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Jun. 15th, 2014 09:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. The concert reading of the play that I co-wrote and collaborated on went rather well last night. It was a small, friendly, and intimate audience, as well as a diverse one.
We got some positive feedback and it seemed that our play touched a few people's lives.
Which is what telling stories is all about.
2. Currently watching the Peter Gabriel induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, who stopped preforming ages ago. He's older now, bald on top, heavier, his voice cracks in the higher octaves, and he wears a hearing aid. Almost unrecognizable, yet you can recognize his voice if you listen closely enough.
I adored Peter Gabriel in the 1980s. Listened to him as the front-runner of Genesis. Then followed him when he broke out and started his own solo career. My brother - when I went to college, used to make me mixed tapes with Peter Gabriel, Pink Floyd, Talking Heads, Brian Eno, Lou Reed, and Kate Busch. And when I was studying in London in 1987, I was able to see Peter Gabriel live in concert, at the tail end Kate Busch joined him to sing In Your Eyes, and Biko. It was by the far the best live concert I've seen.
He sort of disappeared after a bit. But before he faded from the public view, he created some amazing songs: Biko, In Your Eyes, Don't Give Up (which is my favorite).
His songs often blended African music and rhythmic beats.
They are also inducting Linda Ronstadt - who was my favorite rock musician as a little girl during the 1970s. Had one of the most versatile voices that I've ever seen. Ronstadt jumped genres from Country to Gospel to Opera to Rock to Pop. And she created Country Rock, both Glenn Fry and Don Henley started with Rondstadt. She also created The Eagles - another favorite band of mine during the 1980s. Unfortunately, it was announced publicly in August 2013 that Linda had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in December 2012, which left her unable to sing. Tragic. In the early part of the 21st century, she became a serious social activist, often getting herself booted from concerts and venues for speaking against the WAR in IRAQ and for environmental causes.
Hee. All the inductees are 1970s and 1980s bands and singers. Makes me feel rather nostalgic. (KISS, E Street Band, Cat Stevens) What's interesting about KISS is that KISS broke rules, did what they wanted despite critics, hecklers, and societal boundaries. Weirdly there was no musical tribute to KISS, just a speech. They aren't well liked by a lot of people. (Okay, maybe that's not so weird. Let's face it they are a bunch of assholes.) Nor did they perform. Not that I'm disappointed, I admittedly never understood the appeal of KISS. It appeared to be more about doing outrageous things and less about the music.
Cat Stevens is another favorite performer from the 1970s and 1980s. I collected everything he did for a bit. And Art Garfunkle is introducing Cat Stevens - absolutely perfect. Because Garfunkle had a similar style. They were both major league folk artists in Rock. Cat Stevens changed his name when he became a Muslim. [Cat Stevens made an interesting comment about KISS - "I never thought I'd share the same stage as KISS, but they aren't up here right now...so that's okay." Also he is the polar opposite of KISS - as he states, "they voted for someone who doesn't smoke, drink, sleep with anyone other than his wife, throw televisions out of hotel rooms, or get into fights...that's a huge thing."] Stevens is actually performing his music. Didn't know he still performed. I admittedly stopped listening to him after he got religious.
Now, "Hall and Oates"??? Another 1970s/1980s band - which I admittedly rarely listened to. [They mention that they are only Philadelphia band inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - and how horrid it is that Chubby Checker never got inducted. Which, I'd have to agree with...considering they inducted KISS and Hall and Oats.]
3. Finished Jim Butcher's The Skin Game - and it didn't quite work for me.
What I liked? I enjoyed the scenes with Murphy. But mainly it lagged, and the pacing was sluggish at times. Also the plot...felt contrived in places and the twist, did not work or quite track. In any event, it left me sort of..meh.
Butcher attempts to hoodwink his reader or do the mighty plot twist. Personally, I could have done without it. While I enjoy plot twists, they are hard to pull off. And if the writer expends too much energy trying to fool the reader, he or she may do it at the expense of story, plot and character. Also pacing could suffer.
