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Saturday, May 17th, 2008
1:39 pm
My computer is broken and I am going to DIE (I am currently using someone else's, which is rather old and slow and terrible and it will KILL ME. D: ) Also most of my data is lost and I am rather distressed.


Also I have been reading Lisa Goldstein's Dark Cities Underground, which is a good book, if not particularly scintillating. It has a fairly original premise and is moderately entertaining. My only issues are spoilers )

Not that it was a bad book, on the whole, it merely had a couple of minor issues. It was an entertaining way to spend a few hours and I do like books about stories and where they come from and how they affect people.
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Saturday, May 3rd, 2008
12:02 pm - Rambling!
I'm not dead yet! /Monty Python jokes

...Have clearly been distracted and/or with nothing to say as I haven't been around for ages (I do check my flist, I just don't post and (depending on how late it is/how tired I am) comment.)

Still have nothing particular to say, I am finally catching up on things I want to read/watch (ilu summer! XD) Have realised why people keep going on about Georgette Heyer: her books are actually quite excellent (and I am generally not much for romance or anything set in our world so this is rather a lot of praise from me). Also From Eroica with Love is hilarious awesome (my favourite moment ever is when some communist agent says, in all seriousness, "It may well be that he uses pathological moral decay brought about by the materialistic culture of the western world... to confuse people." I love you, Cold War mentality! <3).

Have also finally gotten around to watching Doctor Who (the new one, I have seen snippets of some of the older ones and also heard kind of a lot: oh British family members and your penchant for discussing random English tv, despite having lived in Canada for 30-odd years. <3). It's pretty amusing, I love ridiculous SF so I am not sure why it took me so long! (Also I have heard all the Rose-hate and, though I haven't seen much, I don't see what there is to dislike in a character who saves the world at the final moment and then rubs it in! :D) I will probably get distracted from this show too (see: everything else I watch XD;;), but it's funny at the moment.

Also Farscape is pretty kickass. So far, it is also entertaining though I have not seen that much and there keep being long gaps between my watching session. There is quite a lot I like about it (though I am weirdly fond of the way that Rygel is totally turned off by Zhaan, who is pretty hot in a human way, because those are totally not his standards of beauty! Why do I adore shows so hard for random world-building details? XP)

So basically, I continue to be completely infatuated with media/fiction and have no life: what else is new? XP
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Thursday, February 21st, 2008
9:10 pm
I saw the lunar eclipse last night. Mildly exciting, though the thrill sort of wears off after the first couple of minutes when you realise that it is changing too slowly to really see. Still, it was fun, mainly because it was more of an excuse to hang out with people inthe freezing cold late at night. Which is always fun. There was a great deal of screaming at the sky to hurry up and "look guys! Look! It's exactly the same!" So: fun. On the other hand, it's fucking freezing here and I could do with some spring. Not going to happen for months, but I can dreeeeeeeam.


Haven't done much else of note lately. Life is uneventful. On the plus side, I have massive amounts of tv and reading that I'm behind on and (hopefully) some free time coming up so it's almost like having a life. :D

ETA: Also my iTunes library just deleted itself. Not the music, just the library. Now I have to put everything back on and I have enough music that it makes iTunes whiny. I loathe and despise computers sometimes, have I mentioned that?
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Tuesday, February 5th, 2008
9:48 pm
I have solved my computer problems! (Technically internet problems and very specific and weird internet problems, but whatever.) The only redeeming feature of the entire business is that I do always feel rather ridiculously proud of myself whenever I manage to do (because it's not as if any of the supposed tech-support places are any goddamn help at all!) It's still true when the fix is - as it was here - so very incredibly simple because the hard part is managing to get any useful information on the problem. I really loathe computers sometimes... On the plus side, mine works now and I am overflowing with glee!

Sadly, this is more or less the only noteworthy thing that has happened to me since I last posted and/or lost my ability to do so (which was one of the incredibly irritating things about this particular issue, although I could still read my flist so it wasn't TOO traumatic although I still occasionally want to fling the goddamn computer out the window. Bah.)


I did get to see Mad Money last week and it was definitely worth the $2.50 I paid. It wasn't DEEP or anything, but it was surprisingly fun and I did like the fact that the main characters were three grown women who managed to do what they did all by themselves. The resolution does have a major logistical hole in it, but I found it relatively easy to ignore although YMMV. (Specifically spoilers )) Also it does have the beauty and wonder that was a bizarre, home-made Rube-Goldberg machine that results in the blowing up of a mobile home. This was entertaining.

