Fishies
On a slightly more upbeat note than the last couple of posts, I bought some new fishies on the weekend.
I had been intending to get a bristlenose catfish, to help deal with a slight algae problem, but the guy said that a) they tend to basically ring-bark any plants you’ve got, and b) fish eat slowly, so any algae they might eat will probably grow back faster than et anyhow. Which was very useful, saved me money, and I will simply continue to pull the damned stuff out by hand.
What I did buy is four itty-bitty mottled angels. Three are black and white, and the fourth just white (so not really mottled then, I know, but that’s what the tank said!). Their bodies are less than an inch round, and even when you add their lovely fins they’re still small. Of course, they may grow up into holy terrors and traumatise all the other fish… but that’s a while away yet!
They’re so cute.
Planetary alignment
Yes, you guessed it, I am spending tonight watching the first Lara Croft film. Whee! It does have a brilliant opening, I must say. And some of the action sequences are marvelous. I love the bungee scene, between floor and mezzanine; giving her the bungee cord makes it at least vaguely plausible, unlike some other scenes of this type. And, you know, who doesn’t love a sexy archaeologist (talking about Alex West, aka Daniel Craig, of course – with a bad American accent)?
But seriously. A planetary alignment I can just about come at, on a fantastical level; it’s not a new idea, and there are alignments of two or three (I’m including the sun and moon here) every now and then. But a meteor that strikes at the exact moment of the alignment? Not even I’m that gullible. And I don’t think it adds to the story, either – it’s not necessary for the plot to work.
Oooh, just got to the massive Buddha getting up and angry; very cool.
And Jolie’s hair? So very fake.
Wicked
I finished reading Wicked: the Life and Times of Wicked Witch of the West a couple of days ago. I probably shouldn’t have admitted that, because now Girlie and Ben will now gang up on me insisting that I write the review for ASif!, but that’s not going to be too hard (when I make the time) because it is brilliant. Brilliant as in, I think I have to pass it on to the second reviewer so I might buy myself a copy.
Anyway, watch out for the review… but since that might take a week or so, just go and buy the darn book. That’s what the review will say anyway, just in more words.
Mummies and romance
I watched The Mummy a couple of days ago, and The Mummy Returns tonight.
I’d really like to be able to say that I watch and enjoy them because of my joy at seeing archaeology and egyptology on the big screen, getting a cool rep; for the awesome FX; and for the manic action sequences.
Part of that is true – I leave it to you to figure out what’s a big fat lie from that statement. But the truth is, I like those movies for the same reason I like the original Star Wars movies.
Yes, it’s partly the action and the explosions – particularly in Star Wars. But the reality is, I watch them for one main reason: Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser) and Han Solo (Harrison Ford), and their relationships with Evie/Leia.
This is my big guilty secret, that I am trying to come to grips with, and which outing myself here will hopefully help: I am a sucker for romance. It has to be surrounded by action, and explosions, and preferably lots of cool FX and a scifi bent; the heroine has to not be a wimp and the hero has to be a real hero (being a rogue helps as well) – and I love movies with no real romance, too – but, still, a bit of romance done well is not something I object to.
I’ve spent a lot of time over the last decade or so building up an anti-romance persona; it hurts to tear it down! And there are certain friends to whom I will never admit this, ever. Because they will never let me live it down. Like they still tease me for getting married, after saying I never would (six years today). Kate – stop scheming right now!
Amazing
The back story:
I experienced asthma as a kid, although never badly; it seemed to disappear in my teens. When I moved to Melbourne, I got wheezy in winter when I got the sniffles. Then, about 5 years ago, it came back with a vengeance: one time I didn’t think I’d make it from uni to home. That was, oh, about 300m. Maybe 500. Anyway, it was scary, and I’ve since got paranoid about carrying ventolin (my husband would say not paranoid enough).
The actual story:
Last night we were at a BBQ at a friend’s place around the corner (literally; we cross no roads to get there. So cool). We left just as the Aussies were coming on to bat in the Twenty20 match.* I jogged home – in my thongs – knowing that I would regret doing so, because a month ago that would have had me reaching for the ventolin when I got back.
No ventolin! No wheezing! Lungs acting like they ought, instead of trying to murder their owner! This is pretty small stuff, I know, but I am so excited. It must be because of the jogging I’ve done over the last few weeks – this is an unexpected, and quite wonderful, side effect.
* BORING. What and average game that was!
Fuzzy little yellow balls
or,
When Too Much Tennis just Isn’t Enough
Ah, sport. The two sports I claim to prove that I’m not entirely a bookworm who never comes out of a book are tennis and cricket, on which – it being summer – I have been able to glut recently.
