Of This and Other Worlds

Having now binge-watched all seven seasons of The Great British Bake-Off, S2 and S3 of the Australian, 1x01 and 02 of the Irish, most of the Great Holiday / American Baking Show and half of S1 of the South African, I feel somewhat qualified to rank the various English-speaking versions and make some observations about which ones are definitely worth watching, which are just OK, and which ones you might as well give a miss.

I never imagined I was going to even feel compelled to see this movie, let alone enjoy it. The trailers looked cute, but gave so little hint of the plot that I really didn't know what to expect, let alone whether it would appeal to anyone but little kids who think animals dressed up as people are funny. In the end, I only took my kids to see it because it had such a good critical rating and I hoped it would pleasantly surprise me.

But I loved it. I loved it SO MUCH. It was everything I wanted and didn't know I was going to get from a movie like this.

( Spoilers )

I want to see it again. Not in the theatre, probably, but when it comes out on video I'm definitely making my husband and oldest son watch it.

I was going to write a review of the movie I saw last night (in 3D, which was rather irritating as I had to fit the 3D glasses over my regular glasses and the distance between the lenses and my eyes was a bit too far, thus rendering me slightly seasick throughout) but then I found that teenybuffalo had already written a thoughtful and lovely review with which I entirely agree, and which you can find here.

teenybuffalo also makes some smart points about Tintin's character, which is really not the blank slate that some claim -- he's just unrelentingly heroic and unflaggingly loyal, which is frequently mistaken for lack of personality by those who prefer morally ambiguous and/or tortured characters. However, I happen to quite like characters who are doggedly committed to doing the right thing if it kills them, so it never occurred to me to see Tintin as bland. Especially since he is, at times, quite wickedly clever and flat-out hilarious. ("...since I've just been bitten by this mad dog!")

One thing I also want to mention since I haven't seen it in any other reviews: I did not at any time feel that these characters fell into the Uncanny Valley, which was a pleasant surprise after the trailer (which did give me such worries). I was particularly watching the characters' eyes to decide if they looked "dead" or not, and I was thoroughly impressed by the light and expression in everyone's eyes. Also, the level of detail is phenomenal. You can see the fine hairs on Tintin's forearms and the texture of Haddock's skin. And Sakharine's hair is fab. :)

Upshot: I want more movies, please.

I was interested to see Betsy Bird's comments on her Fuse #8 blog today about a new graphic novel called Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword (warning: autoplay video at source). Among other things, the novel includes lots of information about Orthodox Judaism, which caused Betsy to comment:

Think about children’s fantasy novels and religion for a moment. Religion in fantasies for kids tends to skew one of three ways. You can incorporate it and make it the entire point of the novel (Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, the Narnia books of C.S. Lewis, or Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time series which is technically science fiction anyway). You can make up an entirely new religion of your own (as in the novels of Frances Hardinge, Tamora Pierce, Megan Whalen Turner, etc.). Or you just sorta forget about it...

And then she goes on to talk about Hereville as something different, where the religion is very much an integral part of the book's atmosphere and sensibility but it's not the whole focus of the plot, which is more of a hero's quest story.

Which had the desired effect of really making me want to read Hereville, but also made me wonder: for those of you who've read Wayfarer, do you think it falls into the first category (religion is the entire point), or the fourth (it's part of the worldbuilding, but not the main story)? Either one is fine, I'm just curious. Since it's definitely not the second or the third...

And can you think of any other books you've read where religion is handled in a way similar to Hereville, as an integral part of the MC's background and culture but not necessarily the obvious point of the story?

***

That being said, it may take me a while to respond to your (doubtless very interesting) comments on the subject of how religion does or can fit into children's books. After my two appearances in Guelph and Waterloo this weekend, I'm heading off to the Fortress of Solitude to overcome my SHERLOCK obsession work on Arrow revisions, and won't be back online until Friday.

Don't burn down the Internet while I'm away, kids!

A deceptively simple, character-driven episode that at times strains credulity to the limit -- but there's a very good reason for that, as we find out at the end.

And I loved it LIKE PIE.

( Details, spoilers and Peruvian folk bands under the cut )

Okay, I think I'm done now. Thoughts, people! I know you have them! Tell them to me!


--
* No, this is not an invitation for you to tell me why you dislike Amy in comments. If you don't like her, or Eleven, or Rory, or Steven Moffat, or this season in general, you have every right to feel that way, but please go and talk about it somewhere else. Thank you.

I have spent the last fourteen weeks with my nose in my laptop, writing furiously -- but now Arrow is all drafted and even a bit polished and ready to send to my editor for her comments, huzzah!

So now it is time to fulfill my promise of telling you all what I think of the new season of Doctor Who. Because I know you have all been waiting for my Very Important Opinion on this subject, and that nobody else on the entire Interwebs has had anything sensible or interesting to say about it in the meantime.

*coughs in an embarrassed fashion*

Anyway. My opinions, which are mine and also contain Great Walloping Wads of SPOILERS, are as follows:

( The Eleventh Hour )

( The Beast Below )

( Victory of the Daleks )

( The Time of Angels )

( Flesh and Stone )

Now for some general, non-spoilery thoughts on Eleven hisownself:

Others have said that David Tennant was Ten (and to that I would add that Christopher Eccleston was Nine, as well) but Matt Smith is the Doctor, and I agree. He's got that wonderful old-man-in-a-young-man's-body thing going that Davison occasionally managed but didn't quite hit consistently. I almost feel, so help me, that Eleven is what Five should have been if the showrunners hadn't been so uptight at that point about making him Different From Four and also keeping him physically distant from his companions so that nobody would think anything was Going On There. What has also surprised me is how much Matt Smith even looks like Davison at times, even though in still photos they could scarcely be more different. It seems like at least once a week there's a moment where Eleven turns or looks up and I catch my breath at how much he reminds me of Five.

