Sunday Summary: Fly-by post 2.

Good afternoon! There is sunshine today, which I have missed. Even though summer has not been over for long, I was starting to feel as though the sun had gone into hibernation until spring. I'm tempted to go out for a walk this afternoon, to make the most of the good weather and take in the bright autumn colours.

This week I have been...


Reading: 

I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai (with Christina Lamb). More than just a memoir, this book helps you to understand not just what it is like to live under threat from the Taliban, but also the social, historical and political context that allows extremism to take hold. Malala is intelligent and passionate about the importance of universal education, demonstrating the harm done by ignorance, her frustration with those who would warp her religion to make it a tool for oppression. A powerful read from an extraordinary young woman.

I have also begun 11.22.63 by Stephen King, in which a teacher is sent back in time to try to stop the Kennedy assassination. This book has a new, perhaps unique, take on time-travel. In this universe, it seems that there is a proper timeline, an established chain of events, and time really doesn't want to be altered. Every time you go back to the past (down an invisible flight of stairs in the pantry of a diner) the timeline resets itself. Or does it...?

Watching:

I finished season 1 of Heroes, which I had been buddy-watching "with" my sister. I won't write a full review of this, but will put some of my thoughts onto the page in bullet-point form.

• Fun, entertaining, incredibly cheesy at times, but not the greatest mastery of storytelling in the world. It felt a bit first-drafty, with plot holes and continuity errors, and seemed a bit disorientated. All I knew going into this show was "save the cheerleader, save the world," but I'm still a bit unsure of how saving Claire actually helped with saving "the world" (read: New York City) and how much of trying to prevent the coming apocalypse actually helped to make it (almost) a self-fulfilling prophesy.
• There were several characters with their own subplots, but the ones that interested me the most were Claire the indestructable cheerleader, the adorably geeky Hiro and his friend Ando, Peter Petrelli (although I loathed his family) and the psychotic super-villain Sylar (played by Zachary Quinto, the young Spock in the Star Trek reboot films), who could perhaps be argued to be a darker version of Peter. Peter absorbs other people's powers by standing near them. Sylar absorbs other people's powers by killing them horribly.
• Sylar reminded me in some ways of Spike from Buffy, starting from the time when he paid a visit to the Bennet home and charmed the mother while waiting for the daughter to come home. Both have mommy issues, and both have a sinister dangerous charisma which is disturbingly attractive. 
• A couple of characters had what I called "the Umbridge effect," which is to be so creepy and unpleasant they make the watching experience less fun. Claire's father, who Jenny and I christened Creepy Bennet, was one of these, morally ambiguous, doing terrible things for noble motives, but making my flesh crawl, and not in a good way. He does get some backstory and character development along the way, but I will keep up the nickname. Also, Peter Petrelli's politically ambitious brother Nathan, and their mother, were just plain slimy, contemptible. And there were a bunch of sinister corporations and mobsters whose stories just didn't interest me. Ultimately, sexy psychopathic supervillains are much more entertaining than slimy older guys in suits.

The verdict: Probably not something I'd re-watch over and over, but it sustained my interest enough to order the second season second-hand. (I intended to renew my Netflix subscription to watch the rest of the season, but the internet is a bit slow and unreliable on my computer and doesn't always like streaming videos.)

Planning:

Judith asked me the other day if I was going to do NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this year, to which I answered unequivocally "no." I haven't written any fiction for a while, or at least not stuck to anything. And a couple of days ago, I was feeling sad about this lack of productivity, and my brain said, "surely you can write something, just a drabble or a short story?" But it seems I can't do short stories. With short stories you really need to keep it simple, about one thing, one event, just a couple of characters. And the plot bunnies got breeding, and the basic idea expanded and spread, until I came up with something that might at least go some way towards the 50 000 word count required to complete NaNoWriMo. My only fear is that I have two weeks before November starts: what if I lose interest? I'm not too concerned about hitting the 50K mark, but I'd like to write something in November. (I also have an idea for a drabble slash "fanfiction*" about two of the supporting characters in a novel I wrote several years ago. Hardly enough for a novel, but something.)

Enjoying: Pumpkin spiced lattes. As well as Starbucks, which I don't tend to visit, one of our local coffee shops has this as a limited edition autumn flavour, and it is delicious, one of the things that had me actually looking forward to autumn, which I tend to dread a little.


*Can one write fanfiction about one's own unpublished writing? I'm not sure this drabble is "canon" but I want to explore the relationship between these two characters nonetheless.

Sunday Summary: Fly-by post

Hello all, hope you're well. I've been back at work this week and it's been ridiculous. Two weeks into October, we are well and truly into the Retail Christmas season. I'm working full time this month to cover various other people's shifts, and my days off aren't even the same every week. I've worked four days, have today off, and have another four days starting tomorrow. I'm physically tired from moving so many heavy books and boxes around, so today is pretty much a duvet day.

This week I have been:

Reading: 

Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett. I'm still working through all the Discworld books I haven't read before, and hope to finish the series by the end of the year.

