Fannish Geekery

[carynb]

So, I spent the weekend reading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

I really enjoyed this one, much more than Order of the Phoenix. I mean, sure, I have questions, but this one doesn't have the same sort of gaping plot holes and character assassination in service of the plot as the last.

J.K. Rowling did a few things right, here, I think. She's kept Snape nicely ambiguous, so that arguments can be made for him being on either side of the War. Single, double, or triple agent? Only she knows for sure. *g* I think he's a true member of the Order of the Phoenix, and that Dumbledore was killed on his own orders, but the argument could be made the other way. I don't know if there's been as much fannish argument about which side a person was on since season 5 Krychek. *g*

There was much less of the Dursleys which is, to my mind, a very good thing. I mean, we get it already - Harry's been abused for most of his life. We really didn't need to see another 200 pages of it, and I'm really glad that she didn't give us that.

I'm just hoping that she will wrap it up in one more book. If Harry's stated intention at the end of the book (not going back to Hogwarts) hold true, then she's breaking the pattern for the books and leaving the possibility of books 8, 9, 10, ad infinitum open. I really, really hope she's not going to do that.

I do like that Harry finally seems to be growing up a little, though. He's not a whiny as he was in the last book, and he's developed enough empathy to feel for the position that Draco was in. These are both very good things.

And then, last night, the season premier of Stargate: Atlantis.
What can I say? I loved it! It kept me on the edge of my seat for the whole time it was on, and I was jumping up and down and yelling like the old days of Season 3 Babylon 5. The best thing, for me, remains the McKay/Zelenka geek-ons. There's all kinda characterizations on this show that I like, but the conversations between those two - they tell me that someone in the writers room has spent a lot in time in a co-operative lab. The way they feed off each other, mentally - tossing ideas back and forth in verbal shorthand, with each one expanding on something the other's said - it reminds me soooo much of conversations around whiteboards back at my last job. It's likely that writers work the same way, and that's how they know the pattern, but I like that they show the way really smart people who like each other really interact when they're trying to solve a problem. And, you know those two have week long feuds about which is better, ST:TOS and ST:TNG... It always amazes me when TV gets science geeks right.

Other than that... I liked the Wraith as villains and there's still 55-odd hive ships out there, so I hope they haven't decided that this is the end of the Wraith/Atlantis interactions.

Next on the to-watch list is the season premiere of Battlestar Galactica. Hopefully, I'll get to that tomorrow...

Comments

[lordzowy.livejournal.com]

ST:TNG is and will always be better then the first but, you can't by any stretch of the imagination discount ST:TOS for any reason that any one can come up with from ST:TNG. It had its place and it still does and probably always will. ST:TOS and ST:TNG have fond places in my personal interest and I don't care how many times I've seen Kirk lean out of his seat and say "Fire" clenching his fist, I will always watch both.