I've also been reading a fair bit of Ursula K. Le Guin who is excellent, but who I can only stand in small doses because it's all so very bleak and depressing! Is it just me or is that true of a lot of SF of that era? It's all so grim and even the happy endings are always just a brief glimmer of hope after a long dark wait. It's often good, just depressing!

...I suppose I had more to say than originally planned.
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Tuesday, January 1st, 2008
8:06 am
I suppose it is a new year. The difference is basically imperceptible except that I will still date everything 2007 for the next few months and have to change it every time. Put that way it almost doesn't seem worth it. XD At any rate, hurrah for arbitrary definitions of time periods and the new promise they bring! (I am actually less cynical than this, I just think it's funny.)

I am also entertained by the fact that I have evidently changed very little as my last year's Jan 1st post was remarkably similar to this one. Particularly as my resolution for this year is the same as last year's (though now it really is more of a habit and one that is oddly fascinating for me.) I continued to record everything I read and the results are not so different from last years, although I did read slightly less (though still more than anyone with, say, a life.)

For bragging purposes posterity:Cut because no one but me really cares. )

A good year and here's to 2008 being equally dorky and hopefully as much fun. :D

current mood: self-satisfied
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Friday, December 28th, 2007
5:12 pm
I have spent the entire day fighting with my computer and am very disgruntled. D: I am very tired of the complete lack of explanation provided by any program to those of us who do not have significant computer repair abilities because evidently we are peons and don't need to know anything about the goings on of the more intelligent. HATE.

Also I am reading a terribly irritating book called Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters, which is supposedly an explanation of gender differences through evolutionary psychology and which seems to mostly consist of smugness at its own refusal to be politically correct. Now, it's not that I am not willing to admit to a certain amount of biological difference in the sexes, it is merely that some of their conclusions seem rather strained (I particularly like the bit where they referred to a cooking pot as a gendered toy when given to monkeys, who, to the best of MY knowledge, DON'T EVER COOK let alone gender segregate it.) Also it weirds me out when it's a book that explains certain gender differences that I have seen (admittedly, in other contexts and by other people) used to express male superiority is written by two men who dedicate it to "our foreign wives" (which may be some kind of in-joke, but is very, very odd in my eyes.) Bah.


In less bitchy news, I saw The Golden Compass yesterday and was fairly impressed. On the other hand, I have read the book and KNOW that I was unconsciously filling in all the details they (perfectly reasonably) left out and I have a feeling that it was mostly incomprehensible if you hadn't read the book. For example, Spoilers and going on and on )

Overall, I would recommend it highly, but with the caveat that you should read the book first (although I tend to say that; I am excessively fond of books.)

current mood: disgruntled
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Thursday, December 20th, 2007
4:24 pm - Complaining below, feel free to ignore
Is there anything more aggravating than fighting with a computer for hours and then finally discovering the fix for whatever the problem is takes about 2 minutes...you just have to FIND it first?

Why are all help sites so bad and all error messages so damn cryptic? I know that all these people are doing it out of their own time and kindness (because the official help sites are even more laughable and are mainly dedicated to denying that there could be such a thing as a problem in their program...), but they're all so poorly organised and there is never any way to tell from the error messages (or crashing, or whatever) precisely what the problem is and it all drives me up the fucking wall and I eventually begin to feel resentful about the entire concept of computers in general because they are clearly all hateful. Everything just takes so LONG and, invariably, half the solutions will require shutting down and restarting your computer about 6 million times. Do I sound a little bitter? D:


Also am I the only one who gets a touch skeeved out when you have a whole bunch of white people (I admit, I am one too, it's just that this bothers me) sitting around telling black (or insert minority here) jokes and saying that it's okay because they were originally told them by a black guy in the first place and they're only telling them to try to shock people and they wouldn't tell them in front of people of that ethnicity and... and... and...? It's just an uncomfortable dynamic for me and, of course, no one likes to hear that it is because what they hear is "you're being racist" (and okay, maybe they are a little, but in this particular case I am relatively certain that they're not intentionally so). Bah.


On a slightly brighter note, I have been making vast quantities of christmas cookies and it is beginning to feel much more like the holiday season (personally, I'm a fan, but then, my family is fairly relaxed about the whole business and I avoid the malls so I'll admit my experiences are not the same as everyone's.)

current mood: grumpy
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Tuesday, December 4th, 2007
9:26 am
We're having a snow storm. It's terrible. And probably not the worst one we're going to get this year. Why do I live here again?

