Musings...

Daily exercise, yoga and Latin study has really cut into my LJ time - my fannish time. How did that happen? It's worth it because I feel terrific, but I'm missing things here.

On Thursday Sheila came over to visit with the latest two episodes of Veronica Mars, and my love of that show remains as strong as ever. Especially my love of Logan; irreverent, witty and vulnerable. My kind of guy.

Dr. Griffith: What are you doing with my daughter?
Logan: You want the complete play-by-play? That's kind of twisted.

We also watched the last episode of Lost. I think I missed an episode in there somewhere; it didn't seem to matter. That show is messing with our heads. Which is what it does best.

As they were trekking across the island to a mysterious clearing in the rain, I was sure Sayid, Ana Lucia and Charlie would meet up with the Island Monster. Nope. Too bad. And what about the deal with the Others - that they wouldn't wander outside their own area? Maybe that was rescinded in the episode I missed. Maybe they don't care.

Expendable...

A science fiction novel by James Alan Gardner: Expendable. I thought, from a title, it would be about the redshirts in Star Trek.... But not exactly. It's played for more than that.

It's the story of Festina Ramos, a member of the Explorer Corps, colloquially known as the Expendable Corps, because they are the ones who go first to a new planet (or situation) and tend to get killed - a condition known as "going Oh Shit". In this universe, carefully tended by the League of Planets, the Explorers are the people who will be least missed - the damaged, the less-than-beautiful, even if just marred by a stutter or, as in Festina's case, a birthmark. The conditions they suffer from could be cured - but then there would be no Explorers. This makes Festina an antisocial loner with a huge chip on her shoulder.

At first I was charmed by the beautiful writing. Then I was so irritated with Festina that I almost stopped reading. Then I was charmed by the arrival of a madman named Admiral Chee. Then I was caught up in the plot: Festina and her partner are sent with a madman of an Admiral named Chee to the planet Malaquin, a peaceful, Earthlike planet from which no one ever returns, the final resting place of crazy Admirals and expendable Explorers. And there Festina finds... more than she bargained for.

Some bits reminded me of A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: charming examination of the world and people and what makes things the way they are. Especially some of the wackier thigns.

But it's the kind of plot I don't much like, what I call a railway carriage plot. Something happens; it gets dealt with. Something else happens. Each plot development is unexpected, many tie in nicely to what happens before. Things happen. Then other things happen. It's all fairly external - Festina does change and grow, I am happy to say, but there's no dwelling on it with any emotional depth. Even though there are some significant ideas here, it's all done on a superficial level.

Maybe I just ask too much of a book.

Christiania...

Every once in a while I stumble across something I think I ought to have known about (given my interests), but didn't. This is one such thing, casually mentioned by Warren Ellis this morning, about Christiania in Denmark.

Fascinating.