labingi

Title: "Advantage"
Fandom: Gungrave
Characters: Tokioka, Brandon
Rating/Warnings: R for themes.
Summary: Tokioka spent thirteen years alone with an unconscious Brandon.
Genre: Humor, crack
A/N: I'm assuming the Land of the Yule is a parallel universe to ours close enough to have some of the same books, etc. Apologies if this fic comes off as homophobic in a Robert Holmesian vein. That's not my intent; it's just where the material went.

( Advantage )

On watching Gungrave again. This must be my fourth or fifth time through, and as with the best stories, I’m still spotting new things--and am aware I’m missing others. Below the cut, Harry observations with rampant spoilers, including substantial Iliad comparison.

( More Iliad Comparisons and Other Character Bits )

I got to hear a substantial portion of the score for HBM today. It's sounding really good, and I'm fortunate to have a composer in Grayson who is not only good with musical composition but has put a lot of thought into the movie, its themes, moods, etc.

I feel re-galvanized, like we're making real progress.

I finally finished this book. Quick and dirty review. Overall, it was good; it was better in the beginning. It was somewhat too long. If you like Iain M. Banks, you'll probably like it. The star of the show is the setting.

Summary: On a distant planet in a rundown city, an unlikely group forms an alliance to destroy a threat to all life in the city.

The Good
* Excellent world-building: deep and grubby and convincingly real. Nice concept for deploying what we would usually call "magic" as a separate branch of physics and discussing how an impoverished, decaying civilization would employ it--just as such societies employ the other laws of physics--mainly (but not always) to degrade, punish, and make the rich richer. Good integration of several alien cultures together. Nice mix of super-advanced tech with old tech: it feels alien and also like a society that's been through many rounds of development and collapse.

* Fake science: especially near the beginning, the discussion of fake physics and scientists' attachment to their work was interesting and felt psychologically plausible. So, too, the discussion of art.

* The action story (no spoilers): he presents a convincingly tricky problem with various possible solutions, none easy. Nice sci fi realism and tension.

* The characters are not silly or stereotyped. They are diverse and plausible, if not deep. (This is the second of Miéville's books I've read, and this seems his standard approach to character.)

The Less Good

* The characters are not deep. The only potentially profoundly interesting one is Yagharek, and his particular story occupies about 1/30 of the book. Isaac (the best candidate for protagonist) is like intricate pastel painting: a lot of subtlety went into it, but it's all in bland colors.

* It's too long, i.e. too detail- and subplot-heavy to fully sustain interest over 600+ pages (for me).

* It's got some mild gender fail (on which more beneath the cut), which is not egregious by any means, but I'd like to be able to hold Miéville to a higher standard.

( Gender, Character and Spoilers )

I had a strange, quiet revelation last night that I may be coming to the end of my Continuation stories. Now, at my current rate of writing (which really needs to pick up), I have more than enough open projects to last till the end of my natural life. And at a good clip, I have, oh, 20 years of projects left. But I haven't developed a truly new idea for a story in the Continuation universe in something like 6 years.

I find this kind of comforting. While I love the Continuation, there's a certain "light at the end of the tunnel" feeling about imaging a time when I'll move on to writing something truly different--probably related to Japan--or maybe just a lot more fan fic.

The Continuation stories I want to finish, in roughly the order I ought to be working on them, are (pardon the list that means nothing to anyone but me):

1. Broken Song (web show)
2. The Forwarder (to be published along with web show)
3. Mercy ('Eblia's story)
4. The Dying Cycle (of which Mercy is a sub-story) ('Ghanior et al.'s story)
5. Convention
6. (needs title) Dhri and Nerin's story
7. Málorvat (The Kiri Gilgamesh)

Less important, smaller projects:
1. Revise "The Eater" into some decent form
2. Maybe a novella of "The Impossibility of Death"
3. Finish that short story about the Ybian making friends with the human
4. Codify some reference materials (including War's End)

That's about it. I mean, that's a lot, but it's recognizably finite. It will be nice to be done with all that someday. It will be kind of freeing. Maybe I'll write that long fan fic about Elrond...

ewans_gal_4ever put me onto YouTube's Epic Rap Battles of History videos. She recommended:

Kirk vs. Columbus, which I greatly enjoyed.

