I'm going to try restarting this place after half a decade of reading and writing. I'm likely going to clear out some of my backlog, and add new books as I read them and listen to them.
There are piles of older books, and I'm thinking I may need to reread them and add them that way.
Showing posts with label Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Life. Show all posts
Friday, February 28, 2014
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Update
It's been a while, life keeps on happening. I got to my best friends wedding as best man, that went off well. I quit my old job, which is I think going to be a good thing in the long term. I also left Madison, WI at long last. I'm back in Milwaukee, looking for work and cleaning up loose ends of my life. It hasn't been the easiest time, but I'm getting better as it goes along. House Tyrell's words seem to work for me right now, "Growing Strong" is a fit way to look at this current epoch.
In book news I just finished Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, it was a good read, and an enjoyable extrapolation from Snow Crash. I didn't really like the ending, as he clips it off once he gets bored with the part of the book that interests him, which leaves large chunks of plot sitting around uncompleted. I understand the reasoning, but I think that this shows a lack of editor's power, not a lack of ability as a writer. In his earlier works, the ending is given despite the "interesting" portion of the book having been completed earlier. As he gains a name for himself and gets more power within the process of his book writing, he has less reason to listen to an editor making suggestions.
I'll be back to talk about detective fiction later.
In book news I just finished Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, it was a good read, and an enjoyable extrapolation from Snow Crash. I didn't really like the ending, as he clips it off once he gets bored with the part of the book that interests him, which leaves large chunks of plot sitting around uncompleted. I understand the reasoning, but I think that this shows a lack of editor's power, not a lack of ability as a writer. In his earlier works, the ending is given despite the "interesting" portion of the book having been completed earlier. As he gains a name for himself and gets more power within the process of his book writing, he has less reason to listen to an editor making suggestions.
I'll be back to talk about detective fiction later.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Not So Good Prince
It was a long trip to Origins this weekend, made worse by the Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin DOT's. The prize for best blockage of traffic goes, however, to Indiana. We spent 2 hours going 6 miles on the way from Chicago to Indianapolis. This was parking lot, turn off your engine, have a picnic speeds of travel and reminded me of why not having a car isn't always a negative. It did however give me a chance to get some Fables out of the trunk where it had languished in my backpack.
I've been picking up the trades of Fables since I can no longer find a steady supply of comics in the downtown Madison area. I get to catch up on that exiled communities foibles and follies every six months or so. The latest edition sets up the end game for the series however, showing the preparations for conflict and the creation of a magical kingdom of peace and happiness that the Adversary can't conquer. It was smarmy.
The best of the series comes from forcing the placement of all these fables together and having them have to deal with outside grievances and amusing issues. The naming of the adversary, and the near immediate destruction of his power base was poorly executed in a series that relies much more on it's characters for readability than on its plot. And this was the issue. The Good Prince sets out to give a mystical transformation and a redemption story arc for the lowly frog prince, but all it does is alter him without showing the transformation as it happens. One second he's a confused janitor and the next he's off with Obi-wan on some damn fool idealistic crusade.
Done right it could have been done well. If we'd followed the prince as he had to make real choices or real sacrifices. Instead he's granted near invincible power, a lack of needs or conflicting desires and goes off to save the world. It's like using the bat signal to stop a shoplifting 13 year old. Yeah, batman can find out who it was, but do we really care about that pack of gum? No I didn't think we did. The interesting thing in the story arc is what was hinted at, and barely shown. How the fables in Fabletown reacted to the news. That would have been my preferred way to see this play out. The fable community watching through the magic mirror and having them deal with the issues being brought forward. Instead we focus on the dull predictable plot.
A simple example: the mirror shows what happened to everyone dropped down the wishing well. It's hellish. And we get a moment of the fables saying "that's awful, we can't do that again" but then it moves on. An interesting issue would have been seeing Fly drop down there, and then watching the news of the discovery ripple through Fabletown. How would the once again 3 bears react to their son being down there? More speculation about the no-show of Baba Yaga would have been interesting too. Those types of moments could have conveyed the events in Fly's story much more forcefully and without making the reader lose their interest in the eventual outcome.
I've been picking up the trades of Fables since I can no longer find a steady supply of comics in the downtown Madison area. I get to catch up on that exiled communities foibles and follies every six months or so. The latest edition sets up the end game for the series however, showing the preparations for conflict and the creation of a magical kingdom of peace and happiness that the Adversary can't conquer. It was smarmy.
The best of the series comes from forcing the placement of all these fables together and having them have to deal with outside grievances and amusing issues. The naming of the adversary, and the near immediate destruction of his power base was poorly executed in a series that relies much more on it's characters for readability than on its plot. And this was the issue. The Good Prince sets out to give a mystical transformation and a redemption story arc for the lowly frog prince, but all it does is alter him without showing the transformation as it happens. One second he's a confused janitor and the next he's off with Obi-wan on some damn fool idealistic crusade.
Done right it could have been done well. If we'd followed the prince as he had to make real choices or real sacrifices. Instead he's granted near invincible power, a lack of needs or conflicting desires and goes off to save the world. It's like using the bat signal to stop a shoplifting 13 year old. Yeah, batman can find out who it was, but do we really care about that pack of gum? No I didn't think we did. The interesting thing in the story arc is what was hinted at, and barely shown. How the fables in Fabletown reacted to the news. That would have been my preferred way to see this play out. The fable community watching through the magic mirror and having them deal with the issues being brought forward. Instead we focus on the dull predictable plot.
