7 Question Curiousity Poll on New TV Shows, Book REC's and Buffy Comics

[shadowkat]

This is a rough poll - because I'm curious. Tried to add categories for Music that you'd recommend and movies - but there are too many and I'm sadly out of the loop on what is good and what isn't at the moment. Also tried to do a rec list for the tv shows...to see what everyone was watching, but ran out of ticky boxes - so chose not to. If you are so inclined feel free to include "music" and "movie" recs in the comments, along with book and comic book rec's. If not, that's fine too. Please be respectful of other's opinions, even if they seem like insane troll logic. No bashing of people. Also keep in mind it is impossible to edit polls and I'm always going to leave something out. Oh and if you don't know what to answer for a question? Just skip it. I certainly will. Thanks!

Hope more than ten people do this. Always tricky doing polls.

[ETA: Sigh. I don't know where my brain's been lately - no, wait, at work in stress hell..that's where. Re-read the poll and somehow I left off Nikita and No Ordinary Family (two shows I actually watch, and one, Nikita - that I actually adore - even more than Terriers). I also put Mr. Carrol instead of Mr. Norrel for the Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel book option. Sorry about that. Brain is deleting entertainment files as we speak to make room for new database info.]


[Poll #1656246]

Comments

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty much with flake_sake on the Season 8 comics; they were so-so, with some huge flaws but also some really interesting ideas, up until the "Predators and Prey" non-arc, and then they just kept heading more off the rails with each new installment until they got completely unreadable somewhere around #36.

My favourite Pratchetts are probably Reaper Man, Small Gods, and Soul Music.

One book recommendation: William Gibson's Bigend Books - Pattern Recognition, Spook Country and Zero History. Often brilliant trilogy (so far) where he pretty much drops all notions of writing sci-fi and just writes modern novels slightly dressed up as cyberthrillers since, hey, we're all living in a virtual reality these days.

"The pop star, as we knew her" -- and here he bowed slightly, in her direction -- "was actually an artifact of preubiquitous media."

"Of--?"

"Of a state in which 'mass' media existed, if you will, within the world."

"As opposed to?"

"Comprising it."

Oh, and people who like Pratchett should read Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series as well (starting with The Eyre Affair). Smart, hilarious metafiction.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

they were so-so, with some huge flaws but also some really interesting ideas, up until the "Predators and Prey" non-arc, and then they just kept heading more off the rails with each new installment until they got completely unreadable somewhere around #36.

Thanks for this. I was admittedly curious as to when it started to fall apart for you. Out of curiousity - which issue of Predators and Prey was it? Hello Vampire Kitties (Swell)? Harmony? The animated one? Buffy/Andrew on Island of Misfit Slayers? Giles/Faith in a German village masquerading as Romania (Safe)? Or all of the above?

One book recommendation: William Gibson's Bigend Books - Pattern Recognition, Spook Country and Zero History. Often brilliant trilogy (so far) where he pretty much drops all notions of writing sci-fi and just writes modern novels slightly dressed up as cyberthrillers since, hey, we're all living in a virtual reality these days.

Hmm. I've read Pattern Recognition - which I loved. Haven't been able to get into Spook Country - but that may well be a mood thing. (Brain is overloaded at the moment with work crap.) Is the above quote from Spook Country or Zero History? Didn't know he had a third one out.

It's a great quote.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Well, I'd say the five issues had two decent ones (Italy and Japan), one that wasn't awful in itself but set up a ridiculous arc (Harmony), and then the Giles/Faith and Dawn issues were just... urgh. Plus, the whole thing just gave off a feel that they were supposed to be huge gamechangers but didn't really know what they were changing from what to what; it was the point where the story just gave up all pretense of making sense and just started telling us to accept it or get out, and then the two following arcs built on that.

Is the above quote from Spook Country or Zero History?

Spook Country, but the same characters are leads in Zero History too. TBH I thought Pattern Recognition was the best of the three, but the two others are still very good follow-ups. Plus it's fun to track how quickly things change - he notes at one point how the stuff that sounded a bit science-fictiony in the first novel has tons of iPhone applications by the third one. You don't need jetpacks and teleporters when everyone has Twitter and everyone can take an express train from London to Paris.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree on the Predators and Prey arc. While I liked the Harmony one for its satirical elements - the plot-arc it set up (ugh). Thanks for the explanation.

Plus it's fun to track how quickly things change - he notes at one point how the stuff that sounded a bit science-fictiony in the first novel has tons of iPhone applications by the third one. You don't need jetpacks and teleporters when everyone has Twitter and everyone can take an express train from London to Paris.

Hmmm. Interesting. It sounds like a good information age novel - that dissects and comments on what the effects of the information revolution. Will have to check them out. Thanks for the recs.