Too many books!
Oct. 7th, 2015 03:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackI have been trying to record at least a few thoughts about books or films I've consumed, but I've got too much of a backlog to think I'll actually do as much as I'd imagined, so here's a brief list.
Calgary
Set in Ireland, about a member of a small town who shoots a very nice priest in revenge against the church for allowing another priest to abuse him when he was a boy. Well done, I don't know if the portrayal of Ireland is good or horrible, the subject matter is very uncomfortable.
Firefight, Brandon Sanderson
The sequel to Sanderson's overly-specified novel about anti-superheroes. It continues the same strengths (worldbuilding, consistency of superpowers), and flaws (characters, emotional satisfaction). It fills in backstory from when powers were first discovered and some major heroes and villains were scientists who'd hoped to use them for good. It progresses the plot. Overall, it felt a bit flat, but gave me a lot of good ideas and I'll definitely read the third one.
planetary comics
A collected series of comics about an alternate history where an alternate-version of (roughly) Fantastic Four are villains who control most of the world, and the Planetary organisation which does... various stuff. It's beautiful, glorious, in showing "here's a cool thing, here's ANOTHER cool thing, here's a cool character, here's an even cooler character". Lots of it stuck with me. It doesn't try for much consistency in worldbuilding, which disappoints me, even though it might have been incompatible with what it does well.
Beauty and the Beast
Judith finally showed me another of the Disney films I'd never actually saw. It's really pretty good, both in a good story, and a good overall message: Gaston creeping on Belle is a great portrayal of a socially-powerful person imposing unwanted romantic attention on someone, enough that it's really obviously creepy, without descending into torture-porn.
The Beast is scary without being creepy in the same way, and it's clearly shown that he's doing a bad thing by kidnapping Belle even if it isn't completely her fault, and him saving her life redeems him, not her.
I'm also quite amazed at the Beast's animation, that he's beast-like enough to be menacing, but humanoid enough to be plausibly romantic with Belle.
Calgary
Set in Ireland, about a member of a small town who shoots a very nice priest in revenge against the church for allowing another priest to abuse him when he was a boy. Well done, I don't know if the portrayal of Ireland is good or horrible, the subject matter is very uncomfortable.
Firefight, Brandon Sanderson
The sequel to Sanderson's overly-specified novel about anti-superheroes. It continues the same strengths (worldbuilding, consistency of superpowers), and flaws (characters, emotional satisfaction). It fills in backstory from when powers were first discovered and some major heroes and villains were scientists who'd hoped to use them for good. It progresses the plot. Overall, it felt a bit flat, but gave me a lot of good ideas and I'll definitely read the third one.
planetary comics
A collected series of comics about an alternate history where an alternate-version of (roughly) Fantastic Four are villains who control most of the world, and the Planetary organisation which does... various stuff. It's beautiful, glorious, in showing "here's a cool thing, here's ANOTHER cool thing, here's a cool character, here's an even cooler character". Lots of it stuck with me. It doesn't try for much consistency in worldbuilding, which disappoints me, even though it might have been incompatible with what it does well.
Beauty and the Beast
Judith finally showed me another of the Disney films I'd never actually saw. It's really pretty good, both in a good story, and a good overall message: Gaston creeping on Belle is a great portrayal of a socially-powerful person imposing unwanted romantic attention on someone, enough that it's really obviously creepy, without descending into torture-porn.
The Beast is scary without being creepy in the same way, and it's clearly shown that he's doing a bad thing by kidnapping Belle even if it isn't completely her fault, and him saving her life redeems him, not her.
I'm also quite amazed at the Beast's animation, that he's beast-like enough to be menacing, but humanoid enough to be plausibly romantic with Belle.