*eyes calendar*

[nenya_kanadka]

Okay, so, two months is certainly not the longest I've gone without updating LJ, but for someone with over a hundred icons, it's rather ridiculous.

Between having post-holiday-fest writer's block and getting an ereader for my birthday, I've been reading a lot more than I've been writing lately. It's been Actual Books more than fanfic, for the most part, although GrabMyBooks and the AO3 download function mean I can read just about anything on the Kobo. Which means I can read longfic on work breaks or on the bus, instead of just at my computer. Hurray for portability!

Back in February I decided to watch all the Lost episodes with Danielle Rousseau in them, because I like Mira Furlan but didn't think the show itself was all that interesting. So over the course of a couple of weeks, muccamukk saw me go through the Lost fan's emotional arc, highly condensed. ("Oh, interesting!" "Neat characters!" "...WTF are they doing to Sayid?" "Who with the smoke monster what now?" "The hell, Ben?" "WTF Jack's emo beard of manpain?" "I hate this island so much but I can't stop watching!" Mercifully, the finale intervened at that point. I still don't get the finale. But I like Claire and Charlie and Sayid and Danielle and Kate.)

I then inhaled all of bachlava's post-canon AU fixit fic for Danielle and Alex, because seriously, show? That was Tasha-Yar-and-the-giant-oil-slick levels of pointless character death, there. (No, I don't care about Ben's drama over getting Alex killed. Cult leader = dnw.) Lovely, lovely fic, hit a whole bunch of my narrative kinks for characters surviving certain kinds of trauma and taking care of each other afterward.

I also finally got around to reading both Redshirts by John Scalzi and Ana Mardoll's Pulchritude, which I'd been meaning to for a while. I'd probably rate both of them a B+.
Redshirts is of course a parody novel of sorts, dedicated to the junior crewmen who get offed to show that the situation is serious. The writing moved along very quickly, and was kind of light in tone with a lot of short declarative sentences. And then it took a left turn at Albuquerque and I found it a lot more interesting. But it was the last two of the three codas that really grabbed me. (I'm a sucker for secondary characters getting to tell their side of the story, so I suppose it's fitting that third-string characters from a novel about redshirts should be the ones that made me tear up a little.)

Pulchritude (Goodreads reviews) is a retelling of "Beauty and the Beast". I somehow missed that it had an unhappy ending, so when the story suddenly ended tragically, I was surprised. (Though I think some of that surprise came from looking at the page count and thinking that at 160 pages out of 250, I had a lot more story to go--but the last 100 pages are all meta: character biographies and deconstructions of other versions of the folktale.) I really loved the stepsister characters; they were fleshed out and made interesting and given their own personalities. And the stepmother was actually heroic and on the heroine's side! I guessed the twist ending a little before the characters did, though, and thought they would realize what was going on and avert the disaster about to unfold. But no: rocks fall, everyone dies. :(

Other things I've used the ereader for:

--the PsyCop novels by Jordan Castillo Price (featuring a gay medium (as in psychic) cop, and a LOT of fanfic-level NC-17 slash sex)

--Dark Mirror by Diane Duane, in which Picard, Troi, and Geordi La Forge (with the help of an OC who is totally a wizard from the Young Wizards universe) run into their evil counterparts in the Mirror Universe. Evil!Troi realllllly likes putting people in Agony Booths. :/ But our!Troi and Geordi save the day and it is lovely.

--The Practice of Barrayaran Sex by Philomytha (Aral and Cordelia's wedding/wedding night)

--221B Barrayar by Wandering (Lord Auditor Sherlock Holmes and Lord Auditor Miles Vorkosigan take a case together, whilst Watson and Ivan share identical looks of admiring horror)

Writing-wise, I'm ignoring all my WIPs in favour of something with OCs that exactly one other person on the planet cares about. It's, er, better than nothing? But then, Mucca's in town; when Mucca's in town I tend to watch more canons (see above: we're also following Elementary and doing a TNG rewatch) and write less. Maybe when she buckles down to her latest fest-fic, I'll Kitten War my way to victory.

