House of Dragon

Binged the first six episodes of House of Dragon - which my co-workers can't stop talking about. Or rather the co-workers under the age of 50, the rest of us - don't really chat about television shows that much.

I like chatting about television series - but I'm also incredibly critical of them. I like to tear them apart. And they like to squee over them. Plus? We don't necessarily have the same taste in television series and movies. They love horror. I do not. They loved Squid Game. I did not. They loved Severance. I did not. A bunch of us do like the MCU superhero stuff, but I couldn't get into The Boys.

Anyhow, as much as I enjoyed Game of Thrones...House of Dragon isn't in my opinion squeeable. (Personally I think it is overrated). It's kind of annoyingly predictable. I saw Game of Thrones and read the books - so I'm on to the writers fetishes and patterns by now. This does have new show-runners, so that helps. But it's not quite in the same league as the prior series in my opinion.

Also, I can't stand two of the main characters - who I think I'm supposed to be rooting for. ( Read more... )

I don't know if I'll continue with it or not. After reading about the book's plot, I think not. It has lots of battles - which I find boring, not helped by dark lighting. And a lot of people being burned alive or fed to dragons, or tortured and feed to crabs, not entertaining to me either. Along with lots of other torture scenes - including tongues being chopped out.

So, I may pass on the rest of it.

(no subject)

Kind of crashed today - it was a good day to crash, since it rained most of the day - remnants of Ian. Watched Monarch and binged House of Dragon - I liked Monarch better, surprisingly enough. The characters are more interesting and likable. House of Dragon...feels like a weak version of Game of Thrones, it's the prequel, which takes place over 172 years prior.

I'm irritable. I kept yelling at the television set today - or yelling at the characters on it.

Music Meme

Just pick a genre, list five songs or five albums by a performer. Provide links.

[Note it's not really a game (I don't like games - they irritate me), a competition (not a fan - why I don't like games), a contest (ditto - see why I don't like games), or a challenge. It's just sharing music. That's it. I'm just sharing music taste with you all, and you're sharing it back if you so desire. Taste being a subjective thing? We may not necessarily have the same taste, which is kind of interesting. I realized recently, I like a lot of the older pop artists better than the newer ones - who seem to not stand out as well to me for some reason or other.]

Classic British Rock

[Had to be specific here - because there's a lot of subgenres to rock. Rock and Country have multitudes of sub-genres within them. I'm a huge fan of Classic rock. It may be among my fav's. Particularly Classic British Rock.]

1. David Bowie Life on Mars aka Space Oddity 1973

2. The Who Behind Blue Eyes

3. The Moody Blues Nights in White Satin

4. Pink Floyd Wish you Were Here

5. Rolling Stones Paint it Black

***

Finished Unravel the Dusk Book 2 in the Blood of the Stars series by Elizabeth Lim, which is a YA fantasy romance series - which, has pacing issues, and the same problems all of these series have. It's supposed to be a young woman's coming of age story - but there's too much focus on worrying over the guy, and her own insecurities about being not good enough. She also navel gazes a lot. Boy coming of age stories are less annoying because there's generally less navel gazing, and less focus on the romance (see Harry Potter). That said, what the writer does right - is she gives her main character agency, a lot of them don't. The protagonist, Maia Tamarian, makes the choices in the book - others do not make them for her.
And the male love interest is secondary or a side-kick, and he doesn't save her, she sacrifices herself for him, and she saves the world. He's firmly in the supportive role here. Also the individual she's helping win the war, is a female princess and warrior. There's no love triangles, not even a whisper of one, and the focus is mainly on the lead character overcoming her own demons.

It's just slow.

Now, I'm reading Andy Weir's latest Project Hail Mary - which so far, so good. Weir did The Martian, and Artremis. He self-published the Martian, and then it got picked up by a major publishing house. I think that's what happened. I may be wrong. But there was a weird bit about how it got published to begin with.

I like his writing - and the science in his books is front and center. Plotting tends to be clean for the most part, and there's a sense of humor or quirkiness that I find relatable. It's also more casual in style or conversational - which works better for me, as a reader. (I read and skim a lot of dry material daily.)

I have the audio version as well, so I might put that on too. It was for almost no money on a Kindle Daily Deal sale, and just $4.99 on Audible.