Dusting things off again…

Yet again, it’s been a year since I last did anything here and this time I’m determined. I have my resolve face on. The blog has been prettied up and I’m going to be attempting to blog something at least once a week. Yes, even if it’s just a silly link or a quote, there will be something.

And so I will note that I saw a stage production of the Buffy episode “Once More With Feeling” at my local Fringe festival this weekend and it was great. Seriously, if you’re a Buffy fan it’s worth looking out for stage productions of this. It’s written as a musical so it translates beautifully to stage and now I can’t stop humming the songs to myself.

Hugos pre-read: Fables 11 and 12

Fables Vol 11: War and Pieces – Bill Willingham
This is it, the war between the Fables and the Adversary finally begins. It’s an intense, brilliant volume and I had to admire the ruthlessness and brilliance of the Fables’ plan. Prince Charming finally showed why he is a great tactician, all the elements of the last few volumes came together and I was gripped throughout. As always, Wallingham didn’t go where I expected him to go with some of the storylines and the final reveals surprised me. It is one of the things that I have been loving about Fables, the inability to predict what will happen next. Various characters were given their moments of glory – not always the ones that I expected – and it was both an intense and hopeful end to this arc of the Fables story.

Fables Vol 12: The Dark Ages – Bill Willingham
The Adversary has been defeated but that isn’t the end of the story by a long way. This volume is dark, horrific in places, and sets up a number of threads that I think are going to be played out in the future. There is a lot to clean up after the war and we learn quite early on that although the Adversary was evil, he may have been doing some good after all by keeping much worse things at bay. I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting any of this and hadn’t been sure how the series could keep going after the last volume. None of this feels like stretching things out, more like the previous eleven volumes have been the prelude to something much bigger.

Hugo pre-read: Fables 9 and 10

Fables Vol 9: Sons of Empire – Bill Willingham
Most of this volume is dedicated to two plots: Bigby, Snow and family visiting Bigby’s estranged father and the Adversary holding a “what do we do next” summit. Both plots are equally fascinating. Although the Fables are a smaller, less powerful group in some ways it is becoming obvious that in many ways they are equally matched to the Adversary. War is coming and there is now a time-limit on when things will start. At the same time, finding out a bit more about Bigby’s background was very interesting. It gives us a better understanding of him and I’m starting to really enjoy watching the way that the cubs are growing. In all, a solid and compelling volume in the series.

Fables Vol 10: The Good Prince – Bill Willingham
Flycatcher has been kind of a running joke through much of the Fables series. He spends his life working off endless community service orders by acting as janitor for the Woodlands, mild mannered and often a bit clueless. This is the volume where we finally understand exactly what he is and I have to admit, I loved this. It maybe my favourite volume so far. His background before the Adversary, what he had done since and how the entire population of Fabletown have acted to protect him from his past was obvious once it was explained but I had no idea before this. His actions as he recovers his memories and finds a different way to combat the Adversary were just brilliant. It think that I was holding my breath with Blue Boy and the others each time his story was on the page. Willingham didn’t forget about the rest of Fabletown in the meantime and his solutions to the problems of how they can fight the Adversary are quite brilliant. The heart of the story, though, is Flycatcher and it was wonderful.

Hugo read: Leviathan Wakes

Leviathan Awakes – James S. A. Corey
This is one of the Hugo-nominated novels that has been in my stack and it is definitely one that I would not have picked up without the Hugo project. It’s more of a pure sci-fi novel than I usually read, lots of space ships and gravity wells and so forth. For the first half of the book, I could not really understand why it had been nominated. It felt very much like the kind of noir-ish mystery sci-fi that I’ve seen a lot of over the years. Then things took a turn for the different and I understand now why it is on the Hugo list. The central characters are not always likeable, but I found them sympathetic and understandable. It is a novel that is very much building towards an idea, contemplating the nature of humanity and change, but Corey does not forget to build a believable world populated by ‘real’ people. It is not my usual read, but it’s definitely a good one.

Hugo watch: Hugo (the movie)

When this film came out last year, I remember seeing the trailers for it and thinking “Hmm, lots of animation and it’s 3D, pass”.

That definitely was the wrong reaction!

The trailer looked ‘animated’ but I think that’s more down to the beautiful cinematography and the startlingly blue eyes of the lead actor. In fact, it’s mainly live-action with just a bit of CGI where necessary. I rented it from iTunes and found the entire thing absolutely gorgeous.

In addition to looking amazing, it was an interesting story that really caught both the mind and the heart. The young boy who lives in a train station, Hugo, is the center of things and it is through him that we see the world around him. The minor characters that fill the station are lovely and I discovered that I actually liked and had sympathy for Sacha Baron Cohen’s station inspector.

It is a film about films, specifically the man credited with the first science fiction film. I’ve seen tiny clips of that film in various documentaries over the years and the image of a man-in-the-moon with a rocket in his eye is fairly iconic. My knowledge of Hugo going in was minimal so I had no idea that it would reference real events – that was something I discovered afterwards.

Hugois definitely a film that I would recommend to people and I’d love to watch it again. It has the mix of plot, character and visuals just right so that it’s a film that pulls you in as you watch but also stays with you after it is over.

Hugo pre-read: Fables volumes 7 and 8

Fables Vol 7: Arabian Nights (and Days) – Bill Willingham
If most other fictional fairy tale-type creatures appear in Fables, then it is only appropriate that the characters from the Arabian Nights tales also make an appearance. This was a shorter volume that felt like a bit of a fill-in, but it did set up a number of interesting things for future volumes.

