A Descent into Dullness

Its a tale as old as time.  Lonely woman meets handsome stranger and falls in love.  Sure the stranger is an abducted semi-amphibious fish-man being studied in a secret government lab.  An off-beat love story set in Cold War Baltimore, where mute Eliza (Sally Hawkings) falls for the captive Amphibian Man (Doug Jones).  So she works to free him from the brutal security chief Strickland (Michael Shannon), aided by her friends Zelda (Octavia Spencer) and Giles (Richard Jenkins) and scientist Hoffstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg).  Director Guillermo del Toro crafts a visual stunning romance mixed with elements of a spy thriller.

This week saw Downsizing which was mostly clever and funny. In it a method of shrinking organic matter down to a fraction of its original size safely is discovered.  So a Matt Damon sized-human would end up being like 5 inches tall.  Within a decade communities of the Small spring up around the world, for both environmental and economic reasons.  Damon and Christopher Waltz were good as always. But Hong Chau's Ngoc Lan Tran was the definite stand-out.

Ozark s.1: Drags a bit in places, but an excellent cast, especially Bateman and hillbilly girl.  I almost thought the season would end on a note too dark for me to come back, but they swerve and end on a very slightly upbeat note.
Easy  s.2:  More of the low-key relationship comedy and drama as before.  Several characters return (including Maron's Indie Comix guy & Jacqueline Toboni's lesbian activist).  My only issue was the episode where the 18-year old high school gives away all her savings to spite her parents for making her go to church.  And thats mostly 'cause I can't even conceive of just tossing away what is TWO years of my earnings to prove some kind of half-assed point.

Guardians of the Galaxy vol.2 : Just as good as a rewatch.
Bushwick: The set-up is kind of dumb in that idiot racists decide Texas will secede from the union, joined by various other Southern states.  Again.  This time they'll get the federal government to capitulate by taking the 5 Burroughs hostage.  Because no ones armed there and so it'll be easy.  I mean at least the New Confederacy or whatever they called themselves are shown to be more than a little dumb.  But despite that its actually an entertaining movie.  Stars Dave Bautista and Bethany Snow are both better than I'd expected.  Ending goes a bit grimmer than I was expecting though.

July:
Short Fiction:  Melinda Snodgrass' When the Devil Drives
New Read:  Ben Aaronovitch's the Farthest Station.  Latest "Rivers of London" book with ghosts on trains.

• Maggie Stiefvater's Blue Lily, Lily Blue.  3rd "Raven King" book.
• T. Kingfisher's the Halycon Fairy Book.  Collection of humorously annotated obscure fairy tales.
• Robert Charles Wilson's Spin
• Renee George's Pit Perfect.  Urban fantasy/romance/mystery with the pit in the title being a pit bull mastiff.
• Michael Witwer's Empire of Imagination: gary Gygax & the Birth of Dungeons & Dragons.  Gary Gygax biography
• Mira Grant's Symbiont & Chimera.  2nd & 3rd of Grant/McGuire's "Parasitology" trilogy.
• Brandon Sanderson's Arcanum Unbounded.  Anthology of Sanderson's "Cosmere" themed short fiction.
• April Daniels' Sovereign.  Sequel to Dreadnaught, with the same trans supers lead.
• Catheryne M. Valente's Radiance.  Sort of ether-space exploration, Hollywood silent film era, horror/mystery mash-up.  All with Valente's lyrical writing style.
• Drew Hayes' Forging Hephasteus.  Super-villain focus' supers book, separate from Hayes' other supers setting.

Reread:  Richard Matheson's I Am Legend

Graphic Novels/TPBs/RPGs:  Adam Warren's Empowered vol.10

• Dan Brereton's Nocturnals: the Sinister Path
• Kelly Thompson/Leonardo Romero/Jordie Bellaire's Hawkeye: Kate Bishop: vol.1: Anchor Points

Total: 17

August:
Short Fiction: T. Kingfisher's Packing, Stephen Baxter's the Martian in the Woods & Matthew Bright's the Library of Lost Things.

