(no subject)

Ugh, 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.