A few impressions from having too much time on my hands:<\/p>\n
I am really<\/em> looking forward to the Winter is Coming<\/em> series on HBO.\u00a0 The previews have been fantastic, and even though Sean Bean is a good 15 years older than the role he portrays…it’s Sean Bean.\u00a0 If you want noble + troubled in fantasy, he is a go-to guy.\u00a0 The rest of the cast as seen in the previews seems fine, if a little too clean and pretty for the grimdarkgrim world George R.R. Martin created.<\/p>\n Having now seen both The Adjustment Bureau<\/em> and Source Code<\/em>, I am reminded that the hardest thing a science fiction film can do is nail the ending.\u00a0 Both of these decent science fiction movies fall short in that department, and though Source Code<\/em> is a superior movie in acting, directing, pacing & all the rest, the second of its two supposed endings is SO weak that it cast a pall over the rest of the movie that I had previously enjoyed a great deal.\u00a0 Boo!\u00a0 I like a twist now and then, but really, stop writing kooky endings that invalidate the entire emotional premise of the rest of the movie.<\/p>\n I have read about a third of Patrick Rothfuss’s immediate bestseller The Wise Man’s Fear<\/em>, and so far it’s enjoyable, if not as “squeeee” as the first book in his Kingkiller<\/em> series.\u00a0 The university bits have a sort of puckish Harry Potter vibe to go with the carousing and magical exposition, and while I’m enjoying it, it’s starting to feel more weighty and less downright entertaining than the last book.\u00a0 That said, Rothfuss can actually write funny<\/em>, and for epic, high-faluting fantasy, that’s fairly rare.<\/p>\n Something else I’ve been enjoying:\u00a0 Michael Stackpole’s At the Queen’s Command<\/em>, his fantasy retelling of The Last of the Mohicans<\/em> and assorted other colonial novels and sources.\u00a0 It’s an alternate French & Indian war with dragons and magick gunpowder, and while the characterization is SO broad (no old country person can do right, though at least a few new country people seem capable of doing wrong), it’s an entertaining treatment of a historical period I’ve always found fascinating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A few impressions from having too much time on my hands: I am really looking forward to the Winter is Coming series on HBO.\u00a0 The previews have been fantastic, and even though Sean Bean is a good 15 years older than the role he portrays…it’s Sean Bean.\u00a0 If you want noble + troubled in fantasy, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,4,8,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=191"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":216,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions\/216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}