I forgot how awesome reading books is

[lunabee34]

I don't know why, but I haven't read very many books this semester, so it has been wonderful to start reading them again. What I have mostly been doing with my spare time since Christmas is reading FFA (not even commenting really, just reading the finished posts) instead of reading books or fic or writing it myself or posting something here. It's become a habit I want to break, I think. I successfully quit going to fandomsecrets several months ago, and it's been a relief to have that time back. Everyone in the comm was very nice to me; I had great interactions there, but I spent a great deal of time there and didn't get a lot of conversational return out of it. I'm starting to feel the same way about going to FFA. What I really want to be doing is talking to y'all and writing fic; I don't know why I keep wasting my time passively reading something rather than actively creating material myself.

So, to serve those interests, let's talk about books, baby, and also two movies.

I just finished:

Ancillary Justice and Sword
I love these books. Like hardcore OMG I HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL OCTOBER FOR THE NEXT ONE love them. I devoured them both in two days.

I love the world building. I love Lecke's descriptions. I love that she isn't afraid to be ambiguous or to say something without explaining it. I love all the little details of this universe that aren't explained but just *are* and which add up to form this rich and compelling environment.

Lecke's writing reminds me so much of Ursula K. Le Guin's. They have an interest in similar themes and there's a kinship to their prose although I think Lecke's writing is warmer than Le Guin's. I sometimes feel a kind of lovely and implacable distance emanating from Le Guin's narrators.



So naturally I had to pick up the Le Guin I've had waiting on my night stand for maybe a year for comparison purposes. The Telling is fantastic--set in the same universe as The Left Hand of Darkness, it's full of beautiful and lush prose, and this narrator is not at all distant. Le Guin writes such exquisite sentences, like little poems. I think the book is a bit slow to open, but once it hit its stride, I wished it was much longer.


Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
This I just finished re-reading today in preparation to read the sequel. I had forgotten how dark and violent the book is and how wonderfully, terribly sad. I think the photographs the book is built around could have easily felt gimicky, but it doesn't read that way to me. I think the photos add a really cool dimension. I'm looking forward to reading the next book.


Jurassic Park
We re-watched this last night with Emma watching for the first time in preparation for Jurassic World.

Y'all, I cannot believe how well this movie has held up. It's more than 20 years old, and the special effects really hold up. Nothing looks hokey (probably because everything in the movie is actually real for animatronic values of real and not CGI).

Sam Neill makes the best crazy eyes, the kids are adorable, Samuel L. Jackson works IT, and Jeff Goldblum spends a not insignificant portion of the movie lounging around like a wounded Fabio.

Can't wait for Jurassic World.


Mad Max
We saw this today, and I enjoyed it. The movie is visually stunning. The props and costuming people should totally win Oscars; the level of detail there is amazing. The score is awesome.

I was surprised by how funny the movie is. I think I expected unremitting angst, but it was so ridiculous and over the top that I laughed the whole way through the movie, possibly at places that weren't meant to be funny.

I was super stoked to see Noranti from Farscape as a badass old woman hoarding a handbag full of seeds. LOL

This is not a movie I'm going to want to re-watch again soon or often, but it was a fun time.

Comments

[likeadeuce]

Looooove Miss Peregrine. My sister started reading it and was digging it but I'm not sure she liked some of the darker twists.

And you are 1000 percent right about how well Jurassic Park holds up -- especially great for watching with kids although my nephew (8 at the time) got so scared at the part with the boy climbing the electric fence that he almost couldn't cope. I realized that, as more sophisticated viewers (I was 17 or 18 when I first saw that movie?) we know that a popcorn movie is not going to kill off a kid but KIDS DON'T KNOW THAT and it made him really anxious -- but also thrilled?

And I'm very pro Mad Max, I loved how well structured the action was -- each scene either setting something up or paying something off.

[lunabee34]

I know exactly what you mean.

As we were re-watching I kept thinking about how anxious and tense and suspenseful this movie was for me in 93 and how I genuinely worried that the kids might die and how I felt almost none of that this time around because in addition to knowing what was going to happen, like you say, they don't kill kids in these kids of movies (or really any kind of movies; it's a special, special movie with dead kids LOL).

