media round-up
Jul. 12th, 2025 02:37 pm• Zoo City was an almost-great book - the writing style was engaging, the protagonist was compelling in her bitterness, the concept of being Animaled was ballsy in its co-opting of Pullman's dæmons. It just kind of forgot to let anything the protagonist did... matter? Oops.
• "A demon-hunting KPop group finds itself on a new battlefield when the demons launch their own boy band" is such a perfect comedy movie premise! For some reason, though, the movie also wedged in a cliche dramatic plot-line it didn't really have time for or do anything new with, and in fact the more I think about said plot-line the more questions I have. KPop Demon Hunters was still, somehow, a pretty fun watch. The energetic animation and catchy songs definitely helped.
• Re-read The Prefect, which was the first Alastair Reynolds book I ever read, back in the day! Reynolds' character work has always been fairly average, but his character and world concepts are so thought-provoking I tend not to mind.
• If I had ever been a big Murderbot fan, I suspect I'd be genuinely very annoyed by the TV adaptation. As it is, I'm still exasperated by some of the choices and by the fact streaming seems to have permanently crushed the industry's ability to tell a well-paced logical fucking story, but I'm at least enjoying individual segments. It's a strong cast (Mensah especially) and when they get a well-scripted scene, they deliver on it! Alas...
• I'm nearly at the end of Babylon 5's first season, which may get its own post if I can find the energy. I'm into it overall, and it's very interesting to experience in a time-capsule sort of way as well, which is the mark of good sci-fi.
• "A demon-hunting KPop group finds itself on a new battlefield when the demons launch their own boy band" is such a perfect comedy movie premise! For some reason, though, the movie also wedged in a cliche dramatic plot-line it didn't really have time for or do anything new with, and in fact the more I think about said plot-line the more questions I have. KPop Demon Hunters was still, somehow, a pretty fun watch. The energetic animation and catchy songs definitely helped.
• Re-read The Prefect, which was the first Alastair Reynolds book I ever read, back in the day! Reynolds' character work has always been fairly average, but his character and world concepts are so thought-provoking I tend not to mind.
• If I had ever been a big Murderbot fan, I suspect I'd be genuinely very annoyed by the TV adaptation. As it is, I'm still exasperated by some of the choices and by the fact streaming seems to have permanently crushed the industry's ability to tell a well-paced logical fucking story, but I'm at least enjoying individual segments. It's a strong cast (Mensah especially) and when they get a well-scripted scene, they deliver on it! Alas...
• I'm nearly at the end of Babylon 5's first season, which may get its own post if I can find the energy. I'm into it overall, and it's very interesting to experience in a time-capsule sort of way as well, which is the mark of good sci-fi.
no subject
Date: 2025-07-13 03:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-13 03:35 am (UTC)There are just a tonne of other really weird scripting choices in play, and it built up to a point that this really critical moment in the climax missed the target with me by a mile and like 😂 It's not a very complex story! It shouldn't have been this hard to adapt!
no subject
Date: 2025-07-13 01:02 pm (UTC)