avrelia

I watched, finally Always Be My Maybe. And it was nice. It’s pretty much what I want from romantic comedies: characters that feel alive (bonus for being closer to my age) and have good chemistry, not only of romantic kind, but a friendly one, and familial one. Funny lively dialogues, plot that doesn’t insult me and the characters, normal people solving normal problems in only slightly cheesy way. No last minute’s big stupid gestures. It’s a pleasure I don’t feel guilty about whatsoever.

I like watching people falling in love (or reading about them) and solving whatever problems that come along – it doesn’t have to be huge problems: she is a mermaid and he is allergic to fish. No.

Sasha and Marcus were childhood friends. She is American Vietnamese whose parents were always busy at work. He is American Korean, who lived next door to her in San Francisco. Sasha always felt more at home with his family than with her own, especially since his mom was cooking great home meals and always made her feel welcomed.

Then Marcus’ mom died, their friendship was kind of over, and Sasha moved on with her life, eventually becoming a celebrity chef.

Marcus didn’t move on at all.

One day Sasha moves back to SF to open a new restaurant and the story begins anew.

The more I think about it, the more I like it – it’s a small-scale movie, but everything there feels right, everything adds a right flavour: parents, friends, significant others, Keanu Reeves, location, food. It’s a joy, pure and simple.

If I can enjoy movies about aliens and superheroes, why can’t I openly enjoy romantic comedies? They are way harder to write, I think, and explosions won’t save boring script.

1)I had a dream. Probably because I was on painkillers – ear stuff, very annoying. But. The dream was amazing: I was reading the most gorgeous, smart and witty graphic novel based on Wilkie Collins' novel Moonstone. With some science fiction/steampunk elements in it. And now I really want to read it in real life. And the adventures of Marian Halcombe (from Collins' Woman in White). Why didn't anyone written them?

2)I and P. finally watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, both parts. I liked the first part better than the book (nicely suspenseful), and the second part less than the book (the awe and the heartbreak in the book were more immediate, and there was more of Harry-unrelated Hogwarts Resistance). Now I feel the need to re-read the book immediately, and P. went and bought all eight movies (we didn't have them before).

3)I started to watch second season of the Lost Girl, and I am enjoying it very much. Now I finished episode 2.04, and... I am happy. I didn't know I needed it that much – weird Russian stuff that is not Random Weird Evil Russian Stuff, but character-related Weird Russian Stuff. Kenzi summons Baba Yaga – because she used to be terrified of her, and because she knows how (and because she is drunk and angry at Dyson, for Bo's sake). Of course, she ends up in Baba Yaga's hut, and has to defeat her herself, even though Bo and Dyson both are trying to help. We heard Kenzi speaking perfect Russian in the first episode, but while she doesn't hide it particularly, she doesn't advertize it, either. It's not a big deal. We can assume that she was born and learned to talk outside Canada, somewhere in former USSR – hence the normal Russian, but attended school in Canada – hence the perfect English. She grew up with Russian fairytales and silly kids' games. Summoning Baba Yaga this way was invented for the show, but we, at school at about 10-12 years did like to summon some scary stuff. Like the Queen of Spades and such. Using mirrors is also a good traditional way to stir some mystical shit. It is recommended to do only in twelve days after Christmas, though. But if you look in the mirror in the candlelight long enough, you could see your future husband or the devil (or your husband, the devil). So the fantasy stuff, while invented, felt organic to me. It also was genuinely creepy. But Kenzi dealt with it the best way possible.

4)Finished N.K. Jemisin's The Kingdom of Gods, the last book of the Inheritance trilogy. Liked it a lot, but I still think the second one, The Broken Kingdoms is my favorite of the three. I need to do a proper review, but when did I manage it the last time? If any of my friends want it, btw, it can be arranged. ;)

5)Watched Captain America. Was underwhelmed. I liked it – Steve, Old New York, Tommy Lee Jones, Fantastic Low-Tech, Peggy Carter... Except Peggy Carter was there just to be Steve's love interest, the only woman with more that one line of text. Other women were nurses or dancers. No female soldiers? Pilots? Whomever? Besides, I do always get a weird feeling watching movies about WWII where it seems that the war was fought by USA with their little helpers. I don't really expect anything from Captain America movie, of course, but it still feels weird – given the world domination plans of Agent Smith, to completely disregard the existence of the Eastern front. But the main underwhelming moment for me was that in the second half of the movie all the action became boring and perfunctory. It's like all the cool stuff was done, and they just had to fill up the time.

