Canavan’s Comments (group member since May 15, 2018)

Canavan’s comments from the Spells, Space & Screams: Collections & Anthologies in Fantasy, Science Fiction, & Horror group.

Lena said: Welcome to the PG13 underworld of Boba Fett, kinda like Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles with out humor or pizza

I apologize if I’m dampening the enthusiasm anyone may have for this project, but the experience of watching The Rise of Skywalker was such a deflating experience, I’ve pretty much lost all interest in following Disney’s treatment of its Stars Wars IP.

Randy said: I was a bit underwhelmed by "Werewolves Within," though entertained by it. I did like the chemistry between the two leads, though

My appreciation of this one probably falls somewhere between yours and Jeff’s. I concur about Vayntrub and Richardson. They’re the two best things about the film. The rest of the actors seem as though they’re playing “types” rather than flesh-and-blood human beings, the consequence being that I cared not a whit about any of them. The fun picks up a bit in the last act, enough so that I found myself willing to forgive the film for some of its shortcomings.

I finished watching the new Dune movie this evening. Overall, this version earns a pretty solid thumbs up. If nothing else, it really does an excellent job of visually conveying the immense scale and grandiosity of Frank Herbert’s vision. Of course, even at a running time of two and a half hours and spanning only half of Herbert’s lengthy novel, a lot of the book’s detail winds up on the cutting room floor. (view spoiler)[I was little disappointed, for example, that there was no mention made of the Mentat concept. While largely faithful to the novel, there were a few other alterations which caught my attention. Dr. Yueh’s betrayal along with the idea of Imperial Conditioning are given short shrift in a manner which I felt diminished some of the drama inherent in Leto’s downfall. And Jamis’ death (which closes Part One) is handled a bit differently, omitting a key scene from the novel that I alway liked. (hide spoiler)] Those and a few other reservations aside, I hope that Part Two is given a green light by Warner Bros.

Rating for this film along with a few other things I’ve watched in the last few weeks:

Les Quat’Cents Farces du diable (The Merry Frolics of Satan), Georges Méliès (1906) ✭✭✭½
Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life, Fred Waller (1935) ✭✭✭½
Major Barbara, Gabriel Pascal (1941) ✭✭
Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, John Huston (1957) ✭✭✭✭
Original Cast Album: Company, D. A. Pennebaker (1970) ✭✭✭✭
Gap-Toothed Women, Les Blank (1987) ✭✭½
Black Widow, Cate Shortland (2021) ✭✭✭½
Come from Away, Christopher Ashley (2021) ✭✭✭✭
Dune: Part One, Denis Villeneuve (2021) ✭✭✭✭
Fear Street: 1994, Leigh Janiak (2021) ✭✭✭
McDonald & Dodds, Series 2 (2021) ✭✭✭½
Schmigadoon!, Barry Sonnenfeld, Season 1 (2021) ✭✭✭
The Suicide Squad, James Gunn (2021) ✭✭✭½
Ted Lasso, Season 2 (2021) ✭✭✭✭
Werewolves Within, Josh Ruben (2021) ✭✭✭½

“The Diabolist”

(view spoiler)[In this short story, an imp is mistakenly abducted from its abode in Hell with (naturally) unforeseen consequences. This turned out to be one of those tales where I found the underlying ideas intriguing, but the actual plot less so. The story is essentially about the problematic nature of love — the forms it takes, the extremes it pushes us to, and the unhappiness/loneliness it can often engender. It is telling that in Nathan Ballingrud’s universe love is manufactured in Hell. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭

“The Atlas of Hell”

(view spoiler)[In the the opening story, a skillful mashup of noirish and horror elements, an antiquarian bookseller is dispatched by a local hood to the Louisi­ana bayou to find and retrieve a book that supposedly allows its possessor to summon objects from Hell. That’s not quite what he finds.

This story starts to build up a kind of mythology of Hell that I found grotesquely fascinating. It was somewhat reminiscent of some of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy tales and also some of Clive Barker’s stuff, particularly The Scarlet Gospels. I found Ballingrud’s idea of tourists in Hell wearing protective boxes on their heads simultaneously amusing and horrifying. If I have a complaint, it might hinge on my feeling that the story’s conclusion was a bit too open-ended. I was hoping for more. I can easily imagine Ballingrud expanding this novelette into a novel. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭✭½

Lena (quoting Tiana) said (in part): Unfortunately, we would not be able to allow you to post external links on the Goodreads site as this feature has been disabled to deter spam from the site for all members.

While the goal (spam reduction) is laudable, this seems like a sledgehammer solution. I suppose it has the virtue of being the easiest (cheapest) approach to the problem, but the side effects strike me as kinda drastic. “We had to destroy Goodreads in order to save it.”

Right now I seem to be able to post image links, but will that continue?

Fiona said (in part): I suppose this is something Amazon-y about SEO not being able to pull anything from images?

I was vaguely thinking this might somehow fall in line with other recent changes on linking that is aimed at deterring spammers. (One of the problems these days with Goodreads is that you’re often forced to guess about stuff like this. They have become increasingly opaque in their communications with their user base.)

Lena said (in part): And and and.. sigh, the last good Bond was Casino Royal.

I haven’t seen the new Bond yet, but I wanted to push back a little on your comment as it relates to the Craig-era Bond films. I thought Skyfall (Craig’s third appearance in the franchise) was very good. (I go back and forth about whether Skyfall or Casino Royale was the better movie.)

