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silverslipstream · 6 days ago

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fictional novel summaries

Avocados on the Windowsill by Aubrey K. Meacher (Delacorte Press, 1992). Literary fiction. Winner of the 1992 Booker Prize. Adapted into a major Hollywood film in 1999, starring David Morse and Bobby Cannavale. A recently divorced chef leaves his home in California to live in a small Peruvian town, where an agricultural corporation's avocado production threatens to cause a disastrous water shortage. Ingratiating himself with the locals, he finds an unlikely way to come to terms with his past.

Project Rhombus by Gordon Chapman (Ace Books, 1962). Science fiction. In the then-near future of the late 1970s, a clandestine space race develops between the United States and the Soviet Union to uncover mysterious transmissions under the surface of the dark side of the Moon, while geopolitical tensions mount back on Earth.

The Subtle Art Of Disappearing Quietly by Emmeline van Asch (Simon and Schuster, 2009). Romance/literary fiction. Became a global sensation and was adapted into a 2014 film starring Felicity Jones and Rose Byrne. A depressed woman suddenly develops the uncontrolled ability to teleport, visiting a random person in the world for ten minutes every day. After falling for someone on the other side of the planet, she must grapple with truths about herself that she has long kept hidden.

The Talisman of Gek by Joseph Hughes Bertrand (J.B Lippincott & Co., 1956). Dark fantasy. First in the Gek series (1956-1980). In the post-apocalyptic wastelands of Gek, the last knights of a collapsed religious order battle with the mutant Clawed Sorcerer in the search for a relic from the old world, an ancient machine lost in the desert with the power to save or destroy Gek itself.

Farrow Hill by Harvey Keenan (Little, Brown and Company, 1983). Crime thriller. Fourth book in the Carl Duplessis series. When a series of deaths with seemingly no real cause occur in the sleepy Oregon town of Farrow Hill, Detective Carl Duplessis must face his hardest case yet, while dealing with scrutiny from his superiors and tension between him and his newly-assigned partner.

Jasper Leung Is Scared Of (Nearly) Everything by May Nguyen (Macmillan, 2013). Children's fiction. Shortlisted for the Costa Children's Book Prize 2013. When shy, geeky Jasper moves to a new city in the middle of the school year, he has to contend with bullies, a new baby sister and the difficulties of making new friends. Frustrated, Jasper sets out to prove to his new school that he's not afraid of anything.

What He Left Behind by Johanna Boswell (Avon Romance, 1976). Historical romance. Second book in the Wives of the War series. After her husband is killed in Dunkirk, newly widowed Mary leaves London for a small village in the Herefordshire countryside. Dealing with the loss of her husband, she nevertheless finds herself enamoured by the village's charming postmaster.

Absolution by G. T. Rowcroft (Putnam, 1935). Crime/literary fiction. Made into two films (1953, 2019), the most recent starring Liam Neeson, Noah Jupe and John C. Reilly. When his son is murdered, a grieving father ventures into the Alaskan wilderness in order to escape the police investigation, of which he is the chief suspect. As he struggles to survive, he must come to terms with the circumstances of his son's death. Often ranked by critics as one of the 'greatest American novels/films of the 21st century'.

Jay Powell's Definitely-Kissed List by Alex Casey (Simon and Schuster, 2017). Young adult fiction. Adapted into a 2022 film starring Tanner Buchanan, Kathryn Newton and Jack Dylan Grazer. A self-authored list of students kissed by high school basketball star Jay Powell is spread on social media, turning him from hometown hero into controversial figure overnight. Inspired by the list, a trio of misfits attempts to uncover the truth behind the list and the enigmatic Jay himself.

Exodus by Katrine Eischmann (Voyager, 1998). Winner of the 1998 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. In the future, stars are disappearing from the night sky: a false vacuum experiment by a long-dead alien race threatens to destroy the Milky Way galaxy. Humanity is forced to work with fleeing alien races to escape the disaster, and to try and find a way to stop its expansion before it reaches Earth.

#writeblr #my writing #summary #fictional novels #weird little idea I had - what if I write summaries of novels from alternate universes? kinda cool I think

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usefulpracticalknowledge · 2 years ago

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Biography Kristen Bell

Kristen Anne Bell is an American actress who was born on July 18, 1980. She is best known for her role as Veronica March in the television series. The voice of this actress is that of the enigmatic Chinese girl whose identity remains a mystery to all. He has additionally showed up in twelve episodes of the series Legends. Additionally, she played Anna in the frozen animation. Biography of Kristen Bell

Bell made his acting debut in the television series "Veronica Mars," which ran from 2004 to 2007. She won the Saturn Award for Best Television Supporting Actress for her performance. She has appeared in the 2014 film's sequel. Bell portrayed Mary Line in The Reader Movement while she was on Veronica Mars:

He starred in the New York music that inspired the 2005 film The Movie Musical. Bell played Elle Bishop in the science fiction series Heroes from 2007 to 2008. She appeared on popular radio shows in the television series "Girl Rumors" from 2007 to 2012. Since then, he has appeared in a number of comedic films, including:

Bell gaining more recognition for Princess Anna in the fantasy films Animated Animated Frozen Freezer (2013), Frozen Fever (2015), Frozen Olaf Adventure (2017), and Frozen Future 2 (2019), Couples Retreat (2009), When in Rome (2010), You Again (2010), The Boss (2016), and Kids Bad Moms (2017). She played Janine Van der Hoen, the female lead, in the Showtime series House of Lies from 2012 to 2016. She has played Eleanor Shellstrop on the NBC comedy series Good Place since 2016.

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orangepanic · 2 years ago

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Thank you for helping me procrastinate @yellowsalt3

Last Song: A Murder of One by Counting Crows (still a great album)

Last Show: Poker Face

Currently Watching: Nothing. We have a few shows on deck but haven't started any yet.

Currently Reading: Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019 (collection) and Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edogawa Rampo

Current Obsession: I made a silly warlock for a D&D oneshot campaign whose patron is the infernal spirit of his dead cat and I've been fussing with him all day. I love character creation.

Tagging anyone who wants to participate!

Tagged by the wonderful @unionjackpillow

Last Song: Romance for Violin and Orchestra No. 2 by Beethoven

Last Show: Watching Crazy Ex-Girlfriend again with my wife and Worst Witch with the kid.

Currently Watching: Aggretsuko

Currently Reading: Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch. I listened to the audiobooks (which were excellent) back when there were only three and I have recently been advised there are MANY MORE!

Current Obsession: Sister Julienne

I tag @toastweasel @nyamadermont @lhaagain @thewindysideofcare @shine-on-down @bluestocking-under-glass and @c3mf

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cricketnationrise · 4 years ago

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January 2021 Reading Roundup

quarantine (2020) reads here

River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey: novella 2 of the River of Teeth duology in which in an alternate USA, hippos were introduced as an alternative to cows and then went feral along the mississippi river and also there was a queer heist gang that formed. anyway its great and everyone should read this series

Judge Dee and the Limits of the Law by Lavie Tidhar: tor.com short story featuring vampire politics and a loyal henchman

Black Powder War by Naomi Novik: book 3 in the temeraire series. talking dragons bond with their humans in this alternate history around the napoleonic wars. absolutely need to read these in order

The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019: what it says on the tin. short story collection

From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty: snapshots of death/funeral customs around the world as told by a US based mortician. she has a couple other books as well. non-fiction.

The Duke and I by Julia Quinn: book 1 in the bridgerton series. romance, sex on the page. YES there is a problematic scene involving consent. YES this book is good anyway. also re: consent issues, they use their words to talk about it and forgive each other. don’t @ me. focuses on the oldest sister, Daphne.

The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn: book 2 in the bridgerton series. romance, sex on the page. sort of a riff on pride and prejudice/taming of the shrew. focuses on the oldest brother, Andrew.

An Offer From a Gentleman by Julia Quinn: book 2 in the bridgerton series. romance, sex on the page. cinderella as a reference point but diverges wildly after the “lost slipper” scene (its a glove in this case). focuses on the second oldest brother, Benedict.

#Selfcare by Annalee Newitz: tor.com short story, fantasy/faerie elements

Kindred by Octavia Butler: trigger/content warning for slavery, violence of all kinds, harm to children, murder, etc; a black woman time travels to multiple points in her own family’s history to save her white great great great? slave owner grandfather from dying. she flashes back and forth from the plantation to her own life, but 3 months on the plantation could be as little as 2 hours in her own life.

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman: a (failed) bank robber holds an open house’s worth of people in an apartment hostage, a father and son cop duo try to talk the hostage taker into letting them go and coming peacefully. changing POV. everyone’s preconceived notions get turned on their heads. content warning for suicide, anxiety. translated from swedish.

