MRI request is finally off to the insurance and expected to be accepted, so...more poking and prodding to come! Hoping I can sneak editing what I have of WAR TO END ALL WARS and typing in those 15 hw pages before the big date. If twisting for a couple minutes while they check how fat my liver is (no longer fat!) knocked me into bed for almost two weeks I greatly, GREATLY dread what an hour on a hard MRI slab is going to do to me.
EVERCHANGING DILEMMA is up to almost 100 reviews, 95% of them 4+ plus with the vast amount 5 star, so...I guess I still don't suck. Sales are...going. You always want more! But...delay, side-character, all that, we'll take it and use the momentum.
Mostly reading and watching tv/movies for my own entertainment. Finally got to see Spider-Man...was fun. I don't think the "world turning against the hero" thing works post Snap. Let's take the word of the guy that saved 4 billion people, okay? Didn't work when the Falcon needed a loan either in "Falcon and Winter Soldier". Stephen Strange also came off pretty stupid...just writing with a required unmovable endpoint driven by marketing and very unearned, but man, we all wanted to endpoint so you have to forgive them for it and grin like a twelve-year-old boy over your first Giant Sized Annual adventure.
French Dispatch...love Wes Anderson so loved this too. 2nd season of Demon Slayer was hype as fuck and just so beautiful, I love that whole color vs contrast style. Not a complex story with complex characters, but it does what it sets out to do at 110% and you have to appreciate that. Pam and Tommy, major 90s nostalgia but just a miserable sad story with no winners. Am surprised that Shai-Hulud isn't the biggest worm I've seen on my tv screen in the last year...and this one talks!
Rick and Morty Season 5...has there always been that many animal based episodes? Horses, crows, ferrets, etc! Reacher, never read the books, but a fun 8 episodes all around. Peacemaker...I feel like I must be related to James Gunn somehow, somewhere. That said, I liked it, but I didn't love it. Which was a surprise. You'd expect me to be all over that show and I do recommend it if you're my fan because it is very King Henry Tapes in style and humor, but...maybe it's TOO close to the point where I prefer what I do compared against Peacemaker's straight up in-your-face idiocy? Eagly is best boy though!
Reading wise working my way through Dane Jones' War of the Roses (pro tip: child kings are bad, mkay!) and started my first new writer in like five years with the Dead Djinn Series by P. Djeli Clark. Almost done with his novella then going into the first novel. Enjoying it. Wish this is what Urban Fantasy had naturally evolved into instead of the Twilight Clone Army though the 2010s.
Basically: 1920-ish alternate reality Cairo with djinns and magic and automations. Reminds me a lot of Naomi Novik's His Majesty's Dragon books, granted 100 years later and with djinn instead of dragons, but same feel of alternate history, also Urban Fantasy mystery novel instead of fantasy war novels as well.
Anyway, consider this Proof of Life for the next month and let's hope the next time I type all that work on WAR TO END ALL WARS is done and the MRI is over with and we have a clue as to what my near future will be to fix all this pain and hobbling about!
3/30 Update: Good news = edited 60 pages over the last three days. Bad news = I'm hobbling around the house like Obadiah Paine and can't feel two of my toes. Need a few days horizontal to recover. Think I'll need to limit myself to a day on/day off work schedule going forward. Hopefully that will let me find some consistency.
On my list along with a lot of other stuff. Squid Game, Ted Lasso, Boba Fett, couple seasons of the Expanse and Cobra Kai, final season of AOT...
ReplyDeleteStarted watching it. 10/10. Almost across the board in every aspect. Storytelling, character motivation, world design, character design, aesthetic, animation. I suppose voice acting is the weakest part, but we're still talking 8/10, not a negative by any means.
ReplyDeleteI'm actually forcing myself not to watch the last 3 episodes for a few days just because I want it to stick around in my head for a little longer.
Hollywood is still sleeping on what animation could be so hard...
I dare say it's a generational / cultural thing, but IMO all superhero films are shite, without exception. It's just deux et machina, modernised, with those stupid rubber muscle and tits suits. It shows how little risk Hollywood wants to take these days.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tips on the books, I will give them a try. I agree about Urban Fantasy, with the noble exception of a certain KHP...too many Jim Butcher clones by far, but I do like Craig Schaefer's Daniel Faust and Harmony Black books, they are rather different. With the rest, sooner or later there's endless boring crap about the Wizard Council or whatever, e.g., see (or rather, don't) Benedict Jacka.
All the best for your health - take it easy, we can wait a little longer!
I would agree John but it's fine to enjoy them for what they are, flashy junk food, and I did enjoy Spiderman nowayhome for that, though I didn't like the ending. I did not care for the new Batman, it falls so flat in the final third. I would highly recommend Worm web serial for an awesome superpower story that is much more interesting than Hollywood quipland.
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