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grassangelThis one gets creepy points for having Bilis on the cover. That and Ianto with half a clown face. No one likes Bilis and Ianto just looks silly with that Photoshopping. (Never mind that it’s unintentionally hilarious, what with all those Joker manips people were making last year.) Oh and about ten minutes after you’ve looked at the cover, you realised they’ve altered the Jack of Hearts on the cover so that it has Jack’s face.
It’s definitely a weird book. The dream futures can never happen, although they could’ve where the novel is placed. Which kinda makes your head hurt all kinds of upside down, but because in general it’s extremely weird, I’m gonna take it as not canon. I mean, Bilis shows up again.
And in ONE page, three fourths of the way through, the entire story shifts from “Bilis is evil” to “He’s actually trying to save us”. Wut.
Anyway, that’s all I can say about it. Mostly just comments that you won’t get if you haven’t read the book.
Why do all WW2 women drivers have long auburn/red hair?
Sam from Foyle’s War has long strawberry blonde hair. She’s quite a cool character too. I am terribly excited by the news that there is a NEW series being made. Even though I don’t pay much attention when it is on, but that’s mostly because the main character doesn’t interest me and it’s just about SAM for me.
I hate the SUV. Well, I hate the fact that pretty much every novelisation has mentioned it and well, it’s the SUV. We’re treated to another page worth of the SUV and the habits surrounding it. (Okay, it’s only Ianto parking it and then removing a smudge with his handkerchief. Which is the same colour as his shirt.)
But we get a bit more later on about the SUV, but this time it’s just arguing whether they should put red lights in it and Owen complains it feels like Santa’s grotto and there’s joking about the door of Jack’s office leading to another dimension and Gwen and Ianto are generally funny for a few pages. They do lots of funnies those two in this book. Which is just about the only thing I like.
Which is continued, a bit randomly, in the last ten pages, there’s Jack and Ianto and Gwen being a mini-team and making jokes at each others expense. Which I was totally soaking up. There’s jokes about how Jack was saying SUV to save Gwen’s blushes to which she replies that she gave up listening a year ago and how Jack and Gwen are going to help Ianto bury a box in concrete but they certainly aren’t going to mix concrete with him.
I marked a whole page of Capt. Jack/Ianto dialogue. Firstly Jack tries to distract Ianto by joking about that date and ‘no offices or rooftops’, Ianto snarks and is acidic, prompting a comment about how the team had a mission in Tibet during his absence.
And really, that conversation is indicative of how Ianto is for the rest of the book. Snarky and acetic. Or at least until he wakes up from the light induced trance and is all ‘Jack! We have to save the world!’.
Well, except for when poor Ianto emos a bit about being bi to Gwen and does a mini-ramble about the merits of ABBA. The bit about ABBA is okay, it’s just I can’t stand the “woe is me, I’m bi” complaining.
There’s a dream sequence. Several in fact. But it’s only in the last one which is some combination of Jack and then Gwen’s which is awesome. Because Rhys decides to name his son after Jack and Ianto. Even though the dream-which-could-be-the-future could never come true.
There’s this strange joke about ‘technical terms’ in the books. Like someone will say something’s a bit goopy and someone else will comment “That a new technical term?” and there’s a bit of argument and then it is a new term. This time it’s doo-lally.
We get to feel sorry for Tosh and her unrequited love for Owen and we hear of “the toaster incident”. We learn that Jack uses chocolate to get onto roof tops. Which is amusingbut probably not canon.
There’s a bit too much Welsh mentioned in passing that isn’t explained. Fortunately I do have a Welsh dictionary bookmarked in my favourites, and I should know better when I’m reading something set in Wales but still. Although some of the other books that I’ve read that have used Welsh phrases at least had a contextual definition, like someone very obviously saying hello or goodbye. (Dictionary is here: http://www.geiriadur.net/)
*loves on Maori and its WYSIWYG written form* Okay, nobody but someone from New Zealand (and, debateably, Japan) would know that Petone is pronounced peh-toe-nee, but still, no triple consonants and you get a general idea of how it's supposed to be pronounced.
Now, a bit of a ramble.
“Everyone had that chance to turn left rather than right.” is one of the phrases that struck me as odd. I know that symbolically speaking, right is almost always considered the ‘light’ path and left the ‘dark’ path, but Turn Left had the ‘light’ path as left and the ‘dark’ path as right. I have no idea if there are any other Doctor Who episodes with a similar ‘left is good’ thing going on but… this book and it’s right=light theme AND The Wizard of London’s, which I was reading at the same time, seemed very odd after I remembered that episode.
After all, the sinister isn’t always wrong and bad, something I learnt from reading Margaret Mahy’s The Two Sisters, which I absolutely loved. (Which apparently has a chamber opera written for it.) It can be just as beautiful and good as the dexter, even if they are different. Lessons in fairytales 101.
So yes… felt a bit weird about this book and The Wizard of London keeping close to the usual narrative of light and dark/right and left-hand paths. Especially considering Turn Left.
