L’esprit d’escalier

Let me start with this:  I loved the original Stargate. I saw it in theatres (thus beginning my crush on James Spader).  I bought it when it came out on VHS — something I rarely do.  I’ll spend far more money than I ought to on books without batting an eyelash, but buy a movie?  That’s a rarity.  So much did I enjoy the movie that when they released the special edition on DVD, I acquired that, too.

When Stargate: SG-1 started airing on Showtime, I devoured the first few seasons, even though I wasn’t sure about Michael Shanks taking over the part of Daniel (don’t worry, I warmed to him right quick.)

I lost touch with it after a while.  Something shifted, not with the show but with me, though I couldn’t tell you what it was precisely.  My guess is that it started airing on a different night or time.  It first aired in July of 1997, which was the first summer Greg and I were dating.   It was also that summer that I started gaming with Greg and his friends.  After the bookstore closed, we’d all gather and save the world from Technocs and Nephandi, and I was notoriously bad about setting the VCR to record.

So, y’know, I know I’ve missed a ton of story.  I knew SGU was coming, because the awesome John Scalzi was brought on as a creative consultant and has talked it up on his blog.   Greg watched the pilot before I did, and to demonstrate just how much story I’ve missed, when he started talking about the characters encoding nine chevrons I asked if he was sure of that.  Since we all know from the movie that the Stargate takes seven symbols to create a wormhole.

Yes, he told me, but we’ve learned it can take eight symbols, too.  I boggled.

That’s how behind I am on my Stargate lore.

So I’ve queued up the Stargate Universe pilot on Hulu and watched it in bits and pieces over the last week or two and finally finished it today.

I really dug it.

It’s darker so far than SG-1 was in those first few seasons, but I’m fine with that.  I’m a fan of dark.  The pilot does very well with catching newcomers to the story (and lapsed viewers) up to speed without infodumping all over us.

Gamer geek, Eli, is a perfect choice for a guide:  we follow his introduction to the Stargate program and learn the things we need to know right along with him.  It’s a nice way to avoid excessive exposition.  He asks a question, someone gives him the nutshell-sized answer, and it’s just enough.  Late in the pilot, for example, Dr. Rush (who we’ll come back to in a minute) mentions that the Ancients who built the Stargates and the ship they’ve found themselves trapped on had discovered “ascension.”  Eli, of course, has no idea what he’s talking about.  Rush lays down in about three sentences, even though I’m guessing its reveal must have been the plot point of at least one SG-1 arc.

Dr. Rush is, so far, my favorite character.  Shut up, it’s not just the accent.  I get the sense he’s going to be a bit Baltar-like, though with less  selfishness (or at least, not manifesting in the same way.)  I believed his speech to Chloe begging for her trust more than I ever would have believed it coming from the mouth of Gaius Baltar.  Is he manipulative?  Oh, I’m pretty sure he is, and I know I might be buying into exactly what the writers want me to, but during that plea, I was convinced that he meant every word he said.

There were some bits that felt a bit cookie-cutter for me, but I was engaged enough in the story that I’ll trust the writers to challenge those perceptions before long.  Eli’s a perfect example:  we meet him playing a video game and solving a puzzle he’s been working at in the game for two months.  He’s pudgy, which I’m unsure whether to cheer on (“Hey look!  Not everyone on TV has to have perfect abs to be a likeable character!”) or groan about (“LOL gamers are fat! He probably survives on Cheetos and Mountain Dew har har har”).  So far, they’ve played up his geekiness as awkward and a bit naive, but he’s not a complete dumbass.  I think he’s going to prove one to be of the characters that keeps the others (Dr. Rush, the soldiers) grounded and reminds them that they’re human beings before they’re scientists or military men.

Most of the characters they’ve focused on so far are male, which I’m not terribly happy about, but I’m also willing to give the writers a bit more time on that, too.  I’m hoping that Chloe Armstrong and Tamara Johansen play bigger roles in upcoming episdoes.  It seems to be where they’re heading with Chloe, at least, and since Tamara’s the only medic they have, she’s going to be needed a lot more before the season’s out.

I won’t go so far as to say it’s my new BSG; that’s going to take a lot to top.  However, I admit that I was a bit pouty when my lunch hour ended.  I wanted to go straight into the second episode.  This has potential.

They’ve disabled embedding, so you have to go clicky.

I cannot wait for this movie.   This was the very first book I read when I started my current job.  I don’t think words can express how exciting it was to be here during the summer of 2002, watching this book we all loved so very much just… take off.  It was this crazy magical synergy of publisher love and bookseller love and author love* and reader love, all lifting this book up to the heights it so fully deserved.

If you haven’t read The Lovely Bones yet, by the by, hie thee to your local independent bookstore and pick up a copy.  Don’t wait for the movie.

