Book Review: The Dead Man's Brother by Roger Zelazny

The Dead Man’s Brother by Roger Zelazny is another non-cozy mystery found during the great cozy hunt. Mind, I already knew it wasn't a cozy. That cover says "non-cozy" as clearly as ever a cover did, and, besides, I really can't see Zelazny writing a tidy little tale about murder in the local bakery₍₁₎.

Dead Man's Brother is firmly noir, which presents me with a bit of a problem: I do read noir, but only very occasionally, so I can say "This is noir," but I cannot comment knowledgeably about the precise flavor thereof. It's got manly men, it's got shady dealings, it's got violence, and a beautiful woman to complicate life. Oh, and there's revenge, and recompense, and a very low-key sort of "doing the right thing." And, it's by Zelazny. That last counts for a lot. It may come up again.

What's it about? Ovid Wiley, now the respectable owner of an art gallery, was once an art thief. There is limited evidence linking his present life to his past--until his former partner turns up dead in the gallery, and the CIA seems intent on framing him for the killing, unless he helps them with a small favor in Italy. It seems a priest has embezzled some funds. A lot of funds. The Vatican doesn't want any official involvement or fuss because it is embarrassing. So all Ovid has to do is quietly and unofficially poke around and see if he can't find out. If he does, the murder charge will go away, and he'll never have to worry about the body in his gallery. So Ovid, who is not at all happy, goes to Italy. There is a beautiful woman. Things get violent. Ovid gets even less happy, makes a trip to Brazil, and solves matters his own, highly unofficial, violent way.

This is unmistakable Zelazny, with his trademark mix of the pulp and the poetic (Is there such a thing as literary pulp? If there isn't, there should be). Ovid reminded me quite a bit of Corwin from the Chronicles of Amber, minus the bit about being pretty nearly a divinity. He does, however, have uncommon luck; reading The Dead Man's Brother, I could not decide whether it was good or bad, but it was certainly uncommon, and he ran through quite a lot of it in the course of the novel. Like Corwin, too, he cares little for the law, though unlike Corwin, he has no family ties to complicate matters.

All in all, a satisfactory sort of read. Dead Man's Brother is not my favorite Zelazny₍₂₎, and this is probably the only time I will read it, but I am glad I did. After all, it is by Zelazny. Have I mentioned that yet?

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(1) Not that I knew Zelazny wrote mysteries at all, but then, from the afterward, neither did his publishers, not until after he died.
(2) So far, my favorite Zelazny is A Night in the Lonesome October. See
my reviewhere, at The Geek Girl Project, if you're interested in hearing about why. It made a lovely Halloween book, but I'm likely to pick it up at other times as well.

Book Review: Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing edited by Harvey Molotch

It's my own fault I read this. I picked Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing up vaguely hoping for something like Katherine Ashenburg's The Dirt on Clean or Mary Roach's Stiff, something unexpected, a bit whimsical, irreverent, and insightful. It wasn't until I got home that I realized I had a book of academic essays, a genre not generally known for whimsy.

I read Toilet anyway. There actually is a certain amount of whimsy in some of the pictures, so hurray? That didn't stop me from wanting to read a different book than the one I was holding. I kept wishing the authors had talked to one another. For example, it would have been so much more interesting if Terry S. Kogan, author of (takes a deep breath) "Sex Separation: The Cure-All for Victorian Social Anxiety," an essay insisting that separate gender toilets had helped keep Victorian women in their place, in a separate sphere, had talked Clara Greed, whose essay "Creating a Non-Sexist Restroom" argues (among other things) that women generally needed larger stall space than men; the combination of essays led me to conclude that those Victorian women might have been extremely glad the authorities had an attack of prudery, and I would have enjoyed some back and forth between them. Almost any two authors could have had a lively back-and-forth, something which would have made the book both livelier and more complex(1).

I mildly enjoyed Laura Noren's essay, "Only Dogs are Free to Pee: New York Cabbies' Search for Civility" on the New York taxi drivers. She actually went and talked to the people who were using (or in the case of the taxi drivers, not being able to use), the toilets(2). Irus Braverman's essay, "Potty Training: Non-Human Inspection in Public Washrooms" on the way toilet design affects--actually directs--our behavior in the stalls was quite interesting and is probably the only essay I'd actually recommend to the casually interested reader. I had hopes for Kamash's essay on Roman latrines, but it turned out to mostly say "We really don't know what their restroom etiquette was." Turns out there aren't many surviving writings or murals on the topic. I wonder why?

The rest of the essays? Very, very earnest. Very academic. Very focused. Very thoroughly titled. Probably worthy, but a little earnestness goes a long way.

Recommended? Not particularly.
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(1) I know, I know: These essays are all written by harried academics who are squeezing research time in and around teaching, administrating, and trying to catch some sleep. They'd probably like the chance to chat, too. They just don't have the time. Like I said, it's my own fault for reading the book. I did know what I was letting myself in for.