6)Looking forward to the new Sherlock Holmes movie. I don't care whether it's going to be good or just silly, I want to see Robert Downy Jr. And Jude Law enjoying themselves as Holmes and Watson.

We finished Fringe, and here I try to sum my thoughts and feelings about the whole three seasons. Peter and I started watching it in March, and we done in three months. Impressive – for us these days. I knew some spoilers that picked up by osmosis from my friends and stuff I read. But spoilers don't matter until you really care about stuff that is going on. I didn't have much expectations, beyond the fact that it is supposed to be crazy and awesome. Well, it was. Mostly. The main thing, it was always entertaining, even when it was scary and creepy and sad.

I very much enjoyed their self-aware resemblance to X-files. Even the score reminding me the days of yore and the truth that was out there. One of the major factors in my enjoyment of the show was that I liked all the major characters. Olivia, Walter, Peter, Broyles, Nina Sharp, Astrid, Charlie...

The story itself - I knew to expect more later, so the earlier MoTW, crazy-science type episodes were all good enough for me. And I did like the crazy. I could suspend my disbelieve high enough to worry about plausibility – I love the shows about vampires, right? They only pretend that science here is in any way more realistic than demons of Whedon-verse.

Watching the whole thing at once is very different – I don't ask many questions, or don't dwell on them, as I knew there will be answers soon enough.

Of course, now, that I watched all that is so far, I can see, that many questions are left without answers for good, since the story went too far away in a completely different directions.

The change of direction didn't look sudden or completely unexplicable, but when I look back now I see how different the show was then, and I am not certain Fringe season 1 connects well with the Fringe season 3. And even if, overall the show got better, I am not sure I prefer the show where only three people int the Universe (both of them) matter.

Let me think back:
at first we had a show about random mysterious “pattern” events, which were loosely connected to William Bell and Walter and their experiments back then. Massive Dynamic was a menacing presence, doing mysterious menacing things under control of terrifyingly effective Nina Sharp.

There are groups of children Bell Experimented on in Iowa and Florida. And someone who awakes their talents that lead to terrifying events.

There is Jones who just wants to see Bell and ready to move the world and kill everyone to do it.

Then we have a show about menacing Other Universe. With Newton and the shapeshifters being all kinds of evil.

Then we learn the truth about Peter, and the impact that Walter had on the Other Universe, and the show turns into “It's all about the Bishops” show. Which is kind of lacking, by definition. Lots of things gets dropped off in order to fit in the character metaphor.
I generally like a story that is character-driven, and I can suspend my disbelieve very high and forgive a lot of plot holes for a satisfying character story. I mean, I am a Buffy fan, remember? I don't mind any hiding in the bushes wise folk with magical weapons as long it made sense on the larger scale.

But in the case of Fringe I felt very differently. Maybe because Buffy from the very beginning was the show about a girl to me, and Fringe was the show about people who work with weird stuff.

Which brings me to the end of the season 3. It kind of felt like the story has eaten itself – and the time loop was the perfect in this sense – except that it didn't make any sense plot-wise.

I listed all the stuff from season 1 that went nowhere. (the group of Cortexifan children is dying out horribly, and for no good reason – and whom they will protect us from?) But maybe it will. Maybe some stuff will pop up later and it all suddenly will make a perfect sense. But so far, it doesn't. There is no big picture. The story changed – maybe not suddenly and unexpectedly, but irreversibly. Most of the questions will never have answers, because no one will bother to think of answers that would connect all the dots.

I am not bothered much by it, really. I am just along for the ride and having a lot of fun. But seeing the fate of two Universes depending on which Olivia Peter chooses is actually boring.

ok. I thought that waiting a week would help me to gather all my thoughts and arrange them in a sensible order, but it's only getting worse. So I am posting this, and thinking in small chunks.

Like these ones: Lincoln Lee. Love him. A lot.

Generally, I want more of everyone's story.

Is it me, or is Our Universe People are much dorkier than their Other Universe counterparts?

One of the first cultural surprises, that happened after coming to Canada, was looking at the giant map of Canada for the first time, and finding out that the Klondike Gold Rush that I read about in so many Jack London's stories happened in fact, in Canada, not in USA. It felt just so American, you know, that even if there were mentions of Canada we jumped right over them. Not that I knew – or cared to know - a lot about Canada before moving there. It was the place north of USA, the land of randomly cool TV series (Degrassi and Les filles de Caleb) so, naturally I had a lot to learn. Finding Dawson city on the map was one of the first surprises.