Fables Vol 8: Wolves – Bill Willingham
Bigby hasn’t been seen for a while and it is thankfully time to bring him back in this volume. It includes the 50th issue, which was a beautifully long one appropriate for such a milestone. Although a lot of this volume is about Bigby, Snow and their family there is still a lot going on in Fabletown and the battle with the Adversary isn’t forgotten. I really enjoyed the mixture of happy, good things happening against the background of big events. Bigby’s store is, as always, interesting and unexpected. Willingham is really building up a detailed, fascinating world in these books.

Hugo pre-read: Feed

I’m not normally a horror reader and as zombies are usually a horror thing, I can’t say that I’ve ever deliberately sat down to read a zombie book. I get the feeling that this one isn’t typical for the genre and I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed it.

Another book that I needed to read before I could read the Hugo nominated book, this time in preparation for Deadline by Mira Grant.

Feed – Mira Grant (review)

After the dark, slow pace of my previous read this was a refreshing change. I’m not normally a horror reader so I’ve never read zombie novels. This is the first part in the Newsflesh trilogy, the second part of which has been Hugo-nominated and so I felt that I needed to read this for completeness. The story moves along at a great pace and the characters – particularly George and Shaun – feel real and alive as you read about them. The reader is thrown into a world twenty years in the future, where a zombie plague has changed many of the ways that the world functions and is a part of daily life in more ways than I ever could have imagined. The focus of the novel, however, is on media and politics so it never felt like a traditional horror novel. It would not be possible to tell this story without the zombie element because it dictates so much about how and why the characters are doing what they are doing, but the zombie plague is not the main focus. Despite being an avowed horror and zombie avoider, I genuinely enjoyed this book and I am looking forward to reading the next one.

Hugo pre-read: A Storm of Swords

I’m still working my way through the Song of Ice and Fire books so that I can read the one that got nominated for a Hugo.

A Storm of Swords – George R. R. Martin (review)

I knew these books would slow down a bit eventually and this is the one that feels like I got a bit lost and overwhelmed. It’s the longest so far in this series (973 pages!) and it felt like it. That is not to say nothing happens: it’s packed with changes and events, Martin makes a good attempt at killing half the cast and the reveal in the epilogue is terrific. However, the sense of brooding darkness is so strong at times that it’s a difficult read and the length and periods of slow pacing only work to enhance that.

What I did on my summer holidays

I’m back from England! Actually, I’ve been back for just over a week but I’ve been recovering from a long, horrid flight and the crap that appeared when I got to work so I haven’t really been in a blogging mood.

It was a fantastic holiday. I did all the things that I planned to do, saw all the friends that I’d hoped to and ate a truly epic quantity of clotted cream.

I have a serious weakness for a good cream tea and I managed to fit in several 🙂

I’m torn in picking what the highlight of the holiday was. The day when Mum, my sister and I went on the London Eye and had tea at Brown’s hotel was a definite highlight. We had amazing weather so the view from the Eye was terrific and the tea was amazing. Now that we’ve done Brown’s and Claridge’s, Mum and sis suggested that we need to try all the good London hotels during my future trips. So I think we’ll be working our way through the Savoy, the Dorchester, The Lanesborough and the Langham. We may also take in Fornum and Mason.

The Ritz has too many tourists, so we’ll skip that.

Then in a few years we can compare! And maybe try them all again!

The other big highlight was the trip to Hay on Wye. That was with my parents and we spent two days there, managing to cover around half the bookshops. The town was in preparation mode for the festival that started a few days after our visit and also for the Jubilee, so it was a fun experience without the insane crowds that the festival generates.

Most importantly, between Hay and the local secondhand bookshop I came home with a huge treasure trove of books. I’m still in full-0n Hugo reading mode so I can’t make a start on the stack yet, but I’m excited about them. The hardcover Chalet School books are particular treasures because they’re the full text as opposed to the edited/cut versions that appeared in paperback.

The list is behind the cut. It’s long, trust me. I’ll be posting Hugo reads and movies over the next few days.

We’re all going on a summer holiday…

By the time anyone reads this, I will be in the wilds of south east England. I may be posting a bit or I may not – it’s largely dependent on how exhausted I am by the insane schedule I’ve set myself.

I’ve calculated that, out of the fifteen days that I’m away, only five do not have definite all day plans. Yet. The second week is going to be less frantic than the first week so I could add an activity or two depending on how I’m feeling. There is a solid chance that people will be sitting on me to force me to rest if I start getting that grey-green look that I get just before I collapse.

Many of my activities involve a fair bit of travel (planes, trains and automobiles are literal here) so there is going to be a fair bit of reading time despite my schedule. Thus, I spent a couple of evenings loading up my Kindle and iPad with the following:

Huntress by Malinda Lo
Enna Burning by Shannon Hale
The House on Durrow Street by Galen Beckett
Feed by Mira Grant (Hugo pre-read)
Deadline by Mira Grant (Hugo nominee)
A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin (Hugo pre-read)

New Avengers Breakout
New Avengers Sentry

Plus the latest couple of issues of Batgirl, Nightwing, Demon Knights, Stormwatch, Saucer County, X-Men and Wolverine, Avengers Assemble and the new Black Widow prequel. I’ve also got three issues of Asimov’s to catch up on.

As I’m also planning to hit a lot of bookshops while I’m away, it looks like I shouldn’t run out of reading material 🙂