a movie called Wanda
Dec. 21st, 2025 06:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacJohn Scalzi's 'comfort watch' for yesterday was A Fish Called Wanda. I find I have some thoughts about that movie:
I agree with Scalzi that it's a fabulously funny movie, which I enjoyed tremendously on first watching. And for a long time afterwards, too, but on more recent rewatches I've found myself enjoying it somewhat less. (Except for Otto, a character so terminally stupid and fearlessly portrayed by Kevin Kline that way, that this still works.)
What I'm finding less appealing is what Scalzi calls the 'cringe humor.' Normally, like him, I dislike humor relying on embarrassing sympathetic characters, but Wanda was funny enough to immunize itself against this. But maybe as I've gotten more used to the scenario, the immunity wears off.
Scalzi mentions a couple forms of humor that probably wouldn't pass muster in a film made today. One is what he calls casual homophobia. I don't think that Otto trying to disconcert Ken by pretending to be sexually attracted to him is actually homophobic as the term is normally used. Ken isn't being repulsed at the existence of homosexuals, just at being propositioned himself. He's not shown as homophobic, just as emphatically not homosexual himself.
The line that Otto steps across is that of verbal sexual harassment, and that's objectionable regardless of the sexual orientation of anyone involved. If Otto were to treat a woman that way, it'd be perfectly understandable for her being as uncomfortable with it as Ken is.
The other problematic source of humor is Ken's stutter. Here again it's not that simple. The character who mocks Ken is Otto, and that's part of showing what a nasty and unsympathetic person Otto is. Wanda and George are comfortable dealing with Ken, whose stutter is less severe when talking with them - obviously it becomes stronger under stress.
Which leaves the encounter between Ken and Archie, when they're both frantic and accordingly Ken's stutter becomes very severe. It seems to me the source of humor here is not the stutter but Archie's frustration in dealing with it (his impatience, while understandable, is a flaw in his character). But I shouldn't be surprised if those with stutters disagree about that.
Scalzi says to ignore the plot, but there's a plot problem with the movie that weighs on me more over time. The reason Wanda seduces Archie is because Archie is George's lawyer and might know where George has hidden the diamonds. Perhaps it's Wanda's unfamiliarity, as an American, with the British legal system that trips her up here, because, as the barrister, Archie is merely a hired hand; he has little direct contact with George and is not in his confidence. The person who is in George's confidence is his solicitor, who is George's actual lawyer in the normal sense, and he does know about the diamonds, as is shown by his passing secret messages between George and Ken. It's the solicitor, not the barrister, whom Wanda should have seduced, but the solicitor is a minor character and, unlike Archie, he's not sexy, so there'd be no movie there.
I agree with Scalzi that it's a fabulously funny movie, which I enjoyed tremendously on first watching. And for a long time afterwards, too, but on more recent rewatches I've found myself enjoying it somewhat less. (Except for Otto, a character so terminally stupid and fearlessly portrayed by Kevin Kline that way, that this still works.)
What I'm finding less appealing is what Scalzi calls the 'cringe humor.' Normally, like him, I dislike humor relying on embarrassing sympathetic characters, but Wanda was funny enough to immunize itself against this. But maybe as I've gotten more used to the scenario, the immunity wears off.
Scalzi mentions a couple forms of humor that probably wouldn't pass muster in a film made today. One is what he calls casual homophobia. I don't think that Otto trying to disconcert Ken by pretending to be sexually attracted to him is actually homophobic as the term is normally used. Ken isn't being repulsed at the existence of homosexuals, just at being propositioned himself. He's not shown as homophobic, just as emphatically not homosexual himself.
The line that Otto steps across is that of verbal sexual harassment, and that's objectionable regardless of the sexual orientation of anyone involved. If Otto were to treat a woman that way, it'd be perfectly understandable for her being as uncomfortable with it as Ken is.
The other problematic source of humor is Ken's stutter. Here again it's not that simple. The character who mocks Ken is Otto, and that's part of showing what a nasty and unsympathetic person Otto is. Wanda and George are comfortable dealing with Ken, whose stutter is less severe when talking with them - obviously it becomes stronger under stress.
Which leaves the encounter between Ken and Archie, when they're both frantic and accordingly Ken's stutter becomes very severe. It seems to me the source of humor here is not the stutter but Archie's frustration in dealing with it (his impatience, while understandable, is a flaw in his character). But I shouldn't be surprised if those with stutters disagree about that.
