Storm Front // Jim Butcher

I don’t think Connecticut knows how to spring -- which, hey, I’m not complaining that it warmed up so fast. After an extremely snowy winter, we had about a month of foggy, chilly ~20 degree weather, then one day hit 70, then another week of ~20, and suddenly early summer. One of my professors back in college said she’d never understood spring until she experienced it in England, where apparently the seasons don’t flip overnight. This is how you know I’m from Connecticut : talking about the weather is practically our national pastime.  

Why I'm reading
I watched a few episodes of the TV show, and it was pretty good.

Where I got the book
ebook from Greenwich Library, using the Overdrive app. Berlin-Peck lists both collections of the Dresden series, but weirdly enough the first set is “unavailable” -- not borrowed, just unavailable.

Expectations
Honestly? John Constantine.

So how was it?

I couldn’t finish this. I just couldn’t. I got a few chapters in, and gave up. Maybe if it was a short story I could have persevered, but even then, it didn’t have the infuriating unintentional humor of subatomic dinosaurs.

Harry Dresden is a wizard private eye -- yes, you read that right, he’s a wizard named Harry, in a book published three years after the first Harry Potter -- in a world run by shadowy wizard councils, mafia bosses, and good-cop bad-cop tough-but-also-somehow-feminine-hot-female-cop / annoying-ugly-skeptic-male-cop duos. Sounds pretty interesting, right? But the writing was just excruciating.

I can 110% understand how this would make an engaging TV show, because -- unless some very strange choices are made -- a TV scifi hero isn’t going to spend the entire first episode monologuing about himself as things happen in the background. Since the problem is bad characterization, even a minimally engaging lead actor could make the series actually interesting.

And yeah, a lot of long series take a while to get better -- to grow their beard, as it were. I have no doubt that the later books are better… but better than this still isn’t worth it for me.

Recommendation
I just can’t recommend this, but hey, I guess it works for a lot of people. If you’re looking for a quirky, noir, slightly humorous, slightly sci-fi, down-on-his-luck private detective that’s actually well written, check out Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently.

Feels
Self-involved. Lame. Unbearably, ignorantly, "look at the gams on that, uh... bossy strong female character who won't sleep with me" sexist. If a book can dwell on itself, that’s what it seems to be doing.

Favorites
I can't even.

Least favorites
He’s a pretty big Marty Stu, and a little bit neckbeardy, to be honest. Opening doors for women, with a couple of paragraphs explaining his old-fashioned philosophy, and dropping off-hand comments to the reader about all his Dangerous Wizarding Powers. He’s a super powerful, super impressive wizard -- we know this because he tells us, not because of context clues, or characterization, or even seeing him use his awesome powers. It’s just constant, constant talking about himself.

Writing style
It’s trying -- and failing -- to be noir. The fact that Dresden talks about himself constantly doesn’t just make me dislike the character; it’s bad writing, and terrible world-building. He’s constantly dropping hints about himself, which I imagine are supposed to build mystery and suspense, but it has all the subtlety of a bowling ball out a window. No, I take that back -- a bowling ball out a window has more intrigue than these books.

So what did I really think?

Click "read more"

Blade Runner // Ridley Scott {Movie}

Why I'm reading
It’s a scifi classic! I actually borrowed it a little while ago and never got around to watching it, until it was mentioned in Ready Player One.

Where I got the movie
Greenwich Library.

Expectations
Action-adventure, with a dose of existential confusion over what it means to be human. The movie is old enough that I’ve acquired a vague idea of the ending scene, albeit with zero context. Other than that, any expectations have been obscured by my long-standing confusion between this and Blade. Like, Wesley Snipes hunting vampires Blade. ……… ಠ_ಠ

So how was it?

The plot itself is fairly skeletal: Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is a blade runner, responsible for hunting down and “retiring” Replicants -- lab-grown (or built?) creatures that are nearly indistinguishable from humans, used as slave labor off-world and banned on Earth itself. A small group of Replicants makes it back to Earth, and Rick agrees to take the assignment.

The movie was very loosely based on Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, so I’ll probably pick that up sometime soon. It also clearly influenced Fifth Element and the later scenes of Cloud Atlas, just off the top of my head.

Recommendation
Sci-fi fans (of course). Fans of film noir might get a kick out of it, too.

Feels
Our media center gave this movie genres like existentialism and neo-noir... More accurate words could not have been chosen. It has themes of mortality, identity, and what it means to be human… but it never gets preachy or concrete on anything. The filmography and special effects were characters in their own right, with sweeping sci-fi matte painting backgrounds, elaborate noir lighting, and grungy dieselpunk Chinese street scenes.

Favorites
The movie has lots of little details that it doesn’t feel the need to shove down your throat, adding a lot of depth to the characters. Of course, the downside of that is a lot of random shit that doesn’t make sense -- like, say, the unicorn hallucination.

I also like the ending. We know what happened (this isn’t Inception) … but… was it a victory? or a tragedy?

Least favorites
Ummm how about the date rape scene? I'll go with the date rape scene. I can’t call it anything else. I don’t know if it was supposed to be romantic or what, but when you kiss someone and they run for the door, and you follow them, grab their wrist to physically prevent them from leaving, push them up against a wall, and demand that they say ‘kiss me’, and ‘I want you’ multiple times… that’s not romantic. That’s pretty much a script for date rape. Literally the only thing that keeps this from ruining the movie for me is that I’m not sure if they even meant for it to be romantic.

Aside from that, I really wish we got some glimpse into Pris (Daryl Hannah). Her character was just as interesting as the two other (male) Replicants, but we got zero insight into what made her tick. Leon got about the same amount of screen time, but had several lines that made you think about his motivations and see him in an almost-human light. She just seemed arbitrarily evil and manic.

Cinematography
...was gorgeous. Old school matte paintings and real physical models, and filmed with this great noir feeling. With that said, it got a little clunky ; very often the camera (and the action) just ground to a halt so we could appreciate the scene’s setup, lighting, costuming, etc. Not that I don’t appreciate those scenes -- they were beautiful -- but it felt a little forced.

So what did I really think?

Click "read more"... massive spoilers ahead!