Tassie Dave’s Comments (group member since Mar 27, 2011)

Tassie Dave’s comments from the The Sword and Laser group.

I don't think they have a US date for the mini-series yet. Soon-ish

It was on BBC Two

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_co...

It seems to be a different club, but with the same name

http://www.oldfirehousebooks.com/swor....

Great work Mark

A few I have found:

The Golden Compass
Ender's Game
The Eye of the World

The Blade Itself

Sean wrote: "John (Taloni) wrote: "^ Probably not, as those are Victorian romances."

Argh! Jane Austen wrote in the Napoleonic Era. She died two years before Queen Victoria was even born."

Technically all of Jane Austen's literature are Regency Era and Georgian Era.

The British would be aghast at you describing it as Napoleonic Era. ;-)

Rob wrote: "All Systems Red is $2 today.

I haven't read it, and it's SUPER short (3.25 hours), but reviews look good so I'll give it a shot for $2. Cheaper than a movie."

If you had signed up for tor.com 's newsletter you would have got this free 2 weeks ago.

I have got over a dozen free books in the last year just from getting the newsletter and signing up for their eBook of the month club.

https://ebookclub.tor.com/

Louie wrote: "Nnedi Okorafor also wrote this Black Panther miniseries, Black Panther: Long Live the King."

She has a few comics coming out soon.
The two series already mention. (Antar & Black Panther).
Also Amazing Spider-Man: Wakanda Forever on June 27th
and she has a story called The Elgort in the new anthology series "Mystery in Space" (May 9 issue)

Name puns, now I am really bored. :-)

That would be more funny if you knew my last name. ;-)

It's a homonym BTW.

Finished up A Conjuring of Light to finish off the brilliant Shades of Magic series.

Great job Rob :-)

Rob wrote: "Tassie Dave ....... helped create and maintains the S&L Wiki. "

I don't do all the Wiki maintenance. Sean Sandulak and Mark Mmtz do a fair bit on the Wiki too and Veronica set it all up to start with

It's a team effort :-)

Caitlin wrote: "It seems silly until you realize that it's pathetic how many works don't pass it."

That's not why I think it's silly. I agree with diversity in fiction and support us having more of it. I think it's silly because I can think of many ways of passing that test that would not please a female audience. Just as I can think of many ways of failing it in work that would be praised by women.

It is too simplistic a set of rules to cover all ways to make works more female representative.

Das Boot is a great movie, but fails the test because it doesn't have a single female character. (It's set on an all male german submarine)

Firefly fails in most episodes despite having 4 strong female characters.

Sex in the City fails quite a few episodes despite having a female cast. Do they talk about anything else but men? Yet it is targeted at women.

Friends probably failed quite regularly too with a 50/50 split of the main cast.

You could just paste the links if you don't know how to use html code.

Here is the interview with Alison Bechdel I think you meant to link to.

The cartoon that inspired it

and the Bechdel Test Wikipedia page

I guess it wouldn't pass that test. Mainly because we see the entire relationship from Howard's viewpoint. Even if we did hear a conversation between Bridgitte and another woman (most likely her daughters), in the context of the story it would most likely have been about Howard. We certainly get their view of him from secondary sources.

But to say it's all about the romance is not quite right. They have a lifelong friendship/working/political relationship.

I will spoiler tag the next bit as it is very spoilery

(view spoiler)[It only becomes a relationship after Bridgitte's husband dies. Before that Howards feelings for Bridgitte are totally one sided (unrequited). He backs off as soon as he knows she has feelings for another man. (hide spoiler)]

I had to look up the Bechdel test and it does seem rather a silly test.

The Bechdel test asks whether a work of fiction features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. The requirement that the two women must be named is sometimes added.

Would all of Jane Austen's work pass this test?

Stephen wrote: "Ohhh, book #3 does that in a very nice way."

It is a shame most people won't read that. There is a really bitter sweet romance in that book that is handled very humanly by that version of Bob. Over many decades.

In the end it gives the readers here several of the things that they feel are missing from Book 1 (view spoiler)[A strong female character, a female AI, A Bob (Howard) showing real human emotions that run the full spectrum of human relationships (including physical) (hide spoiler)]

Rick wrote: "I also tend to hate flashbacks.... they interrupt the story and are basically infodumps. "

You must have hated Lost ;-)

I'm looking forward to watching this. The trailers look ok.

I loved the original LiS as a kid. I watched some of it in it's first run.

Makes me feel really old that it was set 32 years in the future. (1997) Which to us now is 21 years ago :-?

Rik wrote: "I really kept expecting one or more of the Bobs to create a Jenny in their VR space given the earlier references to how had been crushed by the breakup. "

The other Bobs would have found that a bit creepy.

Not saying that one (or more) of the Bobs couldn't have done that on the down-low ;-)

Rob wants to be Bill
and William wants to be Bob.

Straight swap ;-)

Vandals & Defilers :-0

I may have got the wrong impression, but Maccon grabs Alexia and starts groping her while she's trying to push him off, or at least stop his wandering hands.

After this it becomes a consensual act, but before that he is acting very caddish and ungentlemanly.

Again, I don't read Paranormal Romance, so this may be a trope in werewolves/human relations.

I finished it last night and overall I enjoyed it. Not enough to read the rest of the series, but it was a solid 3 star.

I wasn't a fan of the sex scenes (view spoiler)[The first 2 in the book have Lord Maccon sexually assaulting Alexia. I don't normally read Paranormal Romance and werewolves making the aggressive first move and the woman resisting, then eventually joining in might be a thing in that genre but it felt a bit rapey to me :-?

In both cases it is only the intervention of other people that stop it going all the way.

No should always mean no. Not, no, no, no, okay if you're not going to stop then yes (hide spoiler)]

I think it would be safe to assume it's going to be a Sword pick.

We've had 3 Laser picks and 1 that was a mix (mainly Sword) so far this year.

Iain wrote: "Yes it was a bit fast and easy I mean [spoilers removed]"

We are a superpower (view spoiler)[(in our region) ;-) (hide spoiler)]
Have you never met a pissed off Maori? Especially when the All Blacks lose to the Wallabies (view spoiler)[Hey I'm old, it did occasionally happen a long time ago ;-) (hide spoiler)]

I did find those parts of the book amusing.