Scalzi says to ignore the plot, but there's a plot problem with the movie that weighs on me more over time. The reason Wanda seduces Archie is because Archie is George's lawyer and might know where George has hidden the diamonds. Perhaps it's Wanda's unfamiliarity, as an American, with the British legal system that trips her up here, because, as the barrister, Archie is merely a hired hand; he has little direct contact with George and is not in his confidence. The person who is in George's confidence is his solicitor, who is George's actual lawyer in the normal sense, and he does know about the diamonds, as is shown by his passing secret messages between George and Ken. It's the solicitor, not the barrister, whom Wanda should have seduced, but the solicitor is a minor character and, unlike Archie, he's not sexy, so there'd be no movie there.
Recent Reading: Solo Dance
Dec. 20th, 2025 09:25 amrocky41_7 posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
booksLast night I wrapped up Solo Dance by Kotomi Li, translated from Japanese by Arthur Morris. This short book is about a young gay Taiwanese woman who struggles with both internal and external homophobia, and eventually moves to Japan looking for understanding.
Queer stories from other countries are always interesting to me and it’s a good reminder that progress has not been even all over the world. Much of the book is pretty depressing, because the protagonist struggled with fitting in even before she realized she was gay, and she has some real struggles. She is battling severe depression for much of the book and at several points, suicidality.
The book is touching in that the protagonist’s struggles feel real and she’s someone who is so close to having positive experience that could change her life for the better, but her luck keeps dropping on the other side each time.
I don’t want to spoil too much about the end, but while I was grateful for the overall tone of the it, it is contrived and not very believable. But I did enjoy the protagonist’s travels leading up to that point. It’s not at all subtle, and it packs a lot more plot into the final handful of chapters than the rest of the book, but it was still sweet to see the protagonist’s perspective shift a little through her engagements with other people.
I’m not sure if it’s the translation or the original prose, but the language is stilted and very emotionally distant. The reader is kept at arm’s length from the protagonist virtually the whole novel, and while we’re often told she’s feeling these intense feelings, I never felt it. It was like reading a clinical report of her feelings, which was disappointing.
This is Li’s first novel, and it reads that way. There’s a lot of heart in it, and I appreciate it for that, but it lacks a lot in technical skill. I would be interested to see more of Li’s future work, when she’s had more time to polish her ability, but I don’t regret taking the time with this one.
read these
Dec. 19th, 2025 09:48 pmcalimac1. My colleague Michael D.C. Drout on why The Lord of the Rings endures with readers. (If you don't have access to the NY Times, this link might get you there.) The essay takes a startling personal turn that may surprise readers who don't know Mike, but in the process it also reveals some of why Tolkien is such a moving and effective author. (And some of it is based on the lexomic analysis in the article Mike co-authored in the latest issue of Tolkien Studies.) It's a sad and beautiful article, like Tolkien's work itself.
2. What has become of NASA? Joel Achenbach's deep dive into the recent history and current state of the agency that's been mooting return flights to the Moon and also to Mars, and why it's not likely to happen, told with a clarity not always granted to such articles.
3. The angriest and hence best response to the thing that took to the airwaves to yell at America.
2. What has become of NASA? Joel Achenbach's deep dive into the recent history and current state of the agency that's been mooting return flights to the Moon and also to Mars, and why it's not likely to happen, told with a clarity not always granted to such articles.
3. The angriest and hence best response to the thing that took to the airwaves to yell at America.
![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
chocolate
Dec. 18th, 2025 06:20 pmredbirdNo, I did not spend all the money in my wallet on chocolate*, but I treated us to a box of chocolates from Serenade, the chocolatier in Brookline with a wide selection of vegan chocolates.
I took the bus to Brookline Village, walked a little extra because I was wrong about which bus stop to use, walked into the shop, and asked for a one-pound box.
I bought two vegan caramels, which Adrian had asked for; I'd have gotten more, but I wasn't sure what she or Cattitude think of sea salt caramel. Just for myself, I got six dairy truffles, three lemon and three lime. The rest was a few (vegan) chocolate creams, and a lot of chocolate-dipped fruit and nuts, including several of their excellent chocolate covered plums, a candy I haven't seen anywhere else.
I came home via Trader Joe's, where I bought fruit, a bell pepper, hummus, pre-cooked chicken sausages, a carton of chocolate ice cream, and a box of frozen vanilla and chocolate macarons.
