Marian's comments (member since Aug 16, 2008)

Marian's comments from the SciFi and Fantasy Book Club group.

Yes, I'm now actively looking forward for more Dollhouse episodes! Even though the character of Caroline annoys me to no end :P

Yeah, good question... if they have to be suicides, what happened to the bodies from Seattle, and if it doesn't have to be suicides, why toy with Zero and fellow living people by giving them food and pills?

I just finished this book. I agree with Ubik, Brad, and Barbara on several points. First, the second half of the book felt a lot weaker than the first. I think I literally rolled my eyes when Dr. Briggs revealed that he was working on modified grenades. Really? That's your proposed solution to a worldwide epidemic, to blow stuff up? And why did they specifically need Norman to do it? It almost made me wonder what they were going to do with their grenades if Norman didn't show up. All the super high-tech things kind of felt cheesy too.

That brings me to my second issue... It seemed entirely implausible to me, that with the population of the entire world, with all kinds of people that didn't kill themselves, that nobody had tried to kill a Collector. Them being "weird" is no reason for not killing one of them. Especially in the beginning when they started showing up, it felt to me incredibly unrealistic that nobody tried to blow up their helicopters or at least kill a few, keep some hostages and interrogate them in an attempt to find out what's going on.

I also thought the character of Zero was a bit unbelievable. She acted mostly like an adult, and then as if to remind everyone that she's 11yo, she would randomly start doing "little girl things" like skip instead of walk, or prance around "like a ballerina".

Oh, and the bit with Maria... felt a bit redundant and forced to me. When she first showed up, I kind of rolled my eyes a little and thought "I bet he wants to sleep with her", and hey, look at what happens.

Sarah Pi wrote: "A slideshow of imagined alternate versions by alternate directors.

http://www.slate.com/id/2212953/slideshow/2212955/"

That was hilarious! Especially <3 the Woody Allen bit.

=P Marc, that actually salvaged the idea of the series a little bit in my mind; I appreciate "unhappy" endings, for some reason. Thanks for letting me know :)

Regarding Thomas Covenant, what I thought was stereotypical about it was the whole "massive evil, one man with the power to save the world" idea present in the first book, whether he does end up saving it by the end of the fifth, I don't know. I actually thought the character concept of Thomas Covenant is pretty neat, just poorly executed. Like Marc said, the language was waaay overdone... for me, what kills a piece of work more than anything - and believe me I've liked a few books with dumb ideas - is how bad the writing is. Oh, giving a giant, who steers a boat, the name of "Saltheart Foamfollower" kind of, eh, made me facepalm. =P

Sorry I ranted a little, it just really wasn't my type, I probably should've done some research before plunging into it without knowing anything about it.

I absolutely agree with you John! I thought the book was better in the sense that it had more depth and complexity (especially the part regarding Black Freighters and the news stand), but the movie ending made so much more sense to me. I still really enjoyed the movie though, as a whole, and was surprised by how it paid attention to many little details in the book (the snow globe that Laurie saw in her childhood, for example), and so many scenes from the movie felt like very faithful replications.

What Danielle said is what I understand too, that Joss Whedon was forced to "sell out" the first 5 (or 6?) episodes because Fox wants to make it so any idiot can jump in at any time and "catch on" to what's happening. It still irks me that Fox wouldn't trust Joss to deliver, but I guess there's television politics for you. I'm optimistic though and will probably keep watching.

Worst book I've read this year (so far) has to be Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson. I heard it was only the first of a series of 5, and I just can't imagine so much trash actually making it to mainstream fiction. Every single hackneyed, cliched fantasy element is blown completely out of proportion with a horrible, awkward writing. Saving the "world" from impending evil and doom with the power of a magical ring? Really??

lol, obviously there are people out there who liked it, so this book just made me wonder if I really just don't like traditional fantasy elements.

Woot. I just finished this book and liked it a lot, although I still haven't figured out who a few of the characters are supposed to be, or what the familiars' names are in reference to. I believe my knowledge of gothic lore is quite impoverished. I would love it if in the end, we could all assemble a comprehensive list of these references, so I can look them up for a crash course :P

I haven't read many SF/Fantasy short stories that really impacted me that much, at least that I can remember, but I read one recently that's still fresh on my mind that stood out as really good (and kind of depressing). It's called "The People of Sand and Slag" by Paolo Bacigalupi.

I read it in the Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse anthology, but the whole story is also available online on the author's website http://windupstories.com/pumpsix/the-peo...

I'm finding the illustration to be more of a distraction than anything else. It's not a style I like, yet it's there, full page, and I can't help but stopping to look at it and think about how I don't like it every two pages. I'll try to ignore it better :P