Going to be a nice fall - Gotham (watched the preview) and The Flash (watched the 1st episode online) both look interesting. Add a renewed Arrow and Agents of SHIELD and there's lots of shows to watch at the moment.
Monday, September 22, 2014
Awaiting the new series - Gotham and The Flash
Going to be a nice fall - Gotham (watched the preview) and The Flash (watched the 1st episode online) both look interesting. Add a renewed Arrow and Agents of SHIELD and there's lots of shows to watch at the moment.
"House of Cards" - TV Series (Netflix)
Really liked the first 2 seasons of House of Cards. However, binge-watching loses something here, as it seems to affect the timing of events.Each episode was intriguing, but it appeared that lots of time elapsed between the end of one and the start of the next - would not have "felt" odd if watched weekly, seemed "loud" given the binge watching.
Greatly awaiting the 3rd season....
Have accessed the UK version of "House of Cards" upon which the U.S. version is based. Haven't watched yet, though.
Sunday, August 31, 2014
Finished (E-Reader): California by Edan Lepucki
Am about 3/4 of the way through California by Edan Lepucki. I've been reading a bunch of dystopian novels over the past few years, as my daughter has an interest in them (e.g. Hunger Games, Maze Runner, Divergent). I, like everyone else, is reading California because it is published by a company that Amazon is refusing to sell on their site. Stephen Colbert advertised this book and pointed to several non-Amazon sites where it could be ordered - a very successful, though inadvertent, sales increase for Lepucki's book - over 60,000 pre-orders.
California is set in the near future, there hasn't been anyting as dramatic as a nuclear war, but Lepucki has extended climate change, income disparity and post-911 security fears and extrapolated all a few years into the future. Our current social supports have eroded, severe weather and flues have decimated much of the U.S. population, and the wealthy have retreated to walled cities.
The main characters live in the post-world, basically alone, squatting in an abandoned shed. Life isn't terrible, they do see a travelling trader, so are able to get some "old world" stuff, and living in California, they haven't been experiencing severe winters. However, without the internet, without power, and without fuel, there really isn't much news around - they couldn't pinpoint what's going on elsewhere, and have a very 1700's level of locality - the know their neighbourhood, but not much beyond.
I'm quite enjoying the book and look forward to the final quarter. Given the nature of the book, having a corporate giant (Amazon) making it difficult for the little guy to survive seems most fitting.
Update: Finished the book. Still like it, but like all of the dystopian novels and comics I've read, the big reveal is early - finding out how the new world is different than "our" world, and how it came to be. The rest of the story about the characters and what happens to them becomes secondary. The book resolved reasonably, but I found the idea to be greater than the character-driven part of the story.
Update: Finished the book. Still like it, but like all of the dystopian novels and comics I've read, the big reveal is early - finding out how the new world is different than "our" world, and how it came to be. The rest of the story about the characters and what happens to them becomes secondary. The book resolved reasonably, but I found the idea to be greater than the character-driven part of the story.
Sunday, August 24, 2014
Finished (E-Reader): "Mr. Mercedes" - Stephen King
Mr. Mercedes is a typical King book - by that I mean an easy to get into book with a compelling storyline and enough odd characters to make it all work well.
The basic storyline starts with a queue for a job fair getting run over by a Mercedes in the early dawn hours, killing several - the perpetrator gets away, case unsolved.
The other characters are the crusty, now retired detective from that case, a young acquaintence who is pretty smart, and a middle-aged woman struggling with significant psychological issues who comes to the fore.
Perfect for the summer days I lolled around reading it.
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Finished (E-Reader): "White Lines" - Jennifer Banash
I found this "White Lines" while searching for the "other" "White Lines" book by Tracy Brown.
Brown's book was from an inner-city perspective, crack users and dealers, and both the success (e.g. money and power for the dealers) and the costs (generally downward spiralling) to the users. The main characters are a young woman, who ran the gamut, having been a user, being turned out as a prostitute, "recovering", having a stable relationship with a successful dealer, relapsing etc.
