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Google’s antisocial behavior. Also a post about Google’s Real Name Theater, like Security Theater, and then there’s danah boyd’s excellent explanation that no, Facebook isn’t a real name service either. As I understand it, if a Google+ name violation determination works “right,” you can still use Reader to read but not to share/etc., which is not as bad as losing access to Reader entirely, but it doesn’t seem like the process is glitch-free even on its own terms. I have a bunch of old pictures on Picasa connected to my Blogger blog, which means that even though I downloaded them for backup a suspension could still screw me up. I certainly did not realize that signing up for Google+ put my other services at risk, and I think I have to leave before I’m kicked out. In a few short weeks Google has managed to burn through my rather substantial goodwill for it.
Covert Affairs: (1) so we say "shit" on USA prime time now, hunh? Worked for the character, but a bit of a surprise! (2) Loved the Mall scene at the end, though where a baseball game was going to be anywhere near that I don't know, but that doesn't make up for "Chinatown" with its decidedly non-DC billboards and lack of height restrictions. (3) They could go Annie/Auggie and I would be fine with that, but I still long for the return of hot Mossad guy.
Pretty Little Liars: (1) Spencer just gets more gorgeous. Her hair! (2) Why were they using a different lens on Aria than on everyone else? It was like they were lighting Ingrid Bergman or something.
Tanya Huff, The Enchantment Emporium: I’ve had the full range of reactions to Huff’s books, from deep enjoyment to horrified revulsion. I really wanted to like this book, if only because most of the bad reviews I read were turned off by the occasional F-bomb and the copious sex between cousins (not considered incest in many cultures, including the protagonist’s!). Also, I don’t mind having to figure out the world’s rules as I go along, nor do I mind infodumps, which this book somehow managed to combine. However, smug essentialism trumped casual acceptance of sexuality, both het and gay, and because the essentialism was reduced to a tic I couldn’t ignore it for more than a page at a time. Sigh.
Um, summary: Allie Gale, member of a powerful family of witches that always gets what it wants and can make anything happen via charms (sometimes sent in pies), including getting you a phone that always works and never costs any money, inherits her grandmother’s curio shop in Calgary, away from the “aunties,” and goes there to investigate what happened to her grandmother. Cue leprechauns, sex with a mysterious stranger who has a hidden agenda, sorcerors, and dragons.
I cannot begin to express how annoyed I was at the repeated (seriously, about once a page) trope “Gale girls X” where X is some blanket statement, mostly about taking care of the people they cared about or getting what they wanted—with the occasional variation for “Gale boys Y” where Y is about having sex, choosing which Gale girl they wanted to mate with, or going power-crazy in the way that the most powerful Gale boys always do. When Gale girls get old enough, they become “aunties,” powerful and meddling with each other. Though Allie and her cousin Charlie rebel cute against the aunties, it’s just that they don’t want to do what they’re told; they have no compunctions about running roughshod over other people if they’re the ones making the Gale decisions. Gale girls get what they want, and that includes getting public services and plane tickets whenever they want them. I guess whoever was going to get them in the ordinary course of events is just out of luck. Non-Gales are pets, including the man Allie was formerly in unrequited love with, who seems to have been modeled on Jared Padalecki physically. Look, I don’t care if your characters have lots of sex between cousins and I’m all for women who get more powerful with age, but I have a real problem with being expected to enjoy a family (and it’s clear that free will is not in effect and that these habits just breed true, like magic and grey eyes) that simply doesn’t regard other people as worth consideration unless some Gale decides that those non-Gales are specifically and individually worth taking under the Gale wing. Perhaps all the Gale-ing was supposed to be cutesy, but I found it not just creepy but actively offensive.
Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia: Gen, now king, struggles with how to be king while retaining his identity as the Thief, honoring his role in Eddis, and learning to be a husband. He’d prefer to be thought weak so that the queen can continue to rule, but it doesn’t quite work that way. I’m describing the book badly—it’s very controlled, and it spends half the time in the POV of a guard who really doesn’t like Gen at the outset and comes instead to see him with half respect, half incomprehension. It does very interesting things with palace intrigue and Greek-ish settings where, among other things, Gen’s god does intervene—but only to prevent him from dying in a specific way.
Megan Whalen Turner, A Conspiracy of Kings: Sophos, now heir to Sounis, is the narrator for this book, and as he struggles to actually get the throne he has to deal with kidnappers, Medes who’d like to take his kingdom, the Queen of Eddis whom he loves, and Gen who was his friend once but now is a rival king. Again, I’m doing a bad job of description, because while Turner does deal in personal emotions—Sophos spends a fair amount of time moping plausibly about not wanting to be in these situations—the principals never lose sight of the fact that they are rulers, or aspiring rulers, and interpret their emotions and desires through that frame. Sophos does his best with his position not to be crushed by the Medes or by Attolia, and the ending is both triumphant and uncertain. I keep coming back to the words “control” and “precision”—the scale is more intimate than epic, and the people do what they do because they are humans with pasts and feelings, but at the same time “you killed my father!” would never be sufficient justification for the upheavals into which their actions can throw their nations, and the characters know it.
