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Then again
Aug. 21st, 2007 09:20 pmAfter I wrote that last subject line I thought I bet that isn't actually true, and lo.
A background process I didn't realize I had going returned a value yesterday and told me the point at which the last Harry Potter novel soured a little on me, preventing it from being really great. It was when ( Crusher said 'Their DNA is devolving into amino acids!' and then Riker turned into a spider or something. )
My Deathly Hallowz, let me show you them
Jul. 29th, 2007 04:50 pmIt neither exceeded nor fell short of my expectations, he said limply.
I enjoyed it, but not as much as the penultimate volume, which I found to be my favorite of the series. I found myself pushing through to the end largely just to be done with it, and get along with reading all my friends' commentary before it got too stale.
( Bullet list of thoughts, before I read anyone else's (except for a lot of the relevant Making Light thread) )
I enjoyed it, but not as much as the penultimate volume, which I found to be my favorite of the series. I found myself pushing through to the end largely just to be done with it, and get along with reading all my friends' commentary before it got too stale.
( Bullet list of thoughts, before I read anyone else's (except for a lot of the relevant Making Light thread) )
Alas no glasses pictures yet
Jul. 25th, 2007 12:10 pmI have started reading Deathly Hallows, after ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cthulhia read the same copy in less than 24 hours. It is the third thing down in a stack of SF I am in the middle of reading (within PKD's Eye in the Sky, given to me by Ricky, itself within Dogland, an American magical-realism story that R. Cory was breathless about on Boing Boing a couple weeks ago). So far I'm finding it as nice a confection as the last book, which I enjoyed a great deal just a couple of months ago.
Yesterday stumbled acrossdictator555's copy of "The End of Harry Potter?" an exegesis written by Dave Langford, one of the B-est BNFs in SF and the publisher of Ansible. While sold as speculation about the final book, it's actually a fun, breezy tour through how the merits and flaws of the first six books line up against the whole genre, and Langford's admiration for the series seems to lie less in the story itself and more in watching Rowling mature as a writer over its course. I might like to borrow it later.
(Also he spends a few pages at the start grumbling about mainstream critics' frequent insistence that the series transcends the fantasy genre because it's actually about real human issues and not just sweaty dudes stabbing giant lizards, and this echoes other grumbling I've read recently...)
cthulhia read the same copy in less than 24 hours. It is the third thing down in a stack of SF I am in the middle of reading (within PKD's Eye in the Sky, given to me by Ricky, itself within Dogland, an American magical-realism story that R. Cory was breathless about on Boing Boing a couple weeks ago). So far I'm finding it as nice a confection as the last book, which I enjoyed a great deal just a couple of months ago. Yesterday stumbled across
dictator555's copy of "The End of Harry Potter?" an exegesis written by Dave Langford, one of the B-est BNFs in SF and the publisher of Ansible. While sold as speculation about the final book, it's actually a fun, breezy tour through how the merits and flaws of the first six books line up against the whole genre, and Langford's admiration for the series seems to lie less in the story itself and more in watching Rowling mature as a writer over its course. I might like to borrow it later. (Also he spends a few pages at the start grumbling about mainstream critics' frequent insistence that the series transcends the fantasy genre because it's actually about real human issues and not just sweaty dudes stabbing giant lizards, and this echoes other grumbling I've read recently...)
I fear that my awesome kidlit-expert buddies' drunken snarling about Harry Potter is probably the only backlash I'm gonna see about all of this strangeness, I say, as I gesture around myself. (Other than griefers, but let us not count them.)
I shall read and expect to enjoy the book when the borrowing chain gets 'round to me, and am not totally free of my own little bit of plot speculation. But my goodness, this is the most tension I've ever seen gripping people in my peer group outside of a national election. I think maybe the last time I saw anything like this was around the last episode of M*A*S*H but I was too young to appreciate it at the time. And what this has that that didn't is a sense of real desperation, with many of my friends already half-panicked to get the book, race home, and read it as fast as possible before the forces of evil can spoil it for them. It is somewhat unsettling to see.
Mm. Also, it is kind of fun, isn't it.
I shall read and expect to enjoy the book when the borrowing chain gets 'round to me, and am not totally free of my own little bit of plot speculation. But my goodness, this is the most tension I've ever seen gripping people in my peer group outside of a national election. I think maybe the last time I saw anything like this was around the last episode of M*A*S*H but I was too young to appreciate it at the time. And what this has that that didn't is a sense of real desperation, with many of my friends already half-panicked to get the book, race home, and read it as fast as possible before the forces of evil can spoil it for them. It is somewhat unsettling to see.