Here, Butcher hoodwinks his reader by having the protagonist not tell the reader everything. Which would work better if it weren't told in first person close. You can do it in first person close - with the "unreliable narrator" technique. But Harry Dresden isn't unreliable here - or at least not established as unreliable like he was in Ghost Story (where he clearly had amnesia and didn't know everything). He just doesn't tell the reader anything more than he tells his associates. Which causes a huge pacing problem. Instead building on the suspense of the reader knowing Harry has an ace in the hole, and worrying that the villains will figure it out before he can make use of it, Butcher doesn't tell the reader anything about it. So no suspense. And when it is revealed, it feels a bit...like it fell out of the sky or ex deus machina. And when it did, I didn't care. I should have. Plus the ace in the hole is rather uninteresting and bland.
As earlier stated, pacing was a problem. It took me a while to slog through this one.
Felt repetitive in places. And far too many fights. Putting the protagonist in dire straights throughout is nice and all, but after you've killed him off and brought him back, the reader sort of knows he's fine. Also after a bit it just gets tiring. I would have liked more figuring things out and detecting and less fighting. Here, Harry figures it all out at the beginning, and doesn't share any of it with us.
There's also a rather silly bit with his subconscious and a spirit girl that he made with the spirit Lascial before she disappeared. Butcher keeps giving Dresden women to mentor or be a father figure to, which is interesting and furthers a somewhat grating patriarchial thematic.
Too many action scenes, not enough explanation, and too much ex deus machina. Felt sloppy to me. The last two books felt tighter somehow. This one felt like the writer was attempting to move from point A to B and struggling with it.
I may give up on this series. It's feeling a bit endless and tired at this point and not really going anywhere interesting.
Overall? I liked Illona Andrews' Magic Rises better, although the comparison may not be a fair one - Andrews is on her 6th book, while Butcher is on his 14 or 15th...and is clearly running out of material.
We got some positive feedback and it seemed that our play touched a few people's lives.
Which is what telling stories is all about.
2. Currently watching the Peter Gabriel induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, who stopped preforming ages ago. He's older now, bald on top, heavier, his voice cracks in the higher octaves, and he wears a hearing aid. Almost unrecognizable, yet you can recognize his voice if you listen closely enough.
I adored Peter Gabriel in the 1980s. Listened to him as the front-runner of Genesis. Then followed him when he broke out and started his own solo career. My brother - when I went to college, used to make me mixed tapes with Peter Gabriel, Pink Floyd, Talking Heads, Brian Eno, Lou Reed, and Kate Busch. And when I was studying in London in 1987, I was able to see Peter Gabriel live in concert, at the tail end Kate Busch joined him to sing In Your Eyes, and Biko. It was by the far the best live concert I've seen.
He sort of disappeared after a bit. But before he faded from the public view, he created some amazing songs: Biko, In Your Eyes, Don't Give Up (which is my favorite).
His songs often blended African music and rhythmic beats.
They are also inducting Linda Ronstadt - who was my favorite rock musician as a little girl during the 1970s. Had one of the most versatile voices that I've ever seen. Ronstadt jumped genres from Country to Gospel to Opera to Rock to Pop. And she created Country Rock, both Glenn Fry and Don Henley started with Rondstadt. She also created The Eagles - another favorite band of mine during the 1980s. Unfortunately, it was announced publicly in August 2013 that Linda had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in December 2012, which left her unable to sing. Tragic. In the early part of the 21st century, she became a serious social activist, often getting herself booted from concerts and venues for speaking against the WAR in IRAQ and for environmental causes.
Hee. All the inductees are 1970s and 1980s bands and singers. Makes me feel rather nostalgic. (KISS, E Street Band, Cat Stevens) What's interesting about KISS is that KISS broke rules, did what they wanted despite critics, hecklers, and societal boundaries. Weirdly there was no musical tribute to KISS, just a speech. They aren't well liked by a lot of people. (Okay, maybe that's not so weird. Let's face it they are a bunch of assholes.) Nor did they perform. Not that I'm disappointed, I admittedly never understood the appeal of KISS. It appeared to be more about doing outrageous things and less about the music.
Cat Stevens is another favorite performer from the 1970s and 1980s. I collected everything he did for a bit. And Art Garfunkle is introducing Cat Stevens - absolutely perfect. Because Garfunkle had a similar style. They were both major league folk artists in Rock. Cat Stevens changed his name when he became a Muslim. [Cat Stevens made an interesting comment about KISS - "I never thought I'd share the same stage as KISS, but they aren't up here right now...so that's okay." Also he is the polar opposite of KISS - as he states, "they voted for someone who doesn't smoke, drink, sleep with anyone other than his wife, throw televisions out of hotel rooms, or get into fights...that's a huge thing."] Stevens is actually performing his music. Didn't know he still performed. I admittedly stopped listening to him after he got religious.
