Media Round Up: It's Been A While
Oct. 29th, 2023 10:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forestofgloryI haven't done one of these in a bit. Have some thoughts on media that I've read or watched since last time:
Ethan of Athos by Lois McMaster Bujold—I’ve been very inconsistent about actually rereading stuff for the Vorkosigan reread along I’m doing with some friends. But I read this one and was surprised how much I enjoyed it. The bad things about it loomed much larger than the good in my memory of the book. And the bad things are still there! The homophobia Ethan deals with is even worse than I remembered! But I still love the station worldbuilding(newts!) and I forgot how much fun Bujold’s adventures can be.
Transgressive Typologies: Constructions of Gender and Power in Early Tang China by Rebecca Doran—The title of this book is a bit misleading. It’s focus on five historical women power holders (Wu Zhao, the Taiping and Anle princesses, Empress Wei, and Shangguan Wan’er) and how they have been prorated over time, with a focus on how history has worked to make their power seem particularly against the order of things. I was a expecting something a bit more broadly focused on women’s roles in the early Tang, but I still found this really interesting
Chang Ge Xing (长歌行) by Xia Da, chapters 14-61 —I ended up reading this manhua slower than I thought I would. Turns out reading on screens is still hard for me, and having bad wrists doesn’t help. But I’ve now read all the existing chapters of this unfinished work. This manhua was adapted into The Long Ballad, but they are really different! The basic premise is the same and there are a few overlapping plot points but the characters are very different. But I ended up liking this as its own thing, plus its always interesting to think about adaptation choices.
Mysterious Lotus Casebook ep 1-20 — several people I know are really into this, and someone on mastodon started a watch along. So I watched the first couple of episodes and then kept watching, because it's very moreish. It is a wuxia show with a lot of focus on mentorship and fun mysteries. However, it's also very racist! And eventually the racism, especially very pro assimilation narratives started getting to me and ruining my enjoyment of the rest of the show. So I’m not going to watch any more.
Witch King by Martha Wells —I read this and enjoyed it but I feel like I didn’t fully understand this book. Or at least I wasn’t getting out of it the same things my friends who loved it where getting out of it
Tigers, Rice, Silk, and Silt: Environment and Economy in Late Imperial South China by by Robert Marks — I wanted to read something for the “Agriculture and Rural Life” prompt in The Worldbuilders Book Club, but it turned out that I didn’t have any agricultural history of china on my TBR. I thought I would because I’m into ag history. So I had to go looking for something, and I found this. It’s really interesting, and focuses on a time period and a place I haven’t read much about. It is much more quantitative than a lot of the history I read, but the author does a good job of using numbers to tell a story.
Ethan of Athos by Lois McMaster Bujold—I’ve been very inconsistent about actually rereading stuff for the Vorkosigan reread along I’m doing with some friends. But I read this one and was surprised how much I enjoyed it. The bad things about it loomed much larger than the good in my memory of the book. And the bad things are still there! The homophobia Ethan deals with is even worse than I remembered! But I still love the station worldbuilding(newts!) and I forgot how much fun Bujold’s adventures can be.
Transgressive Typologies: Constructions of Gender and Power in Early Tang China by Rebecca Doran—The title of this book is a bit misleading. It’s focus on five historical women power holders (Wu Zhao, the Taiping and Anle princesses, Empress Wei, and Shangguan Wan’er) and how they have been prorated over time, with a focus on how history has worked to make their power seem particularly against the order of things. I was a expecting something a bit more broadly focused on women’s roles in the early Tang, but I still found this really interesting
Chang Ge Xing (长歌行) by Xia Da, chapters 14-61 —I ended up reading this manhua slower than I thought I would. Turns out reading on screens is still hard for me, and having bad wrists doesn’t help. But I’ve now read all the existing chapters of this unfinished work. This manhua was adapted into The Long Ballad, but they are really different! The basic premise is the same and there are a few overlapping plot points but the characters are very different. But I ended up liking this as its own thing, plus its always interesting to think about adaptation choices.
Mysterious Lotus Casebook ep 1-20 — several people I know are really into this, and someone on mastodon started a watch along. So I watched the first couple of episodes and then kept watching, because it's very moreish. It is a wuxia show with a lot of focus on mentorship and fun mysteries. However, it's also very racist! And eventually the racism, especially very pro assimilation narratives started getting to me and ruining my enjoyment of the rest of the show. So I’m not going to watch any more.
Witch King by Martha Wells —I read this and enjoyed it but I feel like I didn’t fully understand this book. Or at least I wasn’t getting out of it the same things my friends who loved it where getting out of it
Tigers, Rice, Silk, and Silt: Environment and Economy in Late Imperial South China by by Robert Marks — I wanted to read something for the “Agriculture and Rural Life” prompt in The Worldbuilders Book Club, but it turned out that I didn’t have any agricultural history of china on my TBR. I thought I would because I’m into ag history. So I had to go looking for something, and I found this. It’s really interesting, and focuses on a time period and a place I haven’t read much about. It is much more quantitative than a lot of the history I read, but the author does a good job of using numbers to tell a story.
no subject
Date: 2023-10-29 06:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-10-29 06:39 pm (UTC)Spoiler
I spent the whole book shipping him with Terrence, knowing it wouldn't happen since Ethan already had someone on Athos, and then bam, the guy left and my darlings could live happily ever after. <3no subject
Date: 2023-10-29 08:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-10-30 02:16 pm (UTC)