I am, though, not a true fan.
My brother will watch any cricket game he can possibly get close to; probably even U12s. My mother will stay up til the wee smalls to watch tennis. Me, I watch cricket when Australia is playing – impossibly jingoistic, I know, but there you have it (I do at least enjoy the five-day form, and am not simply a 50-over slut). The tennis I primarily watch is what we just had over the last fortnight.*
A few years ago, Mum suddenly realised that I lived in Melbourne, and there’s tennis in Melbourne! So we’ve started a tradition of her coming over for three days of tennis – we get tix to a stadium each day, and decide on the day who we’re going to watch and if we can bothered slumming it with the plebs on the outer courts (answer: yes, if there’s an Aussie who promises to put up a fight, and it doesn’t clash with someone awesome in our stadium). (And when I was in the UK last year, she still came over for the tennis, and had a jolly fine time without me.)
We went for three days in the first week, and saw some pretty good matches. The two that stand out were Dellaqua beating Schnyder – very exciting – and Luczak taking it to Nalbandian; didn’t leave the place until 8pm that evening, because it went to four fairly long sets. We saw a couple of other Aussies, as well as some games where one person was just getting smacked around the place. Didn’t see any doubles at all for the whole Open, which I was a bit sad about – I love watching them up at the net.
As for this past week – I was so glad Federer** beat Tipsarevic, because we saw him playing an Aussie (Siriani) on a show court and he was being really snooty. I was also the only person (out of four) barracking for Djokovic last night; I think he’s pretty cool (saw him beat a poor Italian man, in the second round). Sharapova looked gratifyingly excited and amazed when she won, of which I approve.
And now, I go back to watching basically tennis for the next 11.5 months – not having cable tv – and, today at least, I think of my brother and mother both at the fifth day of the test.
* That said, when I was at college I got up after only a few hours of sleep and watch the Poo and then Rafter in consecutive semis, which they both won – it was the US Open, I think? in 1998. And then went to inter-college rowing all day… ah, fun times.
** I remember the first time I saw Federer on the tv. I misread his name, and thought it said Fedora; ever since then he has been Johnny Fedora to me, thanks to a Golden Book (remember them?) I loved as a kid, about two hats: Johnny Fedora and Alice Blue Bonnet. That story had it all: romance, adventure, tragedy, a happy ending….
The Golden Compass
I took my sister to see this the other day (although I guess she could have taken herself, given she’s 21 years old; guess there are some things it’s up to a big sister to do, though…). We’d both been looking forward to it a lot. It has such a great cast! It should be an amazing movie.
Can you tell where this is going?
The chick who sold us the tix asked if we’d read the book, and when I said I hadn’t, she informed me that it might be hard to understand. I realised as I walked away that actually, I have read the trilogy – just a few years ago, and the details are quite fuzzy. My sister has indeed not read it.
Anyway, there are lots of people who have reviewed the movie, so I won’t bother to go into details of the plot and characters. Suffice to say that I was a bit disappointed. I enjoyed it and all, but I wasn’t utterly overwhelmed, which is what I’d rather hoped. One telling instance might have been that I asked my sister half way through: wasn’t Robert Deniro meant to be in this? She pointed out to me that I was thinking of Stardust, which I haven’t seen. Oops.
The effects were very cool – very cool; I thought Nicole Kidman was good, as was Daniel Craig (what you saw of him); Eva Green seemed stilted, and the girl playing Lyra was a bit odd in places. The story didn’t feel like it went anywhere.
Whenever the sequel/s come out, I imagine I will go see them, for completeness’ sake… but I won’t be gagging for them, like I was LOTR (but that’s a different instance anyway, for me…).
DOA; or, How to Watch Unexpected Movies
Oh. My. Goodness.
When out shopping today, I decided to act on impulse and visit JB to finally buy The Mummy, because I only have this taped off TV. I expected that I would be able to get it as a double with The Mummy Returns, which I was fine with. Turned out that I could only get it as a trilogy, with The Scorpion King. OK, I figured – haven’t seen the latter, I’ll deal with it; it was $4 more than The Mummy by itself. Plus, it was 20% off all DVDs, which was even better. For that reason, we had a look around the store for anything else that caught our eye, which is how we ended up with the Blade trilogy as well. Then, on the way out, my darling saw the stall where they have the multiple-movies-in-one-case. There was one with The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, Scorpion King, Van Helsing (I can’t believe we didn’t already own this!) and The Hulk (meh): back went the trilogy I’d picked up, because this 5-set cost less than it did! And while we were there, we got a second: Doom (not seen… not sure), Pitch Black (love it; love Claudia Black!), Chonicles of Riddick (same; plus Judi Dench in such a cool, out-there role), Serenity (do already have it, but you know – it’s Serenity!)… and DOA.