(2) I also vaguely remember reading an article about this somewhere--The New Yorker?--so there was an odd, pre-existing tag to hang some of that on.

Book Review: Private Lives of Garden Birds by Calvin Simmonds

Calvin Simmonds' Private Lives of Garden Birds is a series of essays about the birds Simmonds sees all the time on his farm. He is a behavioral biologist, so he cannot be classed as an amateur, but he writes for amateurs, for people who just want to get to know their winged neighbors. In this, he reminded me quite a bit of John Crompton, who spent The Spider writing about spiders as his eccentric neighbors. Simmonds' prose is not so lavish, but the feeling of general neighborliness is the same.

It did take me a while to get used to the fact that each chapter in Private Lives of Garden Birds takes the form of a gentle essay, rather than being a straight, factual article on the bird named in the title. Up to half an essay on any given bird may be spent describing the walk it takes to reach the bird's place, musing on other birds seen in the same area, and generally taking a leisurely approach to the purported subject of the essay. For some reason, I was expecting a more clear-cut, efficient division of subject, so it took me a few essays to realize that, of course, this casual approach is part of Simmonds' point: The birds are his neighbors, and this is their neighborhood. He's not writing about the generic phoebe category, he's writing about the phoebe who lives on his farm, down near the bridge, above the river. After the first bit of disorientation, I relaxed and enjoyed strolling the farm with him.

There is plenty of detail on the birds' lives, as well as some lovely musings on crow grammar, some great bits of humor, an account of the first colonists' impression of the hummingbird ("their descriptions of them sound fantastic, like descriptions of unicorns or griffins"), an description of his and his human neighbor's differing views on blue jays, and other matters surrounding birds. The prose is relaxed and easy to follow.

Simmonds sticks to birds most of his readers likely also encounter, birds like phoebes, song sparrows, crows, hummingbirds, and other common varieties people all over the States are likely to see. That made the book all the more welcome; these birds are my neighbors, too, and it was nice to meet them in a slightly different setting and to learn more about their lives.

Highly recommended.

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More or less an aside: I do have one complaint that is not unique to Simmonds, though the problem does show up in Private Lives of Garden Birds: A good many writers on organic gardening and on gardening for birds or bees or butterflies describe "gardens" that, to me, border on estates (or in Simmonds' case, farms), insisting on meadows, groves, and ponds. Simmonds, for example, suggests a "garden" with "tall trees that cast deep shadows...bushy thickets or dense evergreens...several different kinds[of shrub]...a place where the water stands in a pool, another place where it trickles..." I live in a city. I've perfectly nice city-sized front and back yards; there's plenty of room for me to try new varieties of tomato,to let herbs flower for the bugs, and to put in some native plants. There's even a lemon tree. Groves and thickets, however, are quite out of the question. So are out-of-the-way stands of thistle. I do wish more advocates for organic gardening and animal sanctuary would recognize this. Yes, I'm grateful for what they have done, but sometimes I'm left with the feeling that all the flowering plants in the world won't be enough if I can't include a swamp as well so why bother trying?

What I'm trying to say is: Could someone please write a book that keeps in mind the less-than-an acre gardener? The person who maybe only has a small patch of porch or windowsill?

Do you happen to know about any such book?

Also, at this point, I'm also thinking I'd like a few books that are even more local, some specifically West-Coast books that won't assure me that the yellow jackets will all die out in the first hard freeze, or that if I don't want house sparrows around, all I need to do is skip feeding them one winter and they'll leave. Not that I especially mind yellow jackets, and I'm really quite fond of sparrows, but the snowy weather won't be chasing either away from anything, not around here! Also, I suspect many of the local birds have slightly different behaviors, given the relatively mild weather. So, anyone know of any good West Coast writers?

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Note: This review was originally written and shared on my blog, Bookwyrme's Lair. Stop by and visit for lots more reviews, photos, and general musings on the good things in life.

Book Review: The Phryne Fisher Mystery Series by Kerry Greenwood

I'm still hunting for new cozies to read. Actually, it's been a surprisingly successful hunt, all told, though there have been glitches on the way. The Phryne Fisher Mysteries by Kerry Greenwood count both as successes and as glitches. They are successes because they’re good, and I enjoyed them, and I’m glad there are more out there for me to read in the future, but they’re glitches in that, while mysteries, they are not cozies, or rather, their coziness varies drastically from book to book.

Phryne Fisher is a private investigator living in St Kilda, Melbourne, Australia in the 1920s. She's also independently wealthy which means she can pick and choose her investigations on her own, and she can make her own decisions on how to resolve them. Sometimes her solutions are legal, sometimes they are not. They are generally, however, quite final.

I had a moment, reading Death by Water, when I had to laugh: When I started the great cozy hunt, I spent quite a bit of time griping about the physical perfection of some of the heroines, and their shallow use of said beauty to get what they wanted. Now, here I was, reading a book about the incomparable Miss Fisher, a raven-haired, green-eyed, porcelain-skinned woman who never hesitated to use her feminine whiles if she thought it would get her what she wanted—and I was enjoying it. Phryne may be nearly perfect, but she’s also a lot of fun, and uses her perfections so wittingly, that I found myself charmed.

