Mostly reviews
Aug. 14th, 2007 09:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lenora_roseAlmost all registered for school! So far the courses are Cultural Anthropology, Asian Civilizations after 1500 (Both single term courses), History of Canada (which, due to a computer glitch, wouldn't properly let me register for roughly 12 tries...). I have not yet been able to register for Ceramics, but the professor has given his e-mail ok, so all I need to do now is actually get to his office with a form to sign, then, of course, put my name in again.
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So naturally, with the huge multitude of new books I've been itching to read behind me...
I'm in the middle of a reread of Juniper, Gentian and Rosemary. (A book where I read it from the library, but bought my own copy so fast afterward that I hadn't even returned the library stack yet.)
I disagree with the back cover blurb's remark that these are three ordinary young girls. First, there are far more than thew titular three girls in the book, and some, especially Becky, are possibly just as important, if not more so, than the eldest and youngest sisters. Second, ordinary. Ordinary for highly intelligent, Montessori-taught children of extreme academics who've passed on a passel of odd hobbies... and even accounting for all that, they're a bit weird.
However, While I was reminded of _Aura_ complaining about children who aren't really children in another book, I get charmed by Pamela Dean's unlikely teenagers and kids in all her books, even as I simultaneously wonder where these kids are in the real world.
Before that, I read Truckers, the first of Terry Pratchett's Bromeliad, and started the first couple of chapters of Diggers before I realised I just wasn't in a Pratchett mood. They're not bad; not as good as the best of Discworld, not as weak as, say, Equal Rites or Maskerade, though.
I'm also, technically, in the middle of Chris Dolley's Resonance, a so-far amusing science fiction /conspiracy theory type story. The female lead(s?) Annalise(s?) is (Are?) flaky, but not stupid, and the protagonist, aside from a quibble about *how* easily he falls into casual conversation with Annalise(s), is interesting in his obsessive behaviours. So far, so good. (Of course, i was a dip and didn't pack this on the trip to Edmonton...)
While in Edmonton, I also started Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora, which was strongly hitting my, "This is well written, and I might really like it, but Now is not the Time" button. Some books do that. Emma Bull's Bone Dance got left for 2 years after I first tried it, and the second time, ended up quickly on my top favourites list. So this is mildly disappointing, but far from a condemnation of the book.
Besides, sicne we've got back, we've been doing far more watching than reading. For movies, in and out of the house, since we've made it back into town, I've seen
Team America: World Police -- something I probably won't do twice.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which I thought rather better put together as a movie than some reviews have led me to think. My main quibbles are a couple of short character moments that could and maybe should have been snuck in, that would probably add less than 5 minutes' extra footage. For one, the reaction of those in the gang to riding thestrals they can't see...
Stardust -- Which I will go and see again ASAP. I admit, I like the book's closing better, but I thought it kept the spirit of the story better than the movie trailer suggested, and I thought they did a decent job compacting the story into a shape that could be filmed.
We've also been watching piles of the Muppets Season 2, which I only found out had been realeased this last week by sheer dumb luck.
Although I must say, the trailers ahead of the last two movies, however, bother me. They've managed to make every upcoming fantasy film look like it has exactly the same tone. Look, Harry Potter /= The Dark Is Rising /= The Golden Compass. Of course, they did the same for Stardust itself, and Stardust proved to have its own mood and spirit. So I suspect that the Golden Compass at least will. Colin even described the Dark is Rising trailer as, "Happy Birthday,Harry Will. Yer a Wizard." They couldn't quite make Spiderwick look like an exact match to the others, its magic being all within a neighbourhood, but they tried, hard as they could.
That trailer (er, the Dark is Rising, not Spiderwick!) actually does slightly dampen my interest in the movie; because the more modern setting it depicts between the action bits is *not* just part of making the trailer look more like Extruded Fantasy Product. It's a complete change from the time period the book's "modern" era depicts, and for me, a good half of the appeal of that book (And even more of Greenwitch and the Grey King) is that the setting the characters take for granted, their everyday, which was nothing like mine or my time. It was a real world apart, near enough and well drawn enough to feel particularly real, and just as magical as the bits that take place in the past or in magical halls. Looks like they lost that in trying to make him an ordinary 21st century kid. Oh, well, I'll probably go to it right away anyhow...
