Wednesday, January 6, 2010
The Spots I Used to Hold Love In
This Something Positive comic neatly sums up why I never should have put Star Blazers in my Netflix queue. I've been smarter about not rewatching the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, but I still have this crazy idea that Thundarr the Barbarian will be awesome after 30 years and the Bionic 6 a forgotten gem.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Books read in 2009
Since a friend posted her list of books read in 2009, I'll do the same. The ones I enjoyed the most were Regeneration, the Borders of Infinity through A Civil Campaign story arc of the Vorkosigan saga, and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, with honorable mentions to Lavinia, City on Fire, and Appointment in Samarra. Listings below show the title, author, publication year, and date finished.
Regeneration (Barker, Pat) 1991 1/9/2009 I really liked this.
Making Money (Pratchett, Terry) 2007 1/11/2009 It's not Going Postal, but there's really nowhere to go but down from that great height. The second Moist von Lipwig novel is as entertaining as anything else Pratchett has written in the post-Hogfather era.
Go Tell It on the Mountain (Baldwin, James) 1953 DNF. 1/11/2009
Water for elephants : a novel (Gruen, Sara) 2006 1/12/2009
Chalice (McKinley, Robin) 2008 1/18/2009 Not one of McKinley's better novels. She still writes beautifully, and the sections she writes about the bees are good reading, but the plot never rises above juvenalia. Yes, I know, nearly all of her best stuff is technically juvenalia, but somehow Aeryn and Hari (and many of the others), even when they're full of worry about whether they're doing the right thing and blundering about trying to figure out their relationships and how they can make a difference in the grand scheme of things, don't seem to dither as annoyingly as Mirasol. Yes, we know you're untrained and you think nobody likes you and you'll do anything to keep the demesne intact, so could we just get on with it?
Greasy Lake and Other Stories (Boyle, T. Coraghessan) 1985 1/25/09 I liked "Ike and Nina" because he does a nice job of writing his story into historical context. The other stories don't do anything for me.
The Memory of Old Jack (Berry, Wendell) 1974 2/1/9
A Month in the Country (Carr, J.L.) 1980 2/3/9
The Eye in the Door (Barker, Pat) 1993 2/8/9 Billy Prior, already disagreeable in Regeneration, becomes nearly unreadable in the Eye in the Door, so that it rather ruins it for me that he gets half the novel to tell "his" story, when what I really want is to read Barker's brilliant realization of Rivers.
Hell (Davis, Kathryn) 1998 2/14/9
The Ghost Road (Barker, Pat) 1995 2/20/9 Good lord, we've had an awful lot of bad sex scenes since the suppressed undercurrents of Regeneration! The Rivers chapters are still brilliant; Prior is still very disagreeable.
Shards of Honor (Bujold, Lois McMaster) 1986 2/24/9 I read Barrayar a while back and wasn't particularly impressed; then read Curse of Chalion and decided to go back and give the Miles Vorkosigan saga another try. Now I see the seeds of what will eventually flower in the Chalion books.
The Warrior's Apprentice (Bujold, Lois McMaster) 1986 2/27/9
The Vor Game (Bujold, Lois McMaster) 1990 3/1/9
I Am Legend (Matheson, Richard) 1954 3/4/9
Cetaganda (Bujold, Lois McMaster) 1996 3/8/9
Fledgling: a novel (Butler, Octavia) 2005 3/18/9
Paddy Clark Ha, Ha, Ha (Doyle, Roddy) 1993 3/20/9 DNF 50 pages in and no overarching story in sight; it's a series of snippets from the boy's life -- they're well written snippets, but I don't need another 200 pages of it. Maybe I'm come back around to it when I have more free time.
