I did not enjoy this book. But I seem to be the only person on the internet who thinks that it’s a confusing mess of un-fleshed out concepts and clumsy writing, and outright hates it. Therefore I conclude that I must be a bitch.
I am currently reading A Discovery of Witches. I thought I’d like to read a chick lit as a break from all the sci fi, and I was curious about all these ‘paranormal’ romance novels. Thus the Witches. And I have to admit it started out great. Academician, Oxford, lots of interesting science and historical shit going down. The scholar-witch opening a book that apparently contains the answer to the origins of witches, vampires and demons, and promptly returning it like any good researcher.
And then the most gigantic brain fart in the form of the main characters’ romance. Everything goes downhill from there. The protagonist devolves from Diana, A Person, into Blank Female Character Who Can’t Do Shit, as the hunky vampire biologist (sounds so much better in theory) devolves into an older version of Edward Cullen. I’m about halfway through, and after the beginning, it more or less became nonsense. I currently have no idea what is going on, but the scientific and historical stuff is keeping me hooked. I like all these ‘beginning of the vampires/witches etc’ theories, like Anne Rice’s Queen of the Damned. Although I did not particularly enjoy that book.
Robin = awesome. Diana = lame. Also Amon > Matthew because he’s not got his boxers up his arse.
You know, I really expected the hero here to be someone I could fall in love with (keep in mind at one point I was in love with Sherlock Holmes, and later, with Anne of Green Gables’ poetry-loving son, Walter. I suppose based on that, my ideal guy would be some sort of high-as-a-kite literary genius who may or may no be a sociopath), a floppy haired gentleman scientist, who was kind and polite but hid a dark secret without being a complete self-martyrising ass about it.
But no. We have a six foot tall chiseled specimen of a man who is a genius in various areas of biology, and also practices yoga and has fancy wines. He then loses every single characteristic that makes him UNLIKE the usual hypermasculine male lead. All he does is tell Diana, the female lead, what to do, or he does it himself, or he’s protecting her by putting her to sleep or throwing her over his shoulder. Because that’s what you do when you’re with the most superawesomeultrapowered witch in all the entire world. Who turns out to be a useless sap of a woman.
This is how you do vampire.
Anyway, I am still reading this book. I probably won’t bother doing a review of it because it’s just very weird. It’s a cheesy, not-thought-through romance with one-dimensional characters that started out okay, yet it’s got interesting faux-academic aspects that signal the potential of a really good novel. I just don’t understand it. The romance is pointless. It would have been far more interesting if it was a story of Diana finding out the truth and coming to terms with her magical ability by herself, or of Matthew stalking the witch who held the key to understanding the creation of supernatural life, while facing his own personal demons. They can have dalliances at the side to satisfy the more romantic of readers. Dalliances wouldn’t waste as much time as the ‘romance’ in this book does.
More interesting than this book: googling kittens.
I have been reading an awesome chapter by chapter review of 50 Shades of Grey here. The lady reviewer has now gone on to the next book, 50 Shades Darker. And she is just as hilarious. I have no intention of reading this book, but I do have one niggling question about the heroine.
As I understand it, Steele (really. Steele. that’s kind of lame. like when you used to make up character names as a child and they’d all be like Annemarie Fyres or Jezebel Sexyface. or whatever) doesn’t own a laptop or a handphone. And she’s a literature student? Something like that.
I have a few questions, if this is true. i. Is she very poor? Because that would explain, and I would understand, why she doesn’t have a laptop or a phone. But if she isn’t: ii. Is she Amish? That is the only other explanation I can find for this.
Because does she think people study literature by staring at the soil under their feet and then writing about it? Perhaps she sends in reports based on her euphoric feelings after reading Tess of the D’urbervilles, no citations or references needed. Perhaps her university library has every single reference book and journal ever written on every topic in literature that she might happen to check up on, thus leaving her no reason to own a laptop (seeing as she has no friends aside from the one she lives with, it’s not like she needs the laptop to socialise).
Maybe she’s so hipster she doesn’t want a laptop. She writes all her assignments by hand and thinks Eliza Bennet is the best heroine in the entire universe ever. Maybe it’s just me and the really horrible educational resources in Malaysia, but I can’t imagine being a student without a laptop. Where do you type your assignments? Surf the web? Mock your friends? Access tutorials? Waste time watching Youtube videos?