The High King’s Tomb by Kristen Britain: book 3 in the Green Rider series. high fantasy series that you absolutely have to read in order.

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson: in kentucky, there were a group of people known as Blue People due to a birth defect making their skin take on a blueish tint. during the New Deal “Book Women” would take books/magazines/etc to extremely rural houses/schools and serve as libraries on mules/horseback. the book woman of troublesome creek belongs to both groups. warnings for forced experimentation/medication, racism, violence against women, suicide, murder, assault, stalking

Thick as Thieves by Megan Whalen Turner: book 5 in the queen’s thief series, definitely need to read these in order. based LOOSELY on greek gods being present in the world, lots of political machinations

Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker: graphic novel, fantasy coexisting with the mundane world, an old shapeshifter friend shows back up in the town where the witch narrator lives with her witch moms (maybe aunts), the two reconnect and fall in love while trying to figure out who could be trying to attack the shapeshifter (look it was a while ago now and i was too lazy to look up their names), art is really cute and the story is wonderful. nonbinary/female relationship at the center. ~magic lesbians~ warning for kidnapping and harm to teenagers, magical violence/coersion

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ebbartels · 5 years ago

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Non-Fiction by Non-Men: Carmen Maria Machado

For the full interview, see it on Fiction Advocate. Published on November 12, 2019.

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Carmen Maria Machado is the author of the memoir In the Dream House and the short story collection Her Body and Other Parties, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the winner of the Bard Fiction Prize, the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction, the Brooklyn Public Library Literature Prize,…

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tygerbug · 2 years ago

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Jordan Peele's NOPE (2022) is a tense, worrying, anxiety-inducing and thought-provoking horror film which deserves to be seen in its full scope on the big screen. I have no particular love for the bleak desert locations of Agua Dulce, California, but as shot on 65mm film and screened in digital IMAX the bleached desert visuals lend scale and spectacle to a film which questions the role of visual spectacle in our lives. Jordan Peele became famous for his television sketch comedy with Keegan-Michael Key, on MADtv and Key & Peele. This work often had pointed social commentary in it, which continues to be a hallmark of Peele's work. It is possible to imagine the ideas explored in Peele's horror features also being explored in his earlier sketch comedy. There is, oddly, a haunting monologue in NOPE in which one character describes a nonexistent Saturday Night Live comedy sketch starring Chris Kattan- who does not appear in this film.

Jordan Peele has quickly gained a reputation as probably the best horror director working today, and it's because his movies are not just scary and full of haunting ideas which stick with you, but also because they feel deeply personal. In his sketch comedy days, he once played President Barack Obama with Keegan Michael-Key as his "anger translator," saying the things that an average person might say if confronted with the level of bullshit that the President dealt with during his term. This was, probably, just a fantasy, presenting Obama as more relatable than he was. In these films, Peele seems to serve as his own "anger translator," populating these already terrifying situations with his own frustrations and unease with the state of the union today. All the evidence would suggest that Peele has deep misgivings and trauma from existing as a black creator in Hollywood, and this comes out in his work.

In 2017's Get Out, British actor Daniel Kaluuya played Chris Washington, who visits his white girlfriend's liberal family at their plantation-style home, and gradually realizes that he's walked into a trap. Though there's nods toward a science-fiction premise, the real horror here is how American society has traditionally treated black bodies as disposable. That their lives might not "matter." There is something universally haunting and terrifying about the scenes in which Chris's autonomy as a person is taken from him, and he is sent to the "sunken place"- where his screams will go unheard. The satirical social commentary is impossible to miss, and it's also a well-constructed horror film in which the sense of dread and danger is rising and palpable throughout. In 2019's Us a family on vacation (led by Winston Duke and Lupita Nyong'o) are terrorized by doppelgangers of themselves, who have lived a funhouse mirror life in the darkness, deprived of every advantage that this family had in the light.

In NOPE the filmmaker takes on Hollywood itself, and the idea that our lives are now lived on camera. This is just the background radiation of the film- a Hollywood which is unequal by default, and racist in a casual, unthinking way that the film doesn't dwell on. The Haywood family, who run Haywood's Hollywood Horses on a ranch in Agua Dulce, have been trying to get ahead in a small niche of the movie business for as long as OJ (Otis Jr) and Emerald Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer) have been alive. They are already traumatized and broken by the time we first meet Emerald, late for work and doing her energetic hard-sell pitch on the set of a commercial. Steven Yeun, as former child actor and rival horse rancher Ricky "Jupe" Park, is traumatized too, but has learned to wear a smile like a mask and play the part of the carnival-barker showman. He has turned his ranch into a tourist destination, "Jupiter's Claim," selling plush toys of aliens that he would never admit are straight from his own nightmares.

Daniel Kaluuya is again an appealingly languid presence as OJ Haywood. He is not as outwardly energetic and assertive as his sister, but the film is always very much on his side, allowing you to get in his headspace throughout. He underplays it as someone who has seen too much for his young age. The film is equally sympathetic to Keke Palmer's Emerald, even as it uses her to show how destructive it is, to a person, to constantly have to hustle and prove yourself to the media powers that be, or even to be believed. Neither of them are especially good as proving themselves worthy in a rigged system, and eventually it makes them both equally reckless. It's not hard to compare this to the reckless behavior of Jupe, whose childhood trauma is explained in one of the film's scarier scenes. Like many child actors he had big dreams and was trying to prove himself, but when it mattered there was no one there to protect him, or anyone around him. And somewhere out there, there be monsters. Or maybe just animals doing what animals do.

There will be a lot of pages written about what this movie means, exactly. In some ways the film is overt about its themes but exactly what we're supposed to take away from that is up to the viewer. This is the kind of movie that film students love. It's certainly not the pointed statement that Get Out was, but it has something to say about how Americans would relate to an event like this, which makes it a fresh and unique twist on what could seem like well-trodden subject matter. Does it "mean" as much as Get Out? Not really, but it establishes its own vibe and tone which is well worth the time. There is also a level of visual spectacle to the film, which a real-life family like the Haywoods would not have the budget to fake, or to reach a mass audience in the way that this film will. This is a movie about people lower on the Hollywood totem pole, who don't have the platform of a big superhero movie, or a relatively big-budget summer movie like this.

First and foremost it's also a tense and well-crafted thriller, that goes to some genuinely unpleasant places. I heard that in some screenings the film was treated as a comedy. That was not my experience. It certainly has satirical themes which could (and should) seem flippant (one key moment involves the intervention of a "journalist" believed to be from TMZ). I read another reaction in which a large-scale event midway through the movie, as depicted, made one viewer sick for a week. It's not an especially gory sequence- the viewer is left to fill in the blanks from fragments- but there are disturbing ideas in the film which could stick with you and get under your skin. There is also a constant sense of danger. The small audience I saw the film with laughed when it finally occurred to Kaluuya's OJ to lock the car door. I don't know that it actually will stick with viewers in the same way, but there is a level of craft on display here, in a mass-appeal film, that we'd normally attribute to the likes of Carpenter or Spielberg in the 80s. And it's clever.

The iconic Keith David plays the father of the family. Brandon Perea plays Angel Torres, a UFO-obsessed clerk at this movie's version of the UFO-themed Fry's Electronics in Burbank, which closed down permanently in February 2021. Michael Wincott plays filmmaker Antlers Holst, looking weathered and tanned by the Hollywood sun, and using outdated film equipment in 2022.

At one point, OJ, Emerald and Angel have left the ranch, and another movie might have rolled the credits here. When they went to Angel's apartment instead, followed by VR gaming, vaping and shrimp sandwiches, it was clear that we weren't remotely done yet. There's a lot happening here, including enough believable CGI effects to take up a good chunk of the $68 million budget.

There are two brief shots at the very end which change the outcome of the film, and which would have been easy to fake in post or with one pickup. There's also, at least in my opinion, no hint of this outcome in the previous shot's performance, which seemed to be setting up a different kind of arrival if you cut to black there. But that might just be saving it as a surprise, and then wanting to get it over with quickly. It does feel like something Peele would have shot, but maybe an afterthought, or to give himself options. I suspect it was tested with and without those shots anyway. Get Out also had an unused alternate ending which was a bit darker, at the end of an already very dark film, and I'm sure the same discussions were had here. It doesn't make the movie better or worse, but it does leave you on a different note.