The language is also lively, vigorous, and thoroughly enjoyable. Indeed, for a while, I was happily marking particularly choice bits to share with everyone, but on reflection, I think I’ll stick with just one and let you read the rest when you pick up the books. Here’s Phryne telling Dot, her maid, about one of the crew members: “I’m sure Navigation Officer Green will tell you all about it. Until your ears bleed. If he wasn’t such a darling, I’d have to drop him overboard. Even then he would be telling me valuable and useful things all the way down.” See? You know a lot about Phryne, her relationship with Dot, and something about Navigation Officer Green as well in one short segment. That is how it’s done!

There is a problem when it comes to properly tucking the books into a sub-genre so as to be able to recommend them to other people. I started out looking for a cozy series, and Death by Water, which I read first, and Dead Man’s Chest, read later, qualify. In fact, I was all set to suggest them to anyone who enjoys the Daisy Dalrymple mysteries: There's the lovely, lavish 1920's setting, the genuinely likeable heroine who is concerned for those around her, and a lively cast of supporting characters.

Then, though, I read Cocaine Blues and Queen of the Flowers, which are emphatically not cozies. Further books only reinforce the confusion. Cozies generally deal with smaller groups of people, and they usually leave the impression that the world is, at base, fairly orderly and everyone involved will be able to heal and go on with their lives; often, there really isn't much healing needed. The Phryne Fisher books, however, allow for more chaos and leave more injury in their wake. Everyone is certainly better off at the end than they were at the beginning, but they're not just fine. There’s some really nasty violence in some of them, and various books in the series involve hunting down a back-alley abortionist who rapes his patients before leaving them to die of his inept operations, a grandfather trying to sell his granddaughter to the brothels, a wife-beater, and other unsavory sorts generally not allowed to darken cozies. Sometimes, in fact, the books are downright noir. Phryne, too, doesn’t quite fit the usual mold: She carries a gun and shoots to kill when she needs to, and has a succession of lovers, sometimes quite prominently , sometimes not. So I’m going to skip pigeon-holing these, and just let you know that they’re good, but you have to be ready for changes of tone and willing to read anything from cozy to noir and back again.

Two further notes: I suggest reading the series in smaller batches. I’m delighted with the size of the series and plan on finishing it at some point, but, though I do enjoy Phryne’s perfections, they do pall if too many books are read at once in quick succession. Reading them is like eating chocolate cake; it's delightful for a while, but then you realize that you've had enough and it's time for a bit of a break.

Also, while the books are good, they get better as they go on: If I had read Cocaine Blues first, I am not sure whether I would have finished. Death by Water, though, hooked me. Dead Man’s Chest and Queen of the Flowers cemented the positive first impression.

So... Anyone got any ideas about what I should try next?

Book Review: The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope

The Last Chronicle of Barset , last and longest of the Barsetshire Chronicles, is tied together by the central mystery of whether or not Josiah Crawley, curate of Hogglestock, stole a check. One way or another, all of the characters from previous novels become involved in the affair. It also picks up the trailing threads left from The Small House at Allington, and introduces another romance, this one between Grace Crawley and Henry Grantly, son of Archdeacon Grantly (first seen in The Warden).

This proved the hardest of the Barsetshire Chronicles to read because it is a little too brilliant. Reading a novel with Josiah Crawley at the center means spending a good portion of the book inside the mind of someone who is severely depressed. It's a sympathetic view, showing all of the external circumstances that led to Crawley's depression, but it's also a merciless look at all the ways he makes it worse for himself and harder for his family. It is exhausting spending time in his head.

As with prior novels, this is also apolitical issue, since one of the big issues at the time Trollope wrote was church reform, including the question of the wildly uneven pay scale for clergy, and Trollope puts a human face on some of the abstractions; Crawley works at least as hard as Dr. Grantly and receives a fraction of his salary. As with The Warden, Trollope avoids oversimplifying or coming down too definitely on any given side to the issue. Crawly may be underpaid, but it is not Dr. Grantly's fault, and it is hard to condemn him for enjoying the comforts of his life or for arranging for his family to enjoy them.

I admit that I sighed a bit over the Grace-Henry romance. Here was yet another good girl being rejected by the man's parents on the grounds that she wasn't of a sufficiently high class and being ultimately accepted in part because she is a "good" girl who does not push herself forward. The saving grace here, as in prior novels, is the characters. While this is, at heart, the same romance plot used in prior novels, the people involved are very different, making it seem nearly new.

The issue of class, contentious since Dr. Thorne is partially resolved at the end of the novel: A "gentleman" is someone who is educated and has the right set of manners, regardless of income and, possibly, even of background. Here, as elsewhere, however, Trollope does not show this as the easy answer: It works for the characters at the end, but there's also no doubting that money helps, nor that Lord Dumbello will always receive more deference from the world at large than Josiah Crawley.