I read Charlotte Brontë's Villette a while back and it seems carefully designed to counter one of the main complaints I have heard about Jane Eyre, namely Spoilers (yes, for an ancient book, but I still don't want to spoil the ending) )

Steven Brust's Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille is also an interesting novel though depressing as hell and the massive plot twist near the end does seem to come out of thin air. His Taltos books and The Phoenix Guards (plus sequels) are more fun, but he's still a good writer even when he's talking about nuclear war and other fun stuff. (It almost reminds me of Spider Robinson's Callahan books if Robinson had been a better writer and had resisted the urge to make his protagonists more and more special with each story, though this may just be because of superficial details: they're both about a musician, in a science-fiction-y bar, with atomic bombs involved in the plot.)

current mood: displeased with snow
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Monday, November 5th, 2007
9:25 am
I think someone has to sit down and have a chat with whoever is in charge of the Canadian Mint because I just got (in change) a quarter commemorating an event that has yet to occur (the Vancouver Paraolympics in 2010, if you're curious) and this seems wrong. I know the whole "collectable quarters" thing was "fun", but now you've all lost your goddamn minds.

In other news I am re-reading House of Leaves again and I don't know why I like it so much when it actually makes me physically ill to read it (not that it's bad, just that it's so fucked up and everything about it combines to make me feel kind of motion sick and I believe that is the intended effect, but still...)
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Thursday, November 1st, 2007
8:44 am
Not dead yet! (Though I have, obviously, been absent from here for ages.)

Slightly belated Happy Halloween to all! Mine was kind of exciting, I went to see Rocky Horror last night. I've never seen it in a theatre before (as in: with all the yelling and throwing things), which was an experience especially as the friends I was with were into it enough that, as they kept saying, they were practically an entire cast and they actually went up front and acted bits of it out. Pretty funny (and I am impressed with the amount of work people put into their costumes...and with the legs on our Frank N. Furter. >D) Onlt downside was that I kept actually getting hit with the stuff people were throwing (rolls of toilet paper mind! and slices of toast! not just the confetti and stuff)...and it turned out at the end that, in fact, that was partially on purpose by a guy I know who was sitting in the back (and, technically, aiming at the guy beside me, but still!) All in all: fun, may well do it again some time. :D

Also I have managed to be super busy lately and still not have a lot to talk about. Kind of ridiculous.
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Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007
10:15 am
Every single time [info]raep_time releases another chapter of Oofuri it is like a small explosion of glee. I am loving it ridiculously for something that is about a sport I have no interest in. It is just the most adorable thing ever. Also I keep being astonished by the fact that it's a shonen manga in which parents appear and are relevant and supportive! and where the underdog team still has people cheering! and where everyone is so very very cute and I want to hug them all.

Also I evidently spend too much time online as I had a dream about checking my email last night. Not exciting email checking or anything, I just checked my email and didn't have any new mail and remarked on the fact that some of my friends were online. I do't remember anything else, but I m terribly amused at how dull my subconscious is.
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Monday, September 17th, 2007
7:55 pm
I think there needs to be some kind of addendum to Steven Brust's rule for writing (that the novel is the vehicle for as much cool stuff as possible) that states something similar for people recommending or summarizing books (or movies, tv shows, whatever). Seriously: put in the cool stuff! Don't read me the back which will only say boring things and end with some kind of stupid rhetorical "Or is it?" question. Tell me exciting things! Tell me about the weird premise! Don't say: "there's this guy and this other guy and this girl and, er, world saving?" Make it fun!

(This tiny rant brought on by the insane contrast between the back of the Trinity Blood dvd, which made it sound dull, and the actual anime which is all "Vampires! Space vampires! Vampire-eating space vampires! Also the Catholic church." and, at least the little bit of it that I've seen, infinitely more fun (also insane: see point about the space vampires, but that's always part of the charm!) Also this is not to say that I haven't done this myself and summarised things incredibly poorly, but it suddenly really got to me, even though there's this other book that's fantastic, but the back of which has annoyed me for years because it basically tells the story of the first chapter, which is actually an incredibly minor subplot for the purpose of introducing the main character and her many eccentricities.)