I didn't want to re-read Jack London for a long time though, and when I did, last year, I had another surprise: one of my favorite pieces, and the one that is extremely popular and well-loved in Russia, Smoke Bellew is virtually unknown here. It is a later work, published in 1911-12, and Jack London himself called it a hack work, written for money. And yet, it is, I believe, great. I mean, I've read later London's novels that were over-blown, over-melodramatic and rather impossible. Smoke Bellew is none of those things. In fact, it combines the best of both worlds. It is a collection of short stories tied into unity by the same characters (both main and secondary), same time ( Klondike Gold Rush) and same place (Yukon territory). It escapes the the soggy plotting and other problems with novels that Jack London had – most critics agree that Jack London was much better with his short stories than his novels- and yet still allows for character development impossible in a short format.

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This is the book I was looking forward to love. It had wonderful reviews from people I trust, it had that lovely mash of ingredients I love, it had an interesting magic concept... I read and was underwhelmed, and now, a month and a half later I can hardly remember what it was about. It is a regency novel with magic in it. But it seemed that the regency part and the magic part were too diluted to give space for each other that that the whole book seems too empty. I liked the characters well enough, but they didn't look significantly different or memorable which makes me sad. There are definite allusions to Jane Austen – who else we start thinking about when reading a book set in early 19th century England? But comparison isn't flattering – for all their simplicity, Austen's novels are so rich – in details, in characters, in humour, in inner connections between everything. This story feels like an enchanted mural, an amusing illusion that would dissipate by the nest day, by comparison. But maybe it is supposed to?
So we have not-so young Jane, who is plain, but has a great talent for magic and art. And we have her young sister Melody who is very beautiful, but talentless. Both are somewhat resentful of each other and both have formed attachment to one gentleman (don't remember the name). There is also his very young sister, another dashing your officer, a disapproving viscountess with her long-nosed daughter, patient father, silly mother, and the regular assortment of figures one can find in any book set in the era. There is also an artist who is making a glamural for the viscountess and is angry with Jane for prying into his secrets. So we have all this fun ingredients – and nothing fun happens. Oh, the book moves smoothly from one chapter to another, with no loss of momentum, no straying of your attention everywhere, but when you get to the end, nothing much stays with you, either.
It is not a bad book. It is not uninteresting book. I probably suffered from my own overblown expectations. But I don't really feel like ever re-reading it.

Midnight Never Come by Marie Brennan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


1)I loved it. It's probably not a brilliant book, but I don't care – it has that magical quality of pulling me right in and not letting go until the last page. Your millage might obviously vary, but I enjoyed the hell out of it. I cannot say that I am a huge fan of Elizabethan time and fairies (I love them, but not with passion), which probably helps, since I cannot catch any historical details that might be different from reality. Nothing spoiled my fun. The language is simple and flows perfectly, the story is engaging and stays powerful throughout.

We are introduced to two court in England – the court above, the court of Queen Elizabeth Tudor, and the court below London in the Onyx Hall, the court of the Fairy Queen Indiviana. We follow the fortunes of Lune, the lady who lost the favour of the fairy queen and tries to return it – or at least survive. And we follow the fortunes of a young courtier Michael Deven, who
seeks fortune at the court of Queen Elizabeth Tudor, and - of course – his fortune gets entwined with Lune's.

Love is the main engine for this story, and the straightforwardness of it works very well. There is a fine sense of mystery and wonder, there are intrigues and power play, and friendship and loyalty and pride, all tangled in one fine mess, and in the end, the fae world doesn't look that much different from a human one. Oh, fairies are different enough to be instantly recognizable as such, and they are immortal and cannot abide the mentions of the God and the toll of church bell's, but they are still not alien. The author does a fine job of not really describing them – we can imagine them to our taste, but she does say that the fae we are reading about are close to humans in looks and manners as fairies can. There are others, less human-like, in looks and nature. Maybe we'll see them later.



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One of the pleasures not available to Canada is Netflix. There are lost of things that more than make up for its absence, of course, so it’s that we were lacking entertainment because of it, but now - since we can have it - we amuse ourselves by looking for things to watch there, we wouldn’t watch otherwise.

One of those finds is TiMER. I learned about its existence from here: http://io9.com/5642348/timer-and-the-trope-of-destructive-prescience, and immediately wanted to see it - as it is available on Netflix steaming video.

