Of This and Other Worlds

A line that made me laugh out loud when I read it this afternoon:

Oh, sure, Emily has a few flaws. But don't we all. For example, I am lax about cleaning out my three-hole punch.

Then came this gem, only a few pages ahead:

There are good silences, like the beat after a fabulous play has just ended and before the audience jumps to its feet applauding. Then there are bad silences, like after you've said, "Actually, the hypotenuse is 3.4 centimeters off" to your father's supervisor. Stanford's silence created a new category: the infinite silence of limbo where your words are released into the atmosphere but mysteriously disappear before they reach their target.

...

Millicent Min, Girl Genius is the best book ever.

*sighs happily*

Okay, well, maybe not. But it gave me great pleasure to read it, and the envy I felt at Lisa Yee's brilliant characterization and pitch-perfect narrative voice did not diminish my enjoyment of the story one bit.

I think I need to read more kids' books. I enjoy the good ones more than most "adult" books I read. Which is possibly why I read Millicent Min before I picked up the new Lois McMaster Bujold novel, although since it is, you know, Bujold, I'm pretty sure I'm going to enjoy that one too.

Doesn't that sound like the name of a Coen Brothers film? But I digress...

Right now a Miles Vorkosigan-centred mailing list I'm part of has been taken over by the Dreaded Casting Thread, and in the midst of blinking bemusedly over some very peculiar suggestions for actors who might play Miles, Ekaterin, Cordelia et al, I was suddenly smitten by realization.

Kevin Weisman (Marshall on ALIAS) would make a nearly perfect Miles. He's short, he's lean, he's dark-haired, he's hyper... all he'd have to do is drop the geekier aspects of the Marshall character and play up the fast-talking charm. Meanwhile, if you're looking for a tall, beautiful brunette with haunted eyes and a bit more substance than the average Hollywood stick-insect, Jennifer Garner wouldn't be at all bad as Ekaterin, either.

My fellow Bujold fans, I submit for your consideration this video clip from last week's episode of ALIAS. And for those with slower connections (though I would still really recommend the clip, it's worth it), have a look at this and this and this and this and this.

The defense rests.