A plateful of cookies

So… I’m reading this series mostly because it had an entry on the Incompatible Sexuality page on TVTropes which convinced me. And because I knew shadowsinfire had copies, so I knew I had access to it. Also, she likes them and kept rambling on about them at me and so that plus the TVTropes entry made me read them.
But this post has still been a long time coming…

Anyway, Inda.
I did have a whole bunch of bookmarks in the book, but then an opportune time came for me to return it before I got to write this. But most of them were mostly squee type stuff, so you probably aren’t missing out on much. Even if they were important, they generally fell under the following points.

( There are pointy things following. )

And now… The Fox, which took far longer to read, because I did that abominable thing where I skip ahead and then have to forget about most of it before I read through it solid. That and during my skimming ahead, all that I saw was boring pirate ship sequences. And that all the interesting bits were all short and didn’t contribute much to the overall plot except to placefill as “this is what happened to these characters in these seven months”.
Aside from all that though, I kind of liked it more than Inda, mostly because the timelines made sense and there were cases where you were actually told how long had passed rather than just guessing at times. (No, there really was a line which went along the lines of “And seven months passed” which I was SO grateful to see.)

General things of interest that were the exciting and/or interesting bits: the coup resulting in Evered ascending to the throne, pretty much any scene with Hadand, Fox's epic burn and escape rescue thing, Tdor and Evered being mopey over Inda, the plot to help Evered survive his brother and Uncle and Tau and Jeje being awesome.
Things that were interesting but were a little boring at the same time: the Dag conspiracy, the Venn political conspiracy-ings, Ramis and Tau’s politicking.

( I have bookmarks, a lot of them. Let me go through them all. Some are reiterations of the points above. )

I have not done one of these in a while... mostly because I haven't been taking a lot of books out from the library and have been mostly borrowing books from friends. (Almost finished with My Sister's Keeper and almost halfway through Inda!)
But anyway, I read this a while ago with the intention of finding what all the fuss is about and to write a blog about it.

Now, I have to explain why I picked up this book. It is not a book I would usually pick up, since the blurb babbles on about this Margo being this weird crazy person, and I’m kind of happy living the life of Margo Roth Spiegelman with my friends.
However, I somehow stumbled across “Black Santas” a song based on a character’s house and the fact that John Green is a) one of these vloggers who is apparently quite famous and b) is part of the NY YA coterie. Now, I quite like Holly Black and Scott Westerfeld, I find Maureen Johnson’s twitter amusing, I’ve tried reading Justine Larbalestier’s books but haven’t liked them much and… I can’t remember any other names. But I thought hey, I’ll give this book a shot, since the song is fun and he keeps good company.

( It was… odd. I rather like the first part, where Q and Margo do crazy things in the middle of the night. (I don't ramble on for too long.) )

So yes. I don’t particularly like the MacGuffin plot device that is Margo Roth Spiegelman. I don’t like the girl she portrays, I don’t like her attitude and I particularly don’t like the themes that she carries.

This book did make me fucking miss everyone from Athena though, if only because everyone else was kind of awesome.

So yeah, my opinion on this is that generally if you have strong opinions about who you are and where you're going and are kind of used to the unusual, you probably won't find it as enjoyable as someone who likes the normal and doesn't quite have an idea who they are. (Meaning INSTANT YA bestseller! *gumble grumble*)

Once upon a time, I read the book before this, Evil Genius. I liked it, and was vaugely sad that there appeared to be no plans for a sequel.
Fast forward a couple of years and, as I’m browsing in a book store, I spot The Genius Wars, which aside from being by the same person also had ‘genius’ in the title and a similar cover to Evil Genius. I then pick this up and discover that HOLY CRAP, it’s the THIRD book in the series. As in… she’s not just written a sequel BUT A SEQUEL TO THAT.
Cue me reserving at the library.

