It hailed here last night. Big ice-cube sized chunks rattling against the wooden awning outside my living room window. I suppose now we’re really going to need that special assessment to replace the windows in my building. *sigh*
Latest book: “The War for the Oaks,” by Emma Bull
I’ve been trying to figure out what seems off about the Dresden Files tv series and I finally figured it out. So far, it’s seemed rather flat and two-dimensional to me. But then, it should. I’m coming to the show with eight books worth of world-building and mythology behind me, and the series is starting back at square one. They couldn’t hope to show the true three-dimensionality of the Dresdenverse without overwhelming the newbies.
So that’s not really a fault of the show.
There is one thing that’s inexcusably off, though. Bob. Bob is *not* some stuffy English guy (no offense against the actor playing him). Bob has a sense of humor, he’s wacky and mischievous; a trickster. In this week’s episode, when Jeeves Bob finally showed some of that amoral even-disembodied-spirits-have-raging-hormones thing Bob is known for in the books, it didn’t come across as charming like it does in the books, it came across as creepy. And not in a good way.
Anyway, looking forward to when there’s six episodes and my brother mails me my tape!
Latest book: “Guilty Pleasures” by Laurell K. Hamilton
This book was kind of scary. In a good way, I mean. And not really what I expected at all. I knew it was contemporary horror, so I figured it was something resembling The Dresden Files or Buffy. Which it was. Except I didn’t expect it to be so…dark. From what I’d heard, I’d expected Hamilton’s book to be the kind of horror that’s so sex-drenched it takes the edge off things that *should* be scary to anyone that’s sane. And with one of those wise-cracking snarky protagonists like Harry Dresden or Buffy. Only I didn’t find it particularly sexy at all, and Anita Blake doesn’t do much snarking. None of this is in the way of criticism, mind you. I like a heroine who takes her situation seriously and is intelligently frightened by it and keeps her head and gets the job done. And having her be genuinely menaced by “friend” and foe every other page doesn’t inure you to the dangers she’s in. The book’s not long enough for that. Plus, the main character is herself pretty dark. Re-animating the dead for a living? How icky is that? In an intriguing way, I mean.
The one thing I was not fond of in the Blake-o-verse: the fact that everyone’s aware of vampires and other supernatural creatures. When it comes to my fictional “kinks”, I want a world where the supernatural is considered debunked and its dangers lurk in the shadows, only known to a select few. In other words, I want a fictional word that by all appearances is the scientifically skeptical world we all live in. Because I read these kinds of books (fantasy, horror) so I can imagine that the supernatural exists around me in the world I see everyday. And I don’t live in Anita Blake’s America. I know that for certain.
I had another book from my shelf lined up to read next, but after getting to the third page, I realize it’s *yet* another vampire story where the whole world knows vampires exist. I think I’ve had enough of that for the time being. I will have to consult my recs list for the next book up.
“A Wizard of Earthsea”, Ursula Le Guin
“Proven Guilty”, Jim Butcher
“Dreamchild”, Hilary Hemingway and Jeffry P. Lindsay
“Guilty Pleasures”, Laurell K. Hamilton
Author Nancy E. Shaffer 