Comments

[nenya_kanadka]

I had forgotten about the dog! It did seem very illogical to me, on an early spaceship especially.

I liked the theme song, but probably what I liked more were the opening credits with the history of ships and travel and exploration (particularly the point where you see it transitioning from our present to the obvious near-future, as the space station expands and the next-gen shuttle shows up, and then you get Cochrane's first warp ship from First Contact). It was, however, very different in tone from any other Trek credits.

I didn't even hate Neelix (I may be one of the few people who didn't!), but man, if we'd got to keep Kes I would have given him up quite happily. Somebody on Tumblr's got a bunch of screenshots put together that make it look like an AU with Captain Beverly Crusher, XO Commander Deanna Troi, and science officer Kathryn Janeway. (And notes say Dr. Ogawa as CMO.) It made me so happy. :)

[underthewillows]

Oooh, yes! With Head of Security/Tactical Lt. Cmdr. Tasha Yar, at Helm/Ops Lt. Ro Laren, Chief Engineer Lt. Cmdr. Sarah MacDougal (ably assisted by Lt. B'Elanna Torres), Botany/Life Sciences Keiko Ishikawa (either a civilian or Ensign, depends on whether the positions are all filled by Starfleet personnel or keeping the mix of civilians that TNG established), and in Sickbay (in the Dr. M'Benga role) Dr. Katherine Pulaski - also keeping the McCoy/Spock dynamic going with Pulaski/Data sparring and snarking ;-)

Only guy on the Bridge - Data. In the Janice Rand role - Ensign Geordi LaForge. In the Lt. Kyle role - Myles O'Brien.

Why not? See how having a predominantly female main cast is an unthinkable dream, but having a predominantly male cast with three (maximum) females is the norm, and if we get a new female in, one of the original females has to go (Crusher for Pulaski, Yar for Worf - and swapping out an original female for a fan-favourite male from the predecessor series annoyed me, even though I like Worf, Kes for Seven)!

That's what annoyed me most about the Reboot Trek - whole new timeline, they even BLOW UP VULCAN (I have a strong opinion on this, as you may guess) and they - cut DOWN the number of female crew to Uhura because, psht! keeping track of all them wimmin in the original series was so confusing, I suppose.

Would it have killed them to make Pavel Chekov Polina Chekova, a cute little Russian girl genius? Or give us Lts. Chapel and Rand? If they could BLOW UP VULCAN AND KILL SPOCK'S MOTHER, it would have been a doddle to have more than ONE female on the Bridge.

This should be obligatory research for future screenwriters.

And if that doesn't work, send Mirror!Verse Uhura (who is OUR 'verse Uhura being badass all over the Mirrorverse) after 'em.

:-)

[underthewillows]

Hm - looks like link failure in the above comment.

Women of Star Trek (the Original Series): http://allyourtrekarebelongto.us/toswomen.htm

Uhura being awesome and distracting Evil Security Sulu so he won't notice the flashing light indicating the shenanigans going on with the transporter to get them home from the Mirrorverse (long explanation is longer than clip): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CJdFppsHeo

[nenya_kanadka]

I have hearts in my eyes at this concept. :D It would be so lovely!

I hear that Carol Marcus is getting some screentime in the next reboot movie, and Gaila was a fun addition (when she got to be Uhura's friend and a Starfleet officer, not just a sex partner for Jim), but why couldn't we have them AND Chapel AND Rand? I'm reading a lovely novel now that stars Sulu and Kor/Kang/Koloth and Curzon Dax, but what sticks out to me is that both Rand and Chapel get full roles as doctors and Starfleet commanders. It's great to see them get their due. <3

Also: BLEW UP VULCAN. HOW DOES THAT EVEN--- *goes away spluttering, not having stopped since the film came out in 2009* HOW CAN YOU DO THAT, IT'S FRIGGING VULCAN

Aggrieved Vulcan fan is aggrieved

[underthewillows]

I know! BLEW UP VULCAN - A DEED THAT WILL STAIN THE 21st CENTURY IN THE ANNALS OF HISTORY AND LIVE ON IN INFAMY FOREVER!