New Read: Eric Flint/Gorg Huff/Paula Goodlett's the Alexander Inheritance.  New spin-off from Flint's "Time Spike/Assitti Shards" shared time travel setting.  With a modern cruise liner sent to the Mediterranean just after Alexander the Great's death as the set-up.  Sadly I didn't care for this one, feeling there just wasn't enough really new or interesting to justify the further spin-off.

• Rosemary Kirstein's the Steerswoman & the Outskirter's Secret.
• Mira Grant's Final Girls
• Catherynne M. Valente's the Refrigerator Monolgues.  Series of pieces set around expies of various comic book women.
• N.K. Jemisin's the Broken Kingdoms, the Kingdom of the Gods & the Awakened Kingdom.
• A. Lee Martinex (ed) Strange Afterlives.  Collection of stories about non-typical undead.
• Joseph Nassise (ed) Urban Enemies
• A.J. Hartley's Steeplejack.  YA pseudo-history in a variant on Colonial Africa.
• R.J. Ross' Cape High Villainy
• Kevin Hearne's Beseiged.  "Iron Druid" short fiction collection

Graphic Novels/TPBs/RPGs:Alan Bahr/Howard & Sandra Tayler (design/writers) Planet Mercenary RPG

• James L. Sutter (creative director) Starfinder Core Rulebook
• Amanda Lafrenas' Titty Time vol.2
• G. Willow Wilson/Takeshi Miyazawa's Ms. Marvel: Damge Per Second
• Kate Leth/Brittney L. Williams' Patsy Walker aka Hellcat: Careless Whisker(s)

Total: 19


September:
Short Fiction: Alex Wells' Angel of the Blockade

New Read: Chuck Wendig's Life Debt.  Star Wars tie-in about freeing the Wookie home world.

• Jim Bernheimer's Rise of a D-List Villain
• Theodora Goss' the Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter.  Team-up of the daughters of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, as well as Moreau, Frankenstein & Rappaccinni.
• Cherie Priest's Brimstone  Pryomantic spirit haunts a 1920's Spiritualist commune.
• Rachel Aaron's a Dragon of a Different Color.  Latest "Heartstrikers" urban fantasy.
• Sarah Gailey's River of Teeth.  Alternate history where hippos were imported to use a replacement for regular cows.
• Lee Goldberg's Watch Me Die
• Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone.  Ree Dolly is a lot gayer in the book version.
• Eric Flint/Charles Gannon's 1636: the Vatican Sanction.  Closing out the Pope sub-series of the "Ring of Fire" series.

Graphic Novels/TPBs/RPGs: Christopher Hastings/Gurihiru/Alti Firmansyan's the Unbelievable Gwenpool vol.3: Totally in Continuity.

• Sean Punch (lead writer) Dungeon Fantasy RPG.  A condensed and slightly simplified version of the various GURPS: Fantasy related source books.

Total: 12

Sunday was the roommate's birthday and so we both took some time off so we could try and do a game of <i>Twillight Imperium</i> with expansion rules.  I think we had politics, racial tech and a some others.  This was only my second time playing, this time as the mercantile desert lion people.  It was six person game with the others playing Space Ghosts (Marcus), Super Scholars (Chris), Angry Fire Demons (Josh), Humans (Kevin) and Wandering Stardocks (Brendan).  After 12 hours we called the game, with Josh managing to add 3 points in the final scoring to finish at 6 or 7 points.  I'd done well early until my neighbors (Chris/Brendan) choose to break our trade agreements so they could engage in unprovoked attacks on me.  Though I did spend most of the last couple hours just sniping at them with ground-based multi-hex laser defenses out of spite.  Pew pew pew jerks!

I'm not sure if I like the war movie bits or the bleak landscape Western parts more.  Also trying to figure out where the Ape Promised Land is supposed to be.  I mean they start off in the Redwood National Forest, then supposedly cross some mountains, then a desert and end up at a big lake.  Is that Lake Powell?