Silence (Endo, Shusaku) 1966 3/25/9
Starting Out in the Evening (Morton, Brian) 1998 3/29/9
The Last Witchfinder (Morrow, James) 2006 4/12/2009
A Lesson Before Dying (Gaines, Ernest J.) 1993 4/17/2009
Spies: A Novel (Frayn, Michael) 2002 4/18/9
Anansi Boys (Gaiman, Neil) 2005 4/20/9
Everything Asian (Woo, Sung Joon) 2009 4/26/9
In the Land of Dreamy Dreams (Gilchrist, Ellen) 1981 5/2/9
Sights Unseen (Gibbons, Kaye) 1995 5/9/2009
The Late Bourgeois World (Gordimer, Nadine) 1966 5/12/9
Ethan of Athos (Bujold, Lois McMaster) 1986 5/14/9
"Labyrinths" (Bujold, Lois McMaster) 1988 5/16/9
Tea With The Black Dragon (MacAvoy, R.A.) 1983 5/19/9
Riddley Walker (Hoban, Russell) 1980 6/14/9
Helliconia Winter (Aldiss, Brian) 1985 6/26/9
You Know Me Al (Lardner, Ring) 1914 6/28/9 I liked this.
Borders of Infinity (Bujold, Lois McMaster) 2002 7/8/9
Brothers in Arms (Bujold, Lois McMaster) 1989 7/10/9
Mirror Dance (Bujold, Lois McMaster) 1995 7/15/9
Native Speaker (Lee, Chang-rae) 1995 7/20/9
Memory (Bujold, Lois McMaster) 1996 7/23/9
Komarr (Bujold, Lois McMaster) 1998 7/25/9
A Civil Campaign (Bujold, Lois McMaster) 1999 7/27/9
Diplomatic Immunity (Bujold, Lois McMaster) 2002 8/3/9 Finished off the Vorkosigan saga and am now sad it's over. The arc from Borders of Infinity to A Civil Campaign is particularly strong, but it helps to have read all of the earlier (in story chronologically) stuff, because little references are constantly being made to those earlier stories. Miles' time at "Camp Permafrost" in the Vor Game seems to come up more often that the others, at least once per book, which is a little weird because it's one of the weaker stories, writing-wise, so to have it mentioned and think, "oh, yeah, that's from the book I didn't really like" is distracting from the current book.
Glitz (Leonard, Elmore) 1985 8/8/9
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Loos, Anita) 1925 8/11/9
Island (MacLeod, Alistair) 8/20/9
The Einstein Intersection (Delany, Samuel R.) 1967 8/25/9
Embers (Márai, Sándor) 1942 translated by Carol Brown Janeway, 2001 8/27/9
Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming (Zelazny, Roger and Sheckley, Robert) 1991 9/1/9
Dragonhaven (McKinley, Robin) 2007 9/5/9
Lavinia (LeGuin, Ursula) 2008 9/7/9
The Vampire Tapestry (Charnas, Suzy McKee) 1980 9/13/9
All the Pretty Horses (McCarthy, Cormac) 1992 9/21/9
The Groves of Academe (McCarthy, Mary) 1952 9/28/9 DNF.
Good News from Outer Space (Kessel, John) 1989 10/11/9 There are two great scenes in the book: the one where the Rev. Gilray is confronted by the Alien posing as Dr. Vance to test his faith (Chapter 10, pg 104-112), and the one where Wes Purcell is confronted by the Alien (Chapter 17, pg 166-182). Maybe the rest was better/more relevant in 1989.
The Women of Brewster Place: A Novel in Seven Stories (Naylor, Gloria) 1980 10/18/9
A Personal Matter (Oe, Kenzaburo) translated by John Nathan 1969 10/24/9
City on Fire (Williams, Walter Jon) 1997 11/5/9
The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories (Willis, Connie) 2007 11/15/9
Appointment in Samarra (O'Hara, John) 1934 11/22/9
BUtterfield 8 (O'Hara, John) 1935 11/28/9
Straight Man (David Russo) 1997 12/7/9
My Father's Ghost: The Return of My Old Man and Other Second Chances (Charnas, Suzy McKee) 2002 12/22/9
Regeneration (Barker, Pat) 1991 1/9/2009 I really liked this.
Making Money (Pratchett, Terry) 2007 1/11/2009 It's not Going Postal, but there's really nowhere to go but down from that great height. The second Moist von Lipwig novel is as entertaining as anything else Pratchett has written in the post-Hogfather era.