Yet I will still not read 50 Shades, because it sounds terrible. And reading terrible books turns me into a F***ing Angry Person (FAP for the uninitiated *snigger*).
Yesterday my mother informed me that she had had an argument with her boyfriend (?) about the word ascetic. Apparently ascetic means someone who denies pleasure. I just thought it meant someone who likes studying (that’s the word they use to describe magicians and scholars in every book ever what).
I thought to myself, what did Seth and I talk about today? I sent him a picture of Kat Dennings because her boobs looked exactly like those owned by that actress who played Saffron on Firefly (forgot her name), and then we exclaimed over the Kuratas. Because the Kuratas is awesome shit okay, even though a hamster could overtake it on the road.
To each his own I guess.
PS I also discovered that quinoa is not, in fact, a poison that the native people of South America dip their arrows in before hunting down a herd of guinea pigs. It is a fluffy rice thing. Fascinating!
I have to admit that I am unable to spell Mieville’s name without googling the correct spelling first. Why his name couldn’t be Andrew Andrews or something, I don’t know. So Mieville is actually a pretty…respected?…author. His books are everywhere, he’s the new Neil Gaiman+Michael Chabon etc etc. They are, in fact, so abundant in bookstores that somehow Seth and I have managed to collect four of his books over the past year. Not a big deal right? Except we’ve never read a single one of them. Until now.
I did attempt to read The City and The City, and I nearly threw it against the wall in frustration. I kept it away and vowed never again to read Mieville because he gave me a headache and went to read my Sneaky Pie mysteries to calm down. Recently though, I picked up Kraken because 1. the cover kept reminding of sashimi during my vegetarian fast and 2. it sounded too interesting not to read.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiightttttttttt???
And I have to admit that it was worth reading, if only for the details. I went into Kraken expecting it to have a Victorian steampunk setting, what with museums and cults and things, and was a bit disappointed to find that it was set in modern day London. I kept having a slight feeling of disjointedness throughout the book when they mentioned modern day things like lolcats and google and Star Trek; I think that was partly my botched expectations as well as the fact that maybe these things were not inserted as smoothly as they could have been. Or maybe they should not have been mentioned at all. These references can date a good book.
I know, I’m doing it wrong. BUT LOOK GINGER KITTEN ARRGHH.
Recap: Basically the giant squid goes missing from the museum, tank and all, and there’s a rush to find out who took it because it’s going to cause the apocalypse. There are weird cults, gangsters, BPRD a paranormal police dept, a bunch of seers and miscellaneous supernatural things. Billy Harrow is the museum fellow who put Kraken in his tank and now everyone wants him, for reasons that even after the book I didn’t really understand (so he’s sort of like Kirsten Stewart). We more or less follow him around throughout the book, although there are about 3 million other characters who pop up.
Like this, but with less Bender.
The Good: It was a really interesting book. I kept going because I wanted to see what Mieville was going to come up with next, what creepy power, what disgusting way to die, what magical tracker was going to be used, ‘angels’, ‘demons’, all kinds of amazing things. This book would make an excellent movie. I suggest David Lynch directs it. The world Mieville created is rich and layered. I would be willing to read a guidebook of Kraken’s world, that’s how interesting it is.
Yes, I am embarrassed to admit I have design training.
The groups Mieville created all have personalities of their own (a good thing, because there are quite a few groups running around in the novel), are propelled by specific motivations and act according to those personalities. So in this sense, the groups he has created are not simply there as page decoration; they act according to their designation. I hate when authors just pull dozens of characters out of their arse, and they’re supposed to belong to one faction or another except they run around and do out-of-character shit because they couldn’t be bothered to discipline the poor character.
The Bad: Two things irked me about this book, but I wouldn’t say that they’re reasons not to read it.
1. The characters. While the characters working in groups have a personality and agency according to their groups, individual characters seem to suffer. I honestly cannot recall much about any single character’s personality (besides maybe Collingswood, but only because he kept pushing her so much. LOOK AT COLLINGSWOOD! SHE’S SO GODDAMN AWESOME AND BADASS! BUT SHE STILL DOESN’T TUCK HER SHIRT IN COZ SHE’S WORKING CLASS AND SHIT). They were mostly defined by their group motivations rather any memorable individual quirk. Except maybe that security guard guy. He was okay.
What Collingswood wants to be when she grows up.