The audio was generally well-mixed. I had trouble understanding some of the dialogue, though not to a degree that it affected comprehension. On Twitter, Jordan Peele released an opening sequence for the sitcom "Gordy's Home," with a faux VHS filter over it. Footage from the ALF-like sitcom is vaguely glimpsed in the background of Jupe's scenes but is not directly shown. It easily could have been, although it might have felt too comedic. It does show how much thought was put into the backstory of these characters, and the media that surrounds and shapes them. Early in the film, Emerald misses one word in her sales pitch on the commercial set, and a VHS tape later tells us why.

There's some very subtle stuff going on, and other stuff which is about as subtle as a thousand gallons of blood dumped overhead. I think that's a good mix for a movie to have, and it shows why Jordan Peele is one of the most interesting filmmakers working today.

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inevitably-johnlocked · 4 years ago

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Hi Steph, you’re amazing at what you do. I just want to know from a true connoisseur, which 3 fics do you think you’ve read and re-read the most number of times? As in, 3 ultimate comfort fics.

Hi Nonny!

Ooof, I’ve been asked a similar question here a couple weeks ago, but hmm, this is actually something I never really had to think hard about! EXCEPT CAN I GIVE YOU 5? Because 5 immediately came to mind. Is that okay?? OMG I’m so sorry. Plus 5 is a number I like better than three, sorry :P Another weird tic of mine.

No surprise which is my first, hahah:

A Promise Made to Be Broken by PlantsAreNeat (E, 37,018 w., 7 Ch. || Fake Relationship, Pining, Slow Burn, RST, Eventual Relationship, POV Sherlock) – A young John makes an ‘if we’re still single at 40, we’ll get together’ pledge to a woman who ends up all wrong for him. She keeps reminding him of the promise, and won’t let go of it. John asks Sherlock to pose as his boyfriend at a family wedding, so as to dash her hopes permanently. Sherlock, who has at last acknowledged his feelings for John, reluctantly agrees despite knowing how painful it will be to ‘have’ John, but not keep him.

It’s just such a joy to read every single time, and I never skip any parts at all. Start to finish EVERY TIME.

Iris by slashscribe (E, 11,948 w., 1 Ch. || Parentlock, Pining Sherlock, Post-S3) – Sherlock does his best to make John happy when John comes back to 221B with his new baby after the events of Season 3, but Sherlock has a track record of getting things wrong in this area. This story is an exploration of their gradual shift from friends to lovers, told from Sherlock's perspective, full of a lot of pining and lack of emotional awareness.

This was my first Parentlock fic I read and it’s why I now do read Parentlock. Still one of my favourites, and it’s short enough to read in one sitting. It’s just so sweet, and Sherlock is SO precious, and GAH I LOVE it. Another start-to-finish. Which then brings me to this one:

Albion and the Woodsman by Glenmore (NR [E], 54,437 w., 50 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post S3, Parentlock, Pining Sherlock, Angst, Family, Drug Use, Depression, Sherlock POV, Light Humour, Reconnecting, Declarations of Love) – Sherlock and John are devastated after Mary Morstan makes her final moves. Sherlock relapses at the crack house, John walks around the world … and a lot happens in between. Parentlock, in the good way.

I REALLY like this fic because it’s Sherlock POV and it’s him learning about his feelings for John. THOUGH I feel bad admitting that lately, rereads usually start around Ch. 30, because I love John showing up all BAMFy in Ch. 34 and essentially tells the social workers to piss off. And Sherlock is RIDICULOUSLY adorably in love with John so much in this fic. I’ve reread the whole story enough to know what happens before Ch. 30, and all the smoopy stuff happens after that. BUT DON’T think I don’t love this story. I DO. A LOT. I just... Sometimes need certain parts of a story RIGHT now, and that one singular scene is one of them, and I always just keep going from there. :P

Classified(s) by blueink3 (E, 36,153 w., 4 Ch. || Wedding Date AU || Fake Relationship, Jealous, PIning, H/C, Idiots in Love, Happy Ending, Mary is not Nice, Escort Service) – Clara's American father is the ambassador to some such territory that Great Britain probably used to own, but she (and Harry’s undying love for her) is the reason John is getting on a flight at 12:30pm, flying across the second largest ocean in the world, and pretending to be in a perfectly happy, healthy relationship with an undoubtedly perfectly coiffed stranger. See, Clara is not only American (and wealthy to boot), she's also best friends with John’s ex-fiancée. Whom she's placed in the wedding party. As Maid of Honor. And John just happens to be Best Man. Bloody brilliant.

I just really love this one. It’s painfully sweet and OH GOD I love how much they fall for each other and HARRY IS TWINSIES AND SHE’S AWESOME. Love it. It’s such a feel-good fic with a great ending. Love it.

And:

Corpus Hominis by mycapeisplaid (E, 47,709 w., 12 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Case Fic, Fluff, Romance, Frottage, Angst, Anal, Blow Jobs, Rimming, Spas / Massages, Shampoo, Jealousy, Fake Relationship) - John knows the human body intimately. He’s had plenty of opportunity for study as a doctor, soldier, and lover. There’s one particular body, however, he knows very little about. When Sherlock launches himself head-first into a new obsession and they get sent on a case in an unlikely location, the pair discovers each other’s bodies with confusing yet delightful (and sometimes hilarious) results.

THIS FIC. GUH. Just, the way John pieces together how much Sherlock pines for him is ACHINGLY beautiful, that all comes together in a really tender scene in a pool. It’s the pool scene we should have had. UGH. AND SHAMPOO. And best friend Lestrade essentially telling John he’s a moron, LOL. LOVE this fic. I’m SO glad I finally remembered this one was the one with the Shampoo and the spa day.

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THIS IS ABSOLUTELY not my only always reads. In fact:

Top 30 Read-Again Fics (March 2019)

Top 30 Read-Again Fics Pt. 2 (Sept. 2019)

And I could TOTALLY do another 30 EASILY. The second one, I remember whittling it down quite a bit, LOL. These are just the first five that came to mind right away. I could also add these five:

a good old-fashioned happy ending by darcylindbergh (E, 32,731 w., 26 Ch. || Christmas, Frottage, Comfort, Est. Rel., Fluff, Insecure Sherlock, Frottage, Nightmares, Sleepy Sherlock, Marriage Proposal, Humour, Fluff, Dancing, Cooking, Happy Ending) – For Christmas this year, Sherlock wants to get John something special: something every fairytale deserves. Part 2 of things fairy tales are made of

Coventry by standbygo (E, 52,020 w., 26 Ch. || Dollhouse AU || Case Fic, Slow Burn, Sci-Fi / Fantasy, First Kiss / Time, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, BAMF John, Falling in Love) – “Let me get this straight,” John said, wondering when his life had become a science fiction film. “Some guy orders up a personality, a person, to his specifications, and they program this into a real live person, who has consented to do this, and she goes to this person and acts as his wife, or lawyer, or Royal Marine, or Navy Seal or what have you, and she has all the skills, all the knowledge, everything? Then you say the magic words, and she follows you back to The House, and they erase it all until her next appointment?”

Perdition's Flames by i_ship_an_armada (E, 63,435 w., 21 Ch. || Treklock AU, Est. Rel, Genetic Engineering, Angst & Fluff, BAMF!John) – Sherlock would do anything to save him. Risk anything. Give anything. His money, his life. His soul. What he does, though, is change both of their destinies forever. Genetic re-engineering is the only option left. It turns out researchers underestimated the life expectancy and potential abilities of genetically re-engineered subjects. The British government and what would eventually become the United Federation of Planets, however, had not. Part 1 of PF Universe

Shatter the Darkness (Let the Light In) by MojoFlower (E, 109,683 w., 23 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Genie/Djinn AU || Magical Realism, Kidnapping, Genie Sherlock, First Kiss / Time, Case Fic, H/C, Angst, Clubs, John Whump, Mild DubCon, Hand / Blow Jobs, Torture) – Fairy tales are for those who remember how to dream; not John Watson, broken and hiding from his bleak future in a beige bedsit. But then he discovers a lamp and finds himself in the dangerous riptide of an enigmatic man whose very existence is unbelievable, murder charges against his sister, and the growing pains of feeling alive once more.

Midnight Blue Serenity by BeautifulFiction (E, 151,907 w., 19 Ch. || Friends to Lovers, Gay Bar / For a Case, Drugs, Pining, Case Fic, UST) – When Sherlock infiltrates a club in order to track down a serial killer, his altered appearance is enough to make John question his assumption that Sherlock is beyond his reach. However, is he the only one who appreciates his flatmate's charms, or is Sherlock at risk of becoming the next victim?

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OKAY I NEED TO CUT HERE or I will go on and ON and ON. Hope this answers your question alright <3

#steph replies #johnlock fic recs #my fic recs #read again fics #fave fics #Anonymous

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rodpupo2 · 4 years ago

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Research: Project Finish

Tim Sale

Tim Sale is a famous comic book artist, who had worked in several titles along with the writer Jeff Loeb, including Batman, Spider-Man, Superman, Daredevil, and many others.