Go Tell It on the Mountain (Baldwin, James) 1953 DNF. 1/11/2009
Water for elephants : a novel (Gruen, Sara) 2006 1/12/2009
Chalice (McKinley, Robin) 2008 1/18/2009 Not one of McKinley's better novels. She still writes beautifully, and the sections she writes about the bees are good reading, but the plot never rises above juvenalia. Yes, I know, nearly all of her best stuff is technically juvenalia, but somehow Aeryn and Hari (and many of the others), even when they're full of worry about whether they're doing the right thing and blundering about trying to figure out their relationships and how they can make a difference in the grand scheme of things, don't seem to dither as annoyingly as Mirasol. Yes, we know you're untrained and you think nobody likes you and you'll do anything to keep the demesne intact, so could we just get on with it?
Greasy Lake and Other Stories (Boyle, T. Coraghessan) 1985 1/25/09 I liked "Ike and Nina" because he does a nice job of writing his story into historical context. The other stories don't do anything for me.
The Memory of Old Jack (Berry, Wendell) 1974 2/1/9
A Month in the Country (Carr, J.L.) 1980 2/3/9
The Eye in the Door (Barker, Pat) 1993 2/8/9 Billy Prior, already disagreeable in Regeneration, becomes nearly unreadable in the Eye in the Door, so that it rather ruins it for me that he gets half the novel to tell "his" story, when what I really want is to read Barker's brilliant realization of Rivers.
Hell (Davis, Kathryn) 1998 2/14/9
The Ghost Road (Barker, Pat) 1995 2/20/9 Good lord, we've had an awful lot of bad sex scenes since the suppressed undercurrents of Regeneration! The Rivers chapters are still brilliant; Prior is still very disagreeable.
Shards of Honor (Bujold, Lois McMaster) 1986 2/24/9 I read Barrayar a while back and wasn't particularly impressed; then read Curse of Chalion and decided to go back and give the Miles Vorkosigan saga another try. Now I see the seeds of what will eventually flower in the Chalion books.
The Warrior's Apprentice (Bujold, Lois McMaster) 1986 2/27/9
The Vor Game (Bujold, Lois McMaster) 1990 3/1/9
I Am Legend (Matheson, Richard) 1954 3/4/9
Cetaganda (Bujold, Lois McMaster) 1996 3/8/9
Fledgling: a novel (Butler, Octavia) 2005 3/18/9
Paddy Clark Ha, Ha, Ha (Doyle, Roddy) 1993 3/20/9 DNF 50 pages in and no overarching story in sight; it's a series of snippets from the boy's life -- they're well written snippets, but I don't need another 200 pages of it. Maybe I'm come back around to it when I have more free time.
Silence (Endo, Shusaku) 1966 3/25/9
Starting Out in the Evening (Morton, Brian) 1998 3/29/9
The Last Witchfinder (Morrow, James) 2006 4/12/2009
A Lesson Before Dying (Gaines, Ernest J.) 1993 4/17/2009
Spies: A Novel (Frayn, Michael) 2002 4/18/9
Anansi Boys (Gaiman, Neil) 2005 4/20/9
Everything Asian (Woo, Sung Joon) 2009 4/26/9
In the Land of Dreamy Dreams (Gilchrist, Ellen) 1981 5/2/9
Sights Unseen (Gibbons, Kaye) 1995 5/9/2009
The Late Bourgeois World (Gordimer, Nadine) 1966 5/12/9
Ethan of Athos (Bujold, Lois McMaster) 1986 5/14/9
"Labyrinths" (Bujold, Lois McMaster) 1988 5/16/9
Tea With The Black Dragon (MacAvoy, R.A.) 1983 5/19/9
Riddley Walker (Hoban, Russell) 1980 6/14/9
Helliconia Winter (Aldiss, Brian) 1985 6/26/9
You Know Me Al (Lardner, Ring) 1914 6/28/9 I liked this.
