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ninety6tears- I'm sooo happy to have my Southland back but man, that season premier did not make me feel good, aside from affirming my love for Sammy Bryant. That show is just one phase of "Remember the good old days?" after another, but god, I love it. Super un-enthused with the new guys, but I guess we're kinda supposed to be.
- I'm wondering if anyone else out there has read any of Lukyanenko's Night Watch series. I finished the first book quite a while ago after stumbling upon the movie adaptation on IMDB and thinking the premise sounded interesting and hey, I'd never read anything Russian that wasn't classics and I'm always on the lookout for unique fantasy. I could easily see an attempt to market the series as "hard-boiled Harry Potter" and that wouldn't be too bad a description; characters are initiated into a magical dimension and realize their potential as wizards or shapeshifters or incubi, etc., but there's really no time for wonder or the good kind of adventure on the way to a sudden acceptance of great responsibility. And my, there is a very downer level of emphasis on how much easier it is to be the bad guy. I like that type of unsettling fantasy that deals with an essential balance between good and evil instead of the idea of vanquishing evil altogether, and there is a literally bureaucratic treatment of all that with the peace treaty between dark and light "Others."
Buuut I'm kind of teetering on whether I want to go on because while the plots were great, I don't know if I particularly connected with any of the characters. I do feel like I would like to get to know the narrating character better, but I wish this author was better at writing women. There were moments in the novel when I felt I was being prodded to affectionately roll my eyes at Anton for his failure to understand the feelings of his love interest when all I wanted to do was roll my eyes at the author for spitting off stereotypes about how cryptic and indirect women are. But I have a perhaps disproportionate loathing of cliches; putting aside that problem, there are just as many if not more powerful female characters than there are equally powerful males. And I couldn't stop myself from imagining the shapeshifter team known as "Bear and Tiger Cub" to look a little bit like Natasha and Clint for some reason XD
- I'm wondering if anyone else out there has read any of Lukyanenko's Night Watch series. I finished the first book quite a while ago after stumbling upon the movie adaptation on IMDB and thinking the premise sounded interesting and hey, I'd never read anything Russian that wasn't classics and I'm always on the lookout for unique fantasy. I could easily see an attempt to market the series as "hard-boiled Harry Potter" and that wouldn't be too bad a description; characters are initiated into a magical dimension and realize their potential as wizards or shapeshifters or incubi, etc., but there's really no time for wonder or the good kind of adventure on the way to a sudden acceptance of great responsibility. And my, there is a very downer level of emphasis on how much easier it is to be the bad guy. I like that type of unsettling fantasy that deals with an essential balance between good and evil instead of the idea of vanquishing evil altogether, and there is a literally bureaucratic treatment of all that with the peace treaty between dark and light "Others."
Buuut I'm kind of teetering on whether I want to go on because while the plots were great, I don't know if I particularly connected with any of the characters. I do feel like I would like to get to know the narrating character better, but I wish this author was better at writing women. There were moments in the novel when I felt I was being prodded to affectionately roll my eyes at Anton for his failure to understand the feelings of his love interest when all I wanted to do was roll my eyes at the author for spitting off stereotypes about how cryptic and indirect women are. But I have a perhaps disproportionate loathing of cliches; putting aside that problem, there are just as many if not more powerful female characters than there are equally powerful males. And I couldn't stop myself from imagining the shapeshifter team known as "Bear and Tiger Cub" to look a little bit like Natasha and Clint for some reason XD
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Date: 2013-02-16 06:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-16 10:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-17 12:12 am (UTC)Ah, Night Watch. It’s funny, I had no idea until you mentioned it that it was a book series. I watched the first movie ages ago and it was ok –I liked certain aspects, though overall I wasn’t impressed (and if I remember well I refused to watch the second installment, to my BF’s utter disappointment. He enjoyed it much more than I did). But I get what you mean about connecting with the heroes and of course the issue with the female characters. Just for this alone, I don’t think I would give this a shot --I have this fixation with well written, interesting ladies. Aaaaand speaking of which, I’ve been meaning to tell you, I am about to finish The Stand. I am finding it quite an engrossing read, but why oh why Stephen King doesn’t know how to write heroines? I mean, maybe he got better; I’ll definitely read more of his work because now I am super curious, but The Stand is kind of underwhelming in this regard? (though interestingly, I really like Dayna and Nadine). I have yet to finish, so we’ll see, but I have so many mixed feelings about this novel. I find there’s some brilliant stuff in there and (and I know this probably sounds like heresy) some stuff that is just quite amateurish? IDK. My feelings about this book are complicated and I need to give it some serious thought when I am done, but my biggest issue, I think, is that I wanted more development for certain characters/relationships.
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Date: 2013-02-18 02:56 am (UTC)The couple films I've seen by the director who did Night Watch were a little ridiculous but entertaining, so that's about all I'm expecting; it looks like they changed stuff to make it more actiony horror. There were one or two female characters in the book I could maybe love with some more development, but I'm just not sure how much they show up later.
My feelings about The Stand are definitely complicated too, if in different ways...It's got a lot going on and I really like some things and love some things and hate other things; I was really generally underwhelmed when I first finished it but I ended up missing some of the characters so much and rethinking a lot of the things they did until I had a new appreciation for a lot of it. But yeah, the development is relatively weak when it comes to the women in a way that was all the more frustrating because most of my favorite characters were female, but I really didn't care for Fran, the one woman who's unquestionably a main character. But Dayna's great, I find Nadine extremely fascinating, and I have a silly disproportionate love of Lucy Swann and think she could be an extremely underrated character, if only she'd been allowed to carry a little more of her own story. Llike I said in my review, it is too bad that in such a long book some of the characters/relationships do come out a little thin, and I wish there was oodles of fic out there to fill in some of the holes. It feels a lot like a product of the 70s from a young author and that's part of the charm but I would hope that later on King handles some things with more sophistication, especially since I'm excited about Susannah and a couple other Dark Tower characters I've heard about.
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Date: 2013-02-21 12:25 am (UTC)I have 100 pages of The Stand left, so I am saving my opinion for later (though to my surprise and contrary to the general trend, I am not disliking the last part that much. lol). What bothers me about this novel is that I have the impression that it could have been truly epic but fails somehow because of the uneven characterizations (I also have some plot issues but I tend to be more forgiving on that front). And the most frustrating aspect is of course that the story has potentially great characters! But I found many of them to be too simplistic, too good or too evil. Gotta say Larry is hands down my favorite; he is so conflicted and complicated and the one who exhibits the most personal growth throughout the book <3. Oh, and I hear you about Lucy. I like the concept of Lucy though I can’t really say I like her because I feel I barely know her. It’s a real shame and kind of pisses me off, especially when I think of all the pages devoted to Frannie, a character that irritates me more than anything (I feel SK is trying so hard to make the readers like her, and she just comes across as kind of artificial). Anyway, even though I see a rant coming when I finish the book (lol), it’s only because I can’t shake the feeling that it could have been something so great and it kind of falls short instead. It’s a bit frustrating, though it’s definitely a very enjoyable read.
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Date: 2013-02-24 04:23 am (UTC)There are a lot of little reasons Frannie irritates me and I guess I shouldn't say much more until you've gotten to the end, but I could never shake the impression that there was something almost childish about her. And I may have a bias but it felt like there was such a case of author favoritism towards her and Stu, when I didn't feel there was anything about them that "earned" the status of being the most prominent characters.
But gah, I have to say I'm very pleased to hear Larry is your favorite. Larry's my BB <3