Even counting the chocolate part of the groceries, I would have had money left from the $79 that happens to be how much cash is in my wallet right now. That's a pretty arbitrary metric, since I don't always have the same amount of cash (I do make a point of having some, because cash still comes in handy sometimes).
*see yesterday's post
I took the bus to Brookline Village, walked a little extra because I was wrong about which bus stop to use, walked into the shop, and asked for a one-pound box.
I bought two vegan caramels, which Adrian had asked for; I'd have gotten more, but I wasn't sure what she or Cattitude think of sea salt caramel. Just for myself, I got six dairy truffles, three lemon and three lime. The rest was a few (vegan) chocolate creams, and a lot of chocolate-dipped fruit and nuts, including several of their excellent chocolate covered plums, a candy I haven't seen anywhere else.
I came home via Trader Joe's, where I bought fruit, a bell pepper, hummus, pre-cooked chicken sausages, a carton of chocolate ice cream, and a box of frozen vanilla and chocolate macarons.
Even counting the chocolate part of the groceries, I would have had money left from the $79 that happens to be how much cash is in my wallet right now. That's a pretty arbitrary metric, since I don't always have the same amount of cash (I do make a point of having some, because cash still comes in handy sometimes).
*see yesterday's post
play reading
Dec. 18th, 2025 10:52 amcalimacMy online play-reading group has been exploring, among other things, 19th century English comedy. We've done most of Oscar Wilde's drawing-room comedies (I know, technically Wilde was Irish, but he worked in England) and wondered what else there was. We tried a play by Arthur Wing Pinero, since I knew he was popular at the time, and though the text was genteely anti-semitic (the moral lesson seemed to be that pushy Cockney Jews shouldn't try to socialize with titled gentry; they wouldn't enjoy themselves), but we did enjoy reading the play - it was called The Cabinet Minister - and will probably return to Pinero eventually.
But for our next venture in this area, I suggested that we try a play that I knew was a big hit comedy in its day, the laugh riot of the 1860s, but whose reputation has been besmirched by a tragic event that occurred during a performance. I refer, of course, to Our American Cousin by Tom Taylor, and if you want to read it, it's here.
It turned out to be fairly funny, itself, and again worth reading. As with the Pinero, it's about titled gentry facing money problems - this time they're being cheated by a crooked agent - who are also being faced by a visit by an American cousin who has become the heir to another relative's fortune.
The cousin is from Vermont, specifically Brattleboro, which is at the old, longer-settled end of Vermont, but he sounds and acts more like a Kentucky hillbilly. Before he arrives, another relative who'd gone out to see him writes that he's been out shooting with a party of the Crow people. In Vermont? The Crows live around Montana. Maybe they too were visiting for some unspecified reason, but evidently for Taylor, America is some kind of black box out of which anything can come.
Our member who read the part of Asa, the cousin, had a great time with it. My principal role was that of an inexplicable - there's no explanation of what he's doing there - nobleman called Lord Dundreary, who became the play's breakout character in the first production from a flamboyant performance by the actor. Lord Dundreary is both dimwitted and an inveterate punster, which I guess go together in some people's opinion, and I found it challenging to get across wordplay like this:
Why does a duck go under water? for divers reasons.
Why does a duck come out of the water? for sundry reasons.
According to the misspelling of his dialogue, Lord Dundreary suffers from both an interdental lisp (th for s) and rhotacism (w for r). Trying to perform both of these at once gave me an accent which sounded to me more Eastern European than English.
Interesting play; I'm glad we tried it. We're also finishing up the more obscure end of Shakespeare, our last venture having been Timon of Athens, which is also about a seemingly well-off man with money problems. When it turns out that his open-hearted generosity has left him broke, and none of his beneficiaries will now lend him money in his need, Timon suddenly switches personality and becomes a toxic misanthrope for the rest of the play. His encounter with another, more natively misanthropic character - dueling curmudgeons! - in Act 4 Scene 3 is one of Shakespeare's little-known gems.
But for our next venture in this area, I suggested that we try a play that I knew was a big hit comedy in its day, the laugh riot of the 1860s, but whose reputation has been besmirched by a tragic event that occurred during a performance. I refer, of course, to Our American Cousin by Tom Taylor, and if you want to read it, it's here.
It turned out to be fairly funny, itself, and again worth reading. As with the Pinero, it's about titled gentry facing money problems - this time they're being cheated by a crooked agent - who are also being faced by a visit by an American cousin who has become the heir to another relative's fortune.
