Today’s been rough, Squiders, so for the sake of my poor brain, I’m going to keep this simple and go through some of the speculative fiction stuff I’ve been consuming lately.
1) Forever
Forever is a crime procedural/supernatural show on ABC. I started watching it because a friend is obsessed, and I’m glad I did. I did binge the whole season (the finale is on next Tuesday) in about a week in a half, but I really like it. I like all the characters, I like the way they’ve twisted the crime procedural and supernatural plots together (especially since so many shows keep them separate, for some reason. Why mix genres if you’re not actually going to mix genres?), I like the writing. It’s one of the best scripted shows I’ve seen recently, and the cast is brilliant and I love them all. Unfortunately, the show is in a dead time slot and ABC has done a crap job advertising it, so it seems like a lot of people have missed it. But I highly recommend it, and I also recommend starting from the beginning so you can watch the story unfold.
2) The Queen of the Tearling
The Queen of the Tearling is a fantasy (???) novel that came out last year by Erika Johansen. My BIL recommended it to me at Christmas, and I finally got around to reading it (well, my library got a physical copy for me to check out). I enjoyed it quite a bit. It’s very much a set-up novel, but there’s enough hints of stuff happening in the background to keep you interested and reading. I’m very much intrigued about the world-building. The setting and the plot are very much fantasy, but there are hints that it might be science fiction, or possibly alternative history. And I admit that it annoys me that I can’t tell, but I did enjoy the book enough that I will pick up the next one when it comes out.
3) Welcome to Night Vale
I was all caught up on Night Vale as of last October or so, and then I stopped listening. Not sure why–easily distracted, partially, and I think it may have been because they had a really interesting story arc going for several episodes, leading up to the 50th episode, and then, afterwards, they went back to their normal format, and I found it kind of a letdown. But I’ve started listening again (picking up where I left off), and either because there’s some distance between me and that story arc, or because they’re dangling the occasional tie to past events, I’m enjoying it again. Give me a week or two and I should be caught up to present day.
How about you, Squiders? Anything interesting you’ve read/seen/listened to lately? Any comments of anything I’ve read/seen/listened to?