I have now obviously finished it and I’m reading the third currently. (And hee, it only comes out in the US this year, in October. A year after its release over here and in Australia. Yay~)
it was a bit disconcerting reading this though, as I had mostly forgotten what had happened in Evil Genius aside from the fact that the main character was an awesome anti-hero and the story in general was good and contained chases and explosions and mind-fuckery.

( So it was a little confusing when it kept referring to events in the previous book )

I could swear that the title of this book is also the name of a song that I had. Except it’s not.
Anyway, it’s from the first shiny new batch of novelisations set after season two. (I don’t think they’re going to do post-CoE, mostly because… these look to be tiring enough, what would it be like with an even more reduced cast?) And… I think I already see a pattern. Jack is Jack and tries to solve everything on his own, because he doesn’t want his precious people™ to die. Gwen is ~helpful~, or at least tries to be. And Ianto is left being the person everything happens to. No. Seriously. In Almost Perfect he was the one body-swapped and in all the other ones, it appears as if he’s the one who falls sick/is in a coma/picked on because he’s still, somehow, the teaboy.
I’d almost forgive this if, you know, everyone got vaguely decent attention and characterisation paid to them, like the other novelisations did. The authors loved Owen and sometimes Jack and the stories would be based around them and would be so much better for it.
Except this book and Almost Perfect try to concentrate on all three of them at once and T3 ends up having all the charisma and interest of a slug. The story itself is affected too, which is the really horrible bit. They kind of bumble along in a Simpsons’-like manner, the beginning only marginally related to the end.

Anyway, going back to the pattern. Ianto, of course, gets treated according to this pattern. Well, perhaps not quite as woobieish as falling sick, but Gwen does volunteer him to sing and put himself in the line of danger. Because, as everyone knows, all Welsh are good singers. *can only name two off the top of her head, which is not any great number* Although, earlier, he does admit to having done some singing before.
BUT Gwen does that weird trying to be helpful but just ends up being awkward and I never thought I’d see that characterisation of her outside of fanfic.
I’ve already mentioned the horrible characterisation, haven’t I?
I do have to admit though, all the sequences where Ianto does sing makes me smile and snigger. I know the not eating dairy (or having red wine or coffee) and the Italian terms because of all my friends who are musically inclined and sing.

( But there are funny things... )

( ...and OT3 moments... )

( ...and luckily the bad characterisation doesn't affect Rhys and Gwen's relationship... )

( ...but it does to the one-shot character, for a certain value of 'bad characterisation'. )


( Also of issue is the end. )

But the book adverts in the back for upcoming novelisations and info books is fun. One of the Victorian members has been unfrozen and everyone has to follow the 1901 edition of the Torchwood handbook. I’m hoping this means Gwen in a dress.
There’s also a short story collection ‘Consequences’ which looks really interesting. It’s not so much about Torchwood, but, as you may guess, the consequences of their actions. I so, so, so want to read/get that.

So. Not dead. Nor a zombie, but hey, it's Halloween and I thought it'd be fun to use that as a subject title.
I've just been very, very busy.

This weekend is, thankfully, mostly free, but the second weekend of October was my birthday, the weekend after that was DubDub's birthday party and the weekend after that was my mum's.

Couple with the fact this week I had my first proper driving lesson, that MONDAY is the last assessment for the diploma part of my course (and yeah... we need to do a lot. INCLUDING CANAPES, the most fiddly thing ever. Even if they are pretty.)

Uh... I also have some other things hanging over my head, like correspondance work that I should be doing and finishing and putting up fic and... just writing in general; sewing, although it's mostly altering, not crafty stuff :(
I should also make some ginger choc chip cookies sometime again.
A couple more birthdays coming up too...

Why does life have to be so full? *is doing displacement activities with Facebook games and crossover fanfiction*

( Which reminds me, I found some gems of crossovers and regular non-crossovered fanfiction! )

Also, I have new pyjamas (I do not look good in pyjama SHORTS but eee, new pyjamas!) and have Unseen Academicals and the new Audrey Niffenegger book to read. *is excited*
Oh and there may be a few secrets popping up on fandom_secrets that are very obviously me. If you pay attention to these entries that is.