a movie, a book I might not read, a book I did read

The Martian is awesome and a quality adaptation - I thought they did a great job capturing what was cool about the story while making some (necessary) simplifications for length and pacing. And they didn't introduce too much Hollywood stupidity.

I've been looking forward to The Fifth Season for a couple of years now, ever since N.K. Jemisin announced it, and I was super-excited about it right up until I picked it up from the library and read the first page and all joy immediately vanished from the prospect of reading it. I pushed through the first couple chapters and skipped around a little to try to see how much it was, uh, like its own beginning, and - look, I absolutely think Jemisin has the right to explore whatever topics and themes she wants to, whatever stories she feels drawn to tell, it might be a really smart and powerful book. But I, a person with non-infinite time, mostly like to spend my reading time these days reading books I think I'll *enjoy*, and there are things in the real world that are awful and horrible that I don't need extra of in my fiction. (Rot13d if you're curious what I'm talking about: puvyq zheqre naq puvyq nohfr.)

And I read the eARC of Bujold's latest Vorkosigan book, Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen. All further discussion behind the cut, with many specific spoilers. ( Read more... )