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Dec. 8th, 2009 07:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyShort recommendations time!
Book-wise, I just finished Swordspoint and The Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner (those were both![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
zingerella-recs that she thought I'd like, as opposed to the times when she gives me books that she thinks it'll be funny to hear me rant about). I couldn't put either of them down. They're swashbuckling fantasy, with no actual magic, and no glossing over of the ugly class and gender dynamics of period settings, which made me quite a happy girl.
I preferred Privilege, as it had an engaging female lead who did stuff, and a host of secondary female characters who also did stuff, and talked to each other about things other than a man. And it skirted the other big problem in writing strong female characters, particularly in genre fiction, wherein "strong" is defined as "kicking ass" without having to resort to vagaries such as character development. Katherine kicks a substantial amount of ass, don't get me wrong, but the less ass-kicking characters, from the traditionally girlie Artemesia to the brilliant-but-dumpy Flavia, are just as interesting and well-developed.
Also, it has hot boys making out. Well, hot boys in one book and hot middle-aged men in the other book. And beautifully witty dialogue.
On the non-fiction end, I'm almost finished reading The Authoritarians, available for free online. It's an accessible study of the authoritarian personality, both that of followers and leaders. I don't think it's covering any new ground and I'm not entirely sure I buy Altemeyer's methodology or conclusions, but it's definitely an interesting read, and it very much describes some of the more puzzling things about the Right (or, in the case of people I more frequently encounter, what I'd term the "reflexively Right").
The last movie I saw was Alien Apocalypse, courtesy of PopeJohn. It has Bruce Campbell fighting giant termites, so if you like that kind of thing (I do) you should check it out. Also it's shot in Bulgaria, and most of the actors don't speak English, so the dialogue is horribly and hilariously dubbed in.
I've acquired a bunch of new music lately, most notably LAL's 10-year anniversary CD, Tom Waits' Glitter and Doom (thanks tooutcastspice), and a very weird CD by Tim Buckley (thanks to culpster). I also discovered a great new band called Sunday Driver, a steampunk band with Indian classical influences. They have three free songs that you can download on their site, and I liked those so much that I bought the album (see, it works), which is hopefully in the mail.
Oh! TV. Well, I finished Deadwood and am now bereft, in the way I was when Oz and Six Feet Under ended. As in "what am I going to like as much now?" I suppose when Mad Men starts up again I'll have something, but really, Deadwood is a fucking masterpiece and why would they ever cancel something so great? And don't tell me to get into The Wire; I watched the first season and found it too triggering.
Book-wise, I just finished Swordspoint and The Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner (those were both
zingerella-recs that she thought I'd like, as opposed to the times when she gives me books that she thinks it'll be funny to hear me rant about). I couldn't put either of them down. They're swashbuckling fantasy, with no actual magic, and no glossing over of the ugly class and gender dynamics of period settings, which made me quite a happy girl.I preferred Privilege, as it had an engaging female lead who did stuff, and a host of secondary female characters who also did stuff, and talked to each other about things other than a man. And it skirted the other big problem in writing strong female characters, particularly in genre fiction, wherein "strong" is defined as "kicking ass" without having to resort to vagaries such as character development. Katherine kicks a substantial amount of ass, don't get me wrong, but the less ass-kicking characters, from the traditionally girlie Artemesia to the brilliant-but-dumpy Flavia, are just as interesting and well-developed.
Also, it has hot boys making out. Well, hot boys in one book and hot middle-aged men in the other book. And beautifully witty dialogue.
On the non-fiction end, I'm almost finished reading The Authoritarians, available for free online. It's an accessible study of the authoritarian personality, both that of followers and leaders. I don't think it's covering any new ground and I'm not entirely sure I buy Altemeyer's methodology or conclusions, but it's definitely an interesting read, and it very much describes some of the more puzzling things about the Right (or, in the case of people I more frequently encounter, what I'd term the "reflexively Right").
The last movie I saw was Alien Apocalypse, courtesy of PopeJohn. It has Bruce Campbell fighting giant termites, so if you like that kind of thing (I do) you should check it out. Also it's shot in Bulgaria, and most of the actors don't speak English, so the dialogue is horribly and hilariously dubbed in.
I've acquired a bunch of new music lately, most notably LAL's 10-year anniversary CD, Tom Waits' Glitter and Doom (thanks to
outcastspice), and a very weird CD by Tim Buckley (thanks to culpster). I also discovered a great new band called Sunday Driver, a steampunk band with Indian classical influences. They have three free songs that you can download on their site, and I liked those so much that I bought the album (see, it works), which is hopefully in the mail.Oh! TV. Well, I finished Deadwood and am now bereft, in the way I was when Oz and Six Feet Under ended. As in "what am I going to like as much now?" I suppose when Mad Men starts up again I'll have something, but really, Deadwood is a fucking masterpiece and why would they ever cancel something so great? And don't tell me to get into The Wire; I watched the first season and found it too triggering.
