Posts by Lucy Stewart
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I think that's the thing with highly detailed works like that though - if it goes into enormous detail about stuff that's your bag you'll love it if you were already a bit meh about armour and visigoths then reading it will just feel like a chore.
I'm not so sure about that - see, I like armour. I like Visigoths. If it were financially viable and I had three or four lifetimes to do stuff in I'd be a medieval history professor. Stories of alternate history are to me as nicotine to a smoker. And I *still* couldn't finish the damn book.
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The second series was a repeat of the first series, which a couple of characters changed, taking place on a different continent, with many of the same things happening. Rather terrible.
I find The Redemption of Althalus strangely fascinating in that he manages to take his standard plot and characters and package it all up into one book, although this also tells you something about the quality of all the series that use the same plot and characters.
If you really want to be horrified and amused, read the book he wrote where he details the standard elements you need to write a fantasy series; I'm not sure whether he was serious or laughing hysterically about having made a pot of money with stereotypes, revealing his tools, and still making a pot of money. I really, really hope that was the case.
Speaking of fantasy: I *loathe* A Song of Ice and Fire. Every time you like a character (after hating them for a couple of books) they die; in fact, as soon as a character gains the tiniest shred of sympathy they die. Explicit rape and incest with added violence may attract some people, but I'm not one of them. And it's all just so goddam depressing. (I actually really enjoyed the one short story Martin wrote in this universe, in the Legends collection, but the main series is ghastly.)
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take a piss, make a coffee, get a snack, take a nap
I often find I prefer watching movies on TV, what with their handy built-in snack, toilet, and commentary breaks. Otherwise everyone moans at you for making them pause it.
... and providing for the nearly-dead, TVCs for funeral director's are starting to pop up on the screen. Maybe we could start up The Dead Channel, as a companion to The Living Channel
So it's not just me; I rather thought that the number of funeral home ads had increased in recent years. I find it creepy.
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Not only funny, but terrifyingly accurate.
So terrifyingly accurate I have trouble watching, much to the fiance's disappointment.
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Stephen Jones in Wasilla Alaska last night was great. He interviewed the current town mayor ("yes, being Mayor of this town prepares you for being VP of the USA"). He then asked her what she actually did. She listed all the things she didn't control (fire department, education etc), and came up with two things that she did do - a Tuesday staff meeting, and signing all the town's cheques on Thursday.
Comedy so good, you'd be very happy if it wasn't running rampant all over the elections of a major world player.
Oh, God, yes. The deer-in-the-headlights "...How?" when he asked her to explain exactly which parts of the Wasilla mayoralty prepared you for the Vice-Presidency was classic. And, you know, terrifying. The theme of how much "small-town America" is owned by big corporations was nicely played, too - all in the visuals.
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I get it. General Colin Powell is not a "real" Republican. Liberals who live in Virginia are not "real Virginians." Muslim Americans are not "real" Americans. Women who want to keep abortion legal are not real women. Homeless people who walk infront of a car and get hit are not "real" people.
Last night's Daily Show had a hysterical (and very pointed) segment addressing just this issue. They're getting very angry this election, and it's mostly making them funnier.
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Several others thought that NZ was like England in the 1950s.
One of the great aggravations of my life was getting to the Gerard Durrell book where he goes to New Zealand and having him describe it as just like being in England. Admittedly, this was the fifties, but after the lavish praise he afforded basically every other country mentioned in his books it was depressing.
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Including, one presumes, that glorification of guns, getting stoned while in really bad drag, statutory rape and teen suicide known as... Romeo and Juliet? William Shakespeare is such an emo pervert, but thankfully "too difficult" for the poor lambs.
Indeed, and I'd already studied it at the tender age of fifteen. The lack of scarring for life among my classmates was just astounding, let me tell you.
In fact, the most complaints I ever heard along that score were about Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar", which I lucked out of but various classmates didn't. The general opinion was that it was just really bloody depressing.
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Because ours are worried that if they explicitly declared themselves to be National party pamphlets, a non-National government might notice that they are an unregulated and abusive monopoly?
Be fair, I'm sure there's a couple of student mags that would endorse centre-Left parties.
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Things I wrote about in my English scholarship exam included*: the Baz Luhrman Red Curtains trilogy, and a defence of fanfiction citing the Aeneid and Terry Pratchett. And somehow, I still passed. Funny, contradictory people, those markers.
However, I really couldn't help boggling at the assertion that showing an R16 movie to sixth and seventh-formers was inappropriate. Do the people making these comments even understand a) how old sixth and seventh-formers generally are and b) what the ratings system *means*?
*and a whole lot of Shakespeare, admittedly, but only because I like Shakespeare.