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Apr. 12th, 2015 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatUgh, The Good Wife...was hard to watch tonight. Spent most of it wanting to castrate various male characters.
It is a good sharp satire, concentrating on power plays. And at it's best hilarious.
But lately, it's been a bit too over-the-top or too something, and I've found it aggravating. I know at least one viewer on lj who gave up watching it.
I won't. Because the writing is still better than most television series. But this year has admittedly been a painful one for viewers. And, weirdly? I miss Will Gardner. A lot.
I also miss the dueling firm dynamic.
Once Upon a Time was a bit confusing to start with - because they jumped backwards in time in two - actually make that three worlds, in order to explain a rather complicated back story and plot twist. The Twist however did resolve a plot loop-hole from the previous season, so it worked.
At any rate, while frustrating, I enjoyed it more than the Good Wife.
Regarding Puppygate or Hugo-gate - someone finally clarified which books were nominated for Best Novel by the right-wing conservatives (aka the Rabid Puppies, (Seriously who came up with this name??) ), explaining why Skin Game by Jim Butcher was nominated. I'd wondered. Now, as you probably already know, I actually do enjoy Jim Butcher's Dresden novels - they are snarky entertaining reads, well for the most part. But hardly memorable, and not something I want to think too deeply about - a sort of mix between Raymond Chandler and Harry Potter, yet not quite as well written or imaginative. Of the books he's written, Skin Game was my least favorite. I barely made it through it. It was slow, meandering, and a bit cliche in places. Butcher seemed to lose track of the plot and the characters. It reminded me a little of reading a video game. In my opinion, the writer needs to move on and is getting burned out on Dresden. Then I saw that it had been nominated for a Hugo, and I thought, whoa...the Hugo nominations are sliding rapidly down hill...aren't they? I mean nominating Butcher's Skin Game for a Hugo is a bit like nominating James Patterson for an Edgar Award. (He may have won one...the Edgar's went down hill a while ago. So maybe a Booker Prize?)
I am however curious about The Goblin Emperor (also nominated, albeit not by the Puppies) - which is sort of off the beaten track. And I'd been flirting with.
Now, if I were a voting member of the Hugos...I'd have nominated Neil Gaiman's Ocean at the End of The Lane (although not sure it qualifies, maybe that was last year?). Haven't read enough good sci-fantasy of late to really nominate anything. I did however think Illona Andrews Kate Daniels series was better written than Skin Game. I would have nominated Magic Breaks over Skin Game -- much better book, and far more innovative. (Although I don't think either is worthy of an award. I'm certain there are better books out there. At the very least, I've seen a few better reviewed books. Granted it's all subjective, so probably doesn't matter.)
Also, the discovery that Butcher was nominated by the right-wing fascist contingent makes me wonder if I should stop reading Butcher, just on principal? Like I said, his last book was not that great. So it's not hard to do. Although, it did lean a bit too closely to cliche Christian mythology (sigh), it wasn't offensive. Just terribly cliche.
As an aside...it strikes me that a lot of so-called "Christians" don't seem to understand that Christianity is about kindness, tolerance towards others, healing, caring, and helping others. Not racism, fascism, sexism, misogyny, power, and torture. I know, it can be difficult to figure this out with all the mayhem in the Bible, but it's NOT that hard. And you are giving Christianity a bad name. Stop it! Jesus loved women and minorities and people who are struggling, he had issues with the rich and privileged actually. I hate to say this - but the Sad Puppies have more in common with the Romans who killed Jesus than his followers.
It is a good sharp satire, concentrating on power plays. And at it's best hilarious.
But lately, it's been a bit too over-the-top or too something, and I've found it aggravating. I know at least one viewer on lj who gave up watching it.
I won't. Because the writing is still better than most television series. But this year has admittedly been a painful one for viewers. And, weirdly? I miss Will Gardner. A lot.
I also miss the dueling firm dynamic.
Once Upon a Time was a bit confusing to start with - because they jumped backwards in time in two - actually make that three worlds, in order to explain a rather complicated back story and plot twist. The Twist however did resolve a plot loop-hole from the previous season, so it worked.
At any rate, while frustrating, I enjoyed it more than the Good Wife.
Regarding Puppygate or Hugo-gate - someone finally clarified which books were nominated for Best Novel by the right-wing conservatives (aka the Rabid Puppies, (Seriously who came up with this name??) ), explaining why Skin Game by Jim Butcher was nominated. I'd wondered. Now, as you probably already know, I actually do enjoy Jim Butcher's Dresden novels - they are snarky entertaining reads, well for the most part. But hardly memorable, and not something I want to think too deeply about - a sort of mix between Raymond Chandler and Harry Potter, yet not quite as well written or imaginative. Of the books he's written, Skin Game was my least favorite. I barely made it through it. It was slow, meandering, and a bit cliche in places. Butcher seemed to lose track of the plot and the characters. It reminded me a little of reading a video game. In my opinion, the writer needs to move on and is getting burned out on Dresden. Then I saw that it had been nominated for a Hugo, and I thought, whoa...the Hugo nominations are sliding rapidly down hill...aren't they? I mean nominating Butcher's Skin Game for a Hugo is a bit like nominating James Patterson for an Edgar Award. (He may have won one...the Edgar's went down hill a while ago. So maybe a Booker Prize?)