Tim Sale was born in may of 1956, in New York, where he studied visual arts, spent a good time of his life in Seattle, and today he lives in California.

For some years he drew his art privately, only to please himself. When he found himself working at a fast food in his late twenties, however, he decided to try to sell some of his work. This led to an association with Thives’ World Graphics, a fantasy anthology series, where he illustrated stories.

What most marks his work is the dramatic aspect that he manages to obtain in the characterization of his characters and in the scenarios he creates, making the stories unique and immortalizing the characters.

The union of Sale’s art with Loeb’s engaging narrative has become the perfect marriage for mysterious plots.

One of the most striking characters worked by Sale was Batman, which he drew “The Long Halloween”, “Dark Victory” and “Halloween”. He was able to fully transfigure the dark aura of Gotham and his Dark Knight. He also worked with Superman in the saga “ Superman for All Seasons”.

Both of The Long Halloween and For All Seasons are what is known as “Year one” comics. These works take their heroes back in time to their earliest days of crime fighters.

His main tool is watercolor, which he uses with mastery. Sale's palette of colors is something really impressive, always drawing and painting his characters very delicately, and calmly. His style is very cartoonish, although this does not diminish his art in any way, on the contrary, his style is very unique and characteristic.

Pedro Franz

Is a Brazilian comic book artist, who was born in Santa Catarina and has a degree in design.

He has been publishing several comic books and participating in exhibitions in Brazil and abroad. As an illustrator, he has published works several magazines and books, and regularly collaborates with the Piauí magazine. As a graphic designer, he is a contributor to the Par (Ent) Esis platform. He has comics translated and published in English and Spanish, and has good international recognition, thanks to his publications.

But what is most impressive in Pedro's art, perhaps is his intensive use of colors. Mixing various shades of different colors, mixing different compositions. In addition to sometimes using characters from pop culture, with his elaborate style.

Despite liking traditional comics, he has always published and worked for national publishers, often with authorial works.

Perhaps his best known work, which was even published in the United States is the comic “Suburbia”.

Suburbia tells the story of Conceição, a girls daughter of enslaved rural workers, who flees to Rio de Janeiro in the early 1990s. In the city, Conceição begins to work as a cleaner and to get involved in the world of funk, slums and poverty.

His drawings are extremely surreal, not exactly following a traditional way of making comics, with several images spread across the page, with different shapes and sizes, with extremely strong colors, mainly valuing blue, purple, yellow and red, as his main colors.

Richard Corben

Richard Corben was one of the contributors of elevating the comics to the category of Art, and of its unparalleled style of great influence among many current artists.

Richard Vance Corben was born in Missouri, United States on October 1940, in a family of farmers in the middle west ( where he started reading comics), and lived in Kansas City. There he studied Fine Arts, got married, had a girl and started working in local cinematography animation company. At the same time, he started to create and publish some underground fanzines. From the begging it was clear that he was interested in science fiction, eroticism, and total rejection of institutions ( the Army, the Church, etc), mixed with a lot of humor.

At a young age, Corben was an aficionado of bodybuilding, just like everyone who was interested in a persons aesthetics. The first character that he created, was Rowlf, a dog who took on a human form. In the beginning of the 1970s he amplified his work ( and his fame) in some underground magazines. And in 1971 he started working for the Heavy Metal publisher where he created one of his most famous characters, Den a large muscular man, who was always naked, and always after some adventure.

Corben has a very particular style, with unsettling mixture of caricatured, often satirical grotesque and intense,convincing realism. Never before had such wildly cartoonish worlds proved so convincing.

Also he can handle an exponentially higher standard because of his ability to use colour to show the effect of light on whatever he’s depicting. The way that he mixes light and colors in certain panels to differentiate those elements from each other, is something to admire.

Corben worked in a few mainstream comics, he always preferred to work with authorial works or working in specific themes like fantasy and science fiction comics and not so much on superheroes.

But probably the most famous mainstream comic that ever worked was the character Hellboy, along with writer Mike Mignola.

Hellboy is a series of comics that has a lot of mysticism, Norse mythology, horror and monsters. Something Corben certainly agreed to do, without thinking twice.

Richard Corben is one of my favorite artists, with a style that is perhaps not as realistic as an Alex Ross for example, but the humor and beauty that he puts in his characters is very unique.

Corben died on December 2, 2020, leaving a great legacy, for the world of comics and arts, with a very unique style and extremely stunning worlds.

Charlie Allard

Charlie Adlard is a British comic book artist, who have worked on the comic industry for over 25 years. He spent the majority of his time since 2003 working in The Walking Dead along side with writer Robert Kirkman , until the last issue on 2019 He started reading comics when he was very young, and he said that he was very lucky to have influences of American comics and the more high art, such as Asterix and Tin Tin. He was fascinated by European comic books artists like Moebius, Alberto Uderzo and Herge. He started his career as many British artists and writers, working on 2000 AD, with characters such as Judge Dredd, Armitage and eventually Savage. In the United States he started working with the X Files, Astronauts in trouble, and of course The Walking Dead. Adlard started in The Walking Dead from issue 7, and brought a slightly different style, from the previous artist. Adlard's art is very cartoonish, but the universe of The Walking Dead still doesn't get silly because of it. Quite the opposite, the dirt and rot that Adlerd puts on his characters and the world, only sustains what a horrible world it is to live in. Many readers complain about Adlard's style, being very simple, that his characters are very similar, and sometimes it is difficult to identify them. But I believe that although his style does not vary much, when it comes time to show a horde of zombies, a devastated city, people feeling despair, and extremely disturbing scenes, Adlard manages to excel. Adlard's main tool is ink. All The Walking Dead magazines are in black and white, and he manages to give a lot of depth to the scenarios and characters using only a few ink stains. Today Adlard is doing some comics, mainly for DC, but says that he does not intend to work with Kirkman and zombies again, because he wants to explore other themes, and to innovate his drawing skills.

Zaha Hadid

Zaha Hadid was one of the most important and well known figures in contemporary architecture and design. With a singular trajectory, marked by a versatile, bold and out of the box style, she was the first woman to receive Pritzker Prize for architecture and was also the only female representative honored by the Royal Institute of British Architects with a golden medal. Zaha Hadid was born in Iraq, more precisely in the city of Halloween, in Bagdá, in the year 1950. Her family was of high class, her father being an important politician and her mother an artist. Still young, she traveled and studied in other places of the world, like London and Switzerland, but it was in her native land the she got her first formation, when she graduated in mathematics. At the age of 22, in 1972, she enrolled in one of the most famous independent schools of architecture in London, and there she gave the starting point to her career by studying and creating an important connection with the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, a figure that encouraged her and opened the doors for opportunities. Later in the 1980s, Zaha Hadid decided to open her own office. This, Zaha Hadid Architects was born, which made her name and talent recognized worldwide. Known for her works with futuristic lines, clean and pure forms, as well as the fragmentation of architectural design. Her projects and discussions raise issues that put architecture and its future to the test. This is because the architect seeks in her works to interrelate design, architecture and urbanism. I knew Hadid and some of her works, but it was the recommendation of my teacher Lauren, that I should look for this architect. As my project takes place in the future, she recommended that I look at some works by Zaha Hadid to get inspiration when creating the scenario for the comic. I find it very interesting how her works have this futuristic aesthetic , because it reminds me of science fiction films like Blade Runner with those skyscrapers and buildings with different shapes and sizes that are extremely imaginative that could only exist in films. With unique works and projects, famous for their exuberance, futuristic elements, curves, non linear shapes, distortions and fragmentations, Hadid inspired and generated fascination both for her constructions around the world.

Syd Mead

Syd Mead was a designer, best known for working on films such as Aliens, Blade Runner, Tron and Star trek. Mead was born in Minnesota, United States, on July of 1933, but five years later he moved to a second house in the western of United States prior to graduating from High School in Colorado in 1951. Some years later, he did the Art Center School in Los Angeles, where he graduated with great distinction in 1959. He was immediately recruited by the Ford Motor Company. At Ford he worked in the advanced styling department, creating futuristic concept car designs. But his imagination went beyond cars and he began to imagine clothes, helmets, buildings and scenery from hyper advanced civilization. After Ford, he also worked in other big companies like Chrysler, Sony and Phillips. After that he started migrating to the concept art world of movies. Mead is really important for generation of writers of science fiction, because many of them were influenced by Mead’s colorful paintings. Mead never wrote a novel or short story. He imagined the future in his mind and turned that imagination into illustrations. In 1979 he designed the extraterrestrial spaceship for the first film “Star Trek” in the cinema. Ridley Scott called Mead to design the buildings and flying cars of the futuristic Los Angeles “Blade Runner” in 1982. In 1986 he was hired to design the space station and vehicles of the movie Aliens directed by James Cameron. Almost at the same time, the designer created the electronic world of “Tron” for Disney studios. The same ones who hired him in 2014 to design the futuristic city of “Tomorrowland”. Mead died in 2019 after three years of lymphoma, he was 86 years old. He was a great influence for many designers and science fiction writers and illustrators, due for his creative worlds and automobiles , Elon Musk quotes Mead as one of his major influences, on visions of the automotive future and design in general.

Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson

Transmetropolitan is a comic written by the British writer Warren Ellis and the American illustrator Darick Robertson, published by the Vertigo label, and falls within the cyberpunk genre, and the problems that rampant technology will cause us.

Throughout the 60 issues of Transmetropolitan, Ellis and Robertson build a chaotic and brilliantly alive future, presenting a sci-fi society with a peculiar mix of elements of cyberpunk, political dystopias, bioengineering and transhumanism, sexuality, economics and much more.

In a dystopia, in a not so distant future, the journalist Spider Jerusalem is isolated for fiver years in a hut in the forest, but he has to return to the city to earn some money.

Throughout the comic, amid a nihilistic aura that humanity has no salvation, the author- Warren Ellis - criticizes the consumerism and futility. The illustrations, of Darick Robertson, is full of excesses as the environment should be, a brand of the style of the 1990s.

The search for the truth is the central theme of this work, and in the midst of all this we found ourselves in a investigative odyssey that involves the lowest scum of that society ( thieves, murderers and rapists) until reaches the highest of the scum ( the presidency).

This background allows the work to touch on the most profound social themes, and without fear of saying what needs to be criticized, this is where Transmetropolitan shines, and provoke deep reflections on issues such as racism, the influence of media, the power of religions, the education, and many other themes.

In short, Transmetropolitan dissects and criticizes everything, it points out the flaws, the lies and the hypocrisy of each one. It’s a study about the problems of democratic society in the 21th century.

Jon Mcnaught

Jon Mcnaught was born in 1985, London, England. He work with drawing comics, and work as an illustrator, printmaker and lecturer. After spending several years on the Falkland Islands during his childhood, which will inspire his second book, Pebble island. The book pass years after the war, where he tries to recreate his childhood, with aspects of his curiosity, when he was exploring abandon bunkers, where it was just part of landscape, or somewhere where he could play. His work has essentially been landscape print-making (often situated in the city), but with quite simple intention of capturing the sense of space, light, time etc. His work is mostly about that, places that he was interested in depicting, and trying to reproduce the visual. He want the characters to feel like elements of a landscape or an environment ( he preferes to focus more on the background, than the characters itself). But usually he uses figures and postures to suggest expressions rather than close ups showing facial features. What I like about Mcnaught's work is that they are simple designs, but the colors are very vivid. The way he constructs the scenarios is very invective, because it doesn’t need to be extremely detailed, he just needs a few lines to show what he is talking about.

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thelivebookproject · 4 years ago

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Talking Books With @barrebard!

[What is this and how can I participate?]

Important note: I haven’t changed or edited any of the answers. I’ve only formatted the book titles so they were clearer, but nothing else. Because I’m incapable of shutting up, my comments are between brackets and in italics, so you can distinguish them clearly.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

[Image description: a square titled “Know the blogger”. Name & pronouns: Linda, she/her; country: United States; three adjectives to describe her: nerdy, loyal & creative /end]

1. What is a book your professors praised but you hated?

This is an interesting question, because I was a literature major in college, so I read so, so many books. And there were plenty I didn't enjoy. A lot of those I ended up skimming or relying on lectures for because I just couldn't get through them. But the book that stands out to me the most that I actually DID finish was J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. I read it for a class on adolescent literature (I never read it in high school), and boy I just hated it.

My professor and some of my classmates loved how the novel depicted alienation and isolation, but I just found Holden to be obnoxious and insufferable. And yeah, that was probably the point, because that's what postwar America felt like to a lot of people. But, for me, when a character isn't likable or relatable in any way, I'm not invested in their story and I don't care what happen to them. (See also: why I never got past, like, three episodes of Mad Men.) So I never wanted Holden to be a better person or find happiness and joy again--I just wanted him to shut up already and be a little less full of himself.

[I feel like so many people hate Holden! I haven’t read this book personally so I can’t say (I’m like 95% sure I’d hate him as well), but every time I encounter it so many people think is overrated and annoying, so you’re definitely not alone in this!]

2. Last book you googled/ecosia'd?

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. I'm part of a Slack channel for Reading Glasses, a bookish podcast. Someone on there mentioned they got an advance copy of this book and it was spectacular. And based on the description I read, it sounds really weird and surreal and cool! I haven't read any Susanna Clarke before (she's most known for Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell), but I'll probably check that one out when it comes out next month.

[Little reminder that I did this interview back in August 2020 and Piranesi has been published since last September]

3. Do you read anthologies?

Not regularly, but I will if it strikes my interest. I still have a couple of Norton Anthologies from college, but I haven't touched them in a while. The last anthology I read was Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View, a short story anthology of stories that take place during A New Hope from the perspectives of side characters. I really enjoyed it. I also picked up The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019 anthology, but I've only read a couple of stories from it. I find I have to be in the mood for short stories, and lately I've wanted to dive headfirst into "whisk you away into another world" type novels.

4. Thoughts on annotating books?

Hmmm... I find it to be a little academic, so I don't really annotate books when I'm just reading them for fun. Reminds me too much of college when I had to read and memorize for tests and essays. If I'm reading for a book club or something I might mark a passage I liked, but that's rare. I took notes in a notebook about two books this summer, though--I just got diagnosed with ADHD, so I've read two books about it and taken notes. I got the books from the library, so I couldn't mark them up directly. And I find I remember stuff better if I write it down anyway! :)

5. How do you get out of a reading slump?

When I'm in a slump, I tend to fall back on something I know will get its hooks in me. Usually that's something in the realm of YA fantasy or soft sci-fi. I've also gotten better at dumping a book if it's not doing it for me. I used to force myself to finish books even if they were a slog, but there are so many books I want to read and only so much time!

You can follow her at @barrebard.

------------------------------------------------

Thank you, Linda! I loved talking with you.

Next interview: Saturday, 30th of January

#talking books with #booklr #thelivebookproject #january 2021

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heavenboy09 · 8 months ago

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Happy Birthday 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁 🎊 To A Young & Determined Actress In Acting Who Has Starred In Various Iconic Films Throughout Her Acting Career Since Being A Child Star

She is an American actress. The world's highest-paid actress in 2012, she has received various accolades, including a British Academy Film Award and a César Award, in addition to nominations for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award.

Born and raised in Los Angeles to parents who both worked in the entertainment industry, Her first gained notice at age 12 for her role as the daughter of Jodie Foster's character in David Fincher's thriller Panic Room (2002), which earned her a Young Artist Award nomination. She subsequently starred in Speak (2004), Catch That Kid (2004), Zathura: A Space Adventure (2005), and Into the Wild (2007). She went on to achieve global stardom for her role as Bella Swan in The Twilight Saga film series (2008–2012), which ranks among the highest-grossing film franchises; for the role, she was awarded the BAFTA Rising Star Award in 2010.

After starring in the fantasy film Snow White and the Huntsman (2012), She eschewed roles in big-budget films in favor of independent productions in the years following. She took on roles in the dramas Camp X-Ray (2014) and Still Alice (2014), and the science fiction romance Equals (2016). In 2015, she was acclaimed for her performance in Olivier Assayas' drama film Clouds of Sils Maria, which won her the César Award for Best Supporting Actress. She reunited with Assayas the following year in the supernatural thriller Personal Shopper (2016) and made her directorial debut with the short film Come Swim (2017).

She returned to mainstream Hollywood with leading roles in the action film Charlie's Angels (2019) and the romantic comedy film Happiest Season (2020). Her portrayal of Diana, Princess of Wales in Pablo Larraín's biographical drama Spencer (2021) earned her widespread critical acclaim and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Please Wish This Young Talented Actress, A Very Happy Birthday 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁 🎊

Ms. Kristen Stewart

#KristenStewart

#Kristen Stewart #Spotify

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infredricbrownsshadow · 4 years ago

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We Never Learn about Fredric Brown

How does a science fiction and pulp author from the 1950’s get mentioned in a shonen manga 70 years later? That is the question I was asking when I saw a Fredric Brown novel referenced in We Never Learn, a romance manga written by Taishi Tsutsi that finished its second anime season on Crunchyroll. It has now finished the manga on Crunchyroll. I was surprised when an anime episode of We Never Learn contained a reference to the highly regarded, but somewhat obscure American sci-fi and pulp writer that I have been a collector of for years. The connections were not obvious, so I had to dig deeper.

