Muse: Monday Linky Love (With Added Geekery)
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Parker! Source, of course, for the amazing Point Blank! As well as two glorious new graphic novel adaptations (in a projected series of four) by Darwyn Cooke. The first two are THE HUNTER and THE OUTFIT.
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I've only seen The Hunter -- but it's a really lovely piece of work. The art is crisp and captures the tone of the book neatly, and the adaptation is faithful without being ritualistically inert.
Also, how fraking cool is it that all the Parker books are being brought back into print by the University of Chicago Press. Almost finished Butcher's Moon -- which is particularly welcome. This was the sixteenth Parker novel, and after it was published in 1974 (and never reprinted, AFAIK) Donald Westlake "rested" the character for almost twenty five years.
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Any reader who has a problem with an author failing to "properly" resolve a story ought to be sentenced to read only Samuel R. Delaney novels for the rest of their lives.
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Andre Alessi, in reply to
Any reader who has a problem with an author failing to “properly” resolve a story ought to be sentenced to read only Samuel R. Delaney novels for the rest of their lives.
No, they should be forced to watch LOST every day until they die from ennui.
EDIT: In case the reference wasn't apparent, I'm referring to this.
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NBH,
There are a few interesting omissions amongst the signatories to the genre fiction petition - particularly Gaiman, Mieville, and Pratchett. I can imagine Mieville being approached and choosing not to take part, but I would've thought that *Sir* Terry Pratchett would have both added a fair bit of weight and been keen on the idea. Neil Gaiman's absence also makes me wonder if there might be a bit of ironic genre-snobbery going on with regard to the comic world, given that neither Alan Moore nor Grant Morrison are on there either.
Very nice to see Dave Langford there though.
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Possibly Sir Terry Pratchett is a bit busy losing his mind :(
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Tamsin6, in reply to
Gaiman has been writing for Dr Who, which is for the BBC, so possibly not able to comment?
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85 Authors Protest At The BBC’s Treatment Of Genre Fiction. The Fundy Post's Paul Litterick is not impressed.
The bit where he called Lord of the Rings a "steaming pile of cliches" was....ironic, right? Right?
And I can confirm, for the record, that Game of Thrones is awesome. Not without a few minor flaws - the first episode reduction of the Dothraki from "complex culture" to "Semi-Naked Savage Brown Rape-y Type People" was, erm, problematic, but I'm crossing my fingers they'll move on from there. Although it does give Danaerys' entire arc a bit of a "The Natives Need A White Person To Save Them" slant that...I hadn't actually considered until now. Oh dear.
...and now I've put people off, but, no, seriously: good acting, good sets, good everything. I can't really tell you how it'd play without having read the books, because everyone I watched it with had, but even those who didn't remember most of the details (or character names) were hooked. If we're lucky, this might actually lead to TV reconsidering fantasy as a viable genre beyond Xena- or Hercules-style shows. (Well. They won't, probably, for reasons demonstrated in that NYT review. But I can dream.)
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It started here 2 minutes ago, but my husband has the remote. Grrrrrrr.............
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the first episode reduction of the Dothraki from "complex culture" to "Semi-Naked Savage Brown Rape-y Type People" was, erm, problematic
I'm sorry to tell you this, but Westeros and Environs is full of "rape-y type people" - and I think it's to Martin's credit that he neither romantic or evasive about how ugly a working patriarchy can be for the women who are traded like sides of beef. No matter how you cut it, Viserys pretty much sells his 14 year-old sister for an army. And (**SPOILERS SWEETIE!**) well down the line when Sansia Stark is forced to marry Tyrion Lannister (which neither of them want) what's his great kindness? He doesn't "force consummation" (i.e. rape her) on the wedding night, and is mocked for his troubles.
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I was surprised that while they were ok to leave the rape in, they weren't ok with Viserys being physically abusive towards his sister.
Instead they settled for his just being creepy and insane (which are both still accurate portrayals of his attributes in the books). -
NBH,
Given how expensive AGoT must be to make, this news was pretty heartening/ amazing: http://hbowatch.com/game-of-thrones-is-hbos-best-selling-series-abroad-ever/
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Lucy Stewart, in reply to
I'm sorry to tell you this, but Westeros and Environs is full of "rape-y type people" - and I think it's to Martin's credit that he neither romantic or evasive about how ugly a working patriarchy can be for the women who are traded like sides of beef. No matter how you cut it, Viserys pretty much sells his 14 year-old sister for an army. And (**SPOILERS SWEETIE!**) well down the line when Sansia Stark is forced to marry Tyrion Lannister (which neither of them want) what's his great kindness? He doesn't "force consummation" (i.e. rape her) on the wedding night, and is mocked for his troubles.
Okay, dude: that last post came as my opinion after having read the books multiple times. Westeros is no feminist paradise, I get that. I'm totally cool with that, in fact. What I don't get is why they apparently chose to reduce the complex Dothraki culture - in this first episode - down to "brown people who have public sex and public death-fights, and also are totally OK with raping their crying brides on their wedding night". Dany had way more agency and consent in the book than she did on the screen. Possibly that's down to the lack of seeing it through her PoV, possibly it's because they're trying to give her a clearer character arc from victim to khaleesi; I'm not sure. But it didn't work for me, or for any of the others who I watched it with.
I'd really love to believe they're going to bring the viewer into Dothraki culture the way Dany is brought in the book. But given American TV's record with depictions of non-white cultures, I'm dubious.