Now, "Hall and Oates"??? Another 1970s/1980s band - which I admittedly rarely listened to. [They mention that they are only Philadelphia band inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - and how horrid it is that Chubby Checker never got inducted. Which, I'd have to agree with...considering they inducted KISS and Hall and Oats.]
3. Finished Jim Butcher's The Skin Game - and it didn't quite work for me.
What I liked? I enjoyed the scenes with Murphy. But mainly it lagged, and the pacing was sluggish at times. Also the plot...felt contrived in places and the twist, did not work or quite track. In any event, it left me sort of..meh.
Butcher attempts to hoodwink his reader or do the mighty plot twist. Personally, I could have done without it. While I enjoy plot twists, they are hard to pull off. And if the writer expends too much energy trying to fool the reader, he or she may do it at the expense of story, plot and character. Also pacing could suffer.
Here, Butcher hoodwinks his reader by having the protagonist not tell the reader everything. Which would work better if it weren't told in first person close. You can do it in first person close - with the "unreliable narrator" technique. But Harry Dresden isn't unreliable here - or at least not established as unreliable like he was in Ghost Story (where he clearly had amnesia and didn't know everything). He just doesn't tell the reader anything more than he tells his associates. Which causes a huge pacing problem. Instead building on the suspense of the reader knowing Harry has an ace in the hole, and worrying that the villains will figure it out before he can make use of it, Butcher doesn't tell the reader anything about it. So no suspense. And when it is revealed, it feels a bit...like it fell out of the sky or ex deus machina. And when it did, I didn't care. I should have. Plus the ace in the hole is rather uninteresting and bland.
As earlier stated, pacing was a problem. It took me a while to slog through this one.
Felt repetitive in places. And far too many fights. Putting the protagonist in dire straights throughout is nice and all, but after you've killed him off and brought him back, the reader sort of knows he's fine. Also after a bit it just gets tiring. I would have liked more figuring things out and detecting and less fighting. Here, Harry figures it all out at the beginning, and doesn't share any of it with us.
There's also a rather silly bit with his subconscious and a spirit girl that he made with the spirit Lascial before she disappeared. Butcher keeps giving Dresden women to mentor or be a father figure to, which is interesting and furthers a somewhat grating patriarchial thematic.
Too many action scenes, not enough explanation, and too much ex deus machina. Felt sloppy to me. The last two books felt tighter somehow. This one felt like the writer was attempting to move from point A to B and struggling with it.
I may give up on this series. It's feeling a bit endless and tired at this point and not really going anywhere interesting.
Overall? I liked Illona Andrews' Magic Rises better, although the comparison may not be a fair one - Andrews is on her 6th book, while Butcher is on his 14 or 15th...and is clearly running out of material.
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Date: 2014-06-16 02:35 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2014-06-16 09:04 pm (UTC)Tbh, that's one of the main reasons I gave up on Dresden after only the second or third book. Butcher just kept torturing the guy. He couldn't just get a little wounded. It seems like in any given adventure, he'd be shot, stabbed, tossed out of cars, have broken bones, etc etc etc but keep soldiering on, because that's what uber-masculine heroes do. And I got so exhausted of the steadily mounting list of injuries that should have had him, at the very least, laid up in bed but which he's always able to grit his teeth and deal with, like he's John Wayne and Jack Bauer and every male action hero all rolled into one. I don't need excessive injuries to prove to me that the character's a badass. It just made me roll my eyes after a while.
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Date: 2014-06-17 02:29 am (UTC)At any rate - what you related above is admittedly a huge problem with the urban fantasy genre, and why it's difficult to take the genre seriously. Not the best written of genres. The heroes and heroines, not to mention villains, appear to have the stamina of the Energizer Bunny on steroids. After a bit, you think, okay, the characters should be dead by now. At least Buffy ended up in the hospital.
The female centric ones aren't quite as eye-rolling in that respect. (They are in other respects, but not that one.) What I liked about Illona Andrews novels - is the character is constantly laid up in the hospital or a medical facility and almost dies various times. Also by the 6th book - she has a pronounced limp and a bad knee/hip that keeps acting up - because she kept fighting on it instead of letting it heal properly. She's in short, not invulnerable.