2. The ending. I do not know or understand what happened at the end. I can’t understand why or how it ended like that, or even why and how the culprit was who he was. Which is why I think it’d make a good Lynch movie. But it’s also why this book was not as fulfilling to me as it should be, given the attention to detail and overall good writing.
The Ugly: Marge, the girlfriend of Billy’s dead friend, Leo. She insists on investigating Leo’s death. Everytime I got to one of the chapters with her in it, I told myself, AHA this must be where Mieville will insert plot device to show that she is indeed important to the story! But no. She really is just pointless. I have no idea why he dragged out her story. I am upset with Mieville because of this. I would like an explanation from him.
Yes, Marge. Yes you can. *pat pat*.
Verdict: An interesting book with interesting ideas. Maybe a bit too many ideas to the detriment of character building? I enjoyed the book though.
I was checking out photos of ginger cats on the internet. I love ginger cats.
Me: OHMYGOD! LOOK AT THAT CAT! HE’S SOO HANDSOME! LOOK AT THAT HANDSOME ORANGE TOM! GRRR! I NEED TO TAKE HIM HOME! SO CUTE!
Anushia: Does Pratchett know you’re cheating on him?
Me: …
NO ONE IS CUTER THAN PRATCHETT!!!
I’ve been meaning to post a review of this book for so long I can barely remember what the plot is. Not that there was much plot to begin with. Let’s recap before getting to the gnawing of bone and gnashing of teeth. SPOILERS.
Recap: The scrumptiously named Eva Forge is a Paladin of Morgan, the God of War. Morgan is a dead god. He was thought to be murdered by his brother Amon, also dead. The setting city of Ash was built by Amon, the Scholar, but is now ruled by the third brother, Alexander (who gets to be god of everything seeing as he didn’t die). Morgan is a dying cult, so when its members start being targeted for death by mysterious and powerful forces, it is up to Forge to figure out what is going on before the cult disappears forever. She and her trusty articulated sheath. And her angriness. Forge is always angry. It’s like reading about yourself if you lived in a steampunk era with living gods and guns and curses and had neverending PMS.
Yeah whatever.
Forge discovers a nasty secret (with the help of a seer and a cop with a welsh name) that could tear Ash apart. Which it more or less does at the end.
The Good: Wellll. The cover artwork for the Pyr edition I have is pretty nice.
Not bad right? Except I don’t imagine her like this at all.
The idea of Ash is interesting – a steampunk city that runs on what I imagine is some sort of eldritch magic. The unification of science (steampunk) and fantasy (spellcasting etc) is consistently evident throughout the book. Warriors use spells but also carry swords and guns.
The Cult of Amon was by far the most interesting aspect in the, but little was explained of it – how it works, the story behind the scholar turned betrayer, the shunned librarians with their shackled superpowers deserved more page-time in comparison to the less than charming Eva Mary Sue.
The Bad: Quiet a few. This book was not a good one, but I’ll narrow it down to a couple of things that irked me the most.
1. Eva Forge. She started out promising, and then turned into a whiny-assed anger management candidate. She’s supposed to be really badass and take-charge, but the way she’s written is like a petulant superpowered adolescent. IT’S MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY. DISAGREE AND YOU’RE WRONG. I’M ALWAYS RIGHT. Which leads us to the inherent issue I have with this lady. Mary Sue-ness.
That’s right you irritating, self-righteous, un-mystiqueal cow.
See, I’m pretty sure the book implies that with the Gods fallen at the end, and the existence of nascent gods among the populace has been brought to light, Forge is herself a God – perhaps the most powerful at the time (I think I finished my comma quota with that sentence). Now. Nowwwwwww. She strikes me as a Mary Sue mainly because even when she’s wrong, she’s clearly always right. But even though she’s rude, whiny, abrasive and likes to waste time indulging her anger, people thinks she’s awesome. Even when she’s intimidating people to do what she wants, or wasting precious time telling everyone all the hardship she’s been through, or being unnecessarily angry, she’s still always in the right. Overbearing righteousness and a tendency to lay on the self-sacrifice orchestra – she reminded me a lot of Anita Blake and her everyone-sucks-except-me attitude.
2. The Plot. I did not really understand it. Partly because I was rushing to the end of the book. There was a lot of pointless meandering as I recall, and I didn’t know why Eva did this or that half the time. As far as I know, the plot is Eva Forge Kills Everything.