Er... over all? I think I've already mentioned this, but it's weird. But I did like the funny bits.
It’s definitely a weird book. The dream futures can never happen, although they could’ve where the novel is placed. Which kinda makes your head hurt all kinds of upside down, but because in general it’s extremely weird, I’m gonna take it as not canon. I mean, Bilis shows up again.
And in ONE page, three fourths of the way through, the entire story shifts from “Bilis is evil” to “He’s actually trying to save us”. Wut.
Anyway, that’s all I can say about it. Mostly just comments that you won’t get if you haven’t read the book.
Why do all WW2 women drivers have long auburn/red hair?
Sam from Foyle’s War has long strawberry blonde hair. She’s quite a cool character too. I am terribly excited by the news that there is a NEW series being made. Even though I don’t pay much attention when it is on, but that’s mostly because the main character doesn’t interest me and it’s just about SAM for me.
I hate the SUV. Well, I hate the fact that pretty much every novelisation has mentioned it and well, it’s the SUV. We’re treated to another page worth of the SUV and the habits surrounding it. (Okay, it’s only Ianto parking it and then removing a smudge with his handkerchief. Which is the same colour as his shirt.)
But we get a bit more later on about the SUV, but this time it’s just arguing whether they should put red lights in it and Owen complains it feels like Santa’s grotto and there’s joking about the door of Jack’s office leading to another dimension and Gwen and Ianto are generally funny for a few pages. They do lots of funnies those two in this book. Which is just about the only thing I like.
Which is continued, a bit randomly, in the last ten pages, there’s Jack and Ianto and Gwen being a mini-team and making jokes at each others expense. Which I was totally soaking up. There’s jokes about how Jack was saying SUV to save Gwen’s blushes to which she replies that she gave up listening a year ago and how Jack and Gwen are going to help Ianto bury a box in concrete but they certainly aren’t going to mix concrete with him.
I marked a whole page of Capt. Jack/Ianto dialogue. Firstly Jack tries to distract Ianto by joking about that date and ‘no offices or rooftops’, Ianto snarks and is acidic, prompting a comment about how the team had a mission in Tibet during his absence.
And really, that conversation is indicative of how Ianto is for the rest of the book. Snarky and acetic. Or at least until he wakes up from the light induced trance and is all ‘Jack! We have to save the world!’.
Well, except for when poor Ianto emos a bit about being bi to Gwen and does a mini-ramble about the merits of ABBA. The bit about ABBA is okay, it’s just I can’t stand the “woe is me, I’m bi” complaining.
There’s a dream sequence. Several in fact. But it’s only in the last one which is some combination of Jack and then Gwen’s which is awesome. Because Rhys decides to name his son after Jack and Ianto. Even though the dream-which-could-be-the-future could never come true.
There’s this strange joke about ‘technical terms’ in the books. Like someone will say something’s a bit goopy and someone else will comment “That a new technical term?” and there’s a bit of argument and then it is a new term. This time it’s doo-lally.
We get to feel sorry for Tosh and her unrequited love for Owen and we hear of “the toaster incident”. We learn that Jack uses chocolate to get onto roof tops. Which is amusing
There’s a bit too much Welsh mentioned in passing that isn’t explained. Fortunately I do have a Welsh dictionary bookmarked in my favourites, and I should know better when I’m reading something set in Wales but still. Although some of the other books that I’ve read that have used Welsh phrases at least had a contextual definition, like someone very obviously saying hello or goodbye. (Dictionary is here: http://www.geiriadur.net/)
*loves on Maori and its WYSIWYG written form* Okay, nobody but someone from New Zealand (and, debateably, Japan) would know that Petone is pronounced peh-toe-nee, but still, no triple consonants and you get a general idea of how it's supposed to be pronounced.
Now, a bit of a ramble.
“Everyone had that chance to turn left rather than right.” is one of the phrases that struck me as odd. I know that symbolically speaking, right is almost always considered the ‘light’ path and left the ‘dark’ path, but Turn Left had the ‘light’ path as left and the ‘dark’ path as right. I have no idea if there are any other Doctor Who episodes with a similar ‘left is good’ thing going on but… this book and it’s right=light theme AND The Wizard of London’s, which I was reading at the same time, seemed very odd after I remembered that episode.
After all, the sinister isn’t always wrong and bad, something I learnt from reading Margaret Mahy’s The Two Sisters, which I absolutely loved. (Which apparently has a chamber opera written for it.) It can be just as beautiful and good as the dexter, even if they are different. Lessons in fairytales 101.
So yes… felt a bit weird about this book and The Wizard of London keeping close to the usual narrative of light and dark/right and left-hand paths. Especially considering Turn Left.
Er... over all? I think I've already mentioned this, but it's weird. But I did like the funny bits.
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no subject
Date: 2009-05-29 05:18 am (UTC)I get that this is a dream sequence thing, but that's kind of wtf and adorable all at once.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-29 08:56 am (UTC)