End of January Update:
Books
1. The Relic Guild (The Relic Guild 01) by Edward Cox ★★★½ (08 Jan)
Currently Reading: The Cathedral of Known Things (The Relic Guild 02) by Edward Cox
The only book I've read so far is The Relic Guild (which for the sake of disclosure I won in a Goodreads giveaway).
Labrys Town sits within the Labyrinth and in the past it served as a meeting ground for Very Important People from Very Important Places where they could negotiate with each other and talk to each other instead of fighting.
Then The War began, and the Labyrinth was cut off completely because the idea of a location that would allow easy access to Very Important Places was a tactician's nightmare, and everyone who was in Labrys Town at the time became trapped there.
The book begins in the final days of a war, and then splits off into two separate storylines, one of them focusing on the events surrounding that day and its more immediate aftermath and another that picks up about forty years later. They run alongside each other, with each allowing you to understand a little more about the other as you continue reading, and it works really well. Each time has characters who are "newer" to events who allow certain things to be explained, but for the most part you're just dropped into the world and left to follow it, and I really liked that. I was also impressed at the way the spoiler factor of the future timeline's existence never really detracted from events of the past (and that learning more about the past helps you appreciate the situation in the future that much more).
The ending though... well, frankly, I hated it, and I can't stop myself from holding it against the book a little. I resent the author for ending it there, and if I'd actually read the book when it came out and had the knowledge the next book wasn't out for a year I would have resented him even more.
That said, I
didn't read the book a year ago and I
did have the next book on hand to jump straight into. Yey!
So, at the moment I'm reading the second book, The Cathedral of Known Things (and for the sake of disclosure I won it in the same Goodreads giveaway).
It continues with the parallel storylines from the previous book and gets into both of them with a lot more depth, giving us more viewpoints and more locations -- where the first book focused on Labrys, the second gives us a chance to see the effect of the war on the worlds beyond the Labyrinth as well (and I love their names which have a sort of "translation as a blunt instrument" feel to them).
That said, the second does have a few things that feel a little bit off to me - there is a section where one character is challenged by another character and buckles incredibly swiftly in a way that doesn't feel entirely earned. Then there's the frequently erotically charged wording for anything associated with
which is... starting to be irritating... and the fact that
's sole character trait is his bulk (okay, at a push he might have two what with his
but after that I really am drawing a blank)... and, dumb though it sounds, it also kind of feels like
crawled inside the author's head at some point and refused to let go unless he wrote him into more scenes and he gave in.
But overall I'm really enjoying it.
The thing is, my knowledge of how much I loathed the ending of the first book is making me hesitant to finish the second, especially when I know that The Watcher of Dead Time isn't out until August (and that it will be one of Gollancz's more horrifically priced books. Seriously, I can't help but begrudge paying £17 for a freaking paperback. Give me hardbacks, at least).
Movies
1. Charming Christmas (2015) ★★★ (03 Jan)
2. Age of Ice (2013) ★½ (03 Jan)
3. The Right Girl (2015) ★★★½ (10 Jan)
4. Signed, Sealed, Delivered: From Paris With Love (2015) ★★ (10 Jan)
5. The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009) ★★★★ (10 Jan)
6. Mr Fiction (2014) ★★ (13 Jan)
7. A Perfect Match (2015) ★★★ (17 Jan)
8. Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Truth Be Told (2015) ★★★½ (17 Jan)
9. Do No Harm (2012) ★★★½ (20 Jan)
10. Love, Again (2015) ★★★ (24 Jan)
11. Goddess (2013) ★★½ (26 Jan)
12. Agatha Christie's Marple: The Moving Finger (2006) ★★★ (30-31 Jan)
13. Journey to Spirit Island (1988) ★★★½ (31 Jan)
14. Sins of the Mother (1991) ★★★ (31 Jan)
15. When Duty Calls (2015) ★★½ (31 Jan)
Fifteen movies, nothing particularly notable to comment on. I have to admit I wouldn't have bothered watching The Moving Finger if I hadn't realised it was D'Arcy narrating at the beginning. I like him in Agent Carter
TV Series
1. The Bridge III (03 Jan - 14 Jan) ★★★★★
2. Mozart in the Jungle Season 1 (16 Jan - 17 Jan) ★★★★★
3. Mozart in the Jungle Season 2 (17 Jan) ★★★★
Okay, The Bridge III is fantastic.
I've never watched the first two series but I'm going to have to now.
I love Saga, I love Henrik, and I loved all their character quirks and the way they bounced off each other. Sofia Helin and Thure Lindhardt play them brilliantly. I know Saga had a different partner for the first two series but I'm still looking forward to picking them up.
The investigation was interesting, as was the drama. Saga made me laugh, frequently, and I might have gotten a little teary eyed at the end.
The subtitles were a little iffy on occasion and sometimes said different stuff during recaps than they did during the original episodes, but okay, whatever. That can't take away from how much I fell in love with this show.
Amazon sent me an email saying the first two seasons were available for free to non-prime members because it won 2 Golden Globes, so I decided to watch them.
The first season streamed excellently and made me pretty impressed with the service. The second season on the other hand had sound breaks and this weird alignment thing that split through the middle of the screen on entirely too many occasions and was just generally pretty awful, quality wise. I have no idea what was going on there.
As for the show it was gloriously dramatic and over the top and that tag line describes it perfectly.
Everyone is doing drugs, and everyone is sleeping with everyone, and I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would. And the music was great.
The second season wasn't as good, and the first half or so of it really seemed like it dragged and could have used some tightening up, but it pulled it together enough at the end for me to rank it quite highly anyway.
I wouldn't buy prime to watch the third season, but I will put it on the list of stuff to follow up on some day.