The cousin is from Vermont, specifically Brattleboro, which is at the old, longer-settled end of Vermont, but he sounds and acts more like a Kentucky hillbilly. Before he arrives, another relative who'd gone out to see him writes that he's been out shooting with a party of the Crow people. In Vermont? The Crows live around Montana. Maybe they too were visiting for some unspecified reason, but evidently for Taylor, America is some kind of black box out of which anything can come.
Our member who read the part of Asa, the cousin, had a great time with it. My principal role was that of an inexplicable - there's no explanation of what he's doing there - nobleman called Lord Dundreary, who became the play's breakout character in the first production from a flamboyant performance by the actor. Lord Dundreary is both dimwitted and an inveterate punster, which I guess go together in some people's opinion, and I found it challenging to get across wordplay like this:
Why does a duck go under water? for divers reasons.
Why does a duck come out of the water? for sundry reasons.
According to the misspelling of his dialogue, Lord Dundreary suffers from both an interdental lisp (th for s) and rhotacism (w for r). Trying to perform both of these at once gave me an accent which sounded to me more Eastern European than English.
Interesting play; I'm glad we tried it. We're also finishing up the more obscure end of Shakespeare, our last venture having been Timon of Athens, which is also about a seemingly well-off man with money problems. When it turns out that his open-hearted generosity has left him broke, and none of his beneficiaries will now lend him money in his need, Timon suddenly switches personality and becomes a toxic misanthrope for the rest of the play. His encounter with another, more natively misanthropic character - dueling curmudgeons! - in Act 4 Scene 3 is one of Shakespeare's little-known gems.
retired
Dec. 17th, 2025 04:54 pmcalimacYes, it's true, as announced yesterday: I'm retiring from my position as co-editor of Tolkien Studies. I've held this position for 13 years, and I was associated with the journal, mostly as author of "The Year's Work in Tolkien Studies," for 8 years before that, but is that long enough? No, I hope to continue to write for the journal - I just won't be editing it - as health permits.
Also for health concerns, I'm detaching myself from other long-term work-oriented commitments, because I don't want to cause a crisis if I'm suddenly unable to continue. You may not have noticed that I haven't published a professional concert review in two months. That's not too unusual a gap, especially as Christmas season is slow for the kinds of concerts I cover.
But what I've told my editors is to delete me from any coverage for the time being. If things go well, I may be back in the spring. In the meantime, I am attending concerts on my own as I can manage them. I'm hoping for one on the 21st, and my next ticket is for Jan. 15.
All this and some other similar matters makes me retired in a sense that I wasn't when I stopped working as a librarian, because then I had all these other things. So life feels a little vacant at the moment, but I'll go on writing here, and of course B. and I have a busy home life together - injured cat to the vet yesterday, turned out to be OK - so life will continue as long as it does.
Also for health concerns, I'm detaching myself from other long-term work-oriented commitments, because I don't want to cause a crisis if I'm suddenly unable to continue. You may not have noticed that I haven't published a professional concert review in two months. That's not too unusual a gap, especially as Christmas season is slow for the kinds of concerts I cover.
But what I've told my editors is to delete me from any coverage for the time being. If things go well, I may be back in the spring. In the meantime, I am attending concerts on my own as I can manage them. I'm hoping for one on the 21st, and my next ticket is for Jan. 15.
All this and some other similar matters makes me retired in a sense that I wasn't when I stopped working as a librarian, because then I had all these other things. So life feels a little vacant at the moment, but I'll go on writing here, and of course B. and I have a busy home life together - injured cat to the vet yesterday, turned out to be OK - so life will continue as long as it does.
Okay so more context
Dec. 17th, 2025 09:29 pmrydra_wong(Re: the previous entry.)
Dragonslayer Ornstein & Executioner Smough (also known as Oreo and S'mores, Biggie and Smalls, Pikachu and Snorlax, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and any other name the fandom can come up with) are one of the most iconic boss fights in the entire Dark Souls series.
There are much harder ones in later games (and in the DLC), but they're still legendary and still regarded as a Serious boss fight.
They're also a famous mid-game difficulty spike and cause of rage quitting. Conversely, if you can get through O&S, people often say you should have the skills to beat the rest of the base game.
The major issue is that it's a duo boss fight, with one agile speedster (Ornstein) who can zip most of the way across the room in a single move, and also throws lightning, and one heavyweight bruiser (Smough) who is slower but not that slow -- he has a charge attack to close distance fast that hits like a freight train -- and does huge amounts of damage.
