The first two books in Scott Westerfeld’s distopian look at a future where people are all surgically enhanced to reach the ‘biological’ ideal of beauty, in order to reduce the tensions that come with a society where not everyone reaches these ideals. They’re young adult novels and have a really interesting approach to a lot of the issues of image and fitting in and, well, ecology and society and a bit of everything really. I liked the first a great deal more than the second, mostly because the process of becoming pretty makes for slightly irritating characters – and I’m looking forward to getting the third, Specials, from the library this week.

This is a very long and dense book where nothing much happens to not very sympathetic characters.

As with any collection of essays, these are sort of uneven, but the gestalt collected a good variety of insight on being a mother, and neither fed nor discouraged my growing conviction that it’s pretty damned near time for me to get on with it.

One of those small, bleak, French films where nothing much happens, to great impact.

I don’t really know how to describe it. It’s set in Georgia, as in Russianish Georgia, and it’s about three women and the loss of the men in their lives.

But is it?

I devoured this culture-clashing story in broken English, stumbling over malapropisms, borrowed words, shattered sentance structure.

I yearned as the protagonist yearned, for fulfillment, for understanding, for a place in an alien world.

I felt the ache of her awakening sexuality, of her realization that sometimes love doesn’t last.

And I missed her when it ended, as all things must end.

A must-read.

There are a lot of important actors in this humdrum fantasy not-exactly-romp.

But hey, baby dragons!

This film is worth watching just for the shots of Paris, the fixation with its bridges, and silouhettes. The actors are incredible, the story just balancing that line between sweet and cheesy, and the situations are out on a ledge.

It is a bit uneven, with slow parts, and creepy parts, and just plain weird parts.

But it’s beautiful, in more ways than one.

Brin is clearly a master worldbuilder.

That said, I didn’t really care about the characters much at all, and the story was somewhat predictable.

Still, talking dolphins!

I have enjoyed many Kurosawa films in the past, but I found RAN a little battle focussed, and maybe too long. It was nice to look at, for the most part, and an interesting take on the trope of Lear.

This novel started out very strong, with a strong, independent female voice in a time where these voices were not heard. Unfortunately it couldn’t hold up the interest for the long term and became a slightly tedious rendition of this and that, small successes and small failures, not especiallly distinguished in any way.

It was an OK story, but nothing special, I guess.