October was an all China Miéville month. I re-read King Rat and Perdido Street Station, then moved on to the other books I've been dutifully buying ever since, but that got lost in my massive To Be Read stacks.
The Scar I'd started once before, but only reached the point when the pirates take the main character's ship, stopping before she even reached the floating city. Which is a shame, as that is just my sort of thing. I did like a lot of elements of this novel, and the language was China gorgeous as always, but it was a bit slow and the main character was so emotionally removed she was hard to relate to, a problem as a few random interludes aside, she was the only POV character. But the ending pulled it all together in a fantastically perfect way; I was glad I'd stuck with it this time.
Iron Council was also a bit unevenly paced for me. The beginning, with the group of city dwellers out in the wild, essentially on a quest, dying one by one: I loved that bit. And again, the ending is absolutely perfect (man, that light golem was cool), but there were other bits in between that slowed down.
Looking for Jake is a short story collection, some of which I'd read before. I particularly liked the story set in an Ikea; my boys love going to Ikea (all three of them).
Un Lun Dun is a YA novel, and edges out Perdido Street Station as my favorite. The worldbuilding is so detailed, with every chapter full of new creatures and characters doing something just a little askew - it reminded me of the first time I read Alice in Wonderland. Wonderful.
The City & The City is equal parts fantasy and a police procedural/crime story. I liked the fantasy bits, but the crime story bits not so much. I don't read much crime fiction, though. I'm sure a fan of both kinds of stories would find this novel awesome.
Kraken will be coming up in November. In the meantime, I've managed to winnow down my enormous collection of favorite China quotes to these few:
Scars are not injuries, Tanner Sack. A scar is healing. After injury, a scar is what makes you whole. - The Scar
In Spiral Jacob’s eyes Ori saw real derangement, a dark sea of loneliness, cold, liquor and drugs. But thoughts still saw there, cunning as barracuda, their movements the twitchings of the tramp’s face. - The Iron Council
They laid tracks on ground just smooth enough for their passage, on ties just strong enough, just close enough together. It was a just-railroad, existing in the moment for the train to pass, then gone again. - The Iron Council
The disease incubates for up to three years, during which time the infected patient suffers violent headaches. After this, full-blown Buscard’s Murrain is manifested in slowing failing mental faculties and severe mood swings between three conditions: near full lucidity; a feversigh seeking out of the largest audience possible, and a state of loud, hysterical glossolalia. Samuel Buscard infamously denoted these states torpor, prefatory, and grandiloquent respectively, thereby appearing to take the side of the disease. - from “Entry Taken from a Medical Encyclopaedia” in Looking for Jake
I will not call them evil. They are not evil. But I am afraid that they are capable of it. - from "Different Skies” in Looking for Jake
“Is it dangerous? Hmmm. Well, define ‘dangerous’. Is a knife ‘dangerous’? Is Russian roulette ‘dangerous’? Is arsenic ‘dangerous’?” He did the little finger-thing to show quotation marks, tickling the air. “It depends on your perspective.”
“I don’t think it does depend on perspective,” said Deeba. “I think that’s all definitely dangerous. I don’t think you need none of this...” She did the quote motion. - Un Lun Dun
“The thing is,” Deeba said, eying Mr. Speaker, “you could only make words do what you want if it was just you deciding what they mean. But it isn’t. It’s everyone else, too. Which means you might want to give them orders, but you aren’t in total control. No one is.” - Un Lun Dun
He walked with equipoise, possibly in either city. Schrödinger’s pedestrian. - The City & The City
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
Movies in September
What with going to the World Fantasy Convention and trying to wind one book down while also winding another book up has been a bit of a time suck. But as I'm getting dangerously close to being three months behind, let's play a little catch-up. Luckily, September was a light movie month.
Lost Season 6, the finale. *Sigh* Well, for me this was a bit like Harry Potter. I adored those books, read them over and over again, hoarded clues and constructed my own ideas about how it would all tie up in the end, spent so much time on it and finessed what was to me such a perfect ending that book 7 was horribly disappointing. But not as disappointing as the last episode of Lost. This one face-planted just at the end worse than Battlestar Galactica. I prefer the ending in my head; I'm going to pretend that's what it all was (my ending didn't leave a decorative fringe of loose ends, I tell you).
Shutter Island was way cool. I think we can label this the point where I started noticing Mark Ruffalo. Remember it; he's going to come up again (an intriguing choice for Bruce Banner/the Hulk. It almost makes up for tossing Ed Norton. Not quite, but almost).