We Never Learn ぼくたちは勉強ができない, is the story of a 3rd year high school student, Nariyuki Yuiga, who is tasked with tutoring three female students. A lot of romantic back and forth with the clueless male lead makes for quite a bit of fun and there is a good amount of friendship and flirtation. The manga has been running in Shonen Jump since February 6, 2017 and is included in the free weekly Shonen Jump licensed by Viz. It has also been made into an anime series that started April 7, 2019 on Crunchyroll.

In Chapter 39 of We Never Learn, “The Light in the Genius’ Eyes is All [X]” we find Nariyuki is stranded with a beautiful female student, Fumino Furuhashi, who is smart at literature but whose goal in life is to be an astronomer. They are forced to spend the night together at the only available room when they miss the last train home from a festival. While laying next to each other on a futon at the onsen, a hot springs inn, and looking at the night sky, Furuhashi talks about a book she read called “The Lights in the Sky are Stars”. In the book, an aged astronaut dreams about returning to space and she in turn identifies with his desire to connect with the stars.

Or that is what she meant to say, but in the manga Chapter 39, the book title was translated as “The Light of Heaven is All Starlight” which I did not recognize. I did not know the correct translation until I watched the anime of the corresponding chapter in Episode 13 of Season 1 on Crunchyroll. In the anime, the book is correctly translated as “The Lights in the Sky are All Stars”. The Viz translator must not have known that the author, Taishi Tsutsui, was actually referring to a real novel by Fredric Brown written in 1953 about that very subject.

So who was Fredric Brown? He was an author born in 1906 in Cincinnati, Ohio and was a writer of pulp stories and science fiction for most of the 1950’s. He was the master of the “short short story” and wrote mostly science fiction/fantasy as well as mysteries for publication in what then was the pulp magazines. His stories are clever, humorous, and scary and have been influential to other authors as well as on screen. One of his stories was even used as the basis for an episode of the original Star Trek television series, Arena. He had humorous novels such as What Mad Universe and Martians, Go Home but was best with his fantasy shorts and his collection Nightmares and Geezenstacks was listed in Stephen King’s appendix of the top horror genre. His mystery novel The Screaming Mimi is regularly listed in the top mystery novels. His novel that is referenced in the manga We Never Learn, The Lights in the Sky Are Stars, is a lesser known serious novel about an aging astronaut and is not even written in his usual, dramatic style. That the title was used as the finale episode of Gurren Lagann anime in 2007, shows it must have had some influence with Japanese writers.

So I decided to answer the question by going to the source. I found that the author, Taishi Tsutsui, has a Twitter account. The fact that I do not write Japanese was going to be a problem, but I followed him on Twitter and formatted a query of several sentances that I sent into Google translate, posted it online and - nothing happened. I thought that I had reached a dead end and was formulating other options when I happened to run across the very book in a small bookstore in the Midwest. I took a photo of the book with the question “We Never Learn Chapter 39, Is this the book?” I was surprised to get a response from the author @Taishi_Tsutsui “そうです。当時の担当編集さんに教えてもらいました！” Which Google translated as “That’s right! I was taught by the editor in charge at the time”.

So it seems an older editor brought the author Fredric Brown in contact with a new generation across the seas. It was a satisfying answer and a rare connection with a mangaka.

Watch the new season of We Never Learn on Crunchyroll, read it on Viz online for free and look to your library or ebooks for Fredric Brown.

#fredric brown #we never learn #crunchyroll #vizcomic #taishi tsutsui

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starwarsnonsense · 5 years ago

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Top 10 Most Anticipated Films of 2020

Now I’ve got my embarrassingly late ‘Best of 2019′ list out of the way, I can finally proceed to the list that’s probably more exciting - my most anticipated films of 2020!

This list excludes films that have already been screened at festivals (otherwise, stuff like Saint Maud would be here). It’s also somewhat analogous to groping about for a light switch in the dark - these lists very rarely accurately predict my ultimate favourites for the year, so it’s more of a fun speculative exercise. Hopefully this puts some intriguing-looking films on your radar for the year ahead!

1. Dune (dir. Denis Villeneuve)

Plot: The story of Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, who must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people.

Why be excited? The reasons to be excited about Dune should be pretty self-evident - it’s directed by one of the greatest filmmakers working today (Villeneuve’s Incendies and Blade Runner 2049 are all-timers for me), and is based on one of the best science-fiction novels ever written. The cast - Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Javier Bardem, Charlotte Rampling, and more - is absolutely stacked with talent. There’s every reason to believe that this will be something special, and I couldn’t be more pleased that Villeneuve is the man responsible for filling that Star Wars-shaped hole in the December release schedule.

2. Annette (dir. Leos Carax)

Plot: A stand-up comedian (Adam Driver), and his opera singer wife (Marion Cotillard), have a two-year-old daughter with a surprising gift.

Why be excited? You may not have heard of him, but Leos Carax is one of the most exciting directors working - he only makes around one film a decade, but the films he does make tend to be very special. I’ve only seen one film of his - Lovers on the Bridge - but that was filled with such ecstatic romance and wondrous visuals that it made me tremendously excited for Annette. Annette is a top-to-bottom musical with songs by American duo Sparks (if you know them for anything, it will be ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us’), and said songs will be delivered by Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard. It goes without saying that both actors are extremely talented performers with great voices (see Driver in Marriage Story and Cotillard in Nine for evidence), and I’m looking forward to seeing how they demonstrate their talents here.

3. Last Night in Solo (dir. Edgar Wright)

Plot: A young girl (Thomasin McKenzie), passionate in fashion design, is mysteriously able to enter the 1960s where she encounters her idol, a dazzling wannabe singer (Anya Taylor-Joy). But 1960s London is not what it seems, and time seems to fall apart with shady consequences.

Why be excited? I’m not the biggest Edgar Wright fan, but I admire him greatly and the premise of Last Night in Soho is like cat-nip to me. Speaking to Empire, Wright explained the story as follows: “I’m taking a premise whereby you have a character who, in a sort of abstract way, gets to travel in time. And the reality of the decade is maybe not what she imagines. It has an element of ‘be careful what you wish for’.” I’m a sucker for a good, old-fashioned high concept, especially when said films play with genre and really challenge the viewer. The two female leads - Thomasin McKenzie (JoJo Rabbit, Leave No Trace) and Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch, Emma) - are among the very best young actors working today, and the supporting cast features absolute legends such as Diana Rigg and Terence Stamp. Whether it’s successful or not, this film feels like a genuinely original prospect and I’m eager to see how it turns out.

4. The Green Knight (dir. David Lowery)

Plot: A fantasy re-telling of the medieval tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Why be excited? There has been a sad lack of films based on mythology in recent years - or, to be more accurate, there has been a sad lack of films that attempt to honour what the myths were actually trying to convey. The stunning trailer for Green Knight promises a film that genuinely engages with its source material, and is just as interested in the psychological truths of the tale as the spectacle of its fantastical scenarios. Dev Patel is an extremely talented actor coming off another great movie in The Personal History of David Copperfield, and the supporting cast (Alicia Vikander!) appear to be fully committed to their parts. I’m excited to see a true myth on the big screen again, and David Lowery (A Ghost Story, The Old Man & The Gun) can be trusted to give an old tale a new sense of vitality.

5. The French Dispatch (dir. Wes Anderson)

Plot: The staff of a European publication decides to publish a memorial edition highlighting the three best stories from the last decade: an artist sentenced to life imprisonment, student riots, and a kidnapping resolved by a chef.

Why be excited? It’s a Wes Anderson movie! Of course I’m excited! In all seriousness, the trailer was all I needed to get hyped about this. It’s clearly Anderson’s quintessential style, but it also shows flashes of some very bold and striking compositions (yes, I’m thinking of Chalamet on the back of that motorcycle) that you wouldn’t necessarily think of in relation to him. I’m intrigued by the prospect of there being stories nested within a story, which feels like the perfect choice for the structure of a film about a newspaper. The cast features all of Anderson’s old favourites (Swinton! Murray! McDormand!), as well as some exciting new additions (Timothée Chalamet, Elisabeth Moss, Christoph Waltz, among others) that feel so well-suited to his style it’s surprising they haven’t worked together before. Bring on all those immaculately composed shots and exquisite colour palettes.

