Thorns

Enjoying Lost Girl made me decide to check out some paranormal romance-y books…which has reminded me why I like Lost Girl and don't tend to read paranormal romance.

Some vague spoilers but nothing significant.
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Annoying: Induced Mutation Psychosis: Born a freak—a freak whose freakishness only made him a more desirable foodstuff—he never had anything to look forward to except his own death. Now that his destruction is imminent, he can finally experience a modicum of pleasure. In his place, would any of us behave differently?

(I have a similar reaction to a lot of the "Lol, they look like they have some sort of congenital defect" stuff at Photoshop disasters)

Not annoying: I just watched the Kim Possible episode "Mind Games", where Kim swaps bodies with her sidekick/friend Ron, and the fact that he's a boy and she's a girl was not considered the primary point of of difference, at most Ron talked about the pros and cons of wearing skirts. Instead it was all about the specific difference between them, eg popularity, number of commitments etc.

Plus all the comments about "a guy in Draken's body" amused me because deep down I am a twelve year old boy :)

So after one too many awesome vids about Supernatural Season 4 eg the spoilery but awesome A Charming Man (not to mention Cam's constant squee(*)) I decided to give it a go. I'm actually enjoying it so far (one episode in) but I am really glad I'd been spoiled enough that I was prepared for (a)the summary of Season 3 to be one long litany of violence against women(**) (b) every single female character to turn out to be evil or at least punished for their self confident sluttiness. (Apologies if this counts as a spoiler, but like "All women are whores" for Dollhouse, sometimes it's better to know these things)

On the plus side, the parts of the show that don't involve women (eg Dean's unexpected ressurection) are pretty awesome.

(*)since he's in it for the cool ideas, not the hot slashy menz :)
(**)At least to start. There was some violence against black men and even some white men in there eventually.

These are two Marjorie M Lui "Dirk and Steele" supernatural romance novels.

So far there are two common themes in this series:
1)The love interests are soul mates and are drawn to each other pretty much the moment they meet, thought they tend to fight against it out of a mix of cynicism and hard-won self defense based on Bad Past Experiences.
2)To some extent the male love interests tend to feel like they're fulfilling different ever-so-slightly-furry-ish supernatural creature fetishes.

Soul Song was sexy fish-man
The Wild Road is basically sexy Goliath from Gargoyles
The Last Twilight is sexy black African man who turns into a cheetah (which is imo a bit problematic)

The Wild Road
So clearly I wasn't the only teenage girl watching Gargoyles thinking "You know, he's kind of cute for an animated non-human."

This was fun. I liked the protagonists, though both rather hardened by difficult circumstances they weren't as irritatingly angsty as the previous lot, and I found the plot quite engaging and thrilling. The female protagonist has lost her memory, and I thought the "redefining and rediscovering yourself when you don't know who you are or were" thing was done pretty well.

Note:This is explicitly set after "Soul Song" and has some spoilers for it's plot.

The Last Twilight

I started reading this at the shop and ended up buying it because I wanted to know what happened next. The main character is a CDC disease specialist, and her life dealing with epidemics was quite engaging if rather gross for a romance. Being a Marjorie M Lui book the plot quickly shifted, and it was a bit less engrossing in the middle, but overall quite an enjoyable fantasy thriller and I liked the relationship between the two leads.

I'm not the best judge of this sort of thing, but I've seen enough criticisms of the way people of African descent are associated with animals/predators etc to be a bit uncomfortable with the way the male lead was exotified by the female lead, although he is a quite well rounded and engaging character.

On the plus side we got lots of interesting African characters, and distinctions were made between different African countries and cultures (eg the male lead is Kenyan, and misses the plains while in the jungles of the Congo).

A fic rec: Male Enhancement (The Soul and the Company Store Remix), Stargate Atlantis, Shepphard/McKay, rated sexitimes, by Leah.

Some thoughts: The thing with this story, is it started out as a remix of a sex-robot slash pwp but by the first sequel had turned into mostly gen science fiction about sentient robots and it continued in that vein until by the last story (of..four?) I was sniffling in happy tears at the heartwarming story of humanity and belonging.

So if you like porn but not thinky gen stick with the first story (or be prepared to skim a LOT :D), and if you like thinky gen but not porn just skim the sex scenes. It's a pity about the premise or I think Cam might like it, but the whole sex robot thing was apparently too off putting :)

The premise bugged me too: I have HUGE problems with any sort of power differential in relationships, as well as any romance where a love interest starts out being nice because it's their job and there's no clear distinction made of when they start being sincere, no point when it feels like they seriously considered not being yielding and perfect. Pretty Woman type scenarios Skeeve Me Out, and the fact that the robot has only been sentient for five years hits my age-gap squick in a weird way.

These issues are at least largely acknowledged, and it wasn't so squicky I didn't enjoy the story, but I think could have been handled in a more nuanced and indepth way. I guess I'll have to write my own fic :)

Stupid SGA fandom and your engaging fic, you keep making me want to watch the show and then I remember how irritating and dull it was.

Links
Descriptions and links to trailers
Initial poll
second poll

What to say
(nb haven't filled this out completely, just giving a rough outline)

We are going to be recommending anime which will hopefully appeal to people who aren't huge fans of the genre, specifically australian science fiction and fantasy fans.