*nods re: Mad Max*

I thought it was very impressive and very enjoyable. I wish there had been more talking. I know that's a feature and not a bug for a lot of people, but I am kind of in it for the talking. If it hadn't been so beautiful to look at and so funny to me, I think I might have gotten bored.

[china_shop]

Imperial Radch FTW! I loved those books too -- the second even more than the first. \o/

It's good to know Mad Max is funny. I've avoided it so far, because I'm not much of a one for action movies, but the boy is talking about going again, and I may join him. Maybe. (Sometimes the hype reaches a level where I start rebelling and dig my heels in; it's not a very useful trait in a fangirl. ;-)

[lunabee34]

I know! I loved the first one, loved the second even more, and am expecting to experience spontaneous orgasms of joy just from touching the unopened cover of the third. LOL

Well, *I* found it funny. IDK if other people would or even if the movie itself means to be as funny as I found it at times.

I think it's utterly gorgeous to look at, but I have to admit that I might have been bored if it wasn't as pretty or as funny to me. There's not a lot of talking, and I tend to value the dialogue the most.

[china_shop]

Yeah, I've been known to fall asleep in movies without dialogue, even if they're really pretty (or droning voiceovers -- that's just as bad *glares at Prospero's Books*).

and am expecting to experience spontaneous orgasms of joy just from touching the unopened cover of the third.

HEEEEEE! *hearts you*

[kore]

Just if you want another data point, my partner and I both expected it to be grim postapocalypto going in, and it was actually quite funny, yeah. There are grim parts but it's funny and surprisingly moving, too.

(I know just what you mean about digging your heels in re something getting shoved in your face, though, that's me and Avengers-ensemble movies.)

[china_shop]

Oh cool, thanks! And ahaha, yes, I haven't seen Age of Ultron either. (I caved and watched all the other MCU movies after falling hard for Sam Wilson in Cap2, but none of them did much for me. I think Marvel accidentally made one movie that happened to appeal to me, and it's not something they're likely to repeat. :-)

[lunabee34]

Oh, good. I'm glad that the funny wasn't just me watching the movie wrong. LOL

[kore]

WAS THAT NOT A FANTASTICALLY AWESOME MOVIE. Noranti! Guitar guy who sent the theatre I was in into hysterics every time he appeared! Max saying his name! CHARLIZE THERON AND HER STUNTWOMAN, THE QUEENS OF MY HEART.

Jurassic Park once saved me from basically going psychotic from extreme depression. No lie. I still have the videocassette I watched like twice a day then. I might choose to be buried with it. I'm not even THAT FOND of it (it's great, I still enjoy it), it's just weird what keeps you a tiny little but absolutely necessary fingersbreadth from the edge sometimes.

reading FFA (not even commenting really, just reading the finished posts) instead of reading books or fic or writing it myself or posting something here. It's become a habit I want to break, I think. I successfully quit going to fandomsecrets several months ago, and it's been a relief to have that time back. Everyone in the comm was very nice to me; I had great interactions there, but I spent a great deal of time there and didn't get a lot of conversational return out of it. I'm starting to feel the same way about going to FFA. What I really want to be doing is talking to y'all and writing fic

I hear you there. Man, I don't even do facebook and twitter and goodreads and tumblr comments sections and a lot of other things my friends do, I try to keep it to DW and one or two other places, and it still feels like my time gets sucked away. Enjoyably so, but it's....distressing. I'm trying to cut back on it. Reading again feels good.

[lunabee34]

Yes!

My husband is besotted with guitar guy. I think that might have been his favorite part.

I also found the scene where Max is trying to hold the tree upright really hysterical.

I always feel this frisson of glee when actors from things I have loved show up on my TV or in my movies. Noranti was a wonderful surprise.

[kore]

Oh man, the bit where Max is FRANTICALLY FILING AWAY AT THE MASK? It was so awful (poor Max!) and yet so fucking hilarious. And the polecat guys swinging over the flames! GUITAR GUY. I am 100% convinced guitar guy was there for levity. (most of the humour was at the guys' expense, come to think of it, and I loved it)

I always feel this frisson of glee when actors from things I have loved show up on my TV or in my movies. Noranti was a wonderful surprise.

