For all of you who wondered, "If the Enterprise fought the Death Star, who would win?" I have no idea how they did such awesome special effects, but this is BRILLIANT. Of course I totally disagree with the outome -- I mean, any Captain of the Enterprise would have been able to come up with something clever, we all know they don't believe in no-win scenarios ;)

...how the mighty have fallen. But it's nice to know you have a sense of humor :)

Or at least I think I do. Turns out that one of the IP addresses from which LJ sends its notifications somehow ended up on my ISP's black list as being spam. I have requested it be unblocked, and so far have seen one notification, yay! So hopefully all is now well in comment-land.

I so much wanted to love Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, with its odd photographs and mysterious grandfather and menacing hollow creatures and, well, peculiar children, but I couldn't, not quite. I enjoyed it, but I didn't love it. The use of photographs was clever, the idea of living inside a time loop intriguing if a bit fuzzy in its logic, but I had two biggish problems with the book as a whole.

The first is a lack of good pacing/tightness. Ideally a book hooks you immediately, the tension gradually ratchets up as you go on, until you have a nice big finale. In this case, most of the gripping stuff came at the beginning; although the rest has some good bits it struck me as somewhat meandering and unfocused. The second was that the main character, rather than maturing through the course of the book, seems instead to become more childish (perhaps it's a side effect of hanging out with beings that have been children for 80+ years?). I can't recall when/if his age is given, but based on how he's presented at the beginning I would have guessed him to be 17 or 18; by the end he comes across more like a 13 or 14-year-old.

Then there's the fact that it's obviously a setup for a sequel, which I didn't know ahead of time and which was therefore irritating. (Does no one write good standalone novels any more??) So all in all, I give it a resounding "Meh."

Lives up to the title, "Year's Best." The best collection of short-form SF I've read in quite a while. All the stories are top-notch, with a wide mix of voices, settings, topics, length, styles and approaches. There are tales of post-apocalypse, space adventure and genetic modification; there are children and old men and guitar-playing dinosaurs and even a sort of steam-punk female Napoleon.

The only disappointment was the last one, a modern riff on the Benandanti -- I'm a fan of updated/retold folklore and fairy tales and I don't mind unreliable narrators or meta-fiction so I was intrigued at first, but in the end this comes across as too self-conscious an exercise in cleverness by both the narrator and the author.

Now, what to read next?? I can't decide if I want to re-read The Stand (about which Mr Psmith and I had a rousing debate last night, regarding the absence of a religious element among the bad guys) or tackle 11/22/63. I also have to finish Swansea Girl. Lots to do!

(N.B. The fact that I am STILL getting ZERO notifications from LJ, and my ISP apparently can't be bothered to look into it or even respond, is SERIOUSLY vexing me...)

Are other people getting comment notifications from LJ? I am getting zilch, and have been for about five days now. So apologies if you've said something to me and I didn't say anything back :(

People seem to be rather polarized over this book; either they love it or they hate it. Well, I loved every bit of it and yup, I cried at the end -- partly due to the lovely unspooling of the story itself, but partly because I didn't want to let these characters go. I wanted to stick around and see. The writing is clear, vivid, lively; the characters are three-dimensional, believable, so very human; and the situations and interactions are so real -- the warmth, humor and love as well as the anger, fear and irritation. If you have a sibling, you will identify with these people. If you don't, read this and you'll know what it's like.

Each of the sisters -- Cordy, Bean and Rose -- has a distinct, unique personality, but in some ways they are strangers to themselves as well; they've each reached point where the old ways aren't enough. One of the joys of the story is watching each sister unfold new parts of herself, recognize that what she had thought was a strength might instead be not just a weakness but an actual burden, realize that she is free to say, "What if...?", that she has the courage to make new choices, let the old ways go and welcome the new.

My mother is one of three sisters. I plan to buy three copies and send it to all of them...

Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing has a release date: June 7, 2013. Exactly 38 days from today. Tick, tick, tick...

And there's a new trailer. yay!!

Much goodness this weekend!

Goodness the first: Friday night Mr Psmith and I saw The Marriage of Figaro -- a great performance, not just well sung but well acted with lots of physical comedy. I kept thinking how much it reminded me of the old screwball comedies from the 1940s and 1950s. Figaro was a riot in his facial expressions and movements and had a fabulous bass-baritone voice, and I even liked the sopranos, which usually I don't, finding them too screechy. Countess Almaviva in particular was lovely, very smooth and lyrical. I was a little thrown by the fact that Cherubino was played by a female; I know that minor "page-boy" parts were often played by women but it was a little odd to hear her singing about her infatuation with the Countess. And everyone else. Bonus: The venue has changed its policy and now allows you to take drinks into the performance hall, meaning you don't have to slam your intermission merlot. Sweet!

Goodness the second: Saturday was a stunningly gorgeous day so Mr Psmith and I decided to venture downtown for dinner. We chose a brew-pub we hadn't eaten at in a long time; it was the first day that their outdoor seating area was open, and lo, we got a table! Mr Psmith had an elk-burger with Black Magic Stout and I had a catfish burrito with a nice peppery merlot, all eaten outdoors in the sun and the breeze while people-watching (some very funny) and car-watching (some very posh!). And the waitress had some amazing ink, an octopus that twined two-thirds of the way down her arm. I do love seeing good ink, although I have none of my own.

Goodness the third: Today was also a stunningly gorgeous day so we opened all the windows and doors, chasing out the winter staleness and making me feel as though I were outside even though I had to work (after helping Mr Psmith put up the trellises -- trelli, trellorum? -- for the clematis, of course). I completed an editing project for client and then rewarded myself by (finally!) taking the time to write up a long-overdue response to a friend's excellent novel manuscript. It's a classic space mystery/adventure with wonderful characters and many twisty plot strands, all cleverly integrated in a highly satisfying ending, so I really enjoyed writing a nice long meaty feedback/critique. I hope she sends it off to a publisher, because it's as good as anything I've read and better than many.

Now, off to grade some student projects and then (since the kitchen is still a war zone) wash dishes in the bathtub and order pizza for dinner. Nomz.

Apparently LJ isn't sending comment notifications. And hasn't been. For, like, three days. Argh...

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam takes advantage of the flash mob craze to promote the re-opening of the museum. This is SO COOL. I mean, it has HORSES!! (There's more on the video here, if you're interested.)