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An assortment of things
Feb. 25th, 2019 08:44 amI'm still putting together my thoughts on last week's Discovery, mostly because the story unfolded so differently from my expectations that I need some extra time to figure out how I felt about it. ( But I do have a crack theory... )
Reading
I'm halfway through The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal, which is one of those books I enjoy reading over lunch at work, but never feel compelled to pick up at any other time.
The plot: a meteor wipes out Washington DC and a big chunk of the east coast of North America in 1952, this is going to be an extinction-level event in the long term, so the space program goes from "maybe a satellite lauch?" to "we need to colonise Luna and Mars by the end of the century".
This is feminist hard SF, and although it feels a bit heavy handed to me, as the heroine learns important lessons about racism and intersectionality, it seems to read more subtle to people who haven't been following those discussions in SF publishing for years. My main criticism is that it has some of the worst sex scenes I have ever encountered in published fiction. They're not graphic, but ... there are rocket metaphors. It's unfortunate (and unsexy). Fortunately I was warned in advance, and could brace myself.
(Also, I've seen it being recommended as a good book for people who want f/f romance in their SF? I'm over 50% through, and if there are any queer characters at all, so far they haven't come out to the heroine. I truly hate when media is recommended for inclusiveness it doesn't actually have.)
Watching
I'm into season 3 of Bron | Broen, the original Swedish/Danish version of The Bridge. A lot of Scandinoir is driven by coincidence, and this is no exception, but I think it's my favourite entry in the genre that I've seen -- mostly because Saga Noren is such a great character. But she has a temporary boss in this season, who is basically the Dolores Umbridge of police captains, and I'm spending a lot of time silently shouting STOP TRYING TO MAKE SAGA ACT LIKE A NEUROTYPICAL PERSON at the screen.
("Dear Ask A Manager,
My temporary supervisor is determined to make me reconcile with my abusive mother, and tricked me into attending my father's funeral. Is this legal?")
I also watched the first episode of Russian Doll, and hated it a lot. It wasn't bad, I just hated the main character, and also every single other character except the cat. So that was easy to drop, and hopefully one day Netflix will stop telling me to keep watching it.
(I mentioned this on Twitter, and a stranger popped up to tell me I needed to give it a few more episodes before I dropped it. There is no faster way to make me angry than by recommending something I already know I'm not into (see also: Leverage, where I was initially bored and indifferent and now I actively hate it), so that earned them a nice, fast blocking.)
Reading
I'm halfway through The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal, which is one of those books I enjoy reading over lunch at work, but never feel compelled to pick up at any other time.
The plot: a meteor wipes out Washington DC and a big chunk of the east coast of North America in 1952, this is going to be an extinction-level event in the long term, so the space program goes from "maybe a satellite lauch?" to "we need to colonise Luna and Mars by the end of the century".
This is feminist hard SF, and although it feels a bit heavy handed to me, as the heroine learns important lessons about racism and intersectionality, it seems to read more subtle to people who haven't been following those discussions in SF publishing for years. My main criticism is that it has some of the worst sex scenes I have ever encountered in published fiction. They're not graphic, but ... there are rocket metaphors. It's unfortunate (and unsexy). Fortunately I was warned in advance, and could brace myself.
(Also, I've seen it being recommended as a good book for people who want f/f romance in their SF? I'm over 50% through, and if there are any queer characters at all, so far they haven't come out to the heroine. I truly hate when media is recommended for inclusiveness it doesn't actually have.)
Watching
I'm into season 3 of Bron | Broen, the original Swedish/Danish version of The Bridge. A lot of Scandinoir is driven by coincidence, and this is no exception, but I think it's my favourite entry in the genre that I've seen -- mostly because Saga Noren is such a great character. But she has a temporary boss in this season, who is basically the Dolores Umbridge of police captains, and I'm spending a lot of time silently shouting STOP TRYING TO MAKE SAGA ACT LIKE A NEUROTYPICAL PERSON at the screen.
("Dear Ask A Manager,
My temporary supervisor is determined to make me reconcile with my abusive mother, and tricked me into attending my father's funeral. Is this legal?")
I also watched the first episode of Russian Doll, and hated it a lot. It wasn't bad, I just hated the main character, and also every single other character except the cat. So that was easy to drop, and hopefully one day Netflix will stop telling me to keep watching it.
(I mentioned this on Twitter, and a stranger popped up to tell me I needed to give it a few more episodes before I dropped it. There is no faster way to make me angry than by recommending something I already know I'm not into (see also: Leverage, where I was initially bored and indifferent and now I actively hate it), so that earned them a nice, fast blocking.)