This is about TASTE not how OBJECTIVELY GOOD something is. An anime can be very good for what it is but not to your taste. That said, if we rec something without mentioning what you feel is a major drawcard/annoyance please tell us!

Try and rec a range of different types of anime so you can find at least one which suits you. Warn for the common things that put people off.

So, why don't people like anime?
Stuff we can avoid:
-Sturgeons Law (not completely subjective)
-confusing cultural references (aimed at japanese people)

Specific tropes which some people dislike: (see this poll)

• giant robots
  
• overly stylised setting eg impractical costumes/giant weapons
  
• schoolgirls in uniforms
  
• cliched
  
• bad quality animation (jerky/dated etc)
  
• overly stylised animation ie giant eyes
  
• bad dialogue
  
• surreal/makes no sense
  
• uninteresting plot/no plot
  
• too slow
  
• overly sexualised/exploited female characters
  
• other disturbing sexual stuff (ie involving children)
  

Anime sff subgenres don't match western sff subgenres exactly but can hit many of the same buttons. Some are very stereotypical of genre, some transcend it or are hard to categorise.
-Giant robots
-(japanese!) historical fantasy ie samurai
-horror
-etc

How to choose between not annoying but bland and crazily annoying but awesome

And now for the recs!

Each should have: Genre:, Synopsis:, Good:, Bad: (put up on a whiteboard?)
e.g. Planetes: Genre: Hard sf, Synopsis: Garbage collectors in space, Good: Realistic, Bad: slow, a bit dull (too realistic!)

( Poll for panelists )

After being persuaded by this Hoyden about Town post I'm currently 2 episodes in to "True Blood", the TV adaptation by Alan Ball of "Six feet Under" of the Sookie Stackhouse books. After a slightly rocky start I'm really liking it, like the book it tries to actually charcaterise real people and situations which happen to involve vampires and murder in the south rather than being a shiny fetishised cliche like Every Other American Vampire TV Show Ever(*).

They seem to have turned "Dead Until Dark", the first book, into the first season so it's more drama than mystery and goes at a measured, atmospheric pace.

I've heard complaints about the vampire love interest being kind of old looking but I like it: it should feel a bit creepy for a 100+ year old guy to be interested in a young girl, and the actor does a good job of coming across simultaneously as a regular 30ish guy and Very Old.

Oh and it is FULL of sex. Lots and lots. But not in a very sexy way afaict, it's more just..there, this thing people do which impacts on and is impacted by their characters and lives. Most vampire romance equates death with sex, this goes the other way too, so it's all very visceral and bloody and grimy. The credits are intense.

Lot of vampire shows at the moment though aren't there? I still haven't gotten around to trying "Being Human".

(*)The english do a bit better :)

Yesterday afternoon I decided to take a break from the big pile o' library books to read "Altered Carbon" by Richard Morgan, one of the Swancon guests.
Last night at midnight, I finished it (and then had insomnia for unrelated reasons). As a result I am So Sleepy so this is just rambly thoughts.

Like "Devil in a Blue Dress" it's quite good noir, but more of the cyberpunk end (without the shallow flashyness of a lot of cyberpunk), which is more my genre. I really liked it, though as warned it's quite violent, has some somewhat skeevy attitudes towards women, and amazingly bad sex scenes. Someone needs to tell him the word "globes" is not sexy.

As with Iain M Banks I was not convinced by the attempts to undercut the intense straight-guy-ness in this seemingly gender-equal far future with stuff like vague references to gay/male prostitutes we never meet. For example, every single woman is hot, and a disproportionate number want to sleep with the main character. On the plus side he actually gets put in a female body for a while and seems less upset at it (in principle) than he was earlier at being put in a caucasian one(*), but then there were some creepy comments about the way women "feel touch differently to men". I guess if you're going to write all your female characters kind of the same you could do worse than making them all sensible, competent, and driven.

The world building was great, not mind bogglingly inventive but not in-your-face-expositiony either, just there as a believable and effective backdrop. Good mystery too, thus the up-till-midnight reading :)

I find myself interested in more of this world and this character, I'll have to go hunt some down and then horribly torture them and torch off their heads.

(*)The main character is ethnically japanese/eastern european, something which I felt was dealt with pretty well

I've been on a bit of a murder mystery bender recently.

Books:
"Grave Sight" and "Dead Until Dark" by Charlaine Harris: Good character study and drama, painfully predictable cliched mystery. Both centre on a young woman with a psychic gift which causes more trouble than good and are nicely understated and realistic given their fantastical elements. "Dead Until Dark" is also a vampire romance and this aspect was done pretty well, I liked that the fact that he's older and more old fashioned was dealt with sensibly rather than being totally fetishised (he gives a talk at the Civil War society meeting. How awesome is that?) The basis for the "True Blood" tv show.

Sex, Murder, and a Double Latte by Kyra Davis: Fairly straight forward but not entirely shallow chick lit mystery. Engaging, funny, and a good mystery. Much less interesting characters and premise than the Charlaine Harris books though.

TV

Psych: A good natured layabout has fantastic Holmes-esque observational abilities, but any time he tries to solve a mystery he gets suspected for "knowing too much". So he starts a psychic detective agency with his (much more sensible) best friend. Very silly, and the mysteries are pretty crap, but light and fluffy and funny.

Bones: More police procedural than mystery, but I love it anyway.