feuervogel: photo of the statue of Victory and her chariot on the Brandenburg Gate (Default)
feuervogel ([personal profile] feuervogel) wrote2012-03-25 11:10 am

Something other than a word count post

I just realized that pretty much all I've been posting lately is word counts. But I've been spending most of my days either farting around on facebook games or writing and evenings reading while Ben plays video games.

I finally made it through my re-read of the Foreigner series and first read of the 4th trilogy in that (book 12 is finally out in paperback). That's 4500+ pages. Then I read Devil's Cub by Georgette Heyer, and I'm working on Among Others by Jo Walton, which was a birthday present. I've also read the Hunger Games trilogy (on my e-reader).

The Foreigner series is very dense politics, with aliens who resemble humans but have very different psychology. The fourth trilogy spends some POV time with young Cajeiri, not just Bren. That lets you get a little more insight into atevi psychology than Bren has. There's a fifth trilogy in the works; I wonder if that'll be the last. I also wonder if DAW will ever authorize ebook versions. Fifteen books take up a lot of shelf space!

Devil's Cub is a Heyer Regency. The male lead is a rake with a violent temper (but he adores his mother, who also has a bit of a temper). The female lead is a no-nonsense woman. I was disinclined to like the male lead from the beginning, but he got a little better. Even if the horrid gender norms of the early 1800s are horrid. It's apparently normal for men to discipline their wives with spankings as if they're children! Gag.

I think I'd enjoy Among Others better if I understood more than three or four of the references the narrator makes to books she's read. Of the books/authors name-dropped, I've read Tolkien and LeGuin. No Heinlein, Delany, etc. Example sentence (paraphrased): "Now I understand what Smith meant when he told Jones what he did." That means NOTHING to me. Aside from the gratuitous NERD CHILDHOOD NOSTALGIA (which I don't have, not having had a Proper Nerd Childhood myself), it's a good story.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 is sheer and utter nonsense. Like, completely illogical nonsense with a fresh coat of nonsense on top. It's very pretty, and the battle system is almost the same as in XIII, but good god DAMN the plot makes no sense. "If you change the future, you change the past." NO. That's not how time travel works.

I can't wait to see Legend of Korra. Holy shit. I am all over that show. I watched the preview of the first two episodes online yesterday, and I was impressed. It looks like there's going to be a good amount of depth again. A:TLA was a show for 11-year-olds about genocide and imperialism. Korra looks like it's going to be a show for 16-year-olds about classism and privilege. I'm looking forward to it!
annathepiper: (Default)

[personal profile] annathepiper 2012-03-25 04:35 pm (UTC)(link)
The first full episode is actually posted now on korranation.com--apparently it got leaked early and the show's creators went SCREW IT and went ahead and put it up in an official location! My household watched it last night and it ROCKED. :D
smarriveurr: "I'm listening - with beer!" quoth Spike (Beer)

[personal profile] smarriveurr 2012-03-25 07:03 pm (UTC)(link)
And there's a company that is starting to realize the implications of the digital age... good on them!
annathepiper: (Default)

[personal profile] annathepiper 2012-03-25 07:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Unfortunately the site appears to be viewable only to US viewers--probably due to digital licensing, bah--but I'm pleased at least that they took that step! Hopefully the episodes will be viewable in official capacities outside the US soon!
smarriveurr: Technocracy symbol, from the oWoD (Technocracy)

[personal profile] smarriveurr 2012-03-25 07:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah - international copyright issues I can give people as a gimme. Settling broadcasting to multiple countries while maintaining your copyright is tricky and expensive. But at least they went "Hey, cat is out of the bag, let's actually make it possible for the folks who actually want to view the thing through legal channels and at least show their interest, if not make us some profit." Step in the right direction.
kirin: Kirin Esper from Final Fantasy VI (Default)

[personal profile] kirin 2012-03-25 09:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Actually they did one better and turned it into a marketing opportunity *while* giving the fans something nice. They set up a goal of 100,000 likes/shares of the official site on FB & twitter to "unlock" the early online showing of the premier. Not that I'm usually a big advocate of spamming social networks, but it's at least nice to see the marketing department, the legal department, and the people who actually want to get content to the fans all playing nice with each other for once, especially with a property owned by a company as big as Nickelodeon.

Plus the "premier" actually ended up being two full episodes, something I don't think they mentioned until it had unlocked, so that was both a cool bonus and one-upped the leaked version.
ranyart: (Default)

[personal profile] ranyart 2012-03-26 12:34 am (UTC)(link)
I just watched them... I won't be able to keep up as the episodes air, but based on the first two I think I'll want to watch the whole series when I can. =)
ranyart: (writing hedgehog)

[personal profile] ranyart 2012-03-25 07:29 pm (UTC)(link)
I really enjoyed the first three Foreigner books when I read them; the SF library has the rest and I have been meaning to read further in the series for a while now.

Even though I still haven't seen Avatar beyond what we watched at your place, I'm probably going to watch the first Korra episode this weekend because it looks pretty fantastic.

[identity profile] thesmallwonder.livejournal.com 2012-03-26 07:51 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm stuck in a weird tumblr link hell for trying to find the preview episodes of LoK, don't suppose you could help me out with the correct links so I could see it :D?