Too much fun, not enough reviewing time!
Apr. 17th, 2010 03:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearReview backlog for this week:
Whip It:
A fun, enjoyable film, where everyone involved obviously had a great time making it. It was a bit slight, and there were a couple of scenes I thought were unnecessary padding (the food fight and the underwater sex scene), but there were a lot of likeable characters, it subverted cliche expectations in a couple of places, and was generally a pleasant way to spend an evening.
The Thirteenth House audiobook:
This is the second in the Twelve Houses series by Sharon Shinn, and not quite as good as I remembered it. I still really enjoyed it, but it was much more focused on the romance aspect of the story than the social/political aspect than I'd thought, and not that much actually happened in terms of arc plot. I will definitely be buying the others in the series in audio version, though, as I like the narrator and they are good for listening to at the gym.
Jovah's Angel:
This is the second in the Samaria series by Sharon Shinn, which I'm rereading in text format in parallel with the similarly themed David Weber series. Jovah's Angel reveals the secret behind the god Jovah and his seemingly failing powers (he's actually a spaceship and needs one of his circuit boards replacing), and contains not only much more likeable characters than the first book, but also some interesting discussions about science vs religion, the foundations of faith and the dangers of change. There's some nice romance in the story, too, but that aspect is less important than the fate of the realm, which makes it a more balanced story.
Murder on the Brighton Express:
Next in the Railway Detective series by Edward Marston, this book has Inspector Colbeck investigating a very nasty train collision. These books are light and fun, but fairly repetitive in the way the story unfolds, which makes me glad I'm leaving such long gaps between reading them, as otherwise they might get a bit tedious. And, whilst I've complained about too much focus on romance in Sharon Shinn books, I really wish a bit more attention was paid to Colbeck's relationship with Madeleine Andrews - their lack of progress is getting very annoying!!
Whip It:
A fun, enjoyable film, where everyone involved obviously had a great time making it. It was a bit slight, and there were a couple of scenes I thought were unnecessary padding (the food fight and the underwater sex scene), but there were a lot of likeable characters, it subverted cliche expectations in a couple of places, and was generally a pleasant way to spend an evening.
The Thirteenth House audiobook:
This is the second in the Twelve Houses series by Sharon Shinn, and not quite as good as I remembered it. I still really enjoyed it, but it was much more focused on the romance aspect of the story than the social/political aspect than I'd thought, and not that much actually happened in terms of arc plot. I will definitely be buying the others in the series in audio version, though, as I like the narrator and they are good for listening to at the gym.
Jovah's Angel:
This is the second in the Samaria series by Sharon Shinn, which I'm rereading in text format in parallel with the similarly themed David Weber series. Jovah's Angel reveals the secret behind the god Jovah and his seemingly failing powers (he's actually a spaceship and needs one of his circuit boards replacing), and contains not only much more likeable characters than the first book, but also some interesting discussions about science vs religion, the foundations of faith and the dangers of change. There's some nice romance in the story, too, but that aspect is less important than the fate of the realm, which makes it a more balanced story.
Murder on the Brighton Express:
Next in the Railway Detective series by Edward Marston, this book has Inspector Colbeck investigating a very nasty train collision. These books are light and fun, but fairly repetitive in the way the story unfolds, which makes me glad I'm leaving such long gaps between reading them, as otherwise they might get a bit tedious. And, whilst I've complained about too much focus on romance in Sharon Shinn books, I really wish a bit more attention was paid to Colbeck's relationship with Madeleine Andrews - their lack of progress is getting very annoying!!