In other news, I had one of the oddest musical experiences ever: listening to a sax and a guitar try to play heavy metal together. It was pretty funny (something the players admitted themselves; they were just friends of mine messing about rather than serious musician types. Plus the guitarist as super drunk which was funny as hell.)
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Monday, August 27th, 2007
7:23 am
I've been watching Jonathan Creek (british tv show about a socially inept, magic-trick obsessed genius) quite a lot in the last few days and it's quite enjoyable; I mean, I love me some socially-inept geniuses! Also he is played by Alan Davies whose kicked puppy face is the most adorable thing ever. But! I am always being made unhappy by the treatment of the love interest. D:

Essentially, there's a crime writer, Maddy Magellan, who keeps dragging him off to solve locked room murders and that sort of thing (the idea is that he sees things slightly differently from other people and this makes him very good at figuring magic tricks and also "impossible" mysteries: slightly implausible and cliche, but makes for good tv so whatever) and her and Jonathan flirt all the time. This would be fantastic because she really is a delightful character in a lot of ways: she's pushy and attractive while not being a stick insect and she sneaks into places and lies with a straight face and is sarcastic and she has an apartment full of books (which is something you never see on television! especially as she seems to have mostly cheap paperbacks and tptb usually only permit books if they are tastefully bound and completely unlike anything a serious reader would own exclusively). My problem is that the writers seem to have started from the premise of "women are slightly irrational and touchy", which wouldn't necessarily be so bad if their point was to show off the fact that Jonathan is not so good with people and that he keeps saying things untactfully or whatever and that it is a little irritating when he's so smart and so right all the time. Unfortunately, they seem to have turned the dial on the irrationality up to 11 or something because it's not just occasional comments; she reacts to just about everything he says with bitchiness! It's like the writers are trying to hold off on getting them into bed (for some inexplicable reason because seriously, they're both adults here! and interested and with many things in common!), but ineptly so they write nearly the full episode and it's all very pleasant and Maddy and Jonathan are quite good friends and then suddenly they feel that the only way to get out of them having sex is for them to have the most stupid fights ever. Besides the fact that it's getting a little old now, it's a really bizarre way to write Maddy because half the time the bitchiness comes out of nowhere and is ridiculously contrived. It's so bad that it can really only be explained as some kind of serious issues and we've gotten the tiniest of hints that that might be the case, but when she explodes about something everyone treats it like it's just a normal girly thing.

I do like the rest of the tv show because it really is fun and I enjoy listening to people figure out clever tricks (and I rather agree with Jonathan on the subject of magic shows: just because it is very cool to watch people do the tricks, doesn't mean that I think they do real magic or that it's not interesting to learn how it's done), it's just that one little niggle. :(


I'm leaving tomorrow so I'll probably be internet-less until at least Thursday (gosh, three whole days, how will I ever survive ;D). On the other hand it will be three days in a car so I may have to kill myself anyway. :D Bah.
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Tuesday, August 21st, 2007
6:51 am
I saw Stardust last night. I thought it was brilliant (but one of the friends I was with said she didn't know when she had disliked a movie so much so YMMV). It managed to be a movie suitable for children without being a movie made specifically for very dim children, which often seems to be synonymous in the minds of movie makers.

It was a sappy romance in a lot of ways, but this was mitigated for me by the fact that we were introduced to the characters involved first and we saw a certain amount of development in their interactions before they actually admitted to being in love (though if you didn't know it was going to happen three seconds after they met then you weren't paying attention, but I can forgive TPTB that because it was only really obvious because I have read about a million fairy-tales before.) I liked that Tristan and Yvaine were snarky and sarcastic with each other rather than soppy, but it managed to keep on the side of friendly teasing rather than leaving one wondering if they actually hate each other they keep picking at each other so often.

This was the sort of movie with a lot of little things that I enjoyed tremendously (because the main plot was not a subtle thing, though suitably like a fairy-tale): Cut for slight spoilers and length )

I really think anyone who likes fairytales should go see it, but I admit that people who don't may be bored silly. Also I have not read the book (I do intend to now, but I haven't yet) and I think a lot of people who did were much less impressed.

Also one of the trailers before it was for the Beowulf movie: CG much? Seriously, even the actors are all so airbrushed and added to that it looks like the whole thing is computer animated (it's that unnatural smoothness and shininess, y'know?). It might be good though.

current mood: pleased
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Monday, August 6th, 2007
8:10 am
I managed to read 8 volumes of Nana yesterday and I'm still not sure if I like it... which would be impressive if it was not so foolish. XD Nana is certainly pretty enough, but the plot is sort of whatever for me and the characters alternate between interesting and infuriating (although at least they are refreshingly free of those horrible moments where the author tries to pretend that complete stupidity is the height of brilliance and Ai Yazawa does make them ALL very very flawed). It reminds me a lot of Strangers in Paradise because you've got these two women - an artsy one and one who just wants to be normal - whose most important and healthy and meaningful relationship is with each other and who seem to be trying to figure this out despite the fact that the nine thousand other subplots keep interfering. Unfortunately, this makes me worry that it will go the same way as SiP which eventually lost me because it seemed as if it was becoming an exercise in how much shit can we add to their lives and how long can we stretch out keeping them apart? I may or may not read the rest of it, it wasn't great, but it was very pretty...