The series has been quite a ride. I think only The Warden and Barsetshire Towers are going to go on my reread list, but I am very glad to have read the whole. Trollope is one of the most brilliant creators of character and scene it has been my pleasure to encounter.

I'm now wondering if I have the stamina to tackle the Palliser novels.

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(1)I started my grand read-and-review of the Barsetshire Chronicles over at The Geek Girl Project. My review of The Warden is up there, as is my review of Barchester Towers. My reviews of Dr. Thorne, Framley Parsonage, and The Small House at Allington were on this blog. It's been fun!

Book Review: A Small House at Allington by Anthony Trollope

The Small House at Allington did much to restore my faith in Trollope, which I admit was wavering a bit after Doctor Thorne and not quite steady even after Framley Parsonage. It is a brilliant book, though like most brilliant things, not always entirely comfortable.

It has the largest cast of characters yet, including a number of memorable characters. As Trollope writes of the hero, "that part in the drama will be cut up, as it were, into fragments. Whatever of the magnificent may be produced will be diluted and apportioned out in very moderate quantities among two or more, probably among three or four, young gentlemen—to none of whom will be vouchsafed the privilege of much heroic action." All the major characters from previous books make at least a cameo appearance, and then there are the central characters of the Dale family, their close friends, and the inhabitants of a boarding house in London. Geographically, it is also the most ambitious of the series so far, covering several country houses of varying degrees of wealth plus the aforementioned London boardinghouse, a city office, and assorted smaller places.

In keeping with the ambitious goal, there are multiple plots. There are love stories (Barsetshire wouldn't be the same without them), but also promotions, family reconciliations and separations, and the advancement of several series-long subplots. The characters are given a dept they haven't had since Barchester Towers, even a greater depth, in fact. There are more and less likeable characters, characters of greater and lesser heroism or villainy, but everyone has a multitude of motivations and desires. Even the De Courcy family, consigned to the role of generic aristocratic villains for the last two books, at long last gains some much-needed shading.

The narrator is in fine flow here, commenting on this "fraction of a hero" or "dear Lily Dale—for my reader must know that she is to be very dear, and that my story will be nothing to him if he do not love Lily Dale," and moralizing where appropriate, usually in a wry, spiky fashion that keeps him as one of my favorite characters.

For all of that, I will admit to some small sadness: As I mentioned at the beginning, this is a brilliant book and an engrossing read. I am glad I read it, but... I miss the coziness of The Warden. Ah well. I am human and therefore contrary. I still highly recommend the book; in most ways, it's the best of the series so far.

5/5

A note on editions: The library copy was without notes (Yes, I generally pick my editions based on what the library has). I missed them, even though the book was entirely readable without them, so if you're buying or have a choice, I'd suggest either the Penguin or the Oxford World's Classic edition, either of which is likely to have a good introductory essay and notes. For those of you with ereaders, Project Gutenberg has multiple formats.. Librivox also has audio versions available for download.

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(1) I started my grand read-and-review of the Barsetshire Chronicles over at The Geek Girl Project. My review of The Warden is up there, as is my review of Barchester Towers. My reviews of Dr. Thorne and Framley Parsonage were on this blog.

A Not-Exactly Review of She Shoots To Consquer by Dorothy Cannell

She Shoots to Conquer an Ellie Haskell mystery by Dorothy Cannell had a fun cover (1) and a promising premise: Ellie Haskell, her husband, and her housekeeper, Mrs. Malloy, lose their way in the fog one night and find themselves at a mansion where Lord Belfrey is hoping to recoup the family fortune by hosting a reality show, a version of The Bachelor where he is the bachelor in question. They arrive just after one of the contestants has died, seemingly in an accident. Meanwhile, the housekeeper, Mrs. Malloy offers to take the dead woman's place in the contest. It sounds quirky enough to be fun, and it had a great opening paragraph. After that, I stalled out quite rapidly.

She Shoots to Conquer is a pseudo-semi-gothic book; a parody-that-isn't, where the meta-fictional mess piles up until neither reader nor narrator is quite sure where she stands. In other words: I bounced off of this. Hard. Ellie loves gothics intensely. She also has a vivid imagination, so vivid she's never really sure she's seeing what something or just imagining it. Once or twice, I could see, but after the third or fourth variation of "Did I really see it, or did I just imagine it? I know my imagination is really vivid," I lost patience with Ellie. The prose is pseudo-gothic, which means intends up layered densely over itself in an unwieldy mass.

I slogged through three chapters, skipped over for a bit, read the last bit, jumped around, and gave up.

I'll stick to the Aunt Dimity books, I think, for those times when I'm in the mood for gothic lite.

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(1) Yes, I'm still playing the game of "judging a book by its cover." And, yes, I'm still hunting for a new cozy author to love. More on that anon!

