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- 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