I’d never heard of DOA: Dead or Alive, and my question is this: did it ever appear in Australian cinemas? Because it’s the sort of thing I certainly would have thought about going to see, although perhaps not busting a gut to get to; but I’d never heard of it before I saw it on this DVD cover. And heck, it has Holly Valance in it! Clearly, it was going to be (as my love says) qualitah.
What it turned out to be was a fairly cool 75 minutes of fun fighting choreography. There is a plot in there – somewhere – but it was fairly transparent, not to mention flimsy, and in many ways was essentially facilitating bikini-clad women fighting either blokes who knew not what hit them, or each other. It really was very cool choreography, though, and there was barely a 5-minute block without a fight scene. And Holly Valance’s opening scene had me in absolute hysterics; never has a woman putting on a bra been quite so hilarious. I’m not sure I’ll watch it again – except maybe with friends who will appreciate the gloriously insane and kitsch nature of the film – but it’s definitely one to loan out and wait for the reaction from.
Stories I have known, ’07
Following on from the overall list of Great Stories We Enjoyed in 2007, here then is my personal list:
Absolute Favourites:
David D Levine, “Titanium Mike Saves the Day,” F and SF April
Martin Livings, “There was Darkness,” Fantastic Wonder Stories
Eric James Stone, “Tabloid Reporter to the Stars,” Intergalactic Medicine Show February
Honorable Mentions:
Manek Mistry, “Stories of the Alien Invasion,” Abyss and Apex 21
Karen Swanberg, “The Memory of Touch,” Abyss and Apex 21
Ben Burgis, “Three Perspectives on the Role of the Anarchists in the Zombie Apocalypse,” Afterburn SF July
Amy Betchel, “A Time for Lawsuits,” Analog July/August
Kevin Veale, “A Day in Her Lives,” ASIM 29
Charles Stross, “Trunk and Disorderly,” Asimovs January
Kristine Kathryn Rusch, “Recovering Apollo 8,” Asimovs February
Karen Joy Fowler, “Always,” Asimovs April/May
Lucius Shephard, “Dead Money,” Asimovs April/May
Allen M Steele, “The River Horses,” Asimovs April/May
Nancy Kress, “Fountain of Age,” Asimovs July
Darja Malcolm-Clarke, “The Beacon,” Clarkesworld 11
Bud Sparhawk, “Frost,” Darker Matter 1
Cherie Priest, “Our Lady of the Wasteland and the Hallelujah Chorus,” Dreadful Skin
M Rickert, “Memoir of a Deer Woman,” F and SF March
Carrie Vaughn, “Swing Time,” Baen’s Universe June
Grace Dugan, “Knowledge,” Interzone 211
Walter Jon Williams, “Send Them Flowers,” The New Space Opera
Nancy Kress, “The Art of War,” The New Space Opera
Joanne Merriam, “The Harvest,” Strange Horizons March
John Rosenmann, “Going Away,” Space and Time 100
Lee Thomas, “Sweet Fields,” Space and Time 100
PD Cacek, “The Way to a Man’s Heart,” Space and Time 100
Stephen Baxter, “Last Contact,” Solaris Book of New Science Fiction
Rachel Swirsky, “Dispersed by the Sun, Melting in the Wind,” Subterranean Online Summer
Ben Payne, “Inside,” Ticonderoga Online 11
Tansy Roberts, “Bluebell Vengeance,” ASIM 28
Kieran Morgan, “Finding Each Other Again,” ASIM 30
Sue Isle, “The Sun People,” Shiny 1
Things I think influence my thoughts on this:
I’m not an author
Until last year, I had read very few short stories
I’m the youngest
I’m a softie, unlike the other three who are hard-asses…Â =D
On women being published and such
So a friend of mine started a ginormous interwebs feud the other day, discussing the lack of women being published in speculative fiction. A lot of people responded; some very well, others (mostly men) extremely poorly. There was mud-flinging and name-calling and misrepresentations… all very interesting.
In response, and to get her own thoughts on the subject very clear and mused-through, the wonderful Tansy has linked to the debates and offered a coherent, sustained, and fascinating take on the whole topic. Sans mud-slinging!
Randomly Yours, Alex 