Mm. Also, it is kind of fun, isn't it.
Harry Potter and the Palette of Beige
Jun. 25th, 2007 09:59 pmI look at screenshots for the upcoing Harry Potter Wii game and think: Wha? Why is it so washed-out and yucky-looking? Why do the grounds around Hogwarts look like they were sculpted out of soggy oatmeal? Were the other games in the series like this?
The Wiimote-as-wand system sounds cool, as does mission-based play, but the game's world just looks bland and depressing and I'm not sure I'd like to spend much time there.
The Wiimote-as-wand system sounds cool, as does mission-based play, but the game's world just looks bland and depressing and I'm not sure I'd like to spend much time there.
Accio cheat codes, dur hur hur
Apr. 29th, 2007 11:29 pmThe Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix game for Wii looks like it could actually be good. Sometimes movie tie-in games actually end up being really nifty; I was quite impressed by Spider-Man 2, if only because it literally implemented the the entire surface area of Manhattan and freed you to swing and crawl around it as much as you'd like to between missions. This IGN preview seems to say that the new Potter game does for Hogwarts what Spidey 2 did for New York City.
If the game also ends up delivering a decent Wiimote-based magicky mechanic, and it's more involved than Elebits-style furniture levitation, I think I'll be all over it.
If the game also ends up delivering a decent Wiimote-based magicky mechanic, and it's more involved than Elebits-style furniture levitation, I think I'll be all over it.
Half-Blood Prince
Apr. 28th, 2007 01:27 amI finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and enjoyed it a great deal, probably the most of all the books in the series so far. (Yes, I've been having a good run of books and movies lately. I do dislike things sometimes, honest!)
The statute of limitations on this volume probably passed a while ago but just the same, let's hide my spoilers under a cut. ( So what would happen if, like, Dobby fired an Avada Kedavra at, like, Galactus? )
The statute of limitations on this volume probably passed a while ago but just the same, let's hide my spoilers under a cut. ( So what would happen if, like, Dobby fired an Avada Kedavra at, like, Galactus? )
Today was a stomachache day so I didn't do much. Though it was axe-in-the-gut bad at its apex, I note that it was my first in over three weeks (I've been keeping a log ever since my zomg it must be cancer dealie in December), and the ache faded before bedtime. After an entire afternoon of reading and napping on the couch (I also got up unusually early to take a business call), I let myself have a little bit of coffee to clear away the mental fog, and I did not double over in agony. So that's all good.
I hypothesize that it was from eating poorly yesterday. Among the things I ate was a Grade D cheeseburger (seriously, it was like unto an elementary school's cafeteria output) from the probable source of my food poisoning last winter. Don't ask.
Yes, I will bring up the stomachache days when I go to the doctor next month.
I am reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, by the way, lent to me bydictator555. I'm enjoying it a great deal. So far, it's my favorite of the series. I know, in two short sentences, what the big reveals are, but I don't know any of the details and am having a tasty time discovering them. It reminds me of my going back and watching the first two seasons of BSG after watching most of the third one, actually.
Yesterday I played some games at one ofdougo's occasional game parties and felt like a cranky little shit for a lot of it. I hate when I get that way; I will say or do something cranky and then try to make up for it with a display of forced non-crankiness and really I don't think it fools anyone. So, if you happened to catch a whiff of that, sorry.
I will try to be better about it later. I think that I didn't really feel like playing games, and kept agreeing to more games even after recognizing this. What the hell? Eh.
I hypothesize that it was from eating poorly yesterday. Among the things I ate was a Grade D cheeseburger (seriously, it was like unto an elementary school's cafeteria output) from the probable source of my food poisoning last winter. Don't ask.
Yes, I will bring up the stomachache days when I go to the doctor next month.
I am reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, by the way, lent to me by
dictator555. I'm enjoying it a great deal. So far, it's my favorite of the series. I know, in two short sentences, what the big reveals are, but I don't know any of the details and am having a tasty time discovering them. It reminds me of my going back and watching the first two seasons of BSG after watching most of the third one, actually.Yesterday I played some games at one of
dougo's occasional game parties and felt like a cranky little shit for a lot of it. I hate when I get that way; I will say or do something cranky and then try to make up for it with a display of forced non-crankiness and really I don't think it fools anyone. So, if you happened to catch a whiff of that, sorry.I will try to be better about it later. I think that I didn't really feel like playing games, and kept agreeing to more games even after recognizing this. What the hell? Eh.