I have replaced my broken external harddrive (which I had only had for a couple of weeks! D<) with a working one and I still had just about everything I put on it (excluding a few things which at least were just big torrent files rather than a lot of bits). *pleased*

Also I have been re-reading Sarah Caudwell's delightful The Sibyl in Her Grave, which is a lovely mystery novel that is vaguely reminiscent of Sayers in its language and general British-ness. I believe it is best known for the fact that Caudwell managed to write 4 novels about this same group of people without ever giving her narrator (Dr. Hilary Tamar, who is also her detective) a definite gender. I think it should also be known for the astonishing fact that, 9 times out of 10, Dr. Tamar solves all problems by having a drink on someone else's nickel and giving a lecture about the importance of Scholarship (as exemplified by Oxford, naturally). Even so, he and all the cast are terribly endearing and it strikes me that this is more or less what Wilkie Collins wanted to be as he wrote his vast casts of characters who all managed to be developed into people in whose company you would not wish to spend 30 seconds. This is not to say that they do not appear to be real people, just that they are all the sort of deadly dull and obnoxious person who could make you regret any conversation you might have with them, up to and including polite small talk regarding the weather. Dr. Tamar on the other hand is saved because, as ridiculous as he is, you are never expected to listen to him interminably and he is not taken entirely seriously.

current mood: amused
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Friday, July 27th, 2007
1:54 pm
I went to see the new Hairspray a few days ago. It's a show I like a lot (despite the fact that it is a complete oversimplification of the issues and it is very, very silly) and this version is pretty good. If you like musicals, it's not bad; if you don't then you probably will really not like this one as it's not that exceptional. For all that she comes last in the credits, the girl who plays the protagonist can actually sing and dance (unlike Travolta who was a terrible, terrible choice: couldn't sing, couldn't dance and made it very difficult to enjoy the slightly more serious moments with the character). It also had the added amusement factor that most of the outdoor stuff was filmed 10 minutes walk from my house and was instantly recognisable (to other people in the audience too apparently, as I heard some of them commenting on it as well).

I finally finished all the One Piece there is so far (forty-something volumes! it's insane!). It was mostly just entertaining, though it is impressive that a story that long doesn't drag and can still hold the attention for that long. Also, question for anyone who knows: are there "official" translations of Franky's real name? I know the L/R thing is always shaky in Japanese and in all the scanlations I read it was: "Cutty Flam", but I would think "Cutty Fram" would make more sense because that would refer to the Cutty Sark and the Fram, two very famous ships, (guess who has read too much Swallows and Amazons/Age of Sail!) which seems to be the kind of joke that Oda-sensei likes. Does anyone know if I'm just making things up or if this could be possible?

I also finished China Miéville's Iron Council, which was good, though it has the type of depressing ending he seems to be so fond of. ;_; Also he continues to use the word "drool" every single time he talks about liquid of any sort. Is it his favourite word or something? It's kind of odd (though it does not actually detract significantly from the book itself.)
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Wednesday, July 11th, 2007
6:56 am
I have spent the last few days mostly watching Blake's 7 and reading One Piece alternately. They're both quite good, though I like them for entirely different reasons: Blake's 7 has interesting characters in fairly banal sci-fi stories, and I have yet to really fall for the characters in One Piece, but the sheer insanity of the "plot" is terribly entertaining. :D One Piece is, of course, so massively popular it requires no introduction so I will just remark that I am not entirely sure why I keep reading it (there's so much) except that it has yet to be boring.