I might have whisper-screamed "NORANTI!" to my husband when I recognized her.

[intrigueing]

I dumped FFA a few months ago and doing so was great, (though I still recommend it to some people looking for many-person fandom discussions.) I was thinking of probably doing the same thing to F!S outside of the general comments section (because there I can have enjoyable discussions) but there is inevitably one or two secrets that I can't resist. Thankfully I'm mostly in fandoms that don't get a lot of secrets ;) It got pretty time-consuming when I was in Avengers fandom in the summer of 2012.

[lunabee34]

I have the feeling this will sound whiny, but I really don't mean it that way. Everybody at FS was very nice to me, but most of the secrets were about stuff I'm unfamiliar with and I didn't get a lot of people responding to my comments. I think it's because I never could look at a post until about 9 EST US time, and at that point, stuff is starting to wind down. So I felt like I put a lot of time into reading and commenting without getting a whole lot back.

But that also feels whiny because I did make friends with you and biohazardgirl and agentcthullu and fingal there, so that was nice.

[archersangel]

Nothing looks hokey (probably because everything in the movie is actually real for animatronic values of real and not CGI).

i forget the ratio of CGI to animatronic in that.
the t-rex & velociraptors at the end were CGI. in fact i think every time you see the velociraptors they were CGI. except the newborn one dr. grant holds.
the t-rex that attacked the jeeps was animatronic & because of the rain they had could only work for like 20-30 minutes before the water soaked through the skin, affected the electronics & the thing developed the shakes. so production had to stop while a half-dozen people dried it with big towels.
it was the first movie with pretty realistic CGI, if i recall & started the whole CGI movie industry. if you can find any behind the scenes stuff, it's pretty interesting.
the novel it's based on is interesting too (not so much the sequel) but the characters are a bit different, especially the grandfather.

[lunabee34]

Oh, wow. I am shocked that it's CGI. I just assumed it was all robots/puppets/etc. It looks freaking fantastic 22 years later.

Thanks for sharing. :)

[endeni]

/I was super stoked to see Noranti from Farscape as a badass old woman hoarding a handbag full of seeds. LOL/ - Me too! Yay for Farscape alumni! *g* And OMG, that score is terrific...

[lunabee34]

The music made me swoon. So, so, so gorgeous. I see nothing to complain about at all in terms of the movie's aesthetics. It's visually stunning and aurally compelling.

[kore]

It's on Spotify! which I feel guilty about because the artists get like nothing, but at least that way I can hear it. I want to buy that score. And the art book. And the Blu-Ray. And maybe that silver mouth spray everyone is leaving IC reviews on at Amazon.

[musyc]

Jurassic Park! I have all three of them and watch 'em every couple of months. The first one especially. I agree, it's held up fantastically. To this day that T-rex roar is one of the scariest noises. I used to have it as my computer start-up sound. It upset people. XD

[lunabee34]

I don't know that I ever saw the second and third installments. We're gonna buy those too and watch them.

I was super stoked to see that Asian scientist from the first movie is in the new one. I love that actor, too.

[nenya_kanadka]

I've had Ann Leckie on my flist for years, so I heard vaguely about the writing progress for the Radch books (that they were being written, and that it was a complex affair, though not really what they were about). So when they came out I really wanted to like them but was afraid I wouldn't and then I would be sad because friend's writing...

I LOVED them. For Breq, and the worldbuilding, and the characters (oh, Lt. Awn, I won't forget you), and the way it's not just Empire Bad but instead deals with ethics and justice inside the fucked-up empire...ugh, it's all so good.

[lunabee34]

Oh, Lt. Awn, my heart. *sobs*

I love how complicated the plot and world building are but how that never happens at the expense of character.

She deserved every single award she's won for this series and then some. I imagine these books remain firmly at the top of my sci-fi list forever.

[nenya_kanadka]

Did you know there are Lt. Awn memorial pins for sale on Etsy from the author? :D

(My only problem is I have nothing to pin it to clothing-wise. Right now mine is stuck on the bookshelf, though, which works.)

[havocthecat]

I have just gone and ordered Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children from the library due to the fact that you recommended it. Thank you!

[lunabee34]

I hope you like it! I think the sequel is even better than the first.