Like this, but lacking awesomeness, summer glau and basically every attractive element.
3. World Building. The problem I had reading this book is that the ideas were there, but they are never fully realised. It’s like ideation constipation. It’s frustrating as heck to keep expecting the book to live up to expectations (Amazon seems to love it) and it just keeps not doing that. It’s like, oh follow the interesting plot point…to a fart. Seriously.
The author has the image of this complex world in his mind, but his attempts to convey them to us is confused and one-dimensional. He should take a break and read Greg Keyes’ The Waterborn, a beautiful and awesome work of fantasy that does incredible world-building.
4. Articulated fucking sheath. What. the. hell. is.it?
IS THIS WHAT YOU KEEP TALKING ABOUT YOU PRETENTIOUS SWORD-CARRIER?? WHY CAN’T YOU USE A SCABBARD LIKE EVERY OTHER GODDAMN SWORDSPERSON. Ass.
The Ugly: This book reads like a fanfic of a WoW paladin or something. It feels lazily written and lacks a certain maturity that adds weight and results in a good book in genres like steampunk and fantasy. I was surprised to discover that Akers was not a first-time author; this was his second or third book in fact.
The Verdict: Not worth the time. For a more satisfying read, I’d recommend The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack by Mark Hodder instead.
My grandfather passed away on Monday. Normally I wouldn’t say anything, it was something that would happen eventually and now that it has happened, we should move on. But my grandfather was more than just a grandparent – I wouldn’t even be where I am today if not for him. I want to write this so I’ll always remember how much he loved me, and how much I love him.
I never though about it much, but when he was ill in the hospital I knew I had to tell him how much he meant to me, and how much he had done for me and my family. We’re not an overly sentimental family, so a lot of these words were left unsaid. And for my grandfather, a lot of what he did that made my left better, he did out of responsibility as the head of the family. He did this not just for me, but for countless sisters, nephews, nieces, cousins and in-laws, and random people (of course I got a little bit extra, being the grandchild.heh).
When I think about all the things he’s done, expecting nothing in return, I feel so proud. It’s weird, when he was alive, if anything happened in the family, I knew he’d always fix it. I think I always expected him to be there, fixing things and making everything okay. But now I actually look back and I think, My god, he did so much for so many people – he changed lives, and what the heck have I done? Over a quarter of a century on this earth and I’ve helped zero people – and I can’t even admit to having the active intention to. What sort of people exist now that my grandfather seems like a myth?
Why aren’t I sadder about his passing? I am sad, very, very sad. I love him and I’ll miss him so much. But he had people, not just me, who really and truly loved him; and he really and truly loved us. He had a full life – adventure, danger, romance. He cheated death several times (the number varies according to whom you ask). I feel like there is nothing to regret here with him. Oh, I wish he had stuck around a little longer, maybe met his great-grandkids. But that isn’t a real regret. So that is all. A life well-lived, no regrets and full of people who loved and were loved by him.
So I watched it last night (sneakily and with much drama involving Seth’s car breaking down, having to borrow my mother’s car under false pretences because I was supposed to watch Prometheus with my brother today but excused myself to study – and then went of happily to watch SWATH). And I have to say it was worth watching. It’s not a perfect movie – some parts are a bit rough and just unnecessary, but otherwise I enjoyed it. Because Chris Hemsworth.
I know everyone wants to know just how bad Kristen Stewart was. Because she was pretty bad in Twilight, wasn’t she? I sometimes think I could take the movies seriously if I pretended she was Ellen Page or Falco from the Neverending Story. Anyway. I think that if the director wanted an awkward, innocent, not particularly likeable but doesn’t inspire strong feelings either, very SAP princess, then she did a good job. And I think that’s what they wanted right? Some kind of dorky noob princess. Otherwise I can’t explain her casting. But aside from that I had a real problem reading her expressions.
I know, I know. Old complaint. Everyone says the same thing. But…I WITNESSED it. Like when the Huntsman asks her why she didn’t tell him she was the princess, she doesn’t look like UH OH BUSTED. She just sort of looks mildly uncomfortable. And when the Huntsman compliments her on her armour – the scene after he saves her life by kissing her – she does this thing. With her face. It’s like. I don’t know how to describe it. At first I thought she was being shy, but then, there wasn’t enough shyness in her expression. It was just like, oh my lip’s kind of itchy and did you say something? I was really confused about how she felt about the Huntsman. And about Will. And also about Ravenna (do you hate her, Snow White? Or pity her? Or want to hug her? Or lead a rebellion against her? What is it? TELL ME!!). She really reminded me of Shaw’s Saint Joan + a really watered down Mononoke.