Blake's 7 is only going to be fun if you have as high a tolerance as I do for really old sci-fi. XD The special effects are terrible (though it makes a nice change that all the random planets look suspiciously like bits of Britain, rather than suspiciously like Vancouver XD), the fight scenes are very slow and very obviously choreographed and the costumes range from "fairly normal for the seventies" to "that is incredibly silly looking and I will not be able to take you seriously all episode now" (though on the bright side, they are at least changed nearly every episode and you never get that sense of "do they never wash, or do they own 50 copies of the same outfit?"). The writing and acting are, on the other hand, quite good; the plots are not always subtle, but at least the dialogue is interesting and consistant and often very funny. I am enjoying it, but there is that mix of "I'm right there with you" and "now i'm just laughing at you because that is so fake" that is part of the fun!

current mood: cheerful
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Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007
6:59 pm
The ending to Princess Tutu is distressingly thematically appropriate. Which is to say that it was spoilers below )

I really loved the way they did ballet because it's the kind of thing I have childhood nostalgia for (my parents took me to see <>The Nutcracker</i> about a million times, which made half the sound track very enjoyable for me :D), but which I don't actually have the patience to watch (it's long and there are no words! I just can't watch it!) by keeping all the actual dancing scenes fairly short and having words during and in between. It's sort of odd, but I really liked that about it!

Mostly, it made me go EEEEEEEE! with joy and I would recommend it, but only if you have a high crack tolerance and a love of fairytales (and messing with them, which is generally even more fun. >:D)

And if anyone has, or knows where I can get an icon of Fakir in the library I will love you forever. :D

current mood: gleeful
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Thursday, June 28th, 2007
9:51 pm
I'm disappointed in Jo Walton's Tooth and Claw. I'd heard about it as a Victorian novel with dragons, but it is frankly like one of the duller Victorian novels and with the added uncomfortableness of her "twist": all the little racist/classist/sexist fictions of the era are literally true (e.g. female dragons are smaller and have no claws, the children of the poor are literally eaten by the rich and powerful if said rich feel there are too many...) I admit that I'm not all the way through, but she'd have to do something pretty spectacular in the later half to make the book feel less creepy. Especially as she seems so pleased with the idea in her foreword/acknowledgements. I don't know about anyone else, but I can really only stand the Victorian novel because I am capable of putting all the little details that are opposed to my liberal sensibilites aside and excusing them as the out-dated foibles of the dead. I do not want to have them presented as literal truth. It's just uncomfortable. D: Plus the plot is not gripping enough to make me care and the characters and language are exceedingly banal. Her writing style does not appeal to me enough to make her unappealing plots more interesting (and where is the exceedingly formal wit? dammit that's the point of a good Victorian novel XD), and she's not even writing a Victorian sensation novel where the plot is ridiculous enough to be intriguing (for example, Wilkie Collins, whose Woman in White I am currently reading even though it's rubbish in almost all ways except for being silly.) I think a modern novel like this has to be a little more tongue in cheek for my taste.

On the other hand, I just finished Laurie J. Marks' Fire Logic and I would recommend it with no hesitation. She has achieved an interesting world with brilliant characters and a relatively original way of doing a moderately typical fantasy plotline. The plotline in question is "where is our ruler (who must be a specific person because of some type of magic)?", but Marks has made it different. Spoilers below cut. ) It was not only a fantastic book on its own merits of plot and characrerisation, but it was also a welcome balm after the skeevy feeling I got from Tooth and Claw: it was written about an honestly equal society and was not preachy. There are simply lots of women around doing things and no one saying a word about it, which actually makes it seem more real. Equally astonishingly, there are any number of homosexual relationships and bisexual characters (not that they say it, but the characters are shown having interests in both genders) and again, no one even mentions it. (The main characters themselves are two women in a...complicated...relationship.) It was amazing. I am absolutely going to have to find the sequel and I may actually go out and buy a full price copy of it which is something I don't generally do (libraries are ♥ XD).

current mood: pleased
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Friday, June 22nd, 2007
7:31 am
My love for Princess Tutu goes unfaded. It's still crack, but delightfully complicated crack and I enjoy the layering of fairytales to make them more complex and uncertain. I am also enjoying the fact that Ahiru gets to be a princess rescuing a prince, which may be the basic wish-fullfilment bit of all magical girl stories, but which is still very satisfying, even if her main motivation is still love. :D *is shallow* I don't really have much of substance to say about it...I just adore it madly. ^_________^

On the other hand, Spider Robinson is not improving with age. He actually appears to be becoming a worse writer, which should be a bit of a trick. :P I had actually been warned, but I wanted to see for myself and, well, everyone was right! His last Callahan's book (unless he's written one very recently that I have not heard of) reaches dramatic new heights of "well, at least I'm laughing, even if it is at the damn thing". He protagonist gets more and more "special", more and more people have angsty pasts and the mild surreality is drowned in "look! look! weird shit! all at once! am I not hilarious? and also thinking deeply meaningful thoughts about the universe?!" *disappointed* It is not, however, a tragedy as I am reading about a million books at once as always (it is inefficient, I know, but also habit) and many of them are considerably better. :D
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