So for the first phase of the fight, you have to try to keep track of where they both are simultaneously (not to mention where you are in relation to the room, so you don't back yourself into a corner and get trapped) and constantly manoeuvre to try to be able to get in a hit on one without being hit by the other.
If you kill one of them, the fight goes into a second phase where the surviving one absorbs some of their powers (so if it's Smough, he gets lightning, while if it's Ornstein he gets sized up and picks up part of Smough's moveset) and also restarts with a full and vastly increased health bar. Though there is a general consensus that the second phase is more manageable than the first phase simply because you're not having to fight two bosses at the same time.
Illustrative example of someone doing the fight:
(You can summon an NPC or other human players to try to help you, but the bosses get extra health to compensate and it's still tough. And also I have been having enormous fun trying to beat all the bosses without summons so far, and am averse to the extra complications and unpredictability of having more people -- human or NPC -- in the mix while I try to figure out a fight. Though I've also had enormous fun being a summons for other people on boss fights, so zero disrespect to people summoning*, it's an excellent game mechanic.)
As I may have mentioned once or twice, my brain has huge difficulty tracking multiple moving objects (which is why I can't drive or cycle on the road) and I have the reaction speed of a slime mould.
So yeah. I knew O&S are the big mid-game stopper and I was very aware that this could potentially be the point where I hit a wall and the game became flatly impossible for me. Or at least where I'd have to summon to get through it.
And that did not happen. I solo-ed O&S.
It took multiple sessions over multiple days before I mastered it, but that's standard for me on DS boss fights. And I had SO MUCH FUN. It's SUCH A COOL FIGHT.
I did a thing that was a real achievement for me and I am very proud, and especially given the shitshow this year has been, I'll take it.
{*Necessary disclaimer only because Dark Souls fandom has historically had a section who are toxic as fuck and would like you to know that you didn't really beat the game if you summoned or used magic or whatthefuckever else they disapprove of.}
Dragonslayer Ornstein & Executioner Smough (also known as Oreo and S'mores, Biggie and Smalls, Pikachu and Snorlax, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and any other name the fandom can come up with) are one of the most iconic boss fights in the entire Dark Souls series.
There are much harder ones in later games (and in the DLC), but they're still legendary and still regarded as a Serious boss fight.
They're also a famous mid-game difficulty spike and cause of rage quitting. Conversely, if you can get through O&S, people often say you should have the skills to beat the rest of the base game.
The major issue is that it's a duo boss fight, with one agile speedster (Ornstein) who can zip most of the way across the room in a single move, and also throws lightning, and one heavyweight bruiser (Smough) who is slower but not that slow -- he has a charge attack to close distance fast that hits like a freight train -- and does huge amounts of damage.
So for the first phase of the fight, you have to try to keep track of where they both are simultaneously (not to mention where you are in relation to the room, so you don't back yourself into a corner and get trapped) and constantly manoeuvre to try to be able to get in a hit on one without being hit by the other.
If you kill one of them, the fight goes into a second phase where the surviving one absorbs some of their powers (so if it's Smough, he gets lightning, while if it's Ornstein he gets sized up and picks up part of Smough's moveset) and also restarts with a full and vastly increased health bar. Though there is a general consensus that the second phase is more manageable than the first phase simply because you're not having to fight two bosses at the same time.
Illustrative example of someone doing the fight:
(You can summon an NPC or other human players to try to help you, but the bosses get extra health to compensate and it's still tough. And also I have been having enormous fun trying to beat all the bosses without summons so far, and am averse to the extra complications and unpredictability of having more people -- human or NPC -- in the mix while I try to figure out a fight. Though I've also had enormous fun being a summons for other people on boss fights, so zero disrespect to people summoning*, it's an excellent game mechanic.)
As I may have mentioned once or twice, my brain has huge difficulty tracking multiple moving objects (which is why I can't drive or cycle on the road) and I have the reaction speed of a slime mould.
So yeah. I knew O&S are the big mid-game stopper and I was very aware that this could potentially be the point where I hit a wall and the game became flatly impossible for me. Or at least where I'd have to summon to get through it.
And that did not happen. I solo-ed O&S.
It took multiple sessions over multiple days before I mastered it, but that's standard for me on DS boss fights. And I had SO MUCH FUN. It's SUCH A COOL FIGHT.