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, in Swedish, natch. It made me grateful I hadn't read the book; women as victims is too uncomfortable-making for me and I barely made it through a few key scenes in the movie. I'm guessing the Finch version will be intense as well, although how any other actress could play the main character after this one so thoroughly defined it, and an unknown actress at that... I think they might have made a mistake there, but we'll wait and see.
Pukar I watched, but I'm having a hard time recalling it now. I'm remembering only really liking the songs, which were by AR Rahman, so no duh. Whatever Anil Kapoor and Madhuri Dixit were up to is gone from mind now. Dream Girl is one from the late 60s or early 70s, with Dharmadendra and Hema Malini, whom I adore. This one had a song and dance number in Disney World, including an aerial shot of the park, which was mindblowing. There was nothing out there, just empty space around the Magic Kingdom.
Superman Returns I mostly remember as the movie where one lapdog ate another. The boys liked this one, and Kevin Spacey was a fun Lex Luthor, but the constant playing with the Superman as Jesus theme was tedious and the whole movie was just plain slow.
Finishing up with two Alfred Hitchcock movies: Dial M for Murder was apparently originally a 3D movie, but none of the 3D prints exist anymore. Which is a real shame; it looks like it was a gorgeous, layered popup book of a movie (as opposed to the shit poking out at you that 3D tends to devolve to in most films). Mr. and Mrs. Smith has no connection to the Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie film. It's about two people who discover that they were never legally married, and the wife decides that suits her fine, and her husband stalks her in a screwball comedy kind of way. People behaving badly tends not to tickle my personal funny bone (I'm looking at you, The Hangover), so I didn't really enjoy this, but it does have some wonderful shots that let you know it's still Hitchcock at the helm.
Well, that finishes off September. Hopefully I'll get the two October posts up before December hits, in all it's too much to do, too little time glory.
Lost Season 6, the finale. *Sigh* Well, for me this was a bit like Harry Potter. I adored those books, read them over and over again, hoarded clues and constructed my own ideas about how it would all tie up in the end, spent so much time on it and finessed what was to me such a perfect ending that book 7 was horribly disappointing. But not as disappointing as the last episode of Lost. This one face-planted just at the end worse than Battlestar Galactica. I prefer the ending in my head; I'm going to pretend that's what it all was (my ending didn't leave a decorative fringe of loose ends, I tell you).
Shutter Island was way cool. I think we can label this the point where I started noticing Mark Ruffalo. Remember it; he's going to come up again (an intriguing choice for Bruce Banner/the Hulk. It almost makes up for tossing Ed Norton. Not quite, but almost).
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, in Swedish, natch. It made me grateful I hadn't read the book; women as victims is too uncomfortable-making for me and I barely made it through a few key scenes in the movie. I'm guessing the Finch version will be intense as well, although how any other actress could play the main character after this one so thoroughly defined it, and an unknown actress at that... I think they might have made a mistake there, but we'll wait and see.
Pukar I watched, but I'm having a hard time recalling it now. I'm remembering only really liking the songs, which were by AR Rahman, so no duh. Whatever Anil Kapoor and Madhuri Dixit were up to is gone from mind now. Dream Girl is one from the late 60s or early 70s, with Dharmadendra and Hema Malini, whom I adore. This one had a song and dance number in Disney World, including an aerial shot of the park, which was mindblowing. There was nothing out there, just empty space around the Magic Kingdom.
Superman Returns I mostly remember as the movie where one lapdog ate another. The boys liked this one, and Kevin Spacey was a fun Lex Luthor, but the constant playing with the Superman as Jesus theme was tedious and the whole movie was just plain slow.
Finishing up with two Alfred Hitchcock movies: Dial M for Murder was apparently originally a 3D movie, but none of the 3D prints exist anymore. Which is a real shame; it looks like it was a gorgeous, layered popup book of a movie (as opposed to the shit poking out at you that 3D tends to devolve to in most films). Mr. and Mrs. Smith has no connection to the Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie film. It's about two people who discover that they were never legally married, and the wife decides that suits her fine, and her husband stalks her in a screwball comedy kind of way. People behaving badly tends not to tickle my personal funny bone (I'm looking at you, The Hangover), so I didn't really enjoy this, but it does have some wonderful shots that let you know it's still Hitchcock at the helm.
Well, that finishes off September. Hopefully I'll get the two October posts up before December hits, in all it's too much to do, too little time glory.
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