(*Thank you, Anna Quindlen)

Dear Zombie Santa,

I’ve been a very good girl this year.  Well, mostly good.  Okay, pretty good, at least if you squint your eyes and turn your head a few degrees to the left.  Hey, it’s only May. I have the rest of the year to be better.

Anyway.

Please, please, please let J.J. Abrams make The Dark Tower into movies.  Pretty please.

I will leave you extra cookies and everything.

Love,

falconesse

Don’t worry, I won’t spoil last night’s Lost in this post, but I will be alluding to things that have happened this season.  So, if you’re more than a month or two behind, you might want to click away.

Good?

Good.

Hokay.  So, a bunch of our favorite Losties are stuck back in 1977, hiding within the Dharma Initiative and trying not to be discovered.  It’s a neat plotline, and I’m enjoying it.

That said, I have a hard time buying Jack and Hurley’s (but especially Jack’s) inability to grasp what Miles and Daniel keep telling them:  you can die here. This is our present.

I don’t know, maybe it’s all the science fiction I’ve devoured over the years, but I have to say that if I found myself suddenly yoinked backwards in time I’d be damned careful with everything I did, and not just for fear of stepping on a butterfly.

Actually, Jack and crew don’t even have to worry about the whole Sound of Thunder thing.  So far, the rules of the Lostverse say you can tramp on all the butterflies you want — if you do it, that’s because they’re supposed to get flattened, not because you changed the timeline.  You were always supposed to be there, in that place and time to smushy smushy — even if you “belong” thirty years in the future.

What they do have to worry about, what Miles and Daniel get and they seem to deny, is that “dun sweat the flutterbies” also means “if you’re supposed to die here and now, guess what.  Buh-bye.”  Because time, for them, is linear.  They might have seen Richard Alpert and Ben Linus all grownsed up in good ol’ 2007, so sure, you probably can’t kill them (sorry, Sayid), but unless you’ve also jumped ahead during the Island’s version of Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego? and, say, saw yourself in 2015, there are no guarantees.

But every time Jack does something risky, he’s all “I CAN’T DIE LOL,” and I want to shake him.  I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that it finally managed to worm its way into his skull last night, but good lord, it took, what, six episodes now?

I find it hard to believe that Jack can’t grasp the concept.  He’s a smart guy.  Hell, Hurley has at least some kind of understanding of it, latching onto the rules of the Back to the Future universe to explain things.

So is Jack in denial?  Is he just that thick?  Or is it that easy for me because I’ve read this stuff so many times, and seen it in so many movies and TV shows (hell, how many times in the last few seasons has the concept factored into Doctor Who?) — does the average viewer, for whom Lost is pretty much their first (only?) foray into sf, need a few extra episodes to catch on, and Jack acts as their everyman?

I’ll answer that last one, but I’d love to hear it if you have a differing opinion.  Suggesting that non-sf fans aren’t going to be able to grok the rules is silly.  Look at all the twists and turns this show has taken over four seasons.  If you can keep straight in your mind what’s present-day and what’s past,* you are definitely smart enough to wrap your mind around the rules of time-travel in the Lostverse.

Which means, my conclusion leans towards “Jack is just that thick,” or, possibly, Poor Writing.  I really, really liked last night’s episode, so I’m loathe to suggest that, but, hrm.  Looking at Season 5 over at Lostpedia, I can see that the last few episodes were all done by different writing teams.  Is it possible that each of them wanted their shot at writing the “Yes, we can die” dialogues, or that some of them felt it was important and others didn’t even touch upon it?  I don’t know nearly enough about screenwriting, especially for a project like Lost, to venture a decent guess.

Thoughts?

*or, in season 3, what’s present-day and what’s future

…to be staring down the end of a Friday, knowing that there is no Battlestar Galactica tonight?

Reading Jacob’s final recap (even though he hated the finale), missing it already.

BSG spoilers abound.  Don’t clicky if you’re not caught up.

Continue Reading »

Oh, hey, a WoW post.

The lovely Anna issued a ficlet challenge to her readers last Friday.  The original question was posed to my Alliance-side guild (by our favorite Pretentious Bastard) with slightly different rules (write about a character that’s not your own, and do it in 1,024 characters)  but the scenario was the same:  a character is walking somewhere and is mugged.  What is his or her reaction?

Anna gave us 500 words to do it in, and I confess, I’ve gone over.  My final wordcount is 610, but considering that’s cut from 830-something, I’ll take it.  I went with Davien, my undead mage, since it’s been a while since the ol’ girl had herself a Moment of Badass.

So.  Here ’tis.

—

Krintas Meriwether lay in the sewers, waiting for his prey.  Cold water weighed down the fabric of his stolen robes and made him shiver.  He groaned in case someone was nearby.

Awilo Lon’gomba sent mushroom-hunters down here twice a week, and twice a week, some sympathetic soul discovered the washed-up Krintas, pried the grate out of the wall, and helped him limp out into the light of Dalaran.  They never noticed the coin purses being liberated from their persons until he was long gone.

