So Yesterday; Scott Westerfeld; 2004

The library didn't have Uglies, so I picked this up as a consolation prize until their copy of Uglies comes back or I break down and buy the series. 

So Yesterday reminds me a lot of Little Brother, and sure enough, there's at least one Cory Doctorow reference in there... of course, oddly enough, So Yesterday predates Little Brother's publication by four years, which leads to the question: is it actually better?

Not really.   So Yesterday is just as well written as Little Brother, but its fatal flaw is that there are no real stakes, like if Harry and Hermione worked hard to protect the philosopher's stone, but it turns out Voldemort hadn't really come back and Dumbledore was just holding the stone for a client who wanted to buy it from Flamel.

Irony: musical IP edition

Another stray thought, another www-enabled rabbit hole.  This one ends at Bridgit Mendler's music video of Ready or Not:

Oi.  

Some day, I'll do a better job of backtracking to the journey's start, but in this case I know that I was led to peruse the Fugees wikipedia page, which mentions their song "Ready or Not" in the context of a near-lawsuit from Enya.  Oh, we've got to hear that:

This video was almost the moment I had to wonder, "well, how did I get here?"  The juxtaposition of the lyrics "Gonna find you and make you want me" with Enya's "Boadicea" with the military manhunt-themed visuals is WTF-inducing.

But then, I saw Shaylie Hayes' top-rated comment:

Did Bridgit mendler steal this song ?

And Adam Beneratti's incomprehensible reply:

Who [...] is.....STOLE WHAT? She better not, cause this is Fugees original song and any other that contain with the same beat or lyrics is definitely stolen, or accepted to be played from the artists them self. :)

Oh, the irony of a song inspired by four other artists being vigorously defended as entirely "original", and that Ms. Mendler's version does not appear to sample Enya at all.

The death of nostalgia: Spiderman '67 edition

Spiderman was my favorite comic-book superhero growing up, even though I didn't read comic books.  Super Friends was fun to watch, but the D.C. heroes were lame compared to the 60's Spiderman cartoon (and later, Spiderman and his Amazing Friends!).  So when I saw that Netflix had the Spiderman: '67 Classic Collection, what was the harm of putting it into the queue?  

Another tiny murder of childhood memories, that's what.

The theme song is still fantastic, but once the episode began... oh, boy.  The worst is that Spiderman's voice is all wrong; I hear the "Amazing Friends" voice whenever I think of Spiderman; he sounds young and smart-alecky, and this guy sounded like he was channeling George Reeves.  Fast-forwarded through the whole disc and only stopped to have a look at Mysterio, Rhino, Vulture, and Doc Ock.  (the Lizard, Electro, Green Goblin, must appear on a different disc.)

Must...resist...looking up...Herculoids...

A character sheet for the old D&D Coloring Book

If you are a fan of the Official Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Coloring Book, not just for the coloring, but for the game included as part of the book, then you might find this sheet for keeping track of your adventure useful.  (Heck, for simplicity we ignore the map of the dungeon in the middle of the book and assume you can choose any order in which to battle the monsters)

Then the question is: what's the best order in which to fight the monsters?

The Woman Who Died a Lot; Jasper Fforde; 2012

The winner of this week's bad editing award goes to the following exchange between Thursday Next and her husband, Landen.

"What was I supposed to say?" replied Landen. "... did you get into Image Ink this morning?"

"I forgot again."

"Me, too.  Twice.  Hang on," I added.

Or, if we want to be generous, maybe it was just a clever use of the mindworm.

There are two completely independent plots running through this book, one of which is resolved by the introduction of an entirely new character a few pages from the conclusion of that storyline.  It doesn't work.  

There are still some good parts in the seventh Thursday Next novel, but I don't think I'll be reading the eighth.

Fixing Tangled, or, the Rehabilitation of Flynn Rider

+Vynce Montgomery got me thinking about Tangled again, and I decided the  comment that "No princesses are necessary here, and it feels like a missed opportunity" could use further elaboration.  So, to fix the main problems with Flynn's motivation:

1. Gothel is the evil queen of the kingdom, and has been for many years, kept young by the magic flower in her garden.
2. Rapunzel's parents are poor residents of the town, very active and beloved in their community.  Rapunzel's mother falls ill during her pregnancy, so they steal the flower from the queen's garden.  Their daughter is blessed with the magic hair, blah, blah, blah, Gothel needs the power of the hair to stay young, and so takes the daughter by force and hides her away in the tower.
3. Flynn now grows up in a terrible place, ruled by Queen Gothel, and can have all sorts of reasons for stealing from her (heck, maybe he's orphaned because his parents were the ones who actually stole the magic flower for Rapunzel's parents, and Gothel has them killed for treason).  
4. Much of the rest of the movie plays out as-is.** 
5. With Gothel defeated, there is no monarch, Rapunzel is reunited with her parents, and their community Committee of Union and Progress establishes more democratic rule... and hopefully more like the alternate history committee portrayed in Behemoth and less like the real-life one responsible for the Armenian genocide.

No princess, no prince, and a stronger story with pro-democracy values.  Ta-da!

** +Sarahmac pointed out that the floating lanterns are one of the best things about the original movie, and it would be a shame to lose them.  No problem.  This ceremony, instead of a state-funded and sanctioned event, becomes a quiet, peaceful, and yet powerful act of defiance by the community against the Queen.

Behemoth; Scott Westerfeld; 2010

This is not a test. Please move as quickly as possible to your local bookstore and buy the Leviathan/Behemoth/Goliath series by Scott Westerfeld.  

I was charmed by Leviathan, but in no way did I expect it to be the launching pad for the brilliant YA steampunk WWI alternate history action/adventure novel that is Behemoth, with Keith Thompson's illustrations perfectly complementing the text.  Holy cow.  Every chapter brings some new little bit of information, some wrinkle to the story, some exciting development, that all comes together in a rousing and satisfying conclusion for this story while still leading into the next one. 

I'm going to be walking around muttering "Mr. Sharp" and giggling to myself for days.  Whee!