But he's also so much like Two, with the dithery hands and the bow-legged stance and that distracted air that can turn laser-sharp in an instant, and I'm loving that as well. Really a fantastic performance that doesn't feel like a performance... just a fine actor inhabiting the Doctor and bringing him to life, instead of Eccleston-as-Doctor or Tennant-as-Doctor like we've had before. So yes, I am sold, and I look very much forward to seeing Matt Smith's portrayal continue to refine and develop over the course of the season.

Also, FISH CUSTARD IS LOVE.

Oh, show. You give me John Lynch being... John Lynch, and Colin Morgan turning in one of his most brilliant and heartbreaking performances (the fact that he can hold his own with John Lynch, and that Bradley also does it to a less obvious extent with ASH in this episode, is really impressive) and more Arthur/Gwen goodness and CGI that isn't dodgy at all, and then you tell me I have to wait another year for S3. WHY. WHY MUST I WAIT.

( Spoilery comments )

...Do I really not have a MERLIN tag? Is this actually the first time I've posted about this show I've been watching (first skeptically, then indulgently, and finally with delight and deep affection) for the last two years? Wow. Okay then.

And why do I have no icons of Colin Morgan?

First, the good stuff:



And now for a long-overdue heads-up on what I've been doing. Namely, working on my paranormal YA Touching Indigo every spare moment I get. I was delighted with my 12K progress for the first week -- especially since about a third of that was new material -- but this week it's slowed down considerably due to a houseful of bored kids and my participation in London Book Camp (that's London ONTARIO, FYI -- nobody has offered to fly me to the UK yet!). Still, I have hopes of catching up to my target of 20K by Monday.

To help me stay motivated without an Official Editorial Deadline, I've told myself that if I get the first draft of this book finished by the second week of October at the LATEST, I can buy myself a new laptop. Which, considering that my current laptop is an eleven-year-old refurbished Toshiba with zero Internet capability and a busted hinge, is a pretty good incentive. Now I just have to think of an extra treat I can give myself if I get it all done by the end of September...

In the meantime, I've been delighted to find three Faery Rebels: Spell Hunter reviews in the past month from major US publications. First Booklist came through with some very nice words in their July issue, and then just this past week I got the nod from School Library Journal and VOYA, both of which you can check out on the Barnes & Noble page for Spell Hunter if you're curious.

I'll be offline for the next week, doing family stuff and focusing on getting caught up with Touching Indigo, but I look forward to catching up with everyone when I get back!

Check out these delightful comments from EJ, aged 9.5:

Faery Rebels is a great book. It is about a faery named Knife. She does most of the stuff, well, wrong. Instead of a wooden knife she uses a metal knife. She is very cool. My favorite character is Campion because she is a librarian, she loves books.

I recommend this book for people who like fantasy, fighting, and love.

Yay, Campion can has fans! But really it's "She does most of the stuff, well, wrong" that tickled me.

You can read the whole review including his/her mom's comments here.

There's been a lot of talk lately about authors behaving badly in response to negative reviews -- in some cases really, really badly. And having had some past experience with less-than-stellar reviews of my work, I can understand the disappointment and frustration that the authors involved were feeling when they allowed their emotions to get the better of their judgment. Nobody likes to be told that the book of their heart, the one they put months or years of effort into creating, has fallen short of excellence -- even if it's only in one critic's opinion.

On the other hand, I've often heard it said by wise and experienced folk that book reviews are written for readers, not for writers -- so in a sense people like Ms. Hoffman and Mr. de Botton are eavesdropping on a conversation that was never intended to include them, and shouldn't be surprised when they don't like everything they hear. I know many authors who deliberately avoid reading any reviews of their work whatsoever (meaning reviews written after the book is published, when it's too late to change it anyway), for this very reason.

Mind you, I am still a publishing n00b myself, and therefore unable to resist reading every review of my book that crosses my path. So if I get a bad review, it's my business to deal with it -- privately that is, without swearing vengeance on the reviewer and their descendants unto the third and fourth generation. (Though it can be tempting.)

Fortunately, I've noticed something about the reviews I've received so far that makes me a lot more relaxed and philosophical about getting the occasional bad one.

"There are too few faeries introduced to us in the book -- it would have been nice to meet some more of them," said one of my early reviewers, and I felt a little sad about all the incidental characters who vanished in revisions. But then, a few days later, I came across another reader lamenting, "There are too many faeries mentioned in the book and I couldn't keep track of them all."

"This book has far much romance for its intended audience!" complained another reviewer on GoodReads. And then, a couple of months down the line, a young reader complained "This book is not a romance AT ALL."

"The antagonist needs more villainy," mused one respectable critic, but then a commenter elsewhere said, "The antagonist's villainy made me so furious I could hardly get through the book."

A review which stated, "The story was muddled and confusing, I couldn't follow it" was followed almost immediately by another saying, "The plot was too plainly spelled out, I would have liked to figure some things out for myself."

Oh, well, okay then.

Of course, there are times when multiple reviewers (or worse, nearly all the reviewers) agree that a particular aspect of the book or story is weak. In which case I think it's the author's duty to swallow their pride, make a note of this particular fault in their writing, and try to do better in future... but in my experience of reading and writing book reviews, this happens a lot less often than one might think.

Anyway, all this has made one thing very clear to me: there is no point in getting upset over one bad review, or even a whole bunch of bad reviews, because every reader brings different tastes and expectations to a book, and it's impossible to please everyone. The best thing I can do when I'm disappointed by a particular review is to remember that I don't love every book I read either, and that some of the books I love best have been heavily criticized by others, and try to move on.