Borders of Infinity (Bujold, Lois McMaster) 2002 7/8/9
Brothers in Arms (Bujold, Lois McMaster) 1989 7/10/9
Mirror Dance (Bujold, Lois McMaster) 1995 7/15/9
Native Speaker (Lee, Chang-rae) 1995 7/20/9
Memory (Bujold, Lois McMaster) 1996 7/23/9
Komarr (Bujold, Lois McMaster) 1998 7/25/9
A Civil Campaign (Bujold, Lois McMaster) 1999 7/27/9
Diplomatic Immunity (Bujold, Lois McMaster) 2002 8/3/9 Finished off the Vorkosigan saga and am now sad it's over. The arc from Borders of Infinity to A Civil Campaign is particularly strong, but it helps to have read all of the earlier (in story chronologically) stuff, because little references are constantly being made to those earlier stories. Miles' time at "Camp Permafrost" in the Vor Game seems to come up more often that the others, at least once per book, which is a little weird because it's one of the weaker stories, writing-wise, so to have it mentioned and think, "oh, yeah, that's from the book I didn't really like" is distracting from the current book.
Glitz (Leonard, Elmore) 1985 8/8/9
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Loos, Anita) 1925 8/11/9
Island (MacLeod, Alistair) 8/20/9
The Einstein Intersection (Delany, Samuel R.) 1967 8/25/9
Embers (Márai, Sándor) 1942 translated by Carol Brown Janeway, 2001 8/27/9
Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming (Zelazny, Roger and Sheckley, Robert) 1991 9/1/9
Dragonhaven (McKinley, Robin) 2007 9/5/9
Lavinia (LeGuin, Ursula) 2008 9/7/9
The Vampire Tapestry (Charnas, Suzy McKee) 1980 9/13/9
All the Pretty Horses (McCarthy, Cormac) 1992 9/21/9
The Groves of Academe (McCarthy, Mary) 1952 9/28/9 DNF.
Good News from Outer Space (Kessel, John) 1989 10/11/9 There are two great scenes in the book: the one where the Rev. Gilray is confronted by the Alien posing as Dr. Vance to test his faith (Chapter 10, pg 104-112), and the one where Wes Purcell is confronted by the Alien (Chapter 17, pg 166-182). Maybe the rest was better/more relevant in 1989.
The Women of Brewster Place: A Novel in Seven Stories (Naylor, Gloria) 1980 10/18/9
A Personal Matter (Oe, Kenzaburo) translated by John Nathan 1969 10/24/9
City on Fire (Williams, Walter Jon) 1997 11/5/9
The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories (Willis, Connie) 2007 11/15/9
Appointment in Samarra (O'Hara, John) 1934 11/22/9
BUtterfield 8 (O'Hara, John) 1935 11/28/9
Straight Man (David Russo) 1997 12/7/9
My Father's Ghost: The Return of My Old Man and Other Second Chances (Charnas, Suzy McKee) 2002 12/22/9
Monday, January 4, 2010
Ah... "Calcoku" = KenKen
A little while ago, the local indie rag started carrying a puzzle called "Calcoku", in addition to the usual crossword puzzle and Sudoku. Googling calcoku returns nothing useful, but my aunt identified it as KenKen (or Calcudoku or Mathdoku). Just in case your newspaper carries "Calcoku" and you can't find more.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Returns and Gift Cards
My brother-in-law went to Kohl's the day after Christmas to return/exchange a shirt. There was an incredibly long line for new purchases, but he was able to walk right up to the Returns register. This seems like a reversal from the years when Return lines were nightmarish, and if this is now the common state of things, it seems likely that the proliferation of gift cards has brought it about.
Friday, December 4, 2009
The Other Boleyn Girl (2008)
I was going to write something long and pissy about how this film twists the knife in history's side and breaks it off at the hilt, but Kate Beaton does it so succinctly (about a different film, but still relevant to The Other Boleyn Girl) that I'm left with little need to spew.
Still, the anger burns! Why does this movie make me particularly angry? After all, I really liked Shakespeare in Love, the Lions of al-Rassan, and other works of fiction that play hell with history. Here, I think it's the fawning over Mary Boleyn and the extolling of her virtues at the expense of continuing the smear campaign against Anne that was begun by the Duke of Norfolk that sets me off.
Still, the anger burns! Why does this movie make me particularly angry? After all, I really liked Shakespeare in Love, the Lions of al-Rassan, and other works of fiction that play hell with history. Here, I think it's the fawning over Mary Boleyn and the extolling of her virtues at the expense of continuing the smear campaign against Anne that was begun by the Duke of Norfolk that sets me off.
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