jencat | the one with whisky and crashing trucks

Heh. I think I can just about justify the inordinate amount of money I've spent on books recently as, er, I've actually been reading them for once, rather than using them as pretty shelf decorations (although, the amount of storage space I have left is currently in the minuses, so Something Must Be Done).

Just finished The Graveyard Book, which was fabulousness, of course. Neil Gaiman rocks, etc, etc, and the end had me distinctly welling up. Was I imagining the part where it started to sound a little JK Rowling-ish perhaps? Not a criticism, just trying to work out why it felt so familiar... Anyhoo. Loved Silas (can we have a sequel where he's fighting crime with Miss Lupescu perhaps, pretty please?) and it was sad and dark and prickly and adorable.

Really wish I could say the same for Daisies, but lordy they've kinda lost the plot on that one. I dozed off watching the Bad Habits ep last night and it just compounded that nasty sinking feeling I've had since the new season began. They've painted themselves into a corner with Ned and Chuck and it can't resolve anything until they break them up or something equally drastic. So now it drags on, slightly painfully, wandering round in plot circles that can't go anywhere as the characters are stuck in a holding pattern.

There are no cute songs anymore, much less of the ewww/awww factor, plus Chuck spent all of the last ep in a nun's habit (so no Chuck vintage fashion spotting) and it's just lost all its... joi de vivre, I guess. I don't watch it with a big silly grin any more, and I feel like I've lost something... I wonder if it's it going to be another Dead Like Me, cut off after season two?
Might have to remember who I leant my Wonderfalls boxset to.. now there's a show that was robbed of season 2. No fair.

True Blood continues in its own insane Southern way, with as much bedhopping as it can cram into an hour, and Sookie's great funeral speech(although I kept getting distracted by wondering where I could get a dress/shrug combo that looked just like that). And Jason flipping out and attacking her was genuinely shocking (why do I not hate him more?! he's such a complete arsehole...)

Did not see the whole cliche vamp romance scene coming exactly (where did she buy that white dress exactly, Romantic Heroines R Us?!) but it was kinda a nice contrast. Except for the very weird bite shot, which made Stephen Moyer's nose look enormous. That was deeply strange...

This week was also big on post-apocalyptic urban fantasy, whoo! I finally read Magic Burns, and was suitably impressed, and then Working for the Devil, which just about pulls off the 'chucking everything at the wall and seeing what sticks' school of worldbuilding. It was dark and dense, and nicely immersive. The Amazon review for the second book contained the immortal line that Dante's love life was her excuse 'to drink coffee and be uncivil', which made me chuckle, even if it's not entirely true.

Ack. SFX arrived today, with a big story on how BBC3 want the series of Being Human to be 'lighter and funnier'. Then they went and recast Marshall and Annie cos they wanted 'younger'. I'm not sorry to be rid of Adrian Lester hamming it up, but the other guys were pretty damn good... Who's betting we'll never see the original pilot ever again, dammit. It's not like 90% of all Uk genre output isn't aimed at kids anyhoo (not sure i can stomach Philip Glenister being American in Demon, the 'van helsing jr' buffy wannabe that ITV are making).

Well, so far I've been surprisingly... not hating Merlin. Even if i keep comparing it to the rather cool Sam Neil miniseries with All Star Cast. It's daft, and anachronistic in every way you can think of, but it's nicely produced (and very pretty) fluff. It's got Giles being a kickass king! And Morgana's apparently been raiding Inara's wardrobe from Firefly! Sadly, Michelle Ryan still can't act, so I don't see why they were mentioning her bit part as Nimueh so much, it's getting embarrassing.

The only other thing that really bugs me is Gwen/Guinevere... The character's great as a person, and the actress is perfectly good, but the character isn't Guinevere by any interpretation (and it's nothing to do with her ethnicity). She's a blacksmith's daughter, works as a servant, and has precisely zero chemistry with Arthur (although I think they start chucking Lancelot into the mix this week)... Even if they do a reversal later on, it's not going to work - Guinevere needs to be valuable politically in her own right. And she just does not work as Merlin's plucky sidekick. Much as I hate all things Arthurian, there's certain things they should really stick to.

Ah, well. I finally found a download of the Karine Polwart track I love, the one I can never remember the name of. It starts with 'six rain-ridden summers' and then has all the whisky and crashing trucks... what more do you need in a folk song?