Recent book-reading and movie-watching

[luzula]

Sacrifice of Fools by Ian McDonald
Yay, this was great! It's basically the Northern Ireland conflict plus alien settlers (let's take two sides and add a third!). The plot is pretty much a murder mystery. I liked the writing, and it's got a fast-moving plot and a great sense of setting and detail, at least as far as I can tell, since I've never been there (and indeed, McDonald is from Belfast). Fascinating details of alien culture, too, although it's got aliens that are, again, physically pretty similar to humans. Yeah, I've got to get over my hang-up about that. Anyway, recommended!

The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing
Read for my book club at work. I'd only read Lessing's science fiction before (ha ha, that's what I said when we read Margaret Atwood as well). This one's about a couple who wants family life and lots of kids, but then their fifth child is different and doesn't fit into the family. I liked the writing, and it has a certain ambivalence about what's actually the truth--the POV is omniscient, but still mostly focuses on one person's POV.

I also started reading the Fritz Leiber book Swords and Deviltry, which has been in my bookcase forever, but meh, I didn't finish it--I guess I just wasn't in the mood for sword-and-sorcery. Now I can get rid of it with a good conscience, since I've given it a try.

I also watched Casablanca, which I've never seen before and which I quite enjoyed. Now I can read the two long Yuletide fics for that movie, one of which is written by dorinda and so is pretty much guaranteed to be good!

Comments

[calvinahobbes]

Speaking of alien aliens, I had this 'brain soap' (you know, right?) about a young woman who is abducted by aliens and kept as a test subject -- wooow, except not sexy AT ALL, despite how it might sound??? And like, her problem is naturally - how to get away, or failing that, how to convince these hyper-different hyper-intelligent creatures that she is totally sapient as well, except how do you do that in an Initiative-type prison cell without just coming across as a bored lab rat? And then once she has finally established an emotional rapport with one of her scientists, how DO you communicate with an entirely different species whose culture, language, and normal emotional response you have no clue about? And how do you meet your own need for physical and emotional intimacy when there is literally no one around who understands you? (Wow, yeah, she's pretty sad all the time, and holy smokes, the book would be so boring?) But eventually she actually manages to learn enough of their language to be promoted to pet/wlling test subject and I never really figured out how it would end, but anyway, the best part was just trying to imagine *how* that alien culture would be different. Like, naturally they would not be mamalian. Would they even be bipedal? But they would have really delicate membral tools of some kind to sub for hands. And possibly they would communicate in a combination of sounds, gestures, and pheromones that a human would have no chance to replicate. Er, now you know?

[luzula]

The inside of your head sounds like an interesting place! I love worldbuilding and aliens that are actually alien, and I'd totally read that story. : ) Hmm, there must exist SF books like that? *ponders* I can think of a couple that are about learning to communicate with aliens, but I'm not sure I've read any that are about just one isolated person (although hey, that velociraptor fic I talked about on the meet-up kind of fits the description, except that they're not actual aliens! Aww, you even have a dinosaur icon to match.)

[calvinahobbes]

It's funny how I didn't think about it at the time, or at any other time you've mentioned aliens and world-building >_> But I can't get past thinking that there would be plotting issues, or that at least only a really minor subset of people would be interested in reading such a story. I mean, I think it would *have* to be really dense and sometimes exhausting in order to be realistic...

[china_shop]

That Dorinda fic is gorgeous! Enjoy. :-)

[luzula]

I fully expect that it will be! : )

[garonne.livejournal.com]

Casablanca! I haven't seen that film in years, but I've seen it so often I almost know the dialogue by heart. I had never even thought of looking up fic for it, though. Good idea...

Nice to see you back on LJ, by the way! :D I had thought you'd just stopped posting for a while, during your password problem. I'm rarely on DW myself.

[luzula]

Yeah, there are two long fics on AO3, one of which is Rick/Sam, and the other is Rick/police inspector guy. Both look promising!

Sorry about the crossposting fail. /o\ At least I'm back now?

[lyr]

I haven't read that particular McDonald. but I agree that he's awesome. His River of Gods was one of the most amazingly crafted, intelligent books I have ever read.

[luzula]

That one's on my to-read list, as well, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. : )