Hey, Squiders, hope you’re all having a lovely July. Mine has been too hot (hot damn), but I have been getting more writing done (mostly short stories, and also some on a joint story a friend and I are testing out) and I don’t really have too much to complain about in general.
I have several half-formed thoughts on books and movies I’ve watched/read lately, and I figured that I’d combine them into one post for simplicity’s sake.
- Wreck-It Ralph
Have you seen this movie? This movie is a thing of beauty. Non-traditional protagonist, excellent twist ending, great care taken in the world-building and animation design (I love that they animated the main characters to look like their voice actors), great adult-level jokes. Seriously, if you haven’t watched this, you really should. It’s a nice break when the small, mobile one wants to watch this compared to some of the other stuff he likes (like Dinosaur Train, ugh). But in general he has good taste, like Lilo & Stitch or, as he calls it, the Robot Castle Movie (which is really Howl’s Moving Castle).
- Jupiter Ascending
We finally got around to watching this after everyone said we should. It fell a little flat–felt like they tried to stuff too much into the movie for no good reason, and the big “twist” was pretty obvious from the beginning. Nice star power, though, and very pretty visuals. Whatever Eddie Redmayne is doing with his voice grated on me the whole time, though. Needed to develop their villain better too. Ah well, alas.
- Deep Space Nine
A few years ago I decided I was going to watch DS9 all the way through because I never had–I watched the first four seasons when they were on, and then caught assorted episodes in syndication in the years that followed (in college I didn’t have class on Fridays, and Spike had five hours of Trek–2 TNG and 3 DS9–which ate a lot of my time). So I started watching, got to the third to last episode of Season 4, and then promptly got distracted by something else. That was probably two years ago. I’ve started up again now, but I can’t help but feel that I’ve done the exact same thing over again.
- Out of the Silent Planet
I recently finished reading C.S. Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet, which I enjoyed quite a bit. It’s a very straightforward scifi adventure, and there is still a tint of Christian religion, but not enough to bash you on the head (unlike another fantasy book I read recently called The Light of Eidon). I’d recommend it if you haven’t picked it up. I’ll see if I can hunt down the other two books in the trilogy.
- Moonheart
Now I’m reading Charles de Lint’s Moonheart, which I picked up because I like the mythology spins Charles de Lint puts on his urban fantasy. It was written in 1984, and you can kind of tell because everyone smokes. Of all the things to date a story, right? But I find it really distracting for some reason. They do have computers which saves them. I don’t think we had a computer until the early 90s. I mean, my grandparents did before that, but it couldn’t have been much before. Anyway, it’s interesting because the lead up is much slower than I think you can get away with in a modern book, but I don’t mind that so much.
Seen or read anything good recently, Squiders? Or have opinions on anything?
