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Brace yourselves, campers -- I had a good time! I am miffed that we didn't get to see why Clark and Lex are friends again (of course if it involved a blowjob on the corporate jet, I guess we wouldn't get to see that no matter what), but -- as I'm sure the WB folks hoped -- I am happy enough to see it that I will handwave that away. (By the way, how the hell did Lionel Luthor have the authority at the company from which he's been ousted to give the jet to Lana? Maybe Lex issued some standing Lana-related order that Lana is to have whatever her little pink heart desires, and Lionel just exploited that.) I even liked Lois, whose abrasiveness was tempered with some realistic vulnerability; I thought the actress did a good job struggling to control her expression when she was doing true confessions with Clark.
At one point, when I was watching Lucy spark with Clark, I had the thought: what would this show have been like if they'd cast this actress as Lana Lang? Which is to say I loved their chemistry, and the carefully assessing look Lex gave Clark before deciding to issue Lucy an invitation to the Lair of Lex.
Lex is still too slow on the uptake. I agree with Lionel that he should really be paying more attention to Jason. My hope is that he watches the security tapes of Lionel & Jason later that night. Relatedly, props to Lana for the sneaky Martha-with-the-key-in-the-flour-jar maneuver.
If Methos was smart enough to get rid of the briefcase, why wasn't he smart enough to abandon the car, which surely had Lo-Jack? Do they not have that in Europe? Lo-Jack is an excellent investment, BTW -- my dad got his car back hours after it was stolen using Lo-Jack. In my version of SV, that's how Lex and his minions found the truck, which was near the drop location but not all that near.
Speaking of Methos, having him work at a place called Kronos seemed like a relatively light-handed shout-out, SV style.
Kim Stanley Robinson, Three Californias: The Wild Shore, The Gold Coast, and Pacific Edge: This isn't exactly a trilogy, but a set of three novels of future California. In the first, a devastating nuclear attack has left the US preindustrial, a status enforced by the rest of the world with patrol boats off the coast and laser assaults from space whenever Americans get radios or railroads working. A young man from a small community struggles to find his place in this destroyed world, helped and hindered by his mentor, one of the few remaining elders who remembers what America used to be. In the second, a young man in an overpopulated, drug-saturated, polluted, paved-over Orange County struggles to find his place in a world that seems to lack room for the poetry he wants to write; he gets sucked into sabotage of the major defense firms present in the area in what he thinks are antiwar protests but may have a different agenda entirely. In the third, a young man in a planned utopia struggles to find his place in a world that is beautiful, well-run and interconnected while still allowing communities to make decisions on a small scale; he falls in love and learns hard lessons about politics while fighting to save an untouched wilderness area from development.
Taken together, the books say something about young men, but I didn't find that part all that interesting. Nor was I the proper audience for Robinson's considerable powers of landscape writing – California was a vital character in each book, a different California each time. What I liked was Robinson's ability to show how circumstances really do limit possible achievements, in a way most heroic sf can't acknowledge for the plot to work. Robinson's language also varied with each book, consistent with the characters – this was especially evident in The Gold Coast, where the hyperactivity of the freeway-driven society corresponded to the sentence fragments Robinson often used – though I wearied of the technique because it was exhausting to read, it was technique and not accident. Possibly the most intriguing aspect of the books for me was that Robinson couldn't make himself write a pure utopia. I think he could have; there was conflict within the story parameters, making the point that even in good societies individuals face dilemmas and experience pain. Instead, Pacific Edge includes fragments that suggest the ecotopia story might be written as escapism by a writer in a truly horrific world of plagues, political repression and economic disaster. I thought that the "things fall apart" fragments weakened the overall project of "Three Californias," since it wasn't quite enough to be a plausible fourth California. I also would have liked some resolution of that story line, one way or another. While Robinson doesn't lack for ambition, and brings considerable talent to bear to his task, I ultimately prefer his shorter stories about the possible paths history may take.
Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle: This is a perfectly charming book, not my usual thing at all, but it was Dodie Smith and how could I resist? I wore my childhood copy of The Hundred and One Dalmations to tatters. This is not the same at all; the whimsy is there, but no talking animals, just a poor family in a falling-apart English castle whose world is upset by the arrival of two young men – Americans! The narrator's older sister Rose sets her sights on the rich one, for reasons both good and bad, and much excitement ensues, especially when the Americans' mother shows up and begins to prod the narrator's father back towards the writing he'd abandoned after his one successful novel (and one prison stay, but that's another matter). The tone is light and yet passionate in the way of a young, romantic-but-pretending-she's-cynical girl, and nothing plotwise quite happens as you'd expect.
