random bits

[meganbmoore]

1.  This is already making the rounds pretty well, but Vol 3 of Bride of the Water God will be out next May, and Vol 4 next September.  Which is an appalling long wait (at least there isn't a whole lot of plot to forget...) but at least there's more coming out.

2.  Has anyone read Jo Walton?  I've had her recced to me before and looked at one of her books (The King's Peace?) at the bookstore while they were hunting for my special order (what with the 20 or so unpacked boxes of Breaking Dawn that I saw, I can see how it got lost in the shuffle) but stopped halfway through the back cover blurb at the "family was murdered and she was gang raped by half a dozen attackers and that's why she grew up to be a strong warrior" part.  As that's on the cover blurb, I don't consider it a spoiler.)  While I know that trope can be handled well, and often is, it's something of an automatic turnoff.  Any opinions or recs on the author?

3.  Also at the bookstore, they were playing behind the scenes footage for the Twilight movie.  Everyone but the leads was acting like it was the best thing ever.  Both of them were clearly struggling to think of anything positive to say about the story or their characters.

4.  And also at the bookstore, a random guy popped up and asked me if I was single.  As in, I did not know he was there until I heard "Excuse me, are you single?"  Am I weird in that my first thought isn't "oh, very direct flirting" but "OMG WHAT?"  (Mind you, I am notorious for never noticing if I'm being flirted with in the first place...)

5.  Someone want to point me to a torrent for the subbed ep 2 of Blade of the Immortal?  I don't think I remembered to bookmark where I got ep 1 from.

Comments

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

re: #5
http://www.animesuki.com/series.php/1268.html

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

thanks

[siedhr.livejournal.com]

Personally I prefer http://www.baka-updates.com/releases.php.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

I had Issues with The King's Peace because of the rape -- I have a lot of difficulty with stories involving rape, and while it wasn't terrible, it just wasn't unique and spectacular enough to get me past the fairly explicit rape scene right there in the first ten pages.

I did enjoy Walton's Tooth and Claw quite a lot, though. Victorian literature by way of dragons. Very fun.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

It's just...can we please move past "rape scarred her and made her become strong so she wouldnt be a victim" already?

[troisroyaumes]

I read Tooth and Claw which is a mannerpunk novel about Regency!dragons. It was awesome. I haven't read anything else by her, so I can't say anything specific about them but Tooth and Claw was definitely a lot of fun. (I wrote up a brief review here).

Edit: Oops, I meant Victorian, not Regency. >_<;;

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

It's probably the one that was recced to me.

[danyellalot.livejournal.com]

3. That's because there IS nothing positve to say about their characters. Bella's a whiny Mary Sue, and Edward's a ZOMGPERFECT!1! sparkley vampire.

4. Wow, that guy sure is smooth. Really coy and subtle. I say you take him up on his offer!
Oddly enough, I can tell immediately when my friends are being flirted with, but someone (usually a boy who doesn't care about romance, go figure) has to point out to me when I'm the one being flirted with.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

But really, shouldn't there at least be something before "are you single?"

"Hello," maybe?

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Yes. Hello, an introduction, asking what your name is, you know, all that bothersome "conversation" stuff. Cutting straight to "are you single?" may as well come with flashing subtitles reading "hi, I don't think you're worth talking to unless there's some chance of my getting some".

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I mean, he didn't apologize when he saw it didn't have the desired effect and said that it's just a hard subject to broach, at which point I was silently "uhm...surely you can think of something to say to the girl browsing the sff section"-as that was probably what caught his attention-"before that." (He did mention "you looked cute, so I thought I'd ask," which was flattering, but...)

It doesn't help that I'm jittery around people in RL when I meet them at first just because. I was even a bit nervous when I met rachelmanija and telophase when I went to a-kon, and I've known them for over a year. Surface "have you read/seen this" stuff with a complete stranger I can do. But random personal interaction? A bit of buildup is needed.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Oh boy. Yes, with that extra context, that smells very very much like one of the many subvarieties of the poorly-socialized-geekboy mating dance that gets triggered by the sight of an OMG REAL GIRL WHO LIKES COMPUTERS/SF&F/RPGs/ETC. This one's at least got enough of a hint of clue to realize that gee, a girl who has an SO already may not be particularly interested in getting hit on...but not enough clue to realize that looking like you're only interested in talking to girls who are potential date material is not the best approach.

(That fractional clue, sad to say, is actually better than some of the worst examples I've seen. Compared to the guy who was introducing himself to folks at a professional conference by interrupting conversations to hand around his portfolio of pornographic furry art, or the dude who kept trying to glom onto me despite a visible wedding ring, my repeated mentions of having plans for that evening involving other people that did not include him, and oh yeah MY THEN-HUSBAND STANDING IN THE SAME ROOM four feet away...)

