark Crystal
There. Seen another of those "everybody else (at least all the Americans on the internet who assume their childhood experiences are universal somehow) had seen it as kids" movies. It's very pretty and fun and I'd have adored it as a kid. Oh well...
56. Wellington Paranormal season 1.
Short episodes set in the same universe as the movie What we do in the shadows. It even has a character guest starring in one episode. It's all about the Wellington police's special unit investigating paranormal and supernatural events. Let's just say - Mulder and Scully they ain't. I think my favourite was the werewolf episode.
57. Hell
Very un-original bit of German post-apocalypse. Never rises above the cliches.
What I'm reading now
Connie Willis's The best of... and Nella Larsen's Passing (which I just saw is getting the movie treatment).
Total number of books and comics read this year: 20
From:
no subject
I'm very bad at going to see movies, but I should probably get off my ass and go watch Gräns.
From:
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Having read them right after each other, I find it a little hard right now to say which of the two were better. They feel like very different books in many ways. That said, Passing feels tighter written, more plotted and worked through somehow. I went and read NL's three short stories as well, and I'd say The Wrong Man, which was published a couple of years before her first novel, felt like it probably ended up revisited and harvested from when she wrote Passing.
But you are absolutely right, Passing is quite femslashy. Do you think Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson will provide nice visuals for that, when the movie comes out?
From:
no subject