The Banash book is from an entirely different perspective. The main character is an upper class late teen (17 years old) from a split family with a distant father and an abusive mother - not the best situation, but even at it's worst, was better than the Brown character lives.
The girl lives alone in an apartment paid for by her father, and has fallen into the club scene, where she works assisting in hosting parties for the partying crowd. She is exposed to and takes cocaine, some heroin (by accident) and ecstasy. However, for the most part, the drugs are commonplace in the environment she's in, and quite "normalized". She has some overdose experiences, but doesn't land in the hospital over time, and has some awakenings as she realizes how "cold" her real life has become and how reliant on drugs she's become to get by.
Side by side they portray very different lives, except for the purchase of drugs (which occurs off-scene in Banash's book as drugs are prevalent and sometimes it is not even clear who is providing them) it would be difficult to imagine interactions between the worlds.
As Banash's main character, Caitlin, is young, healthy and rich, there seems to be no permanent cost to her drug play. I had a similar "complaint" about Brown's book as well - even though there are perils and hurdles, the main characters in both books seem to have survived, with relatively little lasting impact.
In the Brown book, the turmoils were much harsher - actual gunplay, physical violence, becoming prostituted, but none actually seemed to be detrimental to the main character - she ended up in an environment much more stable and financially secure than would have been likely coming from that particular neighbourhood and household than would seem possible through "normal" channels (e.g. hard to imagine a stellar high school and college career, with 2.5 kids and a law degree). Banash's Caitlin likewise seems none the worse for ware - she probably flunked out of high school, but no real mention in the concluding chapter, but is living with a now-living parent in a financially secure setting (with servants), having seemingly kicked the drug habit and kept all her druggie and non-druggie friends alive and intact.
I probably liked the Banash book more than the Brown, though that is primarily due to higher expectations in the Brown book - the lower class neighbourhood, criminal associations - I expected more angst and much more reflection on how close to disaster all the players were.
Brown's book was from an inner-city perspective, crack users and dealers, and both the success (e.g. money and power for the dealers) and the costs (generally downward spiralling) to the users. The main characters are a young woman, who ran the gamut, having been a user, being turned out as a prostitute, "recovering", having a stable relationship with a successful dealer, relapsing etc.
The Banash book is from an entirely different perspective. The main character is an upper class late teen (17 years old) from a split family with a distant father and an abusive mother - not the best situation, but even at it's worst, was better than the Brown character lives.
The girl lives alone in an apartment paid for by her father, and has fallen into the club scene, where she works assisting in hosting parties for the partying crowd. She is exposed to and takes cocaine, some heroin (by accident) and ecstasy. However, for the most part, the drugs are commonplace in the environment she's in, and quite "normalized". She has some overdose experiences, but doesn't land in the hospital over time, and has some awakenings as she realizes how "cold" her real life has become and how reliant on drugs she's become to get by.
Side by side they portray very different lives, except for the purchase of drugs (which occurs off-scene in Banash's book as drugs are prevalent and sometimes it is not even clear who is providing them) it would be difficult to imagine interactions between the worlds.
As Banash's main character, Caitlin, is young, healthy and rich, there seems to be no permanent cost to her drug play. I had a similar "complaint" about Brown's book as well - even though there are perils and hurdles, the main characters in both books seem to have survived, with relatively little lasting impact.
In the Brown book, the turmoils were much harsher - actual gunplay, physical violence, becoming prostituted, but none actually seemed to be detrimental to the main character - she ended up in an environment much more stable and financially secure than would have been likely coming from that particular neighbourhood and household than would seem possible through "normal" channels (e.g. hard to imagine a stellar high school and college career, with 2.5 kids and a law degree). Banash's Caitlin likewise seems none the worse for ware - she probably flunked out of high school, but no real mention in the concluding chapter, but is living with a now-living parent in a financially secure setting (with servants), having seemingly kicked the drug habit and kept all her druggie and non-druggie friends alive and intact.
I probably liked the Banash book more than the Brown, though that is primarily due to higher expectations in the Brown book - the lower class neighbourhood, criminal associations - I expected more angst and much more reflection on how close to disaster all the players were.
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