Charlize Theron was awesome. Exquisite. Occasionally OTT, but nothing too horrible. And I felt so bad for her. I agreed with her most of the time. You’re totally right Ravenna. Why wouldn’t I support you? Men are terrible and women are just as bad, and no one deserves to live. You don’t feel that way about Snow. I don’t even know exactly what her fight is. At one point they’re stuck at the Queen’s gates and the old dude says to turn back, and Snow says, ‘No, I promised them!’ Promised who? Promised what? Why don’t you look like Arwen? WHY?
And I’m sorry to be a shallow prig but. This is Snow White. Snow White is more beautiful than the Queen. Kristen Stewart is not as beautiful as Charlize Theron. I’M SORRY. I hated that I kept judging her for it. I tried to stop myself by saying that clearly, when the mirror meant fairest, it meant inner beauty. Right? But then why was Ravenna the fairest of them all all this while? And why, when heralding Snow’s usurpation of her, did the mirror tell Ravenna that she was once the fairest, but there exists another who is now fairer than her? Clearly any sow on the roadside would have won the inner beauty contest against Ravenna. Clearly they were both being judged based on their one similarity – feminine good looks.
It really bothered me. Actually, now that I think about it, the Huntsman and the Queen are the only characters that have any depth. William and Snow are insipid – and thus suitable for each other. Hey. Wait. Now I’m getting a little upset. Snow doesn’t exactly have much of a personality. No spunk, no Juno. How the heck did someone like the Huntsman – who had a sad backstory, who did a heel-face turn, who is an actual character – end up falling in love with her (or at least liking her enough to kiss her momentarily cold, dead corpse)?? Because she’s beautiful? Because she’s an accidental healer? I can’t think of why else. And that’s really just damned insulting. Why is William so devoted to her? Because he remembers her as some idealised playmate? Because now she’s beautiful? What? I didn’t understand it at all. What if she had been fat and ugly? Would he still have continued his quest for her? I better stop here. I’m making myself upset.
Anyway. 2.5 shiny balls of light out of 5.
I’ve been watching Young Justice. I’ve turned into a YJ addict. Everytime a new episode comes out, my brother and I download it religiously into the holy hard drive, and then we make a procession of setting it up and watching it on tv. It’s awesome. I know, there are tonnes more awesome, age-appropriate stuff to watch. But next on my list is Ika Musume so no complaining.
Anyway, I’ve always been team Marvel. No interest in DC. Thanks to YJ, my brother and I are working to rectify this. We’ve purchased 3 TPs in as many weeks, all pre-new 52 though. One of them was Legion of Superheroes #1 : Teenage Revolution .
Like I said, I know very little of the DC universe, what more the 30th century (is it 30th?) DCU. So basically teenagers galaxies over are rebelling against the stagnant peacefulness and rigidity that is their life, and they band together to help people and fight boredom under the name Legion of Superheroes. They all have flight rings, so they can all fly, solving the mass transportation problem.
While they’re doing their good samaritan thing, they discover that there is a greater evil that threatens all of the, uh, terrestrials (is that racist towards aliens with no feet? Speciest?) and all that, and the person behind it some mysterious dude whom Dream Girl saw in a dream. That’s about it for the first issue.
This is a re-imagining of the original LSH, who were lamer and didn’t have an acceptable excuse for their lame names (the excuse here is pretty good: since they idolise the heroes of the past, they choose to name themselves according to their customs. So everyone is This Lass or That Boy or Whatever Girl). The personal stories of some of the Legionnaires revealed in the TP were interesting – especially Triplicate Girl’s. A bit sad too. Phantom Girl’s doesn’t really make sense though. After they revealed that she exists in two dimensions at once, and people can see her in one dimensions doing whatever she is doing in the other, I kept wondering how she peed. Did she ever get any privacy to use the washroom? I’m sorry but urinary comfort is very important to me.
It was okay, I guess, but I wouldn’t pick up the next TP. The characters are too unfamiliar to me. I’ll stick with the JSA-ers for now.
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