Lena said: GR is trying to ban images on the site. Fewer and fewer users still have the capability and GR is asking us to rat on each other.

I have heard bits and pieces about this issue, but nothing specific or remotely official. Has there been any sort of official policy announcement by Goodreads about this change and, if so, where might I find it?

Test:

Lena wrote: The Targareans are back, if less attractive

Yeah, I’ll be watching this one.

Fiona asked: What's let you down Canavan?

I agree with you that the show is often gorgeous looking, Fiona. It’s the story that is coming up (at least a bit) short so far. Isaac Asimov’s Foundation stories were always primarily about ideas rather than character. The show’s writers have done a fair job of transferring to the screen the broad outline of those concepts (especially in the first episode). In the absence of much character building in the stories, the show’s writers have (quite reasonably) opted to manufacture it for the series. But it’s here I feel they’ve fallen short. The plot thread involving Cleon’s clones strikes me as an uninteresting distraction from the events on Terminus. And there have been a couple of sexual relationships/scenes that I found a bit gratuitous. I could go on, but I hope you get the idea. At this point, I just don’t find any of these people very compelling. And if the show’s writers mimic the episodic structure of Asimov’s stories, this may be a continuing problem that is hard to overcome. I’ll stick with the series for the time being, but I am concerned.

Has anyone else been watching Apple’s Foundation? If so, any opinions? I have to say my primary reaction to this point (Episode 3) has been one of disappointment.

Randy said: Older tradition than that. There were a lot of stories with roughly that set-up in the late 1800s and early 1900s, including The Turn of the Screw.

They’re not horror (more fantasy-adventure, I suppose), but these “club” stories always remind me of Lord Dunsany’s Jorkens tales, written between 1925 and 1957. I keep meaning to re-read these.

Lena wrote: The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands ★★★☆☆

This one always struck me as a story that was influenced by Kipling.

Lena wrote: Cain Rose Up was published in what looks like a design magazine. Weird to think of 60s housewives picking furniture then landing on that story.

According to the ISFDB site, “Cain Rose Up” appeared in Ubris, a short-lived literary journal that was published by the University of Maine. It’s now mostly remembered for having published a number of Stephen King’s stories and poems when he was a student there.

On the other hand, “Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut” first appeared in Redbook, the now-defunct American women’s magazine.

J. wrote: Why does The Matrix sound the way it does?

Thanks for posting the link, J. Very interesting. Sideways does a good job describing the technical aspects of Don Davis’ film score for the Matrix films. And yet, if I’m being honest, my reaction to them has alway been pretty meh. Davis wouldn’t even appear on my top 20 list of favorite film composers.

Lena said: King was pretty proud when he got a story in Playboy.

Yeah, I sorta recall that. I know he got a few of his pieces into Playboy, but “Word Processor of the Gods” was the first. I also remember that many of his early stories first saw publication in men’s magazines, particularly Cavalier.

Lena wrote: The Raft ★★★☆☆
Now I know the inspiration for Star Trek’s Skin of Evil. RIP Tasha Yar.

Ugh. I hated that TNG episode. At least Tasha got to come back in “Yesterday’s Enterprise”, a far, far better episode.

I like “The Raft” more than you, Lena, but I see it as significantly flawed. There are aspects of the personal interactions on the raft that I find problematic. If I’m being totally honest, what appeals to me most about the story, and what overrides my misgivings about its psychological components, is the gruesome stuff. I found the account pretty harrowing. I will also admit that my perception of this story may be biased — a case of judging something while wearing rose-colored glasses. I first read this story a zillion years ago when it first came out and was very impressed by it. Were I to read it today with fresh eyes, I wonder if my opinion would be the same.

A quick personal aside. This story first appeared in one the many men’s magazines of that era called Gallery. I was a big Stephen King fan at the time and I remember borrowing a copy from an acquaintance so I could read the tale. It was probably was of the few times in history when someone was able to truthfully say that they wanted a copy of a men’s magazine in order to read the articles. 😉

Lena said: The Jaunt ★★★★½>

I was totally unsurprised by your high rating of this story, Lena. It seems to be one of King’s favorites. Almost everyone loves it. It probably says something unflattering about me that whenever I read it all I seem to be able to focus on are what I regard as its flaws.

Lena said (in part): I guess there was also a bit of Nietzsche vs Hegel, a question of what was wrong or what was right and if it even mattered.

Yes, that’s an interesting point.

Lena also said: I liked them evenly as I did with The Shining. King would strongly disagree there too, lol.

Lol. I am probably totally alone when it comes to The Shining . I find myself agreeing with the majority of King’s complaints about the film version. (view spoiler)[Jack Nicholson comes off as batshit crazy almost from the drop, Shelly Duvall acts like a wet noodle, etc. (hide spoiler)] The movie as a whole just doesn’t gel for me on an emotional level (I often have that issue with Kubrick’s films), but it’s composed of at least a few great individual moments (e.g., the ending). On the other hand, I have never particularly cared for the book either. Danny Torrance is more the focus of the novel. He’s one of those precocious kids that populated a number of King’s earlier stuff. Without going into detail, Danny never really worked all that well for me, particularly during the final part of the novel. I liked the book, but found it to be rather mediocre.