![[personal profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mwbworldVacation and Work
So I'm in the middle of my second and my final week of vacation and that creeping feeling of dread has appeared. Part of it is the normal anticipation that I feel during the end of vacations or toward the end of weekends. But it also is a bit different since I tried something new this time - I haven't checked my work e-mail or voice mail once during my vacation. Normally I'm compulsive enough to do it every couple of days. This time I tried to make it an actual vacation and not deal with work at all.
I guess that is a good thing? Not knowing what awaits me until I show up at work on Monday - creepy!
Comics fun
A while back I went on a buying spree gathered up complete runs of a bunch of old Crossgen Comics that I used to love back when they first came out including The First, Mystic, Crux and Negation. I also picked up the Solus mini-series and the incomplete Negation War mini-series. And I've been spending my vacation reading them.
The First - Hey I loved it so much. Barbara Kesel did a great job writing the series. Spoiled, scheming gods who are forced by events they have ignored to finally grow up from their perpetual adolescence and face the fact they aren't as important and powerful as they thought. But I have to nick some fanboy points for killing off pointlessly one of my favorite characters at the end.
Mystic - I liked it a lot. The story of a young party girl who suddenly finds herself the most powerful being of all in a world of extremely powerful magic users - but frankly some of the story arcs within the series were weak, but the whole world of conflicting schools of magic was really intriguing. I'd love to have seen more of that rather than some of the digressions into some of the minor less interesting arcs. Toward the end it developed an uneven tone descending into slapstick in the midst of events that should have been serious - which served to undermine a lot of my interest.
Crux - At moments I loved it, The story concerns ancient Atlanteans who were supposed to be in stasis a short time while their brethren ascended to a higher plane and then emerge to guide the primitive humans until they are ready to ascend as well - instead they awaken tens of thousands years later to an abandoned world which humanity had left and to find themselves under constant attack from the mysterious Negation. That basic premise I found great, but then there were elements where they tried to tie it to the broader events in the Crossgen Universe that really weakened the story for me. It just felt like there were great threads that would have been better to follow as stories but weren't developed because of it being such an anchor title to the whole broader Crossgen story. It is interesting to see how many elements would be replayed in the Stargate franchise (Atlantis, ascended beings, etc.)
More to come...
Science Fiction & Fantasy
I've been kind of stuck at reading the Year's Best SF 9 - the first few stories really did not catch my interest. So I'm thinking I'm setting aside that and I might just leap into reading all the issues I've been collecting of SF & F from the 1970s. I don't have them all, but I've got enough for what should be some really fun reading. And then I'll see if I'm right about how things have changed since then.
I just finished the September 2009 Asimov's Science Fiction and still a mixed bag but there were some bright notes:
Anime
I'm in the beginning of season 5 of Ranma and its still kind of fun, but I've slowed down a lot. I only tend to watch when I can't decide what to watch.
But my new love is Best Student Council, which I scooped up as cheap box set. All girl school, there the Student Council has power and authority and wackiness happens constantly. Yes, it has stereotypical anime/harem characters and lackluster character designs but it still makes me laugh and smile. I'm intrigued by how it borrows so many of the character types from harem comedies without being a harem comedy (no male characters or centralized romance triangles) and avoiding all the often annoying fan service.
I'm halfway through and I'm ranking it up there with my favorite anime school comedies just behind School Rumble and Azumanga Daioh.
Later...
So I'm in the middle of my second and my final week of vacation and that creeping feeling of dread has appeared. Part of it is the normal anticipation that I feel during the end of vacations or toward the end of weekends. But it also is a bit different since I tried something new this time - I haven't checked my work e-mail or voice mail once during my vacation. Normally I'm compulsive enough to do it every couple of days. This time I tried to make it an actual vacation and not deal with work at all.
I guess that is a good thing? Not knowing what awaits me until I show up at work on Monday - creepy!
Comics fun
A while back I went on a buying spree gathered up complete runs of a bunch of old Crossgen Comics that I used to love back when they first came out including The First, Mystic, Crux and Negation. I also picked up the Solus mini-series and the incomplete Negation War mini-series. And I've been spending my vacation reading them.
The First - Hey I loved it so much. Barbara Kesel did a great job writing the series. Spoiled, scheming gods who are forced by events they have ignored to finally grow up from their perpetual adolescence and face the fact they aren't as important and powerful as they thought. But I have to nick some fanboy points for killing off pointlessly one of my favorite characters at the end.