6. Tenet (dir. Christopher Nolan)

Plot: Unknown. The project is described as an action epic revolving around international espionage.

Why be excited? I hate to sound repetitive, but ... it’s a Christopher Nolan movie. That alone is enough to be hyped about this. Details of the plot are vague for now, but the teaser suggests the sort of intelligent, high-concept film-making we’ve come to expect from Nolan. John David Washington - who impressed in BlacKkKlansman - is a great choice for the lead, and I also love that Tenet will feature Robert Pattinson and Elizabeth Debicki (among my favourite actors) in prominent roles. There’s not much else to say given how little we know about this, but suffice to say I’ll be there on day one!

7. Wonder Woman 1984 (dir. Patty Jenkins)

Plot: Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) comes into conflict with the Soviet Union during the Cold War in the 1980s and finds a formidable foe by the name of the Cheetah (Kristen Wiig).

Why be excited? The original Wonder Woman was an absolute delight, and I couldn’t be more pleased that Patty Jenkins is back to continue Diana’s story. The decision to pick up with Diana in the 1980s is most intriguing (and paves the way for all kinds of exciting choices when it comes to the music and the fashions), especially since it looks like the film is actually going to explore the implications of being an immortal being in a mortal world.

8. Raya and the Last Dragon (dir. Paul Briggs and Dean Wellins)

Plot: A lone warrior from the fantasy kingdom of Kumandra teams up with a crew of misfits in her quest to find the Last Dragon and bring light and unity back to their world.

Why be excited? The animation scene in 2020 looks kind of ... blah at the moment, with the notable exception of Raya and the Last Dragon. The setting was described by the film’s producer as "a reimagined Earth inhabited by an ancient civilization that venerated the mythical dragons for their power and their wisdom”, and that alone is enough to fire up my imagination. Off the back of Moana and the Frozen films (which I all unabashedly love), I trust Disney Animation to instil this with plenty of colour and verve.

9. I’m Thinking of Ending Things (dir. Charlie Kaufman)

Plot: An unexpected detour turns a couple’s road trip into a terrifying journey through their fragile psyches.

Why be excited? Directed by Charlie Kaufman (writer of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), I’m Thinking of Ending Things is based on a prize-winning novel. However, despite the pedigree the main reason I’m looking forward to this is Jessie Buckley. Buckley gave a star-making performance in Beast a few years ago, and has since proven herself an actor of immense talent and skill (see Wild Rose for proof of what a powerhouse she is). I’m excited to see her career continue to go from strength to strength, and I’m Thinking of Ending Things seems poised to be a great showcase for her.

10. The Last Duel (dir. Ridley Scott)

Plot: King Charles VI declares that Knight Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon) settle his dispute with his squire (Adam Driver) by challenging him to a duel.

Why be excited? Ridley Scott is a bit of a mixed bag for me, and has never come close to reaching the heights of Alien and Blade Runner with his recent work. Nonetheless, against my better judgement I can’t help but be excited by the prospect of a medieval epic with Scott at the helm. The acting talent attached to The Last Duel is top-notch, and I’m particularly fond of Jodie Comer (of Killing Eve fame) and Adam Driver (do you really need me to say more?). There’s a very real danger of the highly sensitive plot (the ‘dispute’ at the heart of the story concerns an accusation of rape, the truth of which is to be determined with a duel) being mishandled by Scott, but the involvement of screenwriter Nicole Holofcener gives me some hope. This could turn out to be a misfire, but my hope is that it will, at the very least, be interesting.

#dune #annette #last night in soho #green knight #the french dispatch #timothee chalamet #Adam driver #jessie buckley #the last duel #i'm thinking of ending things #raya and the last dragon #wonder woman 1984 #tenet #films #2020 in film #cinema

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my-lady-knight · 4 years ago

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Favorite Reads of 2020

I take back everything I said last year about how 2019 was a comparatively bad reading year for me. 2020 was even worse. I only read 48 books, I could barely focus on reading even when I did find a book I liked, and, just like last year, I ended up with fewer favorites than usual. Starting in August I’ve been having trouble reading any written media that isn’t TOG fic. And some of my eagerly awaited releases by favorite authors ended up being disappointments (Deeplight by Frances Hardinge and Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee).

2020—the year that keeps on giving.

I sincerely hope 2021 will be a better year in all respects, including my reading habits, but, as with everything else, who knows.

Regardless, here’s my list of favorite reads of 2020, in chronological order of when I read them:

Network Effect by Martha Wells

I’d read the first four Murderbot Diaries novellas when they first came out and enjoyed them, but I didn’t fall head-over-heels in love with them. Maybe because they were novellas, and too short to get fully invested? Possibly. As it turns out, Network Effect is the novel-length fifth entry in the Murderbot Diaries that turned me into full-on squeeing fan—SecUnit, aka Murderbot, continues to be its delightfully acerbic, antisocial self, SPOILER makes another appearance and oh how I’d missed this character, the supporting cast is fun and endearing, and the novel-length story means there’s time and space for the brand-new corporate espionage/colonization/alien civilization murder mystery to unfold and spread its wings. (Sounds like a Sanctuary Moon plot tbh). SecUnit is possibly my favorite non-human fictional character atm, and I am now fully on-board for every and any new story in the series.

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

When I first heard about this book and read the words “time travel romance”, I immediately went, “Nope, not gonna read.” I don’t like reading time travel stories, and honestly, I was imagining it to be something like The Time Traveler’s Wife, which granted I haven’t read but also sounds like it’d be the opposite of my cup of tea.

And then I went to a reading where Amal and Max took turns reading chapters – letters written by Red and Blue, enemy agents who repeatedly taunt and thwart the other’s plans to ensure their side is the one to win the time war and who can’t resist smugly outlining just how they’re staying one step ahead of the other – and the prose was witty and gorgeous and clever and intricate, and Red and Blue were snarky and arrogant and talented and fun. I had to read it. And I ended up loving it, this enemies-to-lovers story that is a meld of fantasy and science fiction such that they’re indistinguishable from the other, where the past is as equally fantastical and alien and imaginary as the future, where Red and Blue’s power play transforms into something different and scarier and more intimate than either of them imagined.

To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers

Becky Chambers has done it again, writing a gentle, hopeful story about humans working together out of a share a love and fascination for scientific exploration and wonder for all the possibilities the entirety of space can hold. With the advent of both space travel and technology that alters human physiology to allow them to survive otherwise inhospitable environments, a team of four astronauts and scientists have embarked on a mission to ecologically survey four distant planets and the life forms that inhabit them, from the microscopic to the multicellular—not to conquer, but to record and to learn and to share the gathered knowledge with the rest of Earth. In the meantime, lightyears away, Earth is going through decades without them, and the four of them must also contend with a planet that may have forgotten their existence—or that’s abandoned the entire space and scientific exploration program.

Reading Becky Chambers is the literary equivalent of sitting down with a warm mug of my favorite tea on a bad day – I always feel better at the end and like I can imagine a future where humanity does all the wonderful things we’re capable of doing.

A Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker

I started reading this book right as NYC was gearing up to go into lockdown, which should have made this a terrible choice to continue reading since part of the premise is that a combo of multiple stochastic terror attacks and a brand-new, deadly plague upend the world as everyone knows it by causing the U.S. to pass laws that keep people physically apart in public for their own safety and make concerts, theatre, and any other kind of artistic gathering obsolete.

But that’s largely just the set-up, and the real story is that of Luce Cannon, an up-and-coming singer-songwriter who played the last major concert in the before times who twenty years later performs in illegal underground concerts, and Rosemary, a younger music-lover who’s only lived in the after-times, and who’s taken a new job scouting out talent to add to the premier virtual entertainment company’s roster of simulated concerts.

It’s a love letter to live music and what it feels like to connect and build community via music in unusual and strange and scary times, the energy involved in making music for yourself, for an audience, exploring the world around you, imagining and advocating for a better tomorrow, and embracing the fear, the possibility, and the power of change, both good and bad. This was the book I needed to read at the beginning of the pandemic, and I’m thankful I ended up doing so.

The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019 edited by John Joseph Adams and Carmen Maria Machado

When I end up loving half of the stories in an anthology and greatly enjoying all but two of the rest, that’s the equivalent of a literary blue moon for me. My favorites included the following;

"Pitcher Plant" by Adam-Troy Castro

"Six Hangings in the Land of Unkillable Women" by Theodore McCombs

"Variations on a Theme from Turandot" by Ada Hoffmann

"Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Memphis Minnie Sing the Stumps Down Good" by LaShawn M. Wanak

"The Kite Maker" by Brenda Peynado

"The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington" by P. Djèlí Clark

"Dead Air" by Nino Cipri

"Skinned" by Lesley Nneka Arimah

"Godmeat" by Martin Cahill

"On the Day You Spend Forever with Your Dog" by Adam R. Shannon

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

No one is more surprised than me that Harrow is on this list, given that I am one of approximately three people in the universe who did not unequivocally love Gideon the Ninth.

