More on Kira’s background in the resistance, and more of the “how to live in the aftermath” stuff, both political and personal.  Stuff that tends to give this show a bit more weight than I felt that TNG had (at least in an overarching sense, as there were definitely “serious” episodes of TNG).

• No Morn
• All the regulars get a few lines, but this is Kira & the Cardassian captive’s show.
• NO KNOWING SMILE.

• Morn stared on aghast as Kira threw Quark into a wall.  Dude.  She’s pretty strong.  I mean, his head alone must way 20lbs.
• Having a complete non-humanoid around is incredibly handy.
• Cisco makes a clock while he’s possessed – I want to say I remember this turning up in later episodes. I hope it does, I love little things like that.
• Quark’s “clue” about Klingon weaponry had nothing to do with anything and was completely pointless -  considering the Klingon crew members journals were about looking for a colony site and then finding the telepathic matrix on accident…. what?
• Dolemite!
• Is there anything that doesn’t kill people in the gamma quadrant?  I’m just waiting for some good news to come through that stupid wormhole.
• Kira & Cisco tag-teamed the knowing smiles.  His was a little creepy.

• We meet another Gamma quadrant lifeform – this one a digital “puppy” that now lives in the computer system.  I wonder if they’ll ever come back to that?  I hope so.  Lots of possibilities there.
• Diana Troy’s mom pops up, and hits on Odo and they bond and stuff over hair.  The bonding part came entirely too quickly after all of her vapid droning, but the sentiment was nice.  And they get stuck in an elevator for hours and Odo has to turn back into goo that a) occupies much less surface area/volume than his human form so b) should probably be pretty damn dense but is c) easily caught by Ms. Troy in her skirt and looks like it weighs basically nothing.  To quote some commercial from the 80s: WHERE’S THE MASS?
• You make us sit through those people annoying the hell out of Julian for that long and then you SKIP the part where he does something right?  WTF.  Seriously.
• I did not notice Morn in the opening bar scene – was he there?
• Oh, and some random Bajoran officer on deck (“Anara”) gets like 10 lines throughout the course of the episode.  What the hell?  I suspect she’s going to be like that Starfleet security guy that turned up in two episodes (109 and 110) and then vanished.  Except she probably won’t even make it to two episodes.
• Everyone got a decent amount of face time this episode – I was kind of surprised how well they worked that.
• Anytime there is a computer sequence or any computer jargon it’s hard not to sharpen a couch cushion and gouge  my eye out because they are usually just talking in circles or pulling archaic looking plug things out of one slot and putting them into another.
• Chief O’Brien got the closing smile.  It wasn’t so much knowing as it was really amused with itself.

The Wolfman
by: Nicholas Pekearo

A more “realistic” urban fantasy than the other stuff I’ve read, this one is the tale of one man, seemingly alone in his supernaturalness, cursed with some kind of evil spirit thing that turns him into a murderous werewolf every 29 days or so.  Unfortunately, the author’s life was cut tragically short before he got to write or publish a sequel, so we’ll never know how the rest of his world works.  There were two rather serious hints about other things of a supernatural nature, but the lead doesn’t think that way about anything (one of the difficulties he runs into in the course of the novel would have been solved quite simply by someone able to think outside the “box of the natural”), so we can assume that he’s something unique, or at least believes himself to be.

Anyway, this is an engaging (as in things this grounded in reality don’t usually draw me in) story of a somewhat obnoxious (his list of character traits are almost entirely unflattering) lead who has learned to channel the killing urges of his “dark passenger” (<.<) mostly into killing people that deserve it.  Mostly.

There’s a lot going on here and this was a strong first genre novel, enough for me to think that a sequel would have been even better.

You can get a great deal on the hardcover on Amazon.  It’s hard to argue with a $5 hardcover.

THREE STARS

For solid writing, but a character that kind of annoyed me and not enough of a window into the supernatural side of the author’s world.