Review: Doctor Who, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship is 98% cheese with a serving of ham (and very good ham it is, too) and 2% unexpected darkness.

It gives us dinosaurs on a spaceship, Rory's father, Queen Nefertiti, a big game hunter whose name I may or may not be supposed to recognize, slapstick robots, a triceratops playing fetch... with a particularly nasty genocide in the background, the threat of rape, and the Doctor committing deliberate, cold-blooded murder.

A lot of it is pure fun. The Doctor, who has been saving Ancient Egypt while we weren't watching, is just saying a fond (on her part, at least) farewell to Queen Nefertiti when he gets an emergency call from Earth and runs off. Queen Nefertiti, following the time-honored tradition for Companions, follows him in uninvited. Once the Doctor learns of the situation--a spaceship is on a crash course for Earth, and if it isn't stopped, it will be shot down, the Doctor decides he needs more help and goes on a collecting expedition, picking up Amy, Rory, and (accidentally) Rory's dad by materializing around them and then nabbing a big game hunter to round out the "gang."

The "gang" splits up and runs around the spaceship, pressing buttons, running away from dinosaurs (the Doctor is almost as glad to see dinosaurs on a spaceship as he was to see a werewolf with Rose), flirting, and finding out what's up.

All of which is delightful fun. Every member of "the gang"-even, eventually, Rory's dad, are having the time of their lives. Amy has fun figuring out an alien computer and trading quips with Nefertiti. Nefertiti and the big game hunter flirt, and, in the end, Rory's dad has a picnic, sitting in the TARDIS doorway, watching earth (And I nominate that as one of the single most adorable, wonderful moments in the program. It's a moment of pure, innocent wonder, and I loved it.). The whole situation is completely over-the-top; in short, it's vintage Doctor Who, a lovely, unlikely mishmash of genres and characters that somehow holds together as it careens toward a conclusion.

But. There's that 2%. It also turns out that the villain who hijacked the ship is a nasty piece of goods who deliberately woke up the hibernating crew (Silurians) a few at a time so that he could space them while they were conscious. He claims Nefertiti as his prize, promising to break her (That's quite some database he's got, incidentally. Nefertiti is how long ago in his time? And it's not like we have perfect photos of her as she lived).

Then the Doctor comes up with a plan that saves everyone except for the villain. The villain, he deliberately sends to his death, not because he needs to die to save their lives, but just because he's disgusted. This, by the way, is the Doctor who wouldn't kill the Daleks when he had the chance, who refused more than once to kill Davros, who gave the invading Sontaron's a half dozen or more "last chances," and who went to infinite pains to reshape Kazran's past in A Christmas Carol. In short,the Doctor does not kill. He is not even in one of his rages when he does it; it's more a motion of weary disgust. What is more, the episode glosses over the Doctor's decision without beat or pause in its frenetic pace. It simply does not fit with the rest.

So: Is that 2% some sort of foreshadowing of things to come, an indication of past events, or simply a misstep on the part of Chibnall and Moffat?

I don't know what I think, and I'm not sure I like that. Oh, I still like Doctor Who, but Moffat's reign has involved a series of mostly-satisfying episodes with some very long term question marks, some running for more than a season, and I'm starting to think that my enjoyment of arcs isn't quite as strong as I thought it was.

Edit: Since I wrote this, I have remembered and have been reminded of a number of times when the Doctor did directly act to kill--including last episode when he used one Dalek to destroy a number of others. However, what troubles me about this is that the episodes I've seen him kill (I am not conversant with all the Old Who episodes people have cited, but can think of The Runaway Bride and Family of Blood, for example), he's been in a rage, and even so, has generally offered several options before killing. This was a cold, calculated killing. The Doctor took the time to explain to Solomon exactly what was going to happen, and he did so calmly. This is a change from any of the Doctors, and it is definitely a change from the more playful Eleventh Doctor we saw in The Eleventh Hour. It seems as though something happened between this season and last season to create the weary disgust present in both episodes (His response to the woman's request at the beginning of Asylum of the Daleks is to wish people wouldn't talk about his wonderful ability to save others).

Incidentally: Yes, I did notice Solomon's database not spitting out his name. Was everyone hacking into the Daleks' computer for information?

Grumpy Review: Sherlock, Series Two

I liked Sherlock, series One, but it didn't quite overwhelm me, not to the point where I remembered to watch breathlessly for its return. As a result, it took me a while to watch the second season of Sherlock, and even longer to get around to reviewing it. Basically, my review is very simple and can be boiled down to two words: I'm cross.

I still really like the overall idea, and the Watson-Sherlock interaction remains a delight. I also really like the extended cast of supporting characters as they are being developed. Most of the openings were great. I would have loved to see Sherlock solving the geeks' case. It's a pity it wasn't shown because Irene Adler, the Hound, and the Master Moriarty all left me crabby and dissatisfied, which made for an entirely unsatisfactory season, from my perspective.