A simple example: the mirror shows what happened to everyone dropped down the wishing well. It's hellish. And we get a moment of the fables saying "that's awful, we can't do that again" but then it moves on. An interesting issue would have been seeing Fly drop down there, and then watching the news of the discovery ripple through Fabletown. How would the once again 3 bears react to their son being down there? More speculation about the no-show of Baba Yaga would have been interesting too. Those types of moments could have conveyed the events in Fly's story much more forcefully and without making the reader lose their interest in the eventual outcome.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Something worth reading
Right here.
I ran into a bet linked through Penny-Arcade about the nature of art and videogames. It ended up the next day at the New Yorker reading about the decline of reading. I have to say that it was an interesting journey and certainly one that I found to be highly interesting. The basis for all this was a wager on how videogames will evolve within our culture. The threads that were followed were diverse, and created a discussion about the nature of art, entertainment and how we judge culture.
In the end, video games, TV and Movies are a different type of media than books, and they cause different types of stimulation. Reading a book allows you to populate the world and characters with your own vision of them. The act of being entertained is more participatory and imaginative. On some level video games represent a reflection of this ability, while the plot involved may be straight forward, the best games allow you to interact with it, color it and make your own choices based on it. It's not the same as reading, as the world is shaped and colored by other peoples imagination, but it's less passive than TV or a movie, where everything is following someone else's idea of what is interesting.
Personally I prefer books, I like having the time to pursue tangents and minor characters in my own imagination before continuing with the authors story. It's why I dislike movies based on books, since they tend to calcify my image of the characters and the setting. Also, they tend to be rubbish, but that's not the key point. It's interesting to note that the best horror films tend to work on the same premise - that what you can imagine is more frightening than what the film can show you. Alien used this to its great advantage and once the alien was revealed the franchise became action movies instead of horror. In the end a book requires a level of interaction and a skill set the dwarfs that of video games, it's simply a skill set that is much easier to acquire (literacy) and a type of interaction that we encourage more (imagination.)
I ran into a bet linked through Penny-Arcade about the nature of art and videogames. It ended up the next day at the New Yorker reading about the decline of reading. I have to say that it was an interesting journey and certainly one that I found to be highly interesting. The basis for all this was a wager on how videogames will evolve within our culture. The threads that were followed were diverse, and created a discussion about the nature of art, entertainment and how we judge culture.
In the end, video games, TV and Movies are a different type of media than books, and they cause different types of stimulation. Reading a book allows you to populate the world and characters with your own vision of them. The act of being entertained is more participatory and imaginative. On some level video games represent a reflection of this ability, while the plot involved may be straight forward, the best games allow you to interact with it, color it and make your own choices based on it. It's not the same as reading, as the world is shaped and colored by other peoples imagination, but it's less passive than TV or a movie, where everything is following someone else's idea of what is interesting.
Personally I prefer books, I like having the time to pursue tangents and minor characters in my own imagination before continuing with the authors story. It's why I dislike movies based on books, since they tend to calcify my image of the characters and the setting. Also, they tend to be rubbish, but that's not the key point. It's interesting to note that the best horror films tend to work on the same premise - that what you can imagine is more frightening than what the film can show you. Alien used this to its great advantage and once the alien was revealed the franchise became action movies instead of horror. In the end a book requires a level of interaction and a skill set the dwarfs that of video games, it's simply a skill set that is much easier to acquire (literacy) and a type of interaction that we encourage more (imagination.)
Friday, February 8, 2008
Little Reading Here
It's been a wee bit busy in Madison of late. The recent snow deluges have certainly granted me some free time, but that has largely been eaten up with other persuits. And the joy of my computer/DVD player and Netflix is finally letting me make some progress on my appreciation of non-wood pulp based media. But that's not really what this is about, so I really need to catch up on my books, or I'll have to start reviewing things that I've already read, without rereading them. And I'm fairly certain that counts as cheating.
Secretary was a good movie, I'm glad I rerented it to watch it all the way through. I'm not sure if I like the office or the love story more. The office was an interesting story about the personality of the lawyer, while the love story was much more about the main character. Either way, the actin was great, the family was wonderfully disfunctional, and her competing suitors parents made me cringe delightfully.
Secretary was a good movie, I'm glad I rerented it to watch it all the way through. I'm not sure if I like the office or the love story more. The office was an interesting story about the personality of the lawyer, while the love story was much more about the main character. Either way, the actin was great, the family was wonderfully disfunctional, and her competing suitors parents made me cringe delightfully.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Plan B is just Plan A with more explosives
I'm taking my time with Quicksilver, and so far I'm happy that I am. I fear I have developed an in book crush on Eliza. I suspect that I was meant to.
The real reason for the delay is work on a setting for my Game of Thrones RPG. It's always fun to populate a little corner of someone elses world, but I'm also trying very hard to stay in the background of the plotline of the author. I'm likely going to reread the GoT series aka Song of Ice and Fire by Martin, so you'll be seeing the books reviewed here in the next month.
Personally I'm looking forward to the foriegn service exams in March. Who doesn't like pondering what they'll be doing with their life?
The real reason for the delay is work on a setting for my Game of Thrones RPG. It's always fun to populate a little corner of someone elses world, but I'm also trying very hard to stay in the background of the plotline of the author. I'm likely going to reread the GoT series aka Song of Ice and Fire by Martin, so you'll be seeing the books reviewed here in the next month.
Personally I'm looking forward to the foriegn service exams in March. Who doesn't like pondering what they'll be doing with their life?
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