Not alone that, they KILLED SPOCK'S MOTHER, THE AWESOME LADY AMANDA! Because, y'know, too many wimmins in the first film I suppose.

Grrr. I hope T'Pau survived (I'm betting you couldn't kill off that tough old bird with a supernova, never mind a piddling little planetary explosion) and we get to see her.

But yeah - Carol Marcus, a character best known not for her work as a scientist but as the mother of Kirk's son (who lasts all of ten minutes, poor lad). If the Reboot has her primarily as Nu!Kirk's love interest, great anger will descend upon their heads as I pour out the vials of my fannish Trekkie wrath.

Well, we'll see how the second movie turns out. I'll lay aside the tar and feathers for the moment :-)

Re: Aggrieved Vulcan fan is aggrieved

[nenya_kanadka]

You speak for me, you do indeed. <3 I actually conveniently forget about Amanda Greyson and Vulcan when I'm thinking of the reboot, most of the time: otherwise I'd just be standing there going, "But, but, but you can't DO THAT" the whole time.

I mean...would you blow up Cardassia Prime, Bajor, Andor, Betazed, the Bolian homeworld, Trill, Romulus, Q'onos? Certainly various devastations have happened to those planets (notably during the Dominion War), but make it go bye-bye forever? No, no you would not. If you were writing Star Trek and giving a shit about the bones of the universe. And Vulcan! Vulcan is the Federation, to me, aside from Earth. Yes, lots of more people joined later and all, but what is the iconic image of Star Trek to the masses? Spock and his Vulcan salute, that's what. YOU CAN'T BLOW UP VULCAN

(Though my beloved and otherwise smart girlfriend disagrees. I dunno, man. I realize it's a reboot, but...Vulcan?!)

Re: Aggrieved Vulcan fan is aggrieved

[underthewillows]

Four original founding members of the Federation: Terra, Vulcan, Andor and Tellar. It's like deciding to start your American movie for Americans about America with somebody burning the Declaration of Independence and stamping the ashes into the ground, and from then on, sorry, no more revered historic founding document exists in this continuity.

Again, yes, it's a reboot, they want to show "Anything can happen! This is a completely new universe!" but still - a step too far.

Hmmm - beautiful, smart, is okay with the destruction of Vulcan - are you absolutely certain she's not an undercover Romulan agent? Try casually dropping random comments about the Tal Shiar in conversation and see how she reacts :-)

Re: Aggrieved Vulcan fan is aggrieved

[nenya_kanadka]

Terra, Vulcan, Andor and Tellar

Ooh, see, I knew it must have been more than just Earth and Vulcan that started the Federation, but I couldn't remember who the other couple were. Andor was a favourite speculation though.

Hmmm - beautiful, smart, is okay with the destruction of Vulcan - are you absolutely certain she's not an undercover Romulan agent?

I'm chortling into my tea here, because (upon her recent rewatch of a number of TNG episodes) we have concluded that there ARE no Romulans: the entire species is made up of other people in disguise. (Including Deanna Troi. And a number of energy beings. And Vulcans. And...)

Re: Aggrieved Vulcan fan is aggrieved

[underthewillows]

we have concluded that there ARE no Romulans

Yeah, that's just what an infiltrating agent of a hostile alien species would WANT us to think.

I dunno; are you sure YOU'RE not a sleeper Romulan deep-cover agent yourself?

Re: Aggrieved Vulcan fan is aggrieved

[nenya_kanadka]

Psh, I'm a natural redhead.

Re: Aggrieved Vulcan fan is aggrieved

[sentienceimmutable]

Ha ha ha--how did I even miss this thread the first time round? I have expounded at great length to all willing (and many unwilling) on my love for all things Vulcan and my burning hatred of the reboot. I knew there was a reason us lot got along. I knew it.

Re: Aggrieved Vulcan fan is aggrieved

[nenya_kanadka]

You are, as my aunt would say, a perspicacious individual. <3 :D