My brother warned me I wasn't going to like their take on Irene, that they'd really deviated from the source material in ways that would make me grumpy. I figured he was wrong, as I didn't think I was that devoted to the original character who is, after all, only in one story, and it's not a particular favorite of mine for any reason.

Turns out my brother knows me very well. I am grumpy. The Irene of "Scandal in Bohemia" doesn't just almost beat Holmes. She defeats him. He sets out to get a picture from her, and he fails. She wins, hands down, no questions, and no outside help from male consulting geniuses. She also escapes the country on her own terms, with her goals accomplished.

The Irene of Scandal in Belgravia needs Moriarty to help her figure out what to do with her large trove of blackmail material--a trove which puts her in as much danger as it saves her from. With his help, she comes close to beating the Holmes brothers, but only close. Ultimately, she leaves in defeat and has to be rescued (if we're to believe the flashback) by Sherlock. And she's supposed to be the modern, independent, strong version of the two?

I'm also cross about her profession. If the focus of the episode is supposed to be on her mind and her (alleged) brilliance, why is the focus of the camera on her body? Yeah, I know, we're supposed to fall for the "Women can be brilliant and sexy" line, but I don't buy it, particularly not here. If Moffat really wanted to show Sherlock falling in love (or something like it) with a woman because of her mind, he'd have picked someone less conventionally beautiful and likely more conventionally clad.

And what is going on with all the mugging for the camera? Everyone (except Watson), makes dramatic gestures, poses, pouts, and flaunts themselves at an invisible eye they aren't suppose to know is there.

Gah.

Then there's The Hounds of Baskerville. A great opening montage. Scenery. Some great interplay between Holmes and Watson. Scenery. A meeting with the new client. Lots of gorgeous scenery. Some funny interplay. More scenery. Yes. The scenery is lovely. Sherlock is clueless about people. And finally... hallucinogenic gas? Really? That was the best solution anyone could find?

I'm crabby.

And, last, but not least, is The Reichenbach Fall, which had its moments. There's some real tension there, and a definite threat to Sherlock and those he loves. The work to undermine him is brilliant and relies on knowing Sherlock's character very well (though not, perhaps, on anyone doing any deeper research into kids' shows and actors' backgrounds). There's some really great interplay between Watson and Sherlock. And then Moriarty pops up. Look, I liked that character when he was an insane Time Lord bent on decimating the human race. As the rational, mathematical, "Napoleon of crime," I pretty much hate him. I guess I'm more firmly wedded to the canon than I thought(1). In any case, even shoving that to one side, I don't actually believe in him as the mind behind all of Sherlock's problems. He's too "changeable," too fickle and fey to seem real as someone who spends years concocting elaborate, successful criminal schemes for others. Nor do I buy his motivations at the end there. Oh, the wanting to defeat Sherlock makes sense, but the rest....

And then, I found someone's transcripts of the BBC versions of all these episodes and learned that PBS has been cutting out lots of little character bits, so I got even grumpier. I mean, the character bits wouldn't have made me like Irene, Moriarty, or H.O.U.N.D. any better, but I still want to have seen them! I like this John Watson, enough to have watched the entire season for him(2).

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(1) I like the Sherlock Holmes stories, but they've always been a mild liking, more as a sort of background to a lot of other things than a passion. At least, that's what I thought before Sherlock.
(2) Although I'm still amused by the British and their ability to call three episodes a series. Granted, it makes this sort of show possible, but I still find "a series is as long as we feel like" an odd concept.

Review: Doctor Who, The Asylum of the Daleks

I finally watched this!

I sort of wish I hadn't read the mini-reviews different friends wrote calling it "brilliant" and "game changing." I found it a good, even a very good, episode, but not quite "brilliant," which is ok. I don't really expect "brilliant" every week, and I suspect I'd hate "game changing," especially if it happened once a week.

Anyway, the episode. Overall, it was a good episode and a promising start to the season. It had a good dose of Moffat-creepiness, a nice bit of snarking from everyone's favorite lone centurion, and some extremely silly tension between Amy and Rory.

So, tackling things in reverse order: The Amy and Rory subplot. What was it in aid of? If it was to put us in suspense, it's a total dud: It was (mercifully) scarcely a blip: Slightly over a minute in Pond Life: Episode 5, plus a tiny segment of the much more exciting Asylum. If it was to tell us that Amy loves Rory, no, really she does, we already know that. It came up a few times last season. So did the fact that he loves her. Or was the point that Amy is overly-dramatic and doesn't always think things through very clearly? We already knew that, too. Or maybe Moffat thinks love needs to be quantified and measured, that "giving up" someone can and should be weighted against a couple thousand years of guarding your beloved's not-quite-dead body?