(And, really, I think the most ironic and or/sad thing about Tyrion's attempt to do the right thing and not rape his terrified thirteen-year-old bride is that even Sansa doesn't give him much real credit for it, while having romantic fantasies about coming *thisclose* to very possibly being raped at knifepoint. The guy just can't catch a break with women, can he?)
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
First, apologies for the gratuitously (and unintentional man-splain-y tone. Just been having too many waaaay creepy “book Dany and Guy-liner Man were so much more __romantic__” conversation. No. Really. Just stop. Now..
Think you’ve hit on a fair point: In the book (IIRC) she’s the POV narrator for everything that happens in the East, so can have a twenty page treatise on the customs of the Dothraki and her state of mind. Not so sure how you could ever translate that into television though..
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Lucy Stewart, in reply to
Think you’ve hit on a fair point: In the book (IIRC) she’s the POV narrator for everything that happens in the East, so can have a twenty page treatise on the customs of the Dothraki and her state of mind. Not so sure how you could ever translate that into television though..
Most of Dany's early stuff is trains of thought, covering some fairly serious lengths of time - not very TV friendly at all. There's going to be a similar challenge with characters like Jaime and Cersei, whose upgrade to POV characters allows them to be somewhat more sympathetic in later books - but on TV, that won't wash; they're going to have to have glimmers of not-total-dickishness from the beginning for it to work, since we don't get the benefit of suddenly being privy to their inner thoughts.
The good news, though, is that they now have a second season to work on this stuff. W00t.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
but on TV, that won’t wash
Bingo! I’ve seen some thoughtful qualified reviews that have said precisely that: In a perverse way, the show is too respectful of the book. The narrative mode Martin has chosen to tell his story (limited third-person through the eyes of a number of point of view characters) is a fascinating and tricky one, but it’s still a literary one that doesn’t translate to film or television well.
Something else: In a book, if you find yourself wondering “who the frak is this, and what the hell is going on” you can easily flip back in that old tech and refresh your memory. Slightly trickier when you’re trying to keep everything straight in a television show when you’re having new characters, and their knotty and toxic relationships, thrown at you every five minutes.
ETA: One of the best page-to-screen adaptations I've ever seen is LA Confidential -- which, wisely, took a chainsaw to Ellroy's trademark mare's nest of triple-crossing plot, sub-plots, batshit insane streams of consciousness Co-writers Curtis Hanson &
Brian Helgeland made the smart call to "to remove every scene from the book that didn't have the three main cops in it, and then to work from those scenes out". Because much as I love Ellroy, any literal transcript of one of his books would be a hundred hours long, triple-X rated and utterly incomprehensible. -
Jacqui Dunn, in reply to
Let's face it, making something visual out of something literary means basically taking the bare bones and making something brand new.
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I will be spending the rest of the day sobbing at the news that Elisabeth Sladen – my Sarah Jane – has died at the age of 63 after a long (and very private) struggle with cancer.
Lovely tribute from IO9’s Charlie Jane Anders here
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Sacha, in reply to
One of the best page-to-screen adaptations I've ever seen is LA Confidential
Brilliant movie for anyone looking to enjoy a couple of hours of cinematic magic over the long weekend.
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Yes sad to hear about Elisabeth Sladen too.
Plus one to what Jacqui said about adaptations, and Sacha said about LA Confidential.
85 Authors Protest At The BBC’s Treatment Of Genre Fiction. The Fundy Post’s Paul Litterick is not impressed.
The bit where he called Lord of the Rings a “steaming pile of cliches” was….ironic, right? Right?
The part where he said “at least nobody mentioned Margaret Atwood this time” was premature.
The BBC coverage also included interviews with Sarah Waters and Margaret Atwood – some of Atwood’s work, including The Handmaid’s Tale, has been described as science fiction.
From the BBC news article responding to Hunt’s claims. I guess she’ll never live it down…
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Lucy Stewart, in reply to
From the BBC news article responding to Hunt’s claims. I guess she’ll never live it down…
Constantly denying that she writes science fiction? She doesn't deserve to live it down. (But, because of that, also doesn't count as an example of the BBC featuring actual SF authors.)
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<i>Constantly denying that she writes science fiction? She doesn't deserve to live it down.</i>
And that's my big fucking bug bear about genre snobbery. You know something, Mags, if Nobel Prize-winner Doris Lessing (or our own Elizabeth Knox and Margaret Mahy) don't consider "writes genre fiction" an insult akin to "writes Tijuana donkey porn for drug money", you can deal.
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James Butler, in reply to
And that's my big fucking bug bear about genre snobbery.
It also doesn't help the whole "no true Scotsman" shenanigans people get into about defining SF - something like "All SF is drivel" - "No it isn't, authors like x, y and z write well respected literature which is SF" - "Oh well that doesn't count as SF because it's proper literature, and all SF is drivel". Ergo.
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@James Butler:
Hell, yes. That's falling into the genre snob trap of "Well, X. (which I happen to like) isn't really genre fiction because..."
Well, Margaret Atwood/Michael Chabron/Philip Roth/Cormac McCarthy are "real" writers, and they're not "really" writing genre fiction but allegories for things worthy of the attention of grown-ups.
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James Butler, in reply to
And props to Michael Chabon who is adamant that he does write Genre Fiction.
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