A Victory of Eagles (Temeraire 5)
by: Naomi Novik

Lots to like here, and a few complaints.  We are again introduced to interesting characters we’ll never see again (apparently, as they aren’t in the next book) – particularly Perscitia, who is (obviously!) an example of the English accidentally breeding a dragon for intelligence, as the Chinese do habitually.

By the end, we’re (finally) somewhere new (historically), I think, and the dragons have made a little social progress.  Also there’s a resolution to the “traitor” arc in the way of a setup for the next book – which happens to sound like the least interesting book of the series (trip to Australia with no new dragons or interaction with the natives?  Bleh.), but we’ll see.

It seems like Novik had to wrap up the “Napolean as an unbeatable force” angle in order to continue her world tour-style plot, but he’s not dead yet so I’m sure there will be a round two.  The finale battle was breathtaking and tragic.  I keep meaning to look up the actual battles these are modeled on, but just don’t care enough yet.

THREE AND A HALF STARS

Crabgrass Frontiers
by: Kenneth T. Jackson

Simultaneously really boring and really fascinating, it’s a look at suburbanization in the US (and bits of it elsewhere as a matter of contrast).

Lots of information of value to come away with… but the damning critique of the goverment’s housing policies and the loan appraisal system’s (and a few other things I’m not aware enough to comment on) effect on (and indeed, as prime causes of) urban decay, ghettoization, racial segregation and any mashup concocted between them was the most intriguing part.

Things that make perfect sense once you see them lined up & spelled out, but that never occurred to me beforehand.  Hint: If the government will only loan you money to build a house in the suburbs (as compared to in the city, or to repair a structure in the city), and only to white people then uh.  Well, you know.  Shit happens.  Other factors at play as well, but almost all of them in the predictable manner.

Also, watching (imagining anyway) the changes that each new system of transportation brought is pretty fascinating.

I’m left with a phrase, not ever uttered in the book, and indeed, even argued against in the closing… but it’s still what sticks with me:

“Cities Will Abandon Themselves”

THREE STARS

Because it was a little dry, but I still highly recommend it for any longtime US citizen (particularly homeowners) or  student of US culture.

The farmer and his earth

I saw a man on a hillside,
with a scythe.
And I saw that man wade into the sea.
I saw his arms
and they were strong
and yet he moved with the wind like a reed.
He swung his scythe
from left to right
and reaped all through the day.

And at night
when the stars leap into the sky
his strength spent at last, he steps onto the sand.
And lays on his back
and stares into the black
and lifts his arms, and turns his eyes over his hands.
And then I wonder
if he thinks in numbers
like me and the cities of my kind.
And I try to think
about what he must dream
but I get stuck, in the cities of my mind.

click for artists Deviantart page!

The Batwoman character in general has been handled very well.  Not to mention the art on the Batwoman arc in Detective Comics was brilliant.  Maybe the only time I’ve ever been tempted to buy a Detective trade.  I still may if I find it on sale somewhere.

]]> http://onefinemess.rhinopanda.net/2010/08/13/im-not-a-big-fan-of-batman-but/feed/ 2 http://onefinemess.rhinopanda.net/2010/08/10/more-greg-land-tracing-links/ http://onefinemess.rhinopanda.net/2010/08/10/more-greg-land-tracing-links/#comments Wed, 11 Aug 2010 00:45:51 +0000 onefinemess http://onefinemess.rhinopanda.net/?p=2119 I’m glad there are people out there with more free time than me.

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Stay classy, Greg Land.

The rundown:

• Julian basically begs Dax for sex.  Was TNG this comfortable joking about sex?
• They still have Kindles in the future?  Wait, those are in color!  So there was some advancement…
• Morn is “an androgynous characters” or something like that
• Quark imagines sex bunnies.  Duh.
• Odo imagines Quark in jail.  Or emus.
• Sisko gets his baseball hero – I guess baseball looped back around to the portly figures again.
• Julian imagines a sex bunny Dax, making for some pretty amusing moments with the real Dax (who continues to be awesome.  She does the best knowing smiles), and shows that he isn’t a total dick.  Still a perv though, but at least he wants to earn his perving honestly.  Except that he totally would have hit that imagination if his com hadn’t gone off…
• O’Brien imagines Rumpelstiltskin.  Who happens to be played by the DWARF FROM TWIN PEAKS.  Yes!
• Kira imagines people dying in flames.  She’s got some issues.
• Sisko once again proves why we wears the particular jumpsuit that he wears, by being awesome.
• He is rewarded for his awesomeness with the closing knowing smile.