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler. This was my birthday present from Ellie, a moving and surprising story about the effects of an unconventional upbringing on a family. It was very different from what I had expected - another book following this year's trend of excellent books with bright yellow covers.

Girl In Translation by Jean Kwok: the story of a little girl and her mother who move from Hong Kong to America, to find life there very different from the life they had envisioned. A beautiful, often sad but ultimately hopeful story about the triumph of the human spirit over adversity. Kwok evokes well the confusion of being young in a strange culture, with an incomplete understanding of the language and culture.

Not reading:

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. I have to confess that went back to the library unfinished. I would like to read it at some point, but I've got so many newly-bought and birthday books to read, and I'd much rather get stuck into them.

Unwrapping:

Two more birthday presents arrived this week: books from bloggers Hanna and Charlotte. Charlotte sent me science fiction classic Flowers for Algernon, as well as a little Tolkien treasury full of poetry, art and ponderings about the Lord of the Rings. (This has found a home on my Lord of the Rings feature shelf - yes, I have a shelf of my bookcase devoted to Tolkien!) Meanwhile, Hanna sent me Stephen King's 11.22.63 which I, along with probably all of the UK Stephen King readers, keep writing the wrong way round, and which I have been wanting to read ever since it first came out. She also sent me The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making. How can a book with that title be anything but excellent? Thank you both so much, I'm thrilled by all of these books. My only problem is: which do I read first?

Watching:

Heroes, season one, which I have been buddy-watching with my sister (even though she lives in London.) This never interested me when it was on TV - I couldn't be having with those superheroes. And then The Avengers happened, and I realised that those kinds of stories appealed to me after all. So far, Heroes is fairly familiar territory to anyone who watched X-Men or Agents of SHIELD, but with a greater focus on the effects of developing superpowers on ordinary people's ordinary lives. I'm only a few episodes in so far but I'm already getting attached to the characters. Hiro Nakamura is my favourite character so far - he is so unashamedly geeky! His excitement is so endearing.

Playing:

Some friends had a tabletop gaming evening last night. The previous week, I was introduced to Netrunner, which was not very successful due to a poorly two-year-old refusing to go to sleep. Luckily young Sam was fast asleep last night, and we got through a game which I can't remember the name of, but was based on Lovecraft's writings. It is a collaborative game: players versus the monsters. The monsters won.

Internetting:

Not a lot, because the thunderstorm a few nights ago did something - I don't know what - to our wireless router. But since that's been fixed, I've been reading and watching Mark Oshiro reading Wyrd Sisters. With the introduction of Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick, the series becomes a very different thing. This is when it starts to get really good. 

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

"I've got a Ph.D in horribleness."

Who'd have thought it? A three-act online mini-series chronicling the life of an ineffectual super-villain as he attempts to get into the Evil League of Evil, led by the elusive Bad Horse, and win the girl of his dreams. And it's a musical. And it works.

Dr. Horrible was created by Joss Whedon, best known for such TV series as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, during the American Writer's Strike of a couple of years ago on a low budget and broadcast online. It is a parody or deconstruction of the superhero genre of films. When he's not plotting crimes that will satisfy the Evil League of Evil, Dr. Horrible is a rather awkward but sweet young man called Billy, who is too shy to speak to his "laundry buddy," the beautiful and kind-hearted Penny (Felicia Day). His aspirations seem to be more about gaining respect and status as a supervillain than an actual villainous nature, and changing the world, because "the status is not quo." He has a vocal coach to help him work on his evil laugh, and has no problem stealing "wonderflonium" to power his freeze-ray, but he is reluctant to harm anyone: "There's kids in that park!" he says to a wannabe nemesis after refusing to fight him. He has been beaten up many, many times by his real archnemesis, Captain Hammer.

Hammer, the Superhero to Dr. Horrible's Supervillain, is on the other hand an egotistical, callous slimeball. When Captain Hammer decides to make Penny his girlfriend, just because Horrible likes her, Dr Horrible is pushed out of his comfort zone. He vows to get his ultimate revenge and satisfy Bad Horse's tough criteria for entry into the League at the same time.

For me, the musical highlights are the duet between Dr. Horrible and Penny in the beginning of Act II, where Horrible's bitterness and Penny's hope and idealism meet in catchy, beautiful harmony, and on the flip side, the rocky, angry, guitary Act II finale, "Brand New Day," where Dr. Horrible swears revenge on the sleazy jerk Captain Hammer.

Short and sweet, only the length of a single episode of Doctor Who in its entirety, nevertheless Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is memorable and well on its way to becoming a classic alternative media film. Its story is concise, simple yet radical, making you cheer on the villain and boo the hero. And in the end, Horrible succeeds in getting "the world I wanted at my feet/ my victory's complete/so hail to the king," but at such a cost! Up to that point a comedy, the story turns to tragedy in the last few minutes, in a classic case of "be careful what you wish for." The ending is abrupt, with its victory dirge "Everything You Ever" cut short at the end, showing the smallest glimpse of Dr. Horrible in Billy mode, looking completely lost and forlorn and out of his uniform, looking nothing if not in need of a hug.