Wait, why are we having this conversation? There are Daleks over there! Yes, let's talk about the Daleks. They're much more interesting, and creepy. There's a really good moment there when the Doctor tries to appeal to a human-form Dalek's emotions by reminding her that she had a daughter. "I know," she replies. "I read my file." Very, very nice, in a nasty monster kind of way(1). The human-puppets as a whole are a creepy new addition to the Dalek arsenal. It's going to be interesting wondering just who the bad guys are in future episodes (2). Anyone, anywhere, can be a Dalek, and they won't even know it until they're activated. It's not exactly a new idea, but that doesn't make it any less creepy.

Even better, the Daleks are scared. They've got an enemy they don't want to face, so they haul in the even scarier Doctor and his companions to do the job for them. That sets up the asylum itself as truly terrifying, and the Dalek's reason for maintaining it rather than simply eliminating their uncontrollable units adds a new, nasty twist to their natures: They have an aesthetic appreciation for hatred, which makes the asylum as much an art gallery as a prison.

And, for viewers, the asylum is an art gallery. There are Daleks from all the show's different eras in there. Most of them, I don't recognize, but I admire it as an undertaking and appreciate that other viewers can, and have, seen familiar figures down there in the shadow. Other aesthetic moments are scattered through the show: my favorites are the amphitheater of Daleks, ruined Skaro, and that opening shot of the petrified Daleks.

And then there's the surprising appearance of Oswin, who is either the Doctor's future companion, or her double, or her alternate, or her descendent. Meeting her this early was a surprise. I'm not sure what I think of her yet. At this first look, she seems rather like River, and one River is enough, thanks. Then again, we barely met her, and she may not be her, so it's back to wait-and-see.

In any case, it is good to have Doctor Who back again.

Edit: So my brother read this and asked "What about the ending?" I'm not sure about the ending. When I first watched it, I was too busy wondering if that meant that Oswin could actually have taken over the Daleks, and if so, would that have created a race of hyperactive, genius, souffle-making beings, and would that have been better or worse than the bubbling lumps of hate we have? I'm still wondering.

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(1) Though quite why the Daleks feel the need to dress their human puppet in a cloak and ridiculously high heels is beyond me. Their newly discovered sense of aesthetics must be getting the better of them.
(2) At least, when I'm not wondering how and why they stash Dalek eyestalks in their skulls. Said skulls are also presumably still containing the original's brain if memory and emotion can be turned on and off at will (neat trick that). Also, unfortunately, the effect of the eyestalks popping out just isn't as effective as it should be. The gas masks in The Empty Child, those were creepy. These just look strange (No, I wouldn't want it happening to me, or anyone I loved, but that's an abstract thought rather than a visceral reaction).
(3) By the way, my reviews of the Pond Life episodes are up on The Geek Girl Project. Our very own Rebecca is reviewing the Doctor Who episodes themselves; her review of Asylum of the Daleks is up now. She's also been going back to the beginning and reviewing the First Doctor's episodes.

Link to my review of Warehous 13: An Evil Within

My main review is up here, at The Geek Girl Project.

I have fewer spoilery things to add here. I do think it will be interesting to see how the division among the Regents works out, since I get the impression they're used to unanimity.

Oh, and I'm betting on the Big Evil of the season being Artie himself, or at least, being a part of Artie. *If* the dream of Claudia attacks him with a knife comes true, it will be because she's trying to stop him from doing or becoming something.

That's all!

Review: Warehouse 13, A New Hope

Ok, folks, this is the long, rambly, spoilery review with parentheses, diversions, and ramblings about the show-in-general. If you want the short, non-spoiler review of A New Hope, and only A New Hope, go over and see the post on The Geek Girl Project (Yes, I’m totally taking advantage of this dual-blogging business. I may or may not do so again. Let me know what you think, if you happen to have an opinion).

First a bit of background: Warehouse 13 and I have not always gotten along. In fact, at one point, I quit watching it all together (the generic Indian artifact episode, IIRC). However, there was some embroidery thread that needed untangling, and it was up on hulu, so I started watching again. The relationship stayed rocky—I could not, and cannot believe either Pete or Myka as Secret Service agents (at least, I hope the U.S. is not recruiting overgrown thirteen year olds), Pete annoys me most episodes (he’s only 13 on his good days), they play fast and loose with mythology and history and geography. The pacing of those early episodes is off horribly (the one with the old movies coming to life? It should’ve been a really fun B-movie in its own right, but it never quite got moving). And yet. And yet, I keep watching. I may fuss about the history or they mythology (I usually do), but the artifacts still have me hooked anyway (Sylvia Plath’s typewriter is in the vault where they keep the extra-dangerous stuff. Escher designed the vault. Lewis Carol really owned a mirror with bizarre properties). Pete drives me nuts, but Myka has grown on me. H. G. Wells is completely wrong and based on an entirely clichéd view of the Victorian period (Yes, actually, she could have been a scientist and a science fiction writer in the Victorian era. Not easily, but she could), but I like her character anyway. Mrs. Frederick had my attention from the beginning.