Enh.  Pretty good movie though.  Harrelson's Crazy Colonel is a little over the top.  And I kind of wanted someone to point out that humans are as much an Ape sub-species as chimpanzees, gorillas or orangutans.  But I liked how the remnants of the previous movies' Ape schism were now human collaborators.  And the implication that the Sentience Formula went globally viral so it wasn't just Caesar's tribe.

Between Leon: the Professional & the Fifth Element Luc Besson has earned a lifetime's credit with me.  But his latest scifi extravaganza is..just not good.  Parts of it are good.  Imagery, setting, weird aliens, cute aliens, goofy background people, Rhianna.  But the story doesn't really come together.  Which isn't helped by the meandering into sidequests of the plot.  And Dane DeHaan's character is both shallowly written and inconsistent in motivation.  And the only other thing I've seen Ms. Delvingne in was the twenty minutes I managed of Suicide Squad, but she is pretty terrible here.

But mostly its the way that the plot will pause to insert some secondary action sequence to showcase something cool.  See Sgt. Laureline Fetches a Psychic Jellyfish.  Rather, than say, just go to where her partner went off-line and start searching for him.  Or Maj. Valerine Meets Rhianna.  Rather than just sneak into the Froggy Aliens castle to rescue his partner (who goes from unstoppable bad-ass to damsel real easy).

Orphan Black s.4:  Krystal, Investigative Cosmetician, made for a surprisingly strong character addition to the Leda sisterhood.  Evie was sadly not the strongest antagonist for the season.  Which did serve to accentuate the return of Rachel, Queen of Evil at the end of the season.

Anne With An E s.1: This was a smidgen darker than I was expecting for an adaptation of Canada's most beloved YA book.  Good though.

January:
Short Fiction:  Seanan McGuire's My Last Name, Velveteen vs. the Retroactive Continuity & Velveteen Presents Jacqueline Claus vs. the Lost & Found; Stephen Leigh's the Atonement Tango

New Read:  Eric Flint/Griffen Barber's 1636: Mission to the Mughals
Chuck Wendig's Star Wars: Aftermath
Yuya Sato's Dendera: Old ladies vs. enviroment.  And a marauding bear.
Mira Grant's Parasite
Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl:  Coming of age/starting college for the fanfic writer set.
Douglas Hulick's Sworn in Steel
Foz Meadows' An Accident of Stars.  Teen travel to magical worlds now with PTSD.
Paula Goodlett/Gorg Hoff's Bartley's Man: "Ring of Fire" sidestory, specifically the Sewing Circle/OPM/Barbies bit.
Grady Hendrix' Horrorstor:  There should be an umlaut over that 3rd o.  Haunt at not-Ikea.
Evan Curie's Into the Black
Rachel Aaron's No Good Dragon Goes Unpunished

Rereads: Eric Flint's 1635: the Eastern Front, 1636: the Saxon Uprising & 1636: the Ottoman Onslaught

Graphic Novels/TPBs/RPGs:  Chris Hastings & Guhiru's the Unbelievable Gwenpool vol.1: Believe It
Stjepan Sejic's Sunstone vol.5:  Final volume of the best bdsm-lesbian-romance comic.
John Layman/Rob Guillory's Chew vol.12: Sour Grapes: More than a bit of a downer ending.  Not Ex Machina levels, but still.

Total: 18


February:
Short Fiction: Seanan McGuire's Lay of the Land & Velveteen vs. Recovery, Yoon Ha Lee's Extra Curricular Activities.

New Read:  Robin McKinley's Deerskin
Tim Pratt's Liar's Blade: Pathfinder tie-in novel.
David Drake's Death's Bright Day:  Latest "Lt. Leary".
April Daniel's Dreadnaught: Nemesis:  Cape fiction with trans-female lead.
T. Kingfisher's Summer in Orcus  YA magical quest from one of the best in the genre.
Ben Aaronovitch's the Hanging Tree:  Latest "Rivers of London" with visits the American & Russian magic heritages.
Becky Chambers' the Long Way to the Small, Angry Planet (I'm not crying you're crying shut up) & a Closed and Common Orbit
Daniel Jose Older's Battle Hill Bolero
Jasper Fforde's the Eye of Zoltar
Jack Weathford's the Secret History of the Mongol Queens:  Non-fiction history on the female Mongol leaders.

