Doctor Who

I haven't seen most of the most recent seasons, but I watched the first episode of the new season at Eastercon.

I was glad I did; watching with a thousand other fans does bring out the good aspects[1]. The funny bits were funny and the emotional bits were emotional and the awesome bits were awesome.

However it shared the problem which exasperated me with most of the seasons since it was first brought back, that the general incoherence of the premise-of-the-week undermines any sense of success or failure. I want to be sucked in, worried about what's happening and panicked, hoping the doctor can fix it. But when I know everything will be resolved with thirty seconds of technobabble, or not, according to the needs of the plot, there's no point rooting for him :(

[1] I often have a similar experience listening to authors talk about their intentions with their book, that it can make me go "ah, I see what you were doing and it was really interesting" rather than "how on earth are so many things wrong with this book?" :)

Sixty-One Nails, Mike Shevdon

Mike Shevdon was one of many authors that I saw or heard mentioned at Eastercon and immediately wanted to try their books. Liv picked up his first one.

Good things

Sixty-one Nails is urban fantasy, about a slightly-older slightly-less-bachelor protagonist than usual, who is sucked into an underworld of Fae.

The Fae are well-written: the alienness, the necessity of being truthful if misleading, complicated pacts, aversion to iron, court politics etc all feel like they really matter, in a way that a lot of urban fantasy doesn't capture.

The lovely thing is that the plot is fast tangled up with an 800-year-old ritual of the law courts, paying a quit rent of hazel rods cut with two particular knives, one sharp, one blunt, that apparently is actually true.

Bad things

Lamentably, I didn't find the plot as engaging as the premise. Nothing was specifically wrong, but it felt like it had the necessary plot elements existing in a vacuum, lacking the background depth of some of the setting.

Gender

Fairly typical, some good female characters, but some things I didn't like.