I am however curious about The Goblin Emperor (also nominated, albeit not by the Puppies) - which is sort of off the beaten track. And I'd been flirting with.
Now, if I were a voting member of the Hugos...I'd have nominated Neil Gaiman's Ocean at the End of The Lane (although not sure it qualifies, maybe that was last year?). Haven't read enough good sci-fantasy of late to really nominate anything. I did however think Illona Andrews Kate Daniels series was better written than Skin Game. I would have nominated Magic Breaks over Skin Game -- much better book, and far more innovative. (Although I don't think either is worthy of an award. I'm certain there are better books out there. At the very least, I've seen a few better reviewed books. Granted it's all subjective, so probably doesn't matter.)
Also, the discovery that Butcher was nominated by the right-wing fascist contingent makes me wonder if I should stop reading Butcher, just on principal? Like I said, his last book was not that great. So it's not hard to do. Although, it did lean a bit too closely to cliche Christian mythology (sigh), it wasn't offensive. Just terribly cliche.
As an aside...it strikes me that a lot of so-called "Christians" don't seem to understand that Christianity is about kindness, tolerance towards others, healing, caring, and helping others. Not racism, fascism, sexism, misogyny, power, and torture. I know, it can be difficult to figure this out with all the mayhem in the Bible, but it's NOT that hard. And you are giving Christianity a bad name. Stop it! Jesus loved women and minorities and people who are struggling, he had issues with the rich and privileged actually. I hate to say this - but the Sad Puppies have more in common with the Romans who killed Jesus than his followers.
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Date: 2015-04-13 05:38 am (UTC)Gaiman won two Hugos in the past for best novel and I think it likely that Ocean was one of the books pushed off the slate by the puppy nominations. We will know in August when the first 15 in every cathegory with number of votes are published.
I tried to ask Jim Butcher on Twitter about his thoughts on being nominated by the puppies. He never answered though. Unlike other authors (who were either not pleased by the puppy nominations or are open supporters) he is staying completely silent on the matter.
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Date: 2015-04-13 10:48 pm (UTC)I mentioned it on GRR Martin's thread, and a poster told me that it had actually gotten a nomination in 2014 but Gaiman declined, because he already had three nominations.
Curious as to why he declined - I googled it at lunch and found this:
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2006/08/hugo-words.html
He has been declining for a few years now. Declined for Anasi Boys back in 2006.
And in 2014 declined for Ocean, even though he got a lot of votes.
And now that the nominees list is up on the web, people are asking me why Anansi Boys was withdrawn from Hugo consideration, and whether it was me that withdrew it. Yes, it was me. And I suppose partly I did it because I have three Hugos already, and I felt it was better to get more names on the ballot that weren't mine, and partly because I think I feel more comfortable when the things of mine that get Hugo nominations are marginally closer to SF than to pure fantasy, but mostly because when they told me Anansi Boys was nominated it just felt right to say no thank you, this time. Obviously I'm grateful to everyone who voted for it, and happy for the other awards that it's won and is nominated for, but on this one, well, it just felt right to say no. So I did.
https://chaoshorizon.wordpress.com/2014/10/12/the-hugo-and-nebula-awards-and-repeat-nominees-part-2/
"This list would have been even more pronounced if Neil Gaiman hadn’t turned down two Hugo nominations, one for Anasazi Boys and one for The Ocean at the End of the Lane."
(Of course, the fact that he already won a Nebula, and the National Book Award for Ocean may have had an effect.)
I tried to ask Jim Butcher on Twitter about his thoughts on being nominated by the puppies. He never answered though. Unlike other authors (who were either not pleased by the puppy nominations or are open supporters) he is staying completely silent on the matter.
I noticed that too. I went hunting for a response or something from Butcher, but nothing. It's not clear whether he agreed to be included or knew about the nomination.
Or what he feels about it. (Probably wise to stay silent - a lot of his fans are most likely in the
SickSad aka Rabid Puppy contingent. ) I did however notice that there were one or two people nominated by the Sad Puppies who declined their nominations.Right now, I'm toying with picking up either The Goblin Emperor (although not a huge fan of steam punk and multi-cast books with hard to remember names) or Anne Leckie's Ancillary Justice - then Ancillary Sword. (She won last year.) They appear to be the only two interesting nominations this year...everyone else looks a bit, well hardly noteworthy.
Although a friend of mine is touting "The Martian by Martin Weir" - which I'm considering borrowing from her.
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Date: 2015-04-13 11:31 pm (UTC)Oh, the book I'm reading now feels a bit like a parody or a satire of Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files, specifically Skin Game. Not exact, but there are elements.
The main character is a magician with no conscience to speak of, while his younger brother, a handsome vampire, has one. They are running a carnival of discord in order to trade 100 souls to Satan in exchange for the hero's. It's very tongue in cheek.
The writer appears to be making fun of various urban fantasy tropes.