its sinister seduction of our seas

[freckles_and_doubt]

I should be checking board schedules, which means I'm surfing the internets instead. Wicked puppy. However! Random linkery must inevitably ensue.

• In solemn memory of that hypothetically terrible day when Saddam Hussein sent pretend terrorists to attack fictional buildings with weapons of mass imagination! Or, in other words, Fafblog is back! Insane political sarcasm, or sarcastic insane politics, or possibly politically sarcastic insanity. Also, for some reason, cute.
• Science geek tattoos! I'm not even technically a science geek, and these are way cool.

I read Jim Butcher's Storm Front yesterday - this is the first in the Harry Dresden series, aka The Dresden Files, recent TV series which died after one season. (This may have been because it was dreadful, but conversely it could also, on recent evidence, have been because it was reasonably solid.) The book was interesting, featuring a wizardly private investigator with a sort of noir feel - it pulled me in enough that I'll definitely read the second one, and the character himself is solidly realised and rather likeable. The writing drove me monumentally bats, however, with a sort of half-assed stab at actual human motivations - the responses of Harry himself and many of the peripheral characters are simply illogical. Bit like Rowling: you keep wanting to hurl the book across the room while screaming "Just tell them what's happening, already!" But, no, narrative kludges prevail, and the Hero will go gamely on into his Magnificent Isolation, Utterly Misunderstood and fighting Insuperable Odds, because the scenario demands it and actual communication between characters would get in the way. Phooey. I'm annoyed, because fundamentally I liked the setting and the characters, and I'm hoping it'll settle down in subsequent books into something slightly less logically cardboard-and-string.

In other news, my possibly disfunctional and obsessive relationship with Take2 has led to the acquisition of two Arcade Fire albums. Hooked! Complex, layered, multi-instrumental, slightly wistful. Would be making noises about how I'm clearly all over the David Bowie fixation, except I think I may have only bought the albums because David Bowie likes the band. Help, rescue me from sad geeky self. As a pitiful stab towards same, the subject line of the post is not a fragment of David Bowie lyric for the first time since... (researches quickly) ... ooh, 8th December. Exactly four months, then. That's a lot of David Bowie lyric.

Last Night I Dreamed: I was buying yarn for mittens. Fancy, patterned, Scandinavian mittens, such as I would never dream of wearing, let alone knitting.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I've read the first three Dresden Files books and quite enjoyed them, and I loved the TV series. Part of the problem with the series was that, as happened with Firefly, the studio chose to air the episodes out of order. (I just checked: Episode 3 was aired first, and the two-hour pilot was cut to an hour and aired eighth.) Inconsistencies and confusion may have turned casual viewers off. OTOH, Paul Blackthorne turned me on. :-)

Interestingly, Nicolas Cage was an executive producer for the show.

Cheers, Dayle

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

I read the second book last night, and am still narked at its lack of credible character reaction. It's making me realise, actually, how good writers like Janet Evanovich and Nora Roberts are (still got a major JD Robb thing on): they're also writing unashamedly formula fiction, but it's damned well executed formula with a realistic sense of character and narrative logic. It's frustrating, because my sense is that Butcher has enormous potential, and his main character is interesting. Still hoping he'll develop the skills.

The series sounds like fun, and all the more so because as far as I know the author had a fair amount of input and the adaptation is fairly faithful. I can see Harry Dresden translating well to screen. Mmmmm, long leather jackets :>.

[rumint.livejournal.com]

I also read the first 2-3 Dresden books, but got bored at their sameness. It became very monster-of-the-week.

[mac1235.livejournal.com]

Read 'em. Pulp, but read 'em all.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

I liked Arcade Fire's Funeral. Neon Bible hasn't grabbed me yet.

A while back I dreamed I was in Cape Town, with an elderly English gent for distant acquaintance. I introduced him to you as "Dave", and watched in amusement as you didn't immediately recognise him.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

You, sir, have a nasty and sadistic subconscious. Of course I'd recognise him! Pshaw.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

Yeah? How recent is the last photo of DB that you or I have seen. We know what he looked like in 1980, maybe 1990.

Addendum:
1) Eep!

2) I work with 2 or 3 guys called Dave at any given time. It's a common name, almost a running joke.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

I fear you very deeply underestimate the depth of my fangirlyness. I'm perfectly au fait with his appearance circa at least 2006.

[(Anonymous)]

Knitting infiltrating your dreams! Ah, progress indeed.

The Pusher

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Collected kid mohair last night. Beautiful, beautiful, leaf green, soft, about six skeins of it. Pics on PHR sometime soon. Gloat.

!

[bumpycat.livejournal.com]

Dammit, someone else has already had my tattoo idea of Euler's Identity. Oh well, I'll still get it done sometime ...

[egadfly.livejournal.com]

I tried a few episodes of The Dresden Files but found it almost unwatchable due to the awful gap between concept (so much potential!) and execution (middling to implausible on logic, plot detail and depiction of the characters - not to mention the narrative railroading of which you have spoken).

I haven't read any of the books but trippingowl managed at least one and says it was disappointing in the same way as the series.

Sometimes I think half my friends should be in a room somewhere writing brilliant screenplays - I can think of several who have far more talent than comes through in most of the shows out there.