For the first five minutes I had a feeling I am in Buffyverse AU, where Anya and Halfrek are working on some hapless male together. The feeling passed soon, and I got used to seeing Emma Caulfield as Oona, the orthodontist who is looking for her soulmate. Here is the thing - in this world it is assumed that everyone has a soulmate, and it is easy to find it - you only have to implant a small device into your wrist, called TiMER, and it starts a countdown to the momentous meeting with him or her, and when your soulmate is in the range, a pretty tune will alert both of you. Sounds perfect, isn’t it? No more heartbreak, unrequited love, plummeting divorce rate and so on. But, of course, they bring completely new problems. Oona’s TiMER isn’t yet started the countdown - and she is almost 30 - which means that her soulmate hasn’t yet got himself a TiMER. Her stepsister and the best friend Steph, also at 30, has a dozen more years till the meeting with “the one”, so she spends the waiting time with one-night stands. Their brother meets his soulmate three days after getting the TiMER, at 15, and well, nobody is happy.

it is not a romance, or a romantic comedy. I would say it is a scifi comedy about love. It tries to explore predestination, and love and how can our behaviour would change if we know our future. It poses questions without suggesting right answers. Oona and Steph both try to defy their screwed TiMER-ed futures. And their brother is facing the future that is already all settled for him at 15. Is love still exist? Are people slaves to their own technology or just to their own believes? Are there no more second chances? How to love a person when you know they are meant for someone else?

The turns and twists are rather predictable, but that doesn’t really spoil the fun of poking at the predetermination and love. And it is always a pleasure to see Buffyverse alumnae in starring roles and episodes (Kali Rocha). The movie is not groundbreaking or too deep, but quite solid and fun ride to no answer.

After several months of fighting through The Windup Girl I was longing for something light, fluffy and cheesy, so I got myself Insatiable by Meg Cabot. Happily, I was able to get it from the library - imagine that, only a month after release!

Anyways, it is all that promised - light, fluffy and cheesy. Except I couldn’t read it - I am so over vampire romances. (Yes, Whedon’s vampires are a huge exception to me.) I liked the beginning when it seemed more of a quasi-vampire story, but as soon as love started I got bored. So I jumped ahead, and well, there are really good pieces there, but also there are quite a lot of vampires. And I am just that tired of them and their problems. (I LOVED reading everything about vampires when I was a teenager - duh! ) One thing that I really loved was the notion that a vampire always want to kill you dead - especially when they love you. And being dead sucks. Out of all the characters I now remember - and therefore think it was the most interesting character - the vampire hunter. He is a good guy, but annoying and psychotic, and you enjoy seeing him suffer, even though you want his side to win. About the girl of the book, I cannot say anything at all. Except that she has a healthy disgust for vampires until she meets the best of them. And her head is a mess. Which makes her super-special.

No, it is a good summer read. Two weeks after returning it to the library I cannot remember anything more substantial than a Marc Jacobs’ tote that the heroine coveted. And the fun fact that the events took place fifteen streets south from where I live at the moment.

I watched Buffy vs. Dracula after that and the parallels very hilarious, (obviously, they used the same Bram Stoker novel as the source of fun), and the differences telling.

by the way, my very favorite vampire novel? A Russian quasi-prequel to Stoker’s Dracula, written in the beginning of 20 century, anonymously. Very trashy, very cheesy, very entertaining. Lots of mists, water lilies, and the goddess Kali.

I have just finished the Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi having spent many painful hours on this book. It is a very good book – it won Nebula award and is nominated for Hugo, both justly deserved. It is also a very difficult book to read and love.
One of the reasons is that I need characters to care about, and here... it is not that there were none of those, but none to carry the weight of a protagonist. The story followed fates of several: a businessman, an old Chinese refugee, a titular windup girl, and two corrupt Thai officials. It was not a character story, after all, it was a... situation story, I would say. Not unlike mystery novels in a way. Only the question was not who murdered X, but what the hell happened?
Another reason why it was hard to love and painful to read book, because it is misery porn. Not because of actual porn involved (though there pages and pages of sexual abuse description), but because this is the world where things cannot get better, they only can get worse, and after a while I started to wish it all blew up already. And the book delivered.
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I finally watched 2.04 episode of Dollhouse, and I have weird thoughts about. Of course, the announcement of the cancellation of the show just went up, but it is not a particularly shocking surprise for anybody, I think. So, back to the aired episodes.
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