Rereads:  -

Graphic Novels/TPBs/RPGs:  Jennifer Doyle's Knights Errant
Tom Neely/Keenan Marshall Keller's the Humans vol.1: Humans For Life:  Planet of the Apes meets outlaw biker gangs

Total:14


March:
Short Fiction:  This was basically the "Neverless, She Persisted" theme Tor.com did.  With stories by Seanan McGuire, Kameron Hurley, Hyssa Wong, Carrie Vaughn, Chalie Jane Anders, Nisi Shawl, Brooke Bolander, Jo Walton, Amal El-Mohter, Catherynne M. Valente.

New Read:  Jo Walton's the Just City: Athena & Apollo attempt to create Plato's "perfect" Just City.  Shockingly the actual and the theoretical do not mesh perfectly.
Chuck Wendig's Invasive.  Sequel to the Zer0es.  With this second volume its very much supers type bad guy in an espionage/adventure setting.
Chuck Wendig's Atlanta Burns: the Hunt: 2nd of his YA white-trash pulp.  "Winter's Bone" meets Veronica Mars I guess.
RJ Ross' Coyote's Howl:  Latest "Cape High" book.
C.B. Lee's Not Your Sidekick: YA semi-dystopian with supers.
Seanan McGuire's Magic For Nothing:  Latest "InCryptid", with youngest sibling Antimony this time.
Patricia Brigg's Silence Fallen:  Latest "Mercy Thompson", with Mercy kidnapped to Europe 'cause vampire politics.  And the vamps are really the last interesting part of Brigg's urban fantasy series.
Jim Butcher/Kerrie L. Hughes' (ed) Shadowed Souls:  Urban fantasy anthology.
Louis McMaster Bujold's Mira's Last Dance
Anne Leckie's Ancillary Mercy
Matt Dunn's A Day at the Office
Clifford D. Simak's City
George R.R. Martin/Melinda Snodgrass' (ed) High Stakes:  This "Wild Cards" volume was actually a bit too dark even for me.  I'm looking forward to at least slightly more upbeat future books.


Rereads:  John Scalzi's Lock In & Redshirts
Douglas Adams' the Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.  Rereading this I'm suddenly left with the feeling Adams just gave up around the final act.

Graphic Novels/TPBs/RPGs:  G. Willow Wilson/Adrian Alphona/Tekeshi Miyezawa/Cameron Stewart's Ms. Marvel vol.6: Civil War II:  Carole is in an idjit, out-idioting Tony from the first one.
Gwenda Bond/Kate Leth's Girl Over Paris: Lady high-wire walker vs. ghost mystery.
Marguerite Bennett/Ming Doyle/Marguerite Sauvage/Laura Bragen's Bombshells vol.1: Enlisted
Kate Leth/Brittany Williams' Patsy Walker aka Hellcat! vol.2: Don't Stop Me-ow.  Now with teen mom/vampire Jubilee.
Tom King/Michael Walsh/Gabriel Walte/Mike Del Muado's Vision vol.2: Better Than a Beast
Jason Bulmahn's (et al) Pathfinder: Horror Adventures
Sandy Petersen's (et al) Call of Cthulhu: Keeper's Handbook

Total: 24

Episode III & i/2 (how do fractionals work in Roman numbering anyway) was pretty darn good.  Sure the characters probably could have used a smidge more depth (beyond Director Krennick at least).  But the various character call-backs to the rest of the franchise work well (well outside from the confusing addition of Dr. Death and his sidekick and the pointless very brief sequence with R2D2 & C-3PO).  But yes, this was some very nice Star Wars-ing.