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

[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*

[lunabee34]

*hearts back*

What are your predictions for the final book?

Also who are your favorite characters? OMG, is it everybody? It is, isn't it?

[china_shop]

I don't generally make predictions -- I tend to roll with the punches as they happen. That way the plot twists are more fun. (It means that even something as predictable as White Collar sometimes managed to surprise me. *g*)

As for characters, I'm kind of shamefacedly shipping Breq and Seivarden, even though Breq doesn't seem the least bit interested. /o\ How about you?

(Oh, man, now I want to re-read them, and there is no time! I have writing to do!)

[lunabee34]

I love Breq, and I can't help shipping Breq/Seivarden either although I don't think Breq will ever be interested in canon.

Tiarswat has stolen my heart. Poor, poor, baby lt. with the hijacked brain. Love it.

And Awn. Oh, oh, lord. Awn. I think we as readers are supposed to love her just as fiercely as Justice of Toren, and I certainly do.

Also pretty fond of the deceased Presger Ambassador. What a delightful character.

[china_shop]

Oh, yes, Awn! YES! OMG! I need to re-read. I know I enjoyed Tiarswat, but it's been a while.

[lunabee34]

I think what I like so much about Tiarswat is that she's this frivolous person who is so unsuited to be a soldier; she's got the violet eyes, and she's so young, and then Mianaai mind rapes her, takes over her body. When Mianaai is gone, Tiarswat is left with fragments of her knowledge and wisdom but also the memory of how insignificant and stupid Mianaai found her and guilt for not being able to repel her. And so Tiarswat spends the whole book guilty and confused and being strangely competent and then a hormonal 16 year old a second later. She wants Breq's approval so badly. *hearts her*

[kore]

Oh man, my husband didn't fall asleep during Prospero's Books but he spent a lot of time in the theatre just kind of staring blankly straight ahead.

[china_shop]

HEE! So many people walked out of the screening I went to. I think I was physically propping my eyes open by the end. HOURS OF MY LIFE...

[kore]

Talk about movies made for particular audiences. I think that one was aimed at like me and three other Shakespeare/Greenaway/Guinness fanatics. I feel like apologizing to everyone else who ever saw it.