[swanjun.livejournal.com]

I had a weird/similar experience in a bookstore once. I was in a Books-A-Million, looking at manga. I was not looking my best. Some random guy (mid-40s? I'm low-30s, but look late-20s, they tell me) came and said I looked familiar and did I work at X. I said no, I work at Y. And ended up telling him my name. (This was probably very stupid of me, in retrospect, but he looked harmless enough.)

And that was it. Or so I thought!

A week or so later, dude calls me up at work!!1 He's going to be in the area and would I like to join him for lunch? I said, "Sorry, I'm meeting my husband for lunch." That got rid of him quickly.

My coworker tried to say I should be flattered (and hubby felt that way too—I think he had some sympathy for the guy), but I can't help but think he was preying on dorky-looking chicks that he assumed would be single and hence would jump at his lame proposition.

[anime-babble.livejournal.com]

1) Yay! I was really afraid that they were dropping it. And it is SO PRETTY.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I think it's the only thing out there pretty enough to distract me from the lack of plot and characterization and such...

[retsuko.livejournal.com]

Since you're the only person I know who reads this manga, I will ask you the burning question on my mind: what legends is the plot of Bride of the Water God based on? I feel like I'm missing out on some fundamental element of the story, but can never figure out what I should be reading to fill in the gaps.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Hmm...I'm not sure it's based on a specific legend, though it might be. The whole "village girl sacrificed to the gods, but the god spirits her away to his world" thing isn't really uncommon in mythologies, though.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Jo Walton: I love Tooth and Claw, a Regency romance in which all the characters are dragons, and Farthing and Ha'Penny, very intense alternate hstory-mysteries in which England is allied with Hitler. The latter might be of particular interest to you as Walton's style is modeled after contemporary (to that time) mystery writers like Sayers.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

*writes the other two down*

For some reason, I think I had her tagged under "high fantasy, check out at some point" instead of "alternate history sorts," which I tend to gravitate towards the most the last couple years.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I have tried very hard to read Jo Walton's novels of various sorts, because I lover her poetry. Unfortunately, I bounce off of all of them, hard. YMMV.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Hmm...if it's a problem with prose, I can probably get through it if I like the idea/story/characters, as long as it isn't unbearable. I think chomiji had problems with one of her books a while back, too.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

I find Walton's King's Peace and King's Name amongst the very few coherently thought-out Arthurian retellings of the last few decades. She does very good worldbuilding. (Prize in the Game is set in a compatible ancient Ireland but isn't strictly related.) I must say, though the rape in KP bothered me as a story gimmick, it also felt entirely plausible in-story. That protagonist is supposed to be the one-in-a-million person for whom certain stereotypes are true, for well or ill. I wouldn't say I'm entirely a fan of Walton's work, but I respect her research and the way that she combines it with the story she wants to tell in KP/KN.

And yes, Tooth and Claw is great, and a very different sort of book in some ways (yet not in others, which is a good thing).

Another well-built Arthurian, YA-compatible, which goes sideways (in a good way): Elizabeth E. Wein's trilogy, beginning with The Winter Prince.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Hmm...didn't realize it was an Arthurian retelling. Maybe I'll check it out if I like the others, despite the blurb making me want to tear out my hair.

I think I've had the Wein trilogy recced before. I may actually have one of her books in the backlog, but not part of that trilogy.

ETA: Never mind, the book I have is by Suzanne Weyn, not Elizabeth Wein.

[estara.livejournal.com]

E.Wein is amazing if you can get past the MAJOR angst in the first one The Winter Prince - which is deserved and all, considering the main character is Mordred/Medraut - but you manage Kaori Yuki Count Cain if I remember correctly, so you might not even check your stride ^^.

I had to take a breather of some days when the tension got to boiling point. And the beginning of the second novel may come as a shock, then again since it's Arthurian legend, probably not.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Actually, I haven't read any of the Count Cain/Godchild stuff yet. I actually seem to handle levels and types of angst differently in different mediums, but largely do ok if it's deserved angst. Angst for the sake of angst (especially romantic angst) I have no interest in or patience for.

Mistaken identity I guess

[estara.livejournal.com]

hmm, so whom did I mix you up with on my friends list... telophase? oyceter?

In any case it's definitely deserved angst.

Re: Mistaken identity I guess

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Probably oyceter. I don't think telophase reads Kaori Yuki.

[wistfulmemory.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the update on Bride of the Water God. I was wondering about that.

My college roommate was very oblivious to flirting while we were in college, and it was always hard for me not to start laughing when guys started hitting on her without her realizing it.

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

#3 made me so, so happy. Seriously, those books just sound so sophomoric and badly, badly written that I can't understand how anyone over the age of twelve can stand them.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I've been looking at some interviews and stuff with the main actors, and they both seem "oh man oh man how did I end up with this why didn't I know better in advance?" She seems to be trying harder to make it sound good (I forgive her. She's 18. Probably can't believe that her first huge role is so bad. it'll be a learning experience for her.) but they both seem to know what they've gotten themselves into.