All in all, it was one of the better done episodes this season and I enjoyed it.  Score one for emus & nymphodax.

B-plot: Nog & Sisko junior doing something like an old-school RPG trade-up quest:  “Go get me some blabba beans”,  “Thank you for the blabba beans, here is a broken briefcase?”  (WTF do I do with a broken briefcase?)  “Ahh, thank you for that broken briefcase, here I will give you a used condom for that.” WTF!??   Eventually they get rich because duh, they are PCs*.

Annnnnnnd.  Onto the  notes:

• Off-camera, Morn asked Dax out on a date.  She, of course, said no… but admits that she may find him kinda cute.
• Morn… sits at the bar.
• Is it just me or is it odd that Ferengi pull on each others’ ears when they are angry BUT those same ears can also get them off?  Soo… it’s like if humans jerked on each others’ genitals.  Bad racial mash-up (old school human ear-pulling vs. earsturbation).
• The lisp Nog gets from his fake teeth is rather gross.  Especially when he’s excited.
• Kira’s got some big shoulders.  OK that outfit under her uniform is really strange.  Also, since this is a Kira-centric episode… I can’t hear her name without thinking of Death Note.  Which I never did finish watching.  Hmm…
• Doctor & Engineer get some random throw away lines.  Oh and Dax too.  Odo barely slips one in there at the end.
• Sisko continues to show why he’s the man for the job.
• I’m continually amazed at the way they find to write low-budget settings into Star Trek plots.  “Hey, let’s visit an old man in a shack with no technology!”
• Also, Ferengi “education” continues to disappoint in that they don’t realize that land = value.
• Houses in the future are flammable.  But I guess that’s because they are still building them out of mud bricks.  Wait… mud bricks are flammable?
• Also, Kira is never gonna see this old man again.  Stop making it like she cares.  I will eat something only moderately tasty if she does!!

I had to find something else to do while watching this.  While not bad, it’s just not enough to demand my full attention.  Hoping for some plot related episodes soooooon.  That being said, it was a decent stock episode continuing the examination of Kira’s character and her struggle with the shift from rebel to military.

In closing, what have we learned today?

That it’s incredibly easy to set up a corporate entity on DS9.

*: Player characters.

The A-plot involved a young Bajoran girl thrust into a leadership position via the death of her parents, and now she’s stuck trying to negotiate with her group’s Hatfield & McCoy type enemy, and doesn’t want to back down and appear weak.  Yada yada missed childhood yada yada enter Nog & Jake that teach her how to compromise and stuff and there is oatmeal thrown that almost makes Jake cry.

Both A & B plots could have been separate episodes, and bore absolutely no relation to each other, so I’m a little confused as to why they did this (then again, I would have had a really hard time sitting through a whole episode of the B plot… BUT… they could have actually made it interesting via having people act..oh wait, I wasn’t going to talk about it).  I think this was the first time that happened, but maybe it’s their formula and will continue to be used?

The rundown:

• The Doctor evidently annoys the Chief as much as he should.  We get to see a bunch of O’Brien annoyance expressions, which are understandable.  I thought they were gonna bond here, or something, and I’m kinda pleased that they didn’t.  Plenty of time for that.
• The B-plot was really dumb.
• Kira makes like lawn furniture, as does Odo, and gets to toss out a random line or two and ensure that they get paid.  Wait, Quark does too.
• Morn laughs at a joke and wanders around.
• Sisko kind of came off like a dick or a bully in the way he treated the young Bajoran girl (Did she have a name?  Eh, who cares?)
• O’Brien got the knowing smile, and the knowing was about knowing how annoying Julian is.