(Edited further to add; based on interviews, the director and those who decided to make the changes in the Dark is Rising didn't actually read the other books (he thought the first one was "dry"), so their changes weren't made to account for how they might effect those> They also cut the Arthuriana, and made his happy healthy family into an unhappy one where he's picked on and isolated. Again, more Harry Potter imitation. And suddenly its name has changed. Much less convinced it's worth it to go at all. Still want to see Spiderwick and Compass, though.)
__________________________
So naturally, with the huge multitude of new books I've been itching to read behind me...
I'm in the middle of a reread of Juniper, Gentian and Rosemary. (A book where I read it from the library, but bought my own copy so fast afterward that I hadn't even returned the library stack yet.)
I disagree with the back cover blurb's remark that these are three ordinary young girls. First, there are far more than thew titular three girls in the book, and some, especially Becky, are possibly just as important, if not more so, than the eldest and youngest sisters. Second, ordinary. Ordinary for highly intelligent, Montessori-taught children of extreme academics who've passed on a passel of odd hobbies... and even accounting for all that, they're a bit weird.
However, While I was reminded of _Aura_ complaining about children who aren't really children in another book, I get charmed by Pamela Dean's unlikely teenagers and kids in all her books, even as I simultaneously wonder where these kids are in the real world.
Before that, I read Truckers, the first of Terry Pratchett's Bromeliad, and started the first couple of chapters of Diggers before I realised I just wasn't in a Pratchett mood. They're not bad; not as good as the best of Discworld, not as weak as, say, Equal Rites or Maskerade, though.
I'm also, technically, in the middle of Chris Dolley's Resonance, a so-far amusing science fiction /conspiracy theory type story. The female lead(s?) Annalise(s?) is (Are?) flaky, but not stupid, and the protagonist, aside from a quibble about *how* easily he falls into casual conversation with Annalise(s), is interesting in his obsessive behaviours. So far, so good. (Of course, i was a dip and didn't pack this on the trip to Edmonton...)
While in Edmonton, I also started Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora, which was strongly hitting my, "This is well written, and I might really like it, but Now is not the Time" button. Some books do that. Emma Bull's Bone Dance got left for 2 years after I first tried it, and the second time, ended up quickly on my top favourites list. So this is mildly disappointing, but far from a condemnation of the book.
Besides, sicne we've got back, we've been doing far more watching than reading. For movies, in and out of the house, since we've made it back into town, I've seen
Team America: World Police -- something I probably won't do twice.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which I thought rather better put together as a movie than some reviews have led me to think. My main quibbles are a couple of short character moments that could and maybe should have been snuck in, that would probably add less than 5 minutes' extra footage. For one, the reaction of those in the gang to riding thestrals they can't see...
Stardust -- Which I will go and see again ASAP. I admit, I like the book's closing better, but I thought it kept the spirit of the story better than the movie trailer suggested, and I thought they did a decent job compacting the story into a shape that could be filmed.
We've also been watching piles of the Muppets Season 2, which I only found out had been realeased this last week by sheer dumb luck.
Although I must say, the trailers ahead of the last two movies, however, bother me. They've managed to make every upcoming fantasy film look like it has exactly the same tone. Look, Harry Potter /= The Dark Is Rising /= The Golden Compass. Of course, they did the same for Stardust itself, and Stardust proved to have its own mood and spirit. So I suspect that the Golden Compass at least will. Colin even described the Dark is Rising trailer as, "Happy Birthday,
That trailer (er, the Dark is Rising, not Spiderwick!) actually does slightly dampen my interest in the movie; because the more modern setting it depicts between the action bits is *not* just part of making the trailer look more like Extruded Fantasy Product. It's a complete change from the time period the book's "modern" era depicts, and for me, a good half of the appeal of that book (And even more of Greenwitch and the Grey King) is that the setting the characters take for granted, their everyday, which was nothing like mine or my time. It was a real world apart, near enough and well drawn enough to feel particularly real, and just as magical as the bits that take place in the past or in magical halls. Looks like they lost that in trying to make him an ordinary 21st century kid. Oh, well, I'll probably go to it right away anyhow...
(Edited further to add; based on interviews, the director and those who decided to make the changes in the Dark is Rising didn't actually read the other books (he thought the first one was "dry"), so their changes weren't made to account for how they might effect those> They also cut the Arthuriana, and made his happy healthy family into an unhappy one where he's picked on and isolated. Again, more Harry Potter imitation. And suddenly its name has changed. Much less convinced it's worth it to go at all. Still want to see Spiderwick and Compass, though.)
