#unfortunately my grandma saw me at my weakest

[kana7o]

the claw machine wasnt kind to me

[blue-mint-winter]

Cibola Burn was another solid, well-written entry to The Expanse series. I had an easy and enjoyable time reading it. Almost too easy. I can’t figure out if it’s because I already knew the main story from the show or if this book needed to have more substance for me to chomp on. lol

This time we got 3 Earthers and 1 Belter POV, so that’s an improvement since last book. Unfortunately, Basia’s POV is the weakest to me. I felt that this character’s story wasn’t particularly moving or interesting. It seemed like a lot of it could have been done in third person omniscient and there would be no great loss to the overall story. I think the show made this storyline much better by switching it to Lucia and connecting it with Naomi and Alex in a more personal way.

Which leads me to my next theory - after Miller, none of the other POV characters made a big impact on me and I think it might be because they don’t have such strong, emotional bonds and interactions between them like Holden had with Miller in Leviathan Wakes. The only one that comes close is Bobbie and Avasarala’s relationship. The others just have their own separate arcs that the Roci crew and other POV characters are only periferally involved in.

Back to Basia, additionally his name constantly threw me off during reading because it’s a Polish woman’s name and I had no idea how I should read it, so I always stumbled over it. And then it turned out he was in fact named after his grandma, so maybe I was reading it right the Polish way? I was thinking it just looked Polish (like some obviously fake surnames that end with -ski that were already used in this series) but it really wasn’t meant to be and it was probably pronounced like “Asia” (the continent). I’m still a little confused by this name and that a guy has it. That must be some linguistic future weirdness.

Next, we have Elvi. Her POV was delightful. Her crush on Holden amused me a lot. Other than that, I just think her way of looking at things on the planet and her scientific priorities made her perspective unique and added something to the story that was mainly about people being angry with each other while there’s also Armageddon. I liked that she got together with Fayez more explicitly than in the show. I was rooting for them :)

Havelock was for me a mixed bag, in the beginning he seemed completely redundant as a character POV, but when the militia storyline started, his POV became really good. Now I’m a little sad it didn’t make it into the show, because I enjoyed that. Another pro of his POV is that it gave us so much more NAOMI. Finally, someone else than Holden talks to her. I appreciated that.

Another thing I feel I should discuss is the Wei-Amos situation. In the show it was a disaster, but in the book it was barely there. Holden just saw them getting along in general, no idea how far that went and Amos got upset when he had to kill her because of Murtry. I guess the show tried to expand on that relationship and make it better, but to me it feels that they went too far and made it worse with this whole Romeo and Juliet vibe and Wei being so completely and annoyingly wrong about Amos. Sometimes, less is more and book’s approach to this relationship proves it.

Similarly, I liked Murtry in the book more, because he felt consistent to me as a character. In the show, it seemed like he was changing his motivation every episode and it was confusing me, in the book he’s on one track. It’s simpler and works better.

I also noticed how differently the alien structures and mechanisms are described in the books than what was on the show. The alien devices didn’t look like animals, the ruins were black, not pearl-like. Things like that, I guess they were changed for the ominous aesthetic, but still it would have been interesting to see the book versions. After all, that dark aesthetic is based on human culture and what we consider scary. I would like to see something completely alien. The scariness should be the result of the fear of the unknown.

This is it, my general thoughts on Cibola Burn. If I have more, I’ll make separate posts. In the meanwhile, I’m ready to move onto the next book!

[l1ve2r1se]

Been a while since I’ve watched Unusual Suspects or Lieutenant Joe Kenda on Investigation Discovery but I know from heart that I am somewhat of a true crime connoisseur, thanks to my mom and grandma SPAMMING the hell out of Law And Order back in the day. So I found it hard to keep that side of me locked away when I took a look at “𝐰𝐡𝐲 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐦𝐞?”, the documentary looking into the investigation of Crystal Theobald’s murder in 2006. Right off the bat, I’ll say that I’m aware of when somebody is doing these kinds of things right or not. And I must say this is one of the weakest documentaries I have ever seen.⁣ ⁣ ⁣ From a technical standpoint, it was standing out from the cinematography alone and even then, it wasn’t all that special to begin with. There’s well-placed archive footage regarding whichever character or situation, everything is framed rather nicely, nothing stuck out out of the ordinary and it’s unfortunate direct to video quality is a tad bit bitter than what I saw in Cabin 28. Alas though, that’s all I got for the positives.⁣ ⁣ There were definitely moments where director Fredrick Munk doesn’t exactly clarify the narratives at stake here, especially when the details get convoluted and confusing down the road, which is an utter death sentence when you’re going over murder cases that are designed to do that. It definitely doesn’t help that I didn’t really sympathize with anybody in this documentary outside of Crystals cousin Jaimie and a few select former 5150 gang members. Again, I’m supposed to feel bad for the mother of the victim who was high at the time she died and was playing with fire which led to her daughter dying in the first place? Hell, nearly EVERYONE here in this documentary was playing with fire which sadly led to Crystal’s death. Not only that but it also helped sink in that not only was the full story never being told but the self-victimization that came with it was both rather tasteless and clearly unreliable. And if the pacing wasn’t a big turnaway, perhaps the dry, cold and bland concept wearing itself thin will suffice. ⁣ ⁣ (Continued in comments) (at MySpace) https://www.instagram.com/p/COyysFsFLCj/?igshid=pklsvdsux3do