Under the Skin
I was about 75% of the way through Under the Skin the novel when I decided I couldn’t wait and needed to see the film. I was spellbound by it, though one scene toward the end bothered me because it seemed gratuitous. And then I…
books
Reading and Watching, April 2014
Ohhhh, it’s been a while. I’ve spent the last few months either onstage or writing sketch comedy instead of writing about Doctor Who. Which is healthy, I think. I do have a couple of Who-related posts I’m drafting, just for fun, as well as a…
High-Rise
The insights are brilliant, and J.G. Ballard’s prose and imagery are impressive. Clearly this was also influential, at the very least on the Doctor Who episode “Paradise Towers.” Unfortunately, some of those brilliant insights are spelled out so explicitly, so on-the-nose that they’re robbed of…
breaking dawn
In which Meyer goes “oh shit, it’s time to end this sucker” and spins out close to 750 pages in one volume. At first it’s kind of exciting, because instead of taking 300 pages to work out the obvious Bella does it in maybe 100…
eclipse
A lot of people consider this their favorite of the Twilight books. It has some cool elements, such as the first serious fight sequence (though it’s a sideline to the main battle that Edward has to narrate to us because Meyer didn’t budget for a…
new moon
One point on which Cleolinda and I differ is the porn factor of these books. For her it’s mushy vampire romance, which she both loves and laughs her ass off at. For me it’s Jacob Black running around shirtless and getting naked at any opportunity…granted,…
finished the twilight series
I’ve finished the rest of the Twilight series. After this I’ll post some comments on each of the other three books. First of all, let me admit that I did mostly enjoy reading them, which is pretty amazing considering that I hated a lot of…
twilight
I was really severely into vampires around the time I was entering college. I’d just discovered Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, and at that point she was only three books into them and they were still good. I loved the atmosphere, the melodrama, the imagery, and…
Harold & Kumar, Running with Scissors, Death Note, Indy 4
I may or may not write about these at greater length, but here are the capsules. Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay Loved it. It’s a slight drag that the quest in this one is for two (specific) girls instead of a shitload of…
writing vs. blogging: full disclosure / postscript
I always assumed that I would have two jobs when I grew up. One would be a job with a salary and benefits. The other would be fiction writing. Since college, I’ve had jobs with salaries and benefits. I haven’t done a lot of fiction…