swamp_adder

Just closed the deal on my new condo!! I AM A HOMEOWNER OMG. It's 2 bed 2 bath, which I wanted even though I'll be living alone because it has a garage (no more scraping ice off the windshield every morning in the winter yesssss) and it's about two minutes from where I work (BEST COMMUTE EVER).

This is an especially big deal for me because except for my first year of college when I lived in a dorm (and went home every weekend), I've never lived outside my parents' house in my life. THIS IS A PRETTY BIG TRANSITION, is what I'm sayin'.

I AM EXCITE.

On the way home I saw a car with license plate A SMILE, and a smiley-face sticker on the rear window. Aww.

...

HUSSIE I LOVE YOU.

My loot from the Homestuck kickstarter is FINALLY on its way!

I can't wait to find out my officially-designated OTP. :D

Some thoughts on Holmesian pastiches I've read within the past year or two. Which for some reason are mostly really cracky ones. I HAVE STRANGE TASTES IN HOLMESFIC, OKAY.


The Last Sherlock Holmes Story by Michael Dibdin

This is really one of those books that can best be described as "love it or hate it." Literally: the ratings histogram on Amazon.com has an amazingly symmetrical shape, with the longest columns beside "one star" and "five stars" and the shortest in the middle.

Though I'm actually one of the few people who probably would rate this book somewhere in the middle. There are things about it that I really like, and other things that don't really work for me. The first half of the book, before the Shocking Twist is revealed, is a cracking good Holmes pastiche: fast-paced, witty and gripping. And as for the Shocking Twist itself...

( SPOILERS SPOILERS OMG MAJOR SPOILERS )

This is one of those books that I would only recommend to people who enjoy seeing the canon twisted around and turned inside out. If you are one of those people, however, it is probably worth picking up at least once.


Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula by Loren D. Estleman

Well, if ever a book was Exactly What It Says On The Tin...

( cut for length; no spoilers )

Exit Sherlock Holmes: The Great Detective's Final Days by Robert Lee Hall

Is it just me, or are there a lot of Halls in Sherlockiana? John Hall, Trevor Hall, Robert Lee Hall... I've gotten them confused more than once already.

( Non-spoilery part )

( Spoilery part! )

So, final verdict: a pastiche that is definitely worth reading, but only once. Without the suspense generated by not knowing the solution of the mystery I don't think it would be quite as absorbing as it is on a first read.


The Ectoplasmic Man by Daniel Stashower

I really enjoyed this pastiche. I picked it up initially because I'd read and loved Stashower's biography of Conan Doyle, and wanted to find out whether he was as talented a pasticheur as he is a biographer. It turns out that he is indeed.

( cut for length; no spoilers )

The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz

Pretty good, though it suffers from not really having enough story to fill a novel. The beginning is kind of dull, and it only picks up once more action-y stuff starts happening -- much of which itself seems kind of tacked-on for the sake of increasing the page count.

( cut for length; no spoilers )

I guess this is kind of old news, but...

We Didn't Start the Fire (multifandom) by fiercynn and scribe

Essentially, Fandom: A History. This vid is so many kinds of amazing.

As a fan of the musical (and an even bigger fan of the book), I was naturally looking forward to this movie; but I seem to be the only one who wasn't super impressed. My one big problem with it, really, was the cinematography: the constant extreme closeups on the actors' faces got really wearying, really fast. Though it is possible this was at least partly because I was watching it on a big screen from the very first row, which is much closer than I normally sit. Maybe all the closeups wouldn't have bothered me so much on a smaller screen. Besides that, though, I really didn't like all the shaky-cam. Just let me see what's going on, Hooper!

Then there was Hugh Jackman, whose singing voice really leaves something to be desired. I didn't like that they replaced most of the Prologue's lyrics with spoken dialog. And Thénardier's comedy French accent (WTF?) that disappears after leaving Montfermeil anyway. And ( spoilers )

.

On the other hand, there were things I liked:

-- The other actors were all great.
-- ( more spoilers )

-- Thénardier singing parts of MotH to little!Éponine (who was adorable, btw).
-- The fact that they put in a little more of Marius' background; in particular the moment when Éponine accuses him of "pretending to be poor", lol.
-- Bishop at the finale instead of Éponine, yay.
-- The reordering of the songs generally worked, I thought.

Really, it wasn't awful or anything. It just disappoints me that it's turned out to be yet another musical that was better on the stage than the screen. :\

This poem is the story of my life.

I'm not participating in Yuletide, and never have, but I always look forward to reading the posted fics on Xmas day. It can be fun to find people writing for tiny fandoms that I happen to like, and looking through this year's nominations has gotten me excited already... even though the signups haven't even happened, let alone the fics written. Most likely few or none of these fandoms will actually get written for at the end of the day... but I can always hope. And at the very least, it's nice to know that someone besides me is thinking about these 'verses at all.

The Lost World - Arthur Conan Doyle

This is one I have NEVER found any fanfiction for, which is a little surprising given the hugeness and longevity of the Holmes fandom. You'd think there would be at least a little bit of crossover... but nope. Not so far, anyway.

Mote Novels - Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

Just read these this year, and enjoyed them a lot (well, the first book more than the second, admittedly). There are a lot of cool worldbuilding possibilities for a fanfic to run with, so I'd really look forward to any Yuletide fic set in this universe.

Don Rosa's Duck Universe

On the one hand, I'm (I will admit shamelessly) a huge fan of Disney duck comics. On the other hand... Don Rosa's Duck Universe? Like he created all those characters! I'll admit this is totally me being a finicky purist, but much as I do love (most of) Rosa's work, for me Barks' stuff will always be The One True Canon. I've got no problem with people basing fic on Rosa's stories in particular, but something about the phrasing here just rubs me the wrong way, I dunno.

Double Indemnity (1944)

!!!!!!

This is another one that I've NEVER found a single fic for (and not for lack of trying). Of all the fandoms listed here, this may be the one I most want to see written. If it's done well. It would suck if there was just ONE fic for this movie in existence, and it was crap.