Splashing footsteps echoed down the tunnel.  He groaned again.  The footsteps paused, resumed, grew closer.  Gentle waves lapped at him.  “Ah, now,” said a voice from above.  He cracked one eye, looking up and up into the glowing golden eyes of a rotter.

She had a well-worn satchel hanging from one thin shoulder, its sides bulging with mushrooms.  A black smudge marred the wide brim of her grey hat, like someone had held charcoal before touching the felt.  “Are ‘ee all right, sweetling?” she asked, kneeling down in the muck on the other side of the grate.  The cold didn’t seem to faze her.

What do hot and cold matter to the dead? Krintas pushed up onto his elbows, then fell back with a feeble whimper.  “The spell…”  He gasped.

“Aye, that’ll happen if y’re too heavy-handed with the arcane.  It’ll be guided, but if ‘ee try shovin’, it’ll shove back.”  She tilted her head and sniffed the air.

This isn’t the time for a lecture, you rotter bitch. He nodded anyway.

“Come, then, let’s get ‘ee out o’there.”  She curled long, pale fingers around the bars; Krintas shied back from the heat.  The grate came away melted and misshapen, hissing when she set it in the water.

He hesitated to take her outstretched hand — surely his skin would burn — but he swallowed the fear, and when she helped him up, her touch was merely warm.

They made their slow, shuffling way to the surface.  Near the top, he stumbled.  This was the moment where he’d take his victims’ earnings.  Krintas reached for the woman’s belt pouch, felt its weight in his hand…

Her iron grip closed over his wrist.  “Impersonatin’ a mage is a fool’s game, sweetling.”

Krintas froze.  Down below, she’d looked thin to the point of frailty.  And I looked like an out-of-luck mage.  The gods are laughing.

“There’s not a speck o’ the arcane around ‘ee.  Not a whiff o’talent in y’r blood.”  With her free hand, she slipped a coin from her pouch.  Her fingers brushed his.  Now they were hot.

He squirmed, but she didn’t let go.

“Y’want a coin?” she asked.  She turned his hand, pressing the gold piece into his palm.  Krintas howled as he smelled his own flesh cooking.  It wasn’t entirely unlike Awilo’s hot ribs.  “I’m doin’ ‘ee a mercy.  The Tor finds out y’re usin’ their colors, they’ll do far worse.”

She let go.  The coin fell to the ground and rolled away.

“Now run, love,” she said, hefting her satchel, “an’ find an honest trade.  Mayhaps one outside o’Dalaran.”

Krintas Meriwether fled, clutching his branded hand and sobbing in pain.  He didn’t stop until he’d flung himself through the portal to Undercity, where he fell to his knees and plunged his hand in the waters of yet another sewer, this one green and putrid.

When the burning subsided, he held up his hand and whimpered.

From inside a perfect circle, Archmage Antonidas glared at him, accusing.  At the top of the curve, where Dalaran’s motto should have been, was one word.

Thief.

We’ve been using our Netflix subscription to catch up on shows we missed the first time around – Buffy, House, and several others. Our current queue is season 3 of Babylon 5, which I’m enjoying, although I have to occasionally force myself past bouts of bad acting or clunky plot. (Dear Talia Winters, please never come back.)

I’m not a fan of the episodes where they drag an historical figure into the future somehow (in season two it was Jack the Ripper). So, when a man proclaiming that he was King Arthur appeared on the ship, I knew it was going to be one of those episodes.

Now, if I haven’t mentioned it before, my geekery extends into Arthurian Legend. Ohyes. So, to see it treated with much cheese on B5 was going to have me rolling my eyes and bitching, moaning and snarking my way through the episode to start.

What made it ever so much worse was this:

We went to see Spamalot last week.

So, as soon as the character said “I am Arthur, King of the Britons,” I lost it. I couldn’t help but hear King Arthur’s Song every time they said it (and the title was repeated several times throughout the episode.)

Probably only funny to those who’ve seen both, but I have to say, it made the episode much more bearable.

Yes, I know. I’m a nerd.

Until they start breaking my heart all over again.

I can’t wait for January 16th.

Okay, there are several of you in various stages of waiting – Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, Heroes, Lost.

Trust me now.

You trust me, right? I know you do. (I’m looking at you, OPB, and Torteya.)

Okay, good.

Go rent Eureka. NOW. If you have Netflix, stick it in your queue and bump it to the top. Our friend Chuck gave the first season to Greg as a birthday present, and once we started watching it, we were hooked. I guess if I had to classify it, I’d call it science fiction/comedy, but there’s definitely a serious, darker undertone running through the whole show, which makes it all the more awesome.

The cast is pitch-perfect – I love Zoe Carter and Henry Deacon the very most. The dialogue is excellent, the timing great.

Oh, and you BSG fans? The music (at least in the third season, not sure about the first and second) is done by Bear McCreary.

GO. NOW. WATCH.

What the hell are you still doing here?