At one point, when I was watching Lucy spark with Clark, I had the thought: what would this show have been like if they'd cast this actress as Lana Lang? Which is to say I loved their chemistry, and the carefully assessing look Lex gave Clark before deciding to issue Lucy an invitation to the Lair of Lex.
Lex is still too slow on the uptake. I agree with Lionel that he should really be paying more attention to Jason. My hope is that he watches the security tapes of Lionel & Jason later that night. Relatedly, props to Lana for the sneaky Martha-with-the-key-in-the-flour-jar maneuver.
If Methos was smart enough to get rid of the briefcase, why wasn't he smart enough to abandon the car, which surely had Lo-Jack? Do they not have that in Europe? Lo-Jack is an excellent investment, BTW -- my dad got his car back hours after it was stolen using Lo-Jack. In my version of SV, that's how Lex and his minions found the truck, which was near the drop location but not all that near.
Speaking of Methos, having him work at a place called Kronos seemed like a relatively light-handed shout-out, SV style.
Kim Stanley Robinson, Three Californias: The Wild Shore, The Gold Coast, and Pacific Edge: This isn't exactly a trilogy, but a set of three novels of future California. In the first, a devastating nuclear attack has left the US preindustrial, a status enforced by the rest of the world with patrol boats off the coast and laser assaults from space whenever Americans get radios or railroads working. A young man from a small community struggles to find his place in this destroyed world, helped and hindered by his mentor, one of the few remaining elders who remembers what America used to be. In the second, a young man in an overpopulated, drug-saturated, polluted, paved-over Orange County struggles to find his place in a world that seems to lack room for the poetry he wants to write; he gets sucked into sabotage of the major defense firms present in the area in what he thinks are antiwar protests but may have a different agenda entirely. In the third, a young man in a planned utopia struggles to find his place in a world that is beautiful, well-run and interconnected while still allowing communities to make decisions on a small scale; he falls in love and learns hard lessons about politics while fighting to save an untouched wilderness area from development.
Taken together, the books say something about young men, but I didn't find that part all that interesting. Nor was I the proper audience for Robinson's considerable powers of landscape writing – California was a vital character in each book, a different California each time. What I liked was Robinson's ability to show how circumstances really do limit possible achievements, in a way most heroic sf can't acknowledge for the plot to work. Robinson's language also varied with each book, consistent with the characters – this was especially evident in The Gold Coast, where the hyperactivity of the freeway-driven society corresponded to the sentence fragments Robinson often used – though I wearied of the technique because it was exhausting to read, it was technique and not accident. Possibly the most intriguing aspect of the books for me was that Robinson couldn't make himself write a pure utopia. I think he could have; there was conflict within the story parameters, making the point that even in good societies individuals face dilemmas and experience pain. Instead, Pacific Edge includes fragments that suggest the ecotopia story might be written as escapism by a writer in a truly horrific world of plagues, political repression and economic disaster. I thought that the "things fall apart" fragments weakened the overall project of "Three Californias," since it wasn't quite enough to be a plausible fourth California. I also would have liked some resolution of that story line, one way or another. While Robinson doesn't lack for ambition, and brings considerable talent to bear to his task, I ultimately prefer his shorter stories about the possible paths history may take.
Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle: This is a perfectly charming book, not my usual thing at all, but it was Dodie Smith and how could I resist? I wore my childhood copy of The Hundred and One Dalmations to tatters. This is not the same at all; the whimsy is there, but no talking animals, just a poor family in a falling-apart English castle whose world is upset by the arrival of two young men – Americans! The narrator's older sister Rose sets her sights on the rich one, for reasons both good and bad, and much excitement ensues, especially when the Americans' mother shows up and begins to prod the narrator's father back towards the writing he'd abandoned after his one successful novel (and one prison stay, but that's another matter). The tone is light and yet passionate in the way of a young, romantic-but-pretending-she's-cynical girl, and nothing plotwise quite happens as you'd expect.
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In a bout of silliness, when I read this, the first thing that popped into my head was "what if Michael Rosenbaum had played both Lana Lang and Lex Luthor?" *g*
Have you seen the film for "I Capture The Castle"? I haven't read the novel, but thought the film was rather enjoyable. The lead actress, Romola Garai turned a solid performance, and I believe the actor who played Stephen (Henry Cavill) was up for Supes at one point.
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At the moment I am about halfway through Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt. I'm very impressed by it. I liked the Mars trilogy, but this one I'm loving. I'll probably hit the Californias books next, so it was particularly interesting to read your thoughts on those.
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Mmmm...
Sorry... lost my train of thought there for a second.
I'm glad that Clark and Lex are friends again too... but that is a little odd. We went from Sacred where they were blatenly pissed at each others presence. To Lucy... where they are sharing conversations and coffee at the Talon... and having moments. And I miss my boys. ::sigh::
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