And yet the sequel worked for me.

Maybe because this time I already knew and was used to the way the world and the Houses worked, and I knew to not take anything I read for granted because I could be guaranteed to have the rug pulled out from under me without even realizing. Maybe Harrow’s countdown/amnesia mystery worked better for me than Gideon’s locked room mystery. Maybe the cast of characters was more manageable and fewer of them were getting murdered left and right before I got a chance to get used to them (and some of them even came back!) Maybe it’s that Harrow blew open the potential and possibilities Gideon hinted at and capitalized on just how fucking weird and mind-blowing the whole premise is in a way that felt incredibly and viscerally satisfying.

Also SPOILER happens three-quarters of the way through. That was pretty fucking awesome.

Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark

P. Djélí Clark is a master of melding history and fantasy in ways that are in turn imaginative and clever (his fantastical alternate-history, early 20th-century Egyptian novel A Master of Djinn is one of the books I’m most looking forward to in 2021), while also using fantasy to be frank and incisive about the history of American antiblack racism (as in the above linked story in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019). Ring Shout combines the late-nineteenth and early 20th-century history of the rise and normalization of the KKK with Lovecraftian supernatural horror, in which the release of The Birth of a Nation summoned literal monsters (called Ku Kluxes) that became part of the KKK’s ranks. Maryse Boudreaux is a Black woman who’s part of a grassroots organization hunting both the monsters and the human members in order to keep the Klan at bay. However, there’s soon to be another summoning ritual atop Stone Mountain that will unleash even more Ku Kluxes into the world, and Maryse and her friends are running out of time to prevent it from happening.

Maryse is a fantastic character, as are her two friends—brash, unapologetic Sadie and WWI veteran, weapons expert Chef—her mentor and leader of the Ring Shout group Nana Jean, and all the other members of the group who work and fight together as a team and a family. Maryse’s past and the journey she goes on in the book to uncover the truth and stop the summoning is harrowing and heart-stopping, the supernatural elements are both horrific in and of themselves while also undergirding the real-life horror of the KKK and the hatred they engender. It’s smart, it’s fun, it’s eye-opening, and it’s also being turned into a TV show starring KiKi Layne. It’s really, really good.

The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley

“Stick to the brief.” This is the maxim given to Dietz and all the other soldiers who join the war against Mars, where soldiers are broken down into light to travel to and from their assigned battlefields instantaneously. Only Dietz isn’t experiencing the jumps like everyone else – Dietz, like Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse-Five, has become unstuck in time and is experiencing all the battles in the mission briefs out of chronological order, to the point that Dietz starts to build a picture of a war and a reality that’s been sold to Dietz and everyone else on Earth as pure fiction.

I’ve always appreciated Kameron Hurley’s stories, but this is the first book where she fully succeeded at writing the book she set out to write—it’s fast-paced science fiction thriller in the form of a loaded gun that takes brutal aim at late-stage capitalism, modern military warfare and the dehumanization of everyone involved on all sides, the greed of ungovernable governing corporations, nationalistic and military propaganda, the mythology of citizenship and inalienable rights, and it’s viscerally bloody and violent without being grotesque in the way all of Kameron Hurley’s books are. Especially important for me, I loved that Dietz went through the entire book not being gendered in any way, shape, or form (those last five pages didn’t exist, what are you talking about), and I love in general that Kameron Hurley is committed to writing non-male characters who aren’t less violent or fucked-up or morally superior to men just because they’re not men.

Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga

Middle grade is a hard sell for me these days, as are books in verse, and I wouldn’t have known this book existed if it weren’t for the Ignyte Award nomination list earlier this year. As it turns out, this book, the story of Jude, a pre-teen girl who wants to be an actress who leaves Syria and the encroaching civil war with her mom to go live in the U.S. with her uncle and his white wife and their daughter while her dad and older brother stay behind, is full of beauty, curiosity, humor, confusion, grief, pain, and joy, and the poetic prose is both lyrical, nuanced, and perfectly fitted to Jude’s voice. I devoured this book in one day, which is the quickest amount of time it took me to read any book this year, including novellas.

Darius the Great Deserves Better by Adib Khorram

The first book Darius the Great Is Not Okay was one of my favorite books in 2018, and I’m ecstatic that the sequel is equally as amazing.

It’s been approximately half a year since Darius went to Iran, met his maternal grandparents in person for the first time, and found his best friend in Sohrab, and in that time he’s come out as gay, joined the soccer team, got an internship at his favorite tea shop, and started dating for the first time. Darius is also working through some things though—when and if he wants to have sex with his boyfriend, his grandfather’s worsening illness, his dad’s recent depressive episode, his emotionally distant paternal grandmothers on his coming for an extended stay, the fact that he’s getting to know and growing closer with one of his teammates who’s best friends with Darius’s years-long bully, and a bunch else.

Darius the Great Deserves Better has the same tender and vulnerable emotional intimacy as the first book, more conversations over tea, new instances involving the mortifying ordeal of being a cis guy with a penis, even more Star Trek metaphors, and so much growth for Darius as he works through a lot of hard situations and feelings, and strengthens his relationships with all of the people in his life he loves and cares about. I can’t think of any other book that’s like these two books, and I love and treasure them dearly.

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

I had zero awareness of this book until a bunch of SFF authors started praising it on Twitter a couple months before the release date, and I was intrigued enough to get a copy from the library. I loved this book. I happened to be reading it right at the time of the presidential election, and it phenomenally served the purpose of desperately-needed distraction from the agony of waiting out the ballot counts.

It’s book about the power behind borders, citizenship, exploitation, and imperialism, set in a late-late-stage capitalist future, in which a prodigy invented the means to access and travel to slightly divergent parallel universes to grab resources and data – but only if the other universe’s version of “you” isn’t there. It’s the story of a woman named Cara – poor, brown, born in the wastelands outside the shelter, security, and citizenship privileges of Wiley City – who’s comfortably employed to travel to all the parallel worlds no one else can visit, because all her counterparts in those worlds are dead from one of the myriad ways Cara herself could have died growing up. It’s the story of Cara traversing the muddied boundaries between her old life and her new one, the similarities and differences between her own life and that of her counterparts, as well as the figures of power who defined and shaped her and her counterparts’ existences, and solving a mystery involving the unexplained deaths of several of her counterparts and the man who invented multiverse technology.

It’s a story of the permeability of selfhood and self-determination, and complexity of power dynamics of all kinds – interpersonal, familial, collegial, intimate – and the interplay between violence and stability and identity, and how one can be both powerful and powerless in the same dynamic. It’s a story with literary sensibilities that is unequivocally science fiction, written with laser-precise prose that flays Cara open and puts her back together again.

I worry this description makes this book sound dry and removed when reading this book made me feel like I was coming alive every time I delved back into it. This is a book I cannot wait to reread again to experience the brilliance and skill and thoughtfulness and emotion of Micaiah Johnson’s writing. I have no clue what, if anything, she’s writing next, but I have a new favorite author.

Honorable Mentions

Catfishing on CatNet by Naomi Kritzer

With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

Stormsong by C. L. Polk

The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin

Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather

Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh

The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djèlí Clark

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke (I feel bad putting it here and not in the first list – it is undeniably a modern classic and a brilliantly crafted book! But I had zero interest in any of the Italy chapters, and I found the way he finally figured out how to access fairy magic by essentially making himself mad to be both disappointing and narratively unsatisfying.)

War Girls by Tochi Onyebuchi

For my yearly stats on books written by POC authors, in 2020 I read a total of 24 books (one of which was co-authored by a white author), which is fewer than last year (30). However, because I also read fewer books this year overall, this is the first year ever that I achieved exactly 50-50 parity between books written by POC and white authors. I honestly wasn’t expecting this to happen, as I stopped paying deliberate attention somewhere around April or May. Looking over my Goodreads, the month of September ended up doing a lot of heavy lifting, since that’s when I read several books by POC authors in a row for the Ignyte Award nomination period. But also, it does look like the five or so years of purposefully aiming for 50-50 parity have materially affected my reading habits, by which I mean even when I’m not keeping my year’s count in mind, I’m still more likely to pick up a book by a POC author than I was five years ago when I had never kept track at all. My goal for next year is to once again achieve 50-50 parity and to not backslide.

#long post #book recommendations #book recs #favorite books of 2020

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