Covert Affairs: (1) so we say "shit" on USA prime time now, hunh? Worked for the character, but a bit of a surprise! (2) Loved the Mall scene at the end, though where a baseball game was going to be anywhere near that I don't know, but that doesn't make up for "Chinatown" with its decidedly non-DC billboards and lack of height restrictions. (3) They could go Annie/Auggie and I would be fine with that, but I still long for the return of hot Mossad guy.
Pretty Little Liars: (1) Spencer just gets more gorgeous. Her hair! (2) Why were they using a different lens on Aria than on everyone else? It was like they were lighting Ingrid Bergman or something.
Tanya Huff, The Enchantment Emporium: I’ve had the full range of reactions to Huff’s books, from deep enjoyment to horrified revulsion. I really wanted to like this book, if only because most of the bad reviews I read were turned off by the occasional F-bomb and the copious sex between cousins (not considered incest in many cultures, including the protagonist’s!). Also, I don’t mind having to figure out the world’s rules as I go along, nor do I mind infodumps, which this book somehow managed to combine. However, smug essentialism trumped casual acceptance of sexuality, both het and gay, and because the essentialism was reduced to a tic I couldn’t ignore it for more than a page at a time. Sigh.
Um, summary: Allie Gale, member of a powerful family of witches that always gets what it wants and can make anything happen via charms (sometimes sent in pies), including getting you a phone that always works and never costs any money, inherits her grandmother’s curio shop in Calgary, away from the “aunties,” and goes there to investigate what happened to her grandmother. Cue leprechauns, sex with a mysterious stranger who has a hidden agenda, sorcerors, and dragons.
I cannot begin to express how annoyed I was at the repeated (seriously, about once a page) trope “Gale girls X” where X is some blanket statement, mostly about taking care of the people they cared about or getting what they wanted—with the occasional variation for “Gale boys Y” where Y is about having sex, choosing which Gale girl they wanted to mate with, or going power-crazy in the way that the most powerful Gale boys always do. When Gale girls get old enough, they become “aunties,” powerful and meddling with each other. Though Allie and her cousin Charlie rebel cute against the aunties, it’s just that they don’t want to do what they’re told; they have no compunctions about running roughshod over other people if they’re the ones making the Gale decisions. Gale girls get what they want, and that includes getting public services and plane tickets whenever they want them. I guess whoever was going to get them in the ordinary course of events is just out of luck. Non-Gales are pets, including the man Allie was formerly in unrequited love with, who seems to have been modeled on Jared Padalecki physically. Look, I don’t care if your characters have lots of sex between cousins and I’m all for women who get more powerful with age, but I have a real problem with being expected to enjoy a family (and it’s clear that free will is not in effect and that these habits just breed true, like magic and grey eyes) that simply doesn’t regard other people as worth consideration unless some Gale decides that those non-Gales are specifically and individually worth taking under the Gale wing. Perhaps all the Gale-ing was supposed to be cutesy, but I found it not just creepy but actively offensive.
Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia: Gen, now king, struggles with how to be king while retaining his identity as the Thief, honoring his role in Eddis, and learning to be a husband. He’d prefer to be thought weak so that the queen can continue to rule, but it doesn’t quite work that way. I’m describing the book badly—it’s very controlled, and it spends half the time in the POV of a guard who really doesn’t like Gen at the outset and comes instead to see him with half respect, half incomprehension. It does very interesting things with palace intrigue and Greek-ish settings where, among other things, Gen’s god does intervene—but only to prevent him from dying in a specific way.
Megan Whalen Turner, A Conspiracy of Kings: Sophos, now heir to Sounis, is the narrator for this book, and as he struggles to actually get the throne he has to deal with kidnappers, Medes who’d like to take his kingdom, the Queen of Eddis whom he loves, and Gen who was his friend once but now is a rival king. Again, I’m doing a bad job of description, because while Turner does deal in personal emotions—Sophos spends a fair amount of time moping plausibly about not wanting to be in these situations—the principals never lose sight of the fact that they are rulers, or aspiring rulers, and interpret their emotions and desires through that frame. Sophos does his best with his position not to be crushed by the Medes or by Attolia, and the ending is both triumphant and uncertain. I keep coming back to the words “control” and “precision”—the scale is more intimate than epic, and the people do what they do because they are humans with pasts and feelings, but at the same time “you killed my father!” would never be sufficient justification for the upheavals into which their actions can throw their nations, and the characters know it.
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