And, I have to admit, the plotting has gotten a lot better. With more agents, the writers can split the team and have A and B plots, keeping things hopping. So, it’s stayed on my hulu watch list, the show I watch in spite of myself, generally in fits and starts.

Until A New Hope, which surprised me by being downright good. It was tightly plotted, made good use of its characters, and was spot-on with its choice of artifacts. Every one of the characters got a moment to shine. Even Pete’s childishness was used to good effect.

A New Hope picks up where Stand left off: The warehouse has been destroyed; Steve Jinks is dead. H.G. Wells is dead. Mrs. Frederick died with the warehouse. Pete, Myka, and Artie are left in wilderness of ruin. Worse, when the warehouse was destroyed, so was Pandora’s Box, and with it, hope(1), leading to mass despair and riots around the world. With only a strange, glowing watch and a few cryptic clues to go on, they have to try to repair things.

The watch turns out to be part of Magellan's astrolabe, which might give them the chance of getting the last twenty-four hours back: Enough time to prevent the destruction of the warehouse.

They lack the full resources of the warehouse, however, and the missing pieces of the artifact are guarded by descendants of the Templars, who are not known for being reasonable.

I applaud the actors and writers for their effective use of the space and for writing death scenes that worked even with the possibility of a revision. Pete, for example, stays in little boy mode when he dies, and it’s just about heartbreaking. He’s dying, it hurts, and he wants to know if he’s done the right thing and saved the day. Artie’s response, too, was amazing. He really is heartbroken, and is going to remember Pete’s death, even if they do succeed.

And hey, they used a reset button effectively. Usually, I really hate resets, but this revision worked. Even though they saved the world, they couldn’t save Jinks. They killed Sykes, however inadvertently, and Artie is going to remember Helena dying, and Pete dying, and having to leave Claudia in a trap. Worse, he cannot tell anyone else, and he’s been warned that using the artifact will create another evil that will haunt him (3). So, kudos to all involved! It was a good episode and a great start to a new season.

With Eureka gone, I need a new show. Warehouse 13 may just surprise me by being that show after all.

Note: As of this writing, A New Hope is still up on hulu. You can catch The Stand and Emily Lake are there, too, if you want to refresh your memory.

__

(1) Minor gripe here: According to the version I read, hope left the box and settled down happily in Pandora’s heart, so, you know, it couldn’t be destroyed. However, we could say that’s a result of the
(2) Ok, this part does bug me: Yeah, the crazy Templar person who wouldn’t listen to reason in the first place told him he couldn’t. What makes Artie decide he’s a reliable source of information? Or is Artie just erring on the side of caution because artifacts usually do have bad side effects?

Review, Once Upon a Time, A Land Without Magic

Short version: Now that's a finale! Action-packed, tied the season arc up nicely while opening a whole new set of possibilities for future seasons.

My longer version: up here on the Geek Girl Project (natch).

And an additional random note: My, Regina is stupid! Even with her magical abilities it's amazing she stayed in power, ore even alive, for any length of time. Rumpelstiltskin understands the power of keeping a bargain. She, on the other hand, goes right on antagonizing people, even when there is no reason whatsoever to do so! And angering Jefferson is really going to get her into trouble.

Minor grumble: How come ABC doesn't have Rumpelstiltskin turning Gaston into a rose as one of the available clips? It's the best scene ever!

Review of Eureka: Force Quit up on The Geek Girl Project

I finally watched & reviewed it.

Short version: Entertaining, but very much a middle episode. Holly's death is really starting to hurt.  Full review here, on The Geek Girl Project.

Review of Eureka, The Real Thing

Short version: Better than Lost, but not Eureka's best. Longer version: Up on the Geek Girl Project, natch!

Link to Review of Once Upon a Time, The Stranger

Right here, on The Geek Girl Project!

And don't miss Rebecca's review of Doctor Who, The Unearthly Child.

Once Upon a Time: The Return, a Review

Short version: Now that’s more like it! A Rumpelstiltskin story is always a win, and his motivation I believe!

Full version: Here, at The Geek Girl Project.

Link to Review of Return to Quag Keep

Short version: Fantastic intro, so so book. Longer version posted  here, at the Geek Girl Project.

Edit April 24: I started Quag Keep today, and my opinion of Return to Quag Keep has just plummeted. On its own, it's a mildly entertaining, paint-by-numbers read. As a sequel, it's dire.

Review of Eureka: Lost

Short version: No, the "twist" did not make up for the frustration of thinking they had hit the reset button again(1).

Longer version: Up on The Geek Girl Project.

(1) I actually like the Season 4 reset, since they had the guts to keep the changes, and the sense to make sure the core characters traveled together & kept their relationships, but things can be carried too far, and this would have been. "It was all a dream" is almost never a workable solution.

Review: Once Upon a Time, The Stable Boy

I have my review of Once Upon a Time: The Stable Boy written & posted. The full version is up on The Geek Girl Project. The short version: For the first time ever for an episode of Once Upon a Time: "Meh."