Mystic - I liked it a lot. The story of a young party girl who suddenly finds herself the most powerful being of all in a world of extremely powerful magic users - but frankly some of the story arcs within the series were weak, but the whole world of conflicting schools of magic was really intriguing. I'd love to have seen more of that rather than some of the digressions into some of the minor less interesting arcs. Toward the end it developed an uneven tone descending into slapstick in the midst of events that should have been serious - which served to undermine a lot of my interest.
Crux - At moments I loved it, The story concerns ancient Atlanteans who were supposed to be in stasis a short time while their brethren ascended to a higher plane and then emerge to guide the primitive humans until they are ready to ascend as well - instead they awaken tens of thousands years later to an abandoned world which humanity had left and to find themselves under constant attack from the mysterious Negation. That basic premise I found great, but then there were elements where they tried to tie it to the broader events in the Crossgen Universe that really weakened the story for me. It just felt like there were great threads that would have been better to follow as stories but weren't developed because of it being such an anchor title to the whole broader Crossgen story. It is interesting to see how many elements would be replayed in the Stargate franchise (Atlantis, ascended beings, etc.)
More to come...
Science Fiction & Fantasy
I've been kind of stuck at reading the Year's Best SF 9 - the first few stories really did not catch my interest. So I'm thinking I'm setting aside that and I might just leap into reading all the issues I've been collecting of SF & F from the 1970s. I don't have them all, but I've got enough for what should be some really fun reading. And then I'll see if I'm right about how things have changed since then.
I just finished the September 2009 Asimov's Science Fiction and still a mixed bag but there were some bright notes:
- Away From Here by Lisa Goldstein was quite good - dealing with a family run hotel and the pull of a band of strange magical folk who visit infrequently but have a haunting pull over the family. Not actually SF per se and it would have fit better in a fantasy magazine IMO.
- Camera Obscured by Ferrett Steinmetz was a cute but kind of predictable commentary the mega-ranking and observing world of internet content/reality viewing.
- Soul Mates by Mike Resnick and Lezli Robyn on the other hand was just an outstanding story about a friendship between a human and robotic AI which touches on a lot of issues about what it is to be alive. I'd be surprised, and disappointed if it doesn't do well in awards the coming year.
- In Their Garden by Brenda Cooper. Interesting start of a post-apocalyptic story that ends with a forward look, but didn't quite deliver for me. I never got quite hooked and it ended a bit too inconclusively to balance that feeling IMO.
- The Day Before the Day Before by Steve Rasnic Tem suffered from the same problem. A time travel story that never quite connected before ending inconclusively.
- Tear-Down by Benjamin Crowell is reminiscence of the Resnick and Robyn story with its theme about a automatic house whose AI is facing shutdown but without the emotional resonance and depth of that story. It wasn't bad, but suffered in contrast. If I were the author I would have been a bit annoyed to be in the same issue as the first story.
- Her Heart's Desire by Jerry Oltion - Fantasy story with magic wish shop and a semi-twist toward the end. Cute and all, but the execution felt off to me. I think I might have liked it better if it had been a bit longer and told more in a pure fantasy story or fable style. Then it would have fit well in F&SF. As it is and being here, it felt more like a throwaway.
- Broken Windchimes by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. I have to admit I ended skimming the story once I figured out the ending early on in it. It felt very similar to a couple of stories that ran in Asimov's last year where aliens have odd perceptions of things compared to humans and the lead character puts that together based on their own experience. I'm going to have to look up the two stories that I'm thinking of to explain that better. It didn't thrill me over all.
Anime
I'm in the beginning of season 5 of Ranma and its still kind of fun, but I've slowed down a lot. I only tend to watch when I can't decide what to watch.
But my new love is Best Student Council, which I scooped up as cheap box set. All girl school, there the Student Council has power and authority and wackiness happens constantly. Yes, it has stereotypical anime/harem characters and lackluster character designs but it still makes me laugh and smile. I'm intrigued by how it borrows so many of the character types from harem comedies without being a harem comedy (no male characters or centralized romance triangles) and avoiding all the often annoying fan service.
I'm halfway through and I'm ranking it up there with my favorite anime school comedies just behind School Rumble and Azumanga Daioh.
Later...