![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Apr. 22nd, 2011 01:36 pmHave today off...it's not quite a bank holiday, but close enough, also Earth Day, although we have it off because it is Good Friday - the first of the Easter weekend. ( family religious stuff )
Read Gina Bellafante's reaction to the criticism of herreview personal rant about Game of Thrones. And am once again resisting the urge to comment, too many other people already have.
You can't really call this review - it was more a rant about fantasy fans and fantasy serials and basically got the response that a rant in a newspaper by a paid professional critic deserves. ( Read more... )
Finished two things. S3 of Being Erica - which was okay, but did not quite work for me. Although I think I know what it is going on with the show now. And the concept is fascinating and highly innovative - or at least it is to me - since I've never seen it done before. What it entails is a woman has a nervous breakdown, she runs into an odd therapist who aids her by taking her back in time to relive regrets. Over the course of three seasons, she finds herself, who she is, and is
able to handle the other stuff (boyfriend, perfect job, etc) being ripped away. It's an odd discourse on suicide. That's what I liked. The plot is choppy though, ( spoilers, but very vague ones )
Laughter of Dead Kings by Elizabeth Peters - I don't recommend this book. After a fairly fun and interesting start, it rapidly goes down hill and doesn't get any better. An excellent example of how not to write a mystery novel. Peters does all the things - every writer knows are big no-no's.
1) She tells not shows all the action. We are told what happened in long expository speeches or rambling dialogues - as if Lord Peter Wimsey and Nora Charles were discussing the weather.
2) The story is told in first person, but the narrator doesn't propel the action, if anything she finds out about all of it after the fact. She's constantly being told what happened. The few places in the novel that are interesting - there are about three - involve the heroine being in the center of the action - but in each section she's either ineffective or gets hurt. In some cases, she just comes across as incredibly dumb.
3.)Peters writes herself into the story in a lame-ass way of linking the Vicky Bliss novels to the best-selling Amelia Peabody novels. At least she's not a Mary Sue.
4) Nothing really happens, it's basically a bunch of people wandering around hunting a mummy. It's hard to care about the missing mummy or the people involved, and the joke about the missing mummy while funny in the first two or three chapters, gets old by the fourth.
In short, the book often put me to sleep, I ended up scanning 80% of it, because literally nothing happens. And still understood the whole thing. So - if you like the Vicky Bliss mysteries? Stop at Night Train to Memphis. As a Coda, this doesn't quite satisfy or maybe it does, in explaining why the story is over. If you want to know what happened with Vicky and her Sir John Smythe - ask me, and I'll tell you, saving you a few bucks and time.
Read Gina Bellafante's reaction to the criticism of her
You can't really call this review - it was more a rant about fantasy fans and fantasy serials and basically got the response that a rant in a newspaper by a paid professional critic deserves. ( Read more... )
Finished two things. S3 of Being Erica - which was okay, but did not quite work for me. Although I think I know what it is going on with the show now. And the concept is fascinating and highly innovative - or at least it is to me - since I've never seen it done before. What it entails is a woman has a nervous breakdown, she runs into an odd therapist who aids her by taking her back in time to relive regrets. Over the course of three seasons, she finds herself, who she is, and is
able to handle the other stuff (boyfriend, perfect job, etc) being ripped away. It's an odd discourse on suicide. That's what I liked. The plot is choppy though, ( spoilers, but very vague ones )
Laughter of Dead Kings by Elizabeth Peters - I don't recommend this book. After a fairly fun and interesting start, it rapidly goes down hill and doesn't get any better. An excellent example of how not to write a mystery novel. Peters does all the things - every writer knows are big no-no's.
1) She tells not shows all the action. We are told what happened in long expository speeches or rambling dialogues - as if Lord Peter Wimsey and Nora Charles were discussing the weather.
2) The story is told in first person, but the narrator doesn't propel the action, if anything she finds out about all of it after the fact. She's constantly being told what happened. The few places in the novel that are interesting - there are about three - involve the heroine being in the center of the action - but in each section she's either ineffective or gets hurt. In some cases, she just comes across as incredibly dumb.
3.)Peters writes herself into the story in a lame-ass way of linking the Vicky Bliss novels to the best-selling Amelia Peabody novels. At least she's not a Mary Sue.
4) Nothing really happens, it's basically a bunch of people wandering around hunting a mummy. It's hard to care about the missing mummy or the people involved, and the joke about the missing mummy while funny in the first two or three chapters, gets old by the fourth.
In short, the book often put me to sleep, I ended up scanning 80% of it, because literally nothing happens. And still understood the whole thing. So - if you like the Vicky Bliss mysteries? Stop at Night Train to Memphis. As a Coda, this doesn't quite satisfy or maybe it does, in explaining why the story is over. If you want to know what happened with Vicky and her Sir John Smythe - ask me, and I'll tell you, saving you a few bucks and time.