Media reviews

Lego Movie

This was really fun! A few things made me uncomfortable, but in general it was really fun. I must watch it again with Liv.

Where were everyone's posts they made when it came out and I didn't read because of spoilers?

Kick Ass 2

Good continuation of the previous film, building on Red Mist and Kick Ass's friends, and designing a world with a multitude of superheroes, and managing to make an idea of a world with superheroes seem both subverted and realistic. But it balanced less well on the tightrope of making the excessive violence seem non-gratuitous than the previous film, and didn't add as much.

Orphan Black

In many ways, this felt like the series I'd been waiting for for ages. Lots of clones, what-is-the-meaning-of-identity, good female characters, excellent gay character, characters with children who were characters etc, etc. But it felt like it almost came too late. It's excellent, but it didn't add much to what I already knew I wanted. We already have identical twins: human cloning is revolutionary biologically, but isn't really philosophically interesting; and I didn't care what plan the evil company/cult had, since I couldn't see why it would matter; and it fell into the trap of having tension which was obviated by events.

So it was excellent, but I didn't love it as much as I hoped to yet. (I hope I will love it more over time.)

Gone with the Wind

Holy cheesus, this was racist! I mean, I knew that, but... Good characters, good portrayal of the american civil war. A good portrait of how it felt really awful to be an American southern land-owner when all the people you'd enslaved ran off and you had to pick your own cotton. But, you know, nary a mention that "running off" wasn't just an irresponsible quirk, but a human right :(

Even looking at the main characters, it felt like a tragedy. Why couldn't Scarlett live in a time when she could have owned a lumber mill and ran a business, which she was pretty good at, and slept with whoever she fancied without having to make her whole life about that :(

Casual Vacancy, J K Rowling

Casual Vacancy

This is one of J K Rowling's other books. It's very different to HP, but when I compared them, I could sort of see the similarities: both are excellent characterisation, simplistic but vivid characters. And interesting if not completely consistent world-building. And well-structured, but sometimes to the wrong goal, plot-wise. But instead of latin-esque magic, it has grinding depression.

Most of the characters live in a large village/small town just outside a large town/small city, and have pointless miserable petty middle-class lives with no worthwhile achievements, ambitions, or happiness, but in grinding depression. Some of them come from the poor estates surrounding the city, and live in drug addiction and poverty, and grinding depression. Did I mention the grinding depression?

As a portrait of what it can be like where living on a poor estate with no job, succumbing to poverty and drug addiction; or living with an abusive family; or living in a successful but meaningless and loveless middle-class life, it's powerful. But depressing to read :(

It has the form of a murder mystery, without actually being a murder mystery, where the councillor, who was the one ray of life in many of the character's lives, who fought to keep open the addiction clinic, and forged several of the girls in the local school who had little to be proud of at the time, into a successful rowing team, dies on the first page. And most of the events in the book are triggered by the vacancy on the parish council.

Review, more books

Hounded, Iron Druid Chronicles #1, Kevin Hearne

An urban fantasy, on a premise that, like American Gods, or several others, most pantheons are true, but primarily about celtic mythology. It was pleasingly funny, and the magic system was better world-built than many, it felt open-ended but also consistent. But I've no idea if the Irish references manage to be non-awful or not.

Liquor, Poppy Z Brite

I'd heard the name Poppy Z Brite, but no idea what they wrote until someone linked to this. It's a really lovely storey about two young men, line cooks in New Orleans restaurants, who open their own restaurant with a theme hinted at by the title. It describes a lot about what it's like in New Orleans, what it's like in a kitchen, being a chef, starting a business. I don't know much about chef-ing and business-ing, but it sounded consistent with what else I've heard, and apparently the author was married to someone who was a New Orleans chef.

My biggest problem was it felt like there wasn't much plot: problems came up, and the protagonists solved them, and worried they wouldn't be able to, but it never really felt there were any big decisions being made. But definitely to-read.

Ex-heroes

Superheroes vs zombies! That's all you need to know, really. The superheroes are quite well characterised in terms of powers and personality. If you like the premise, you'll probably like it. It alternates a present, with a beleaguered population hiding in a surviving enclave, with flashbacks, one for each superhero, to before or during the zombie apocalypse.

But it does suffer from a few problems. The female superheroes are not automatically sexy, but the first thing it tells you about them is whether they're sexy or not :( It suffers from the superman problem, less than it might, but some: don't just cut away to other hero battles, if your superman-equivalent has escaped whatever opponent wasn't trivial for him, why doesn't he just immediately fry all the other enemies?

Ancillary Sword

What everyone else said! It addressed the things I wanted to know most about, aliens and dyson spheres and ancillaries. And was really enjoyable, but didn't add that much more to what I'd expected. But still definitely v good and will read whatever Ann Leckie writes next (hopefully the third of these!)

Absolute Sandman vol #5

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!