I also quite liked:

Einstein vs. Stephen Hawking
Mr. T vs. Mr. Rogers

For Mirage of Blaze fans, a pretty picture of Nagahide by Jillia.

And a Naoetora video.

For Gungrave fans (I know 1 or 2 of you exist), an excellent Harry and Brandon vid.

The Hour before Morning is (finally) available as an e-book. It's available for $8.99 (USD) on:

Lulu and

iTunes.

Product description:

Three people lie in a prison cell. One is a murderer. Can his companions help him unlock the door to his own mind before his unreasoning rages claim their lives? The Hour before Morning explores a distant future in which the human heart is much the same. The Ash'torians see their conquest of the Outliers as a triumph of civilization. The Outliers see it as servitude. Their resistance takes many forms, from non-violence to terrorism. Yet one thing remains constant: though lives are shattered, compassion endures.

Perdita is away to the barber's--er, proofreader's--at last. I should say, Help the Gods is, as this is the edition I hope to release under that rather more interesting title.

Oh, Perdita, Perdita, I really don't know what I'm looking at when I look at you. My best analysis (21 years after I started writing and 11 after I "finished" the first edition) is that it has good parts and bad parts. In my most recent wordiness edit, there were moments it moved me to tears and moments that were just dull and a bit embarrassing. And there were some moments that were a bit embarrassing in a not-necessarily-bad-way, such as some slightly purplish romance. I wouldn't write that way today, but there's a reason it appeals, especially to young audiences, and Perdita is fundamentally a young person's book.

Here's my best assessment of the current version:

The Bad:
* Not very good prose. It's not as embarrassingly amateurish as the original, but it's very flat and rarely rises above functional.

* Those dang couple of plot points (no spoilers) that are just hard to justify in terms of character motivation.

* Some really dull bits, mostly surrounding Karmeena learning to mind read and the long, boring meeting--and, alas, as ever, chapter 1.

* Poor Laynia being stereotyped as seductress. I tried to make this interesting, but it still reads as stereotyped.

* My mom says the ending lacks resolution. I don't know. I think it's okay, but it is a "gray" ending.

The Good:
* Ethan and Sherayna, singly and together (overall: some bit read a bit "high school")

* Part 3--it's the part that seems most cohesive and moving.

* Leric. I still love him. He's one of those characters who is nothing like me yet whom I know well enough to just jump in and write. And Leric and Sherayna trying to work out their issues via playing First Causes is still a scene I love.

* The general theme, which one early reader summed up as "fanaticism." I think it makes its point.

(Ghanior--my icon--is not yet born at the time of this story, but I do think Ethan is one of his personal heroes.)

Haitian People/Culture: A Very Glancing Exposure

Haiti is considered a somewhat dangerous country, as a result of which, when you go there for an adoption process, they ferry you around almost as if you were in protective custody. I, therefore, can't claim to have experienced much of the Haitian people or culture in my brief visit, but here are my impressions.

My Impression of the Haitian "Tone"

I don't know where I picked up the stereotype that led to expect a lively and very outgoing people. Was I thinking of media images we get from Jamaica? All I know is that I was anticipating a kind of loudness, of expansive gestures, big emotions, music everywhere, etc. I was surprised to find the people quite the reverse.( Read more... )

Michael has sent me some clips of his green screening work on the prison ship and rebel base. It's really impressive!

In particular, he did some very neat jiggery pokery with the fellows standing guard so that one looks much farther away than the other (they were filmed side by side). This gives an amazing feeling of depth.

I'm also very impressed that he actually managed to construct a plausible space ship out of the table wrapped in a green sheet we made Joel climb out of.

Progress!