I did a thing that was a real achievement for me and I am very proud, and especially given the shitshow this year has been, I'll take it.
{*Necessary disclaimer only because Dark Souls fandom has historically had a section who are toxic as fuck and would like you to know that you didn't really beat the game if you summoned or used magic or whatthefuckever else they disapprove of.}
inherited IRA, part I don't even know
Dec. 17th, 2025 11:37 amredbirdI just made another call to Fidelity (investment company) about the inherited IRA. They are going to generate a "Letter of Acceptance" form and send it to BNY, and then (I hope) we will have the money out of my mother's name before the end of the year, which will please my brother as executor of the estate.
The bit where the advisor told me to search for something on the website, and that led to an irrelevant form, was not encouraging--I think he overheard me saying tocattitude that I'm starting to understand why people hide their money under mattresses.
Jonathan said this should take 1-2 business days at the BNY end, and that he'll let me know when the transfer has gone through.
I am not going to spend all my money on chocolate, probably not even all the money currently in my wallet, but it's tempting.
The bit where the advisor told me to search for something on the website, and that led to an irrelevant form, was not encouraging--I think he overheard me saying to
cattitude that I'm starting to understand why people hide their money under mattresses.Jonathan said this should take 1-2 business days at the BNY end, and that he'll let me know when the transfer has gone through.
I am not going to spend all my money on chocolate, probably not even all the money currently in my wallet, but it's tempting.
Yuletide progress: it is posted!
Dec. 17th, 2025 04:28 amelisem I have met the deadline and posted the thing! Now we just have the week between today and Reveal Day, also known as "the week where I find all the hidden typos and fix them." Main Collection Reveal Day for the fics is the 24th, and is followed by Author Reveals on January 1.
This year was more work than previous years, for a very particular reason. I got COVID for the first time in October, and while I got very lucky (Paxlovid turns out to work for me, yay!), I am so easily drained to exhaustion, by pretty much anything including brain work, which has never been this bad before. Also, I'm used to multitasking, and hoo boy do I need different strategies and approaches now.
I'm planning for a very long recuperation, since it looks like that's the smart way to go. But here we are, and today is a milestone day. The story is a story, and it's posted, and now I can catch up a little on my Etsy shop (I hardly posted anything new while writing) and my eBay offers (I'm selling most of a half-century's worth of queer and related subjects library, since I'm not a working journalist any more and somebody really should get use out of these books and periodicals).
It's been a long time. I had forgotten the peculiar satisfaction that comes with meeting a deadline.
This year was more work than previous years, for a very particular reason. I got COVID for the first time in October, and while I got very lucky (Paxlovid turns out to work for me, yay!), I am so easily drained to exhaustion, by pretty much anything including brain work, which has never been this bad before. Also, I'm used to multitasking, and hoo boy do I need different strategies and approaches now.
I'm planning for a very long recuperation, since it looks like that's the smart way to go. But here we are, and today is a milestone day. The story is a story, and it's posted, and now I can catch up a little on my Etsy shop (I hardly posted anything new while writing) and my eBay offers (I'm selling most of a half-century's worth of queer and related subjects library, since I'm not a working journalist any more and somebody really should get use out of these books and periodicals).
It's been a long time. I had forgotten the peculiar satisfaction that comes with meeting a deadline.
Recent Reading: The Tomb of Dragons
Dec. 16th, 2025 08:58 pmrocky41_7 posting in booksTime and circumstance conspired to keep me from reviewing the second book in the Cemeteries of Amalo book, The Grief of Stones, but today I finished the third book, Tomb of the Dragons and I do have time to review this third and final book in the trilogy.
This is NOT a spoiler-free review.
Tomb of the Dragons retains much of what I loved about the first two books, including Thara’s character and his investigations into the underbelly of Amalo, with a healthy helping of Ethuveraz politics.
Thara is having to adjust to the events at the end of the last book, and here, I feel, is where we truly see how important his calling is to him—how he handles losing it. It gives some good perspective to why he is so dogged in pursuing his work goals—his calling really is his sense of purpose, his life. Watching Thara grapple with this change and its indefinite consequences was fascinating.
However, it also retains in greater measure some of the things that I didn’t love about the earlier books, including Addison’s obsession with minutiae. I can only read about the characters traveling on this or that tram line so many times before my eyes start skipping lines to the things that really matter. This would bother me less if it didn’t feel like it came at the expense of more important things.
( Read more... )