Treasure Hunting
Feb. 6th, 2002 03:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckYesterday's highlight was a trip to some local used book stores with Jenn. She was looking for some early Lois McMaster Bujold and David Weber's first Honor Harrington book because she'd heard good things about them and wanted to try them without paying for them new. Sadly, the only Weber we found was Apocalypse Troll which I'd explicitly warned her against. That one's a frustrating read with blurry characters and a plot that just never hooked me. Since other people I've talked to had similar experiences, I assume that it wasn't just me. In terms of Bujold, we found an autographed copy of Mirror Dance, too far into the series and too expensive, and a copy of Ethan of Athos which Jenn judged too peripheral to make a good starting point.
We went to Dawntreader first. Their heat wasn't working, so it was barely warmer inside than outside. My nose was numb by the time we left. It saddens me to visit Dawntreader these days because their selection of the type of books I'm interested in, mostly science fiction and fantasy, has stagnated. My suspicion is that the people who used to buy in those genres have moved on. This is further underlined by the number of historical romances filed in that section; somebody's just not paying attention.
Dawntreader's mystery section has continued to grow. That annoys me, not because I object to mysteries but because the growth only started after a mysteries only (new and used) store opened several blocks away. The proprietor'd never much wanted mysteries around before, so when Aunt Agatha's first opened they weren't competing directly. I wonder what he'd do if someone opened a store for romance novels; he won't even touch them now.
From Dawntreader, we walked a couple of blocks to David's Books. That store is upstairs, so we had to navigate a narrow and fairly steep stair. David's now has a better selection than Dawntreader in fantasy and science fiction. It's a bit less well organized, and the aisles are narrower, but I saw more that interested me, more old friends and more newish material that I hadn't been able to afford at Borders or Barnes & Noble.
We wandered into Borders for a while because we hoped to get our parking validated. We each bought a couple of books there as well, and then we headed back to my place. Once we got there, Jenn gave me a bit of a tour of LiveJournal. This was made difficult by the fact that, since the ice last week, our computer connection has tended to just stop loading large things in the middle. Any graphics currently tend to make it choke. I expect that things will improve as all of the repairs get done (In fact I had no trouble this morning during my online wanderings). I'm still quite unsure about learning a new system, but we started a journal here for me. I'll mirror OD/OD+ rather than try to create anything unique here at the moment.
The evening was fairly quiet. I watched Earth Final Conflict on the SciFi channel. I'm glad they're showing it again because it's always been one of those shows that interested me without catching my attention strongly enough to get me to turn on the tv every week. Now that I'm home all day, I'm much more open to spending some of my time following a tv show or two that I wouldn't have bothered with before.
After that, we watched the new Buffy episode. Scott commented that the show is less fun than it was, and I find myself agreeing. Neither of us mean that it's not still good; it's just harder to be amused by a desperate struggle against unpaid bills, depression or child protective services than against some apocalyptic evil. (And yes, I know that that comes from the fact that I'm hardly likely ever to face an apocalyptic evil. Unpaid bills, on the other hand...) There's humor to be found in these more mundane situations, but they're too close to reality to be escapism.
After that, I watched the final episode of The Invisible Man which we'd taped on Friday. It was a pretty good episode. I'm glad it didn't end with a cliffhanger because I really loathe seeing series end that way. It's profoundly unsatisfying. This episode didn't really make for a satisfying ending either, but it wasn't exactly unsatisfying. The big evil group had been frustrated once more but only temporarily. The main characters had gone their separate ways but come back together in the realization that they liked working together and wanted to keep fighting the big evil group. Changes, major changes, had occurred that would likely have altered the dynamic in future stories. Basically, the series still had somewhere to go, and now it'll never go there except in fanfic.
This made me wonder about endings of other series. Is it better to see something keep going until it decays and dies or to see it cut off early? Is a planned story arc of a certain length better? I don't know. I've got mixed feelings about all of this. If something staggers on until it collapses, I can be sure that I've seen all of the good stuff that team could create around that basic premise. If it ends early, I don't have to suffer through the bad stuff, hoping desperately for improvement or wondering what ludicrous thing the writers will do to keep the story going a little longer even when I feel the characters should have ceased to care or resorted to different tactics to solve the overarching problem (The latter rather fits my feelings about the most recent Pretender movie).
This morning, I finished reading Sword & Sorceress XIX. I found it at David's Books yesterday and hadn't previously seen it out. I've enjoyed this series of anthologies which surprised me because I never liked Marion Zimmer Bradley's writing much. I've read a fair amount of it, too, because during middle school and high school I scrounged any fantasy/science fiction that I could find in the Goodwill store, the bus depot's used rack, etc. There was never much, and I read a lot I wouldn't have otherwise. In college I sampled more MZB because I had friends who loved her work and who were sure I would too if I just read one more of their favorites. Anyway, I was dubious about the Sword & Sorceress anthologies until after I'd borrowed and read a few. Then I started collecting. I've rarely come across stories in them that I was sorry to have spent time on, and I can't often say that of an anthology.
We went to Dawntreader first. Their heat wasn't working, so it was barely warmer inside than outside. My nose was numb by the time we left. It saddens me to visit Dawntreader these days because their selection of the type of books I'm interested in, mostly science fiction and fantasy, has stagnated. My suspicion is that the people who used to buy in those genres have moved on. This is further underlined by the number of historical romances filed in that section; somebody's just not paying attention.
Dawntreader's mystery section has continued to grow. That annoys me, not because I object to mysteries but because the growth only started after a mysteries only (new and used) store opened several blocks away. The proprietor'd never much wanted mysteries around before, so when Aunt Agatha's first opened they weren't competing directly. I wonder what he'd do if someone opened a store for romance novels; he won't even touch them now.
From Dawntreader, we walked a couple of blocks to David's Books. That store is upstairs, so we had to navigate a narrow and fairly steep stair. David's now has a better selection than Dawntreader in fantasy and science fiction. It's a bit less well organized, and the aisles are narrower, but I saw more that interested me, more old friends and more newish material that I hadn't been able to afford at Borders or Barnes & Noble.
We wandered into Borders for a while because we hoped to get our parking validated. We each bought a couple of books there as well, and then we headed back to my place. Once we got there, Jenn gave me a bit of a tour of LiveJournal. This was made difficult by the fact that, since the ice last week, our computer connection has tended to just stop loading large things in the middle. Any graphics currently tend to make it choke. I expect that things will improve as all of the repairs get done (In fact I had no trouble this morning during my online wanderings). I'm still quite unsure about learning a new system, but we started a journal here for me. I'll mirror OD/OD+ rather than try to create anything unique here at the moment.
The evening was fairly quiet. I watched Earth Final Conflict on the SciFi channel. I'm glad they're showing it again because it's always been one of those shows that interested me without catching my attention strongly enough to get me to turn on the tv every week. Now that I'm home all day, I'm much more open to spending some of my time following a tv show or two that I wouldn't have bothered with before.
After that, we watched the new Buffy episode. Scott commented that the show is less fun than it was, and I find myself agreeing. Neither of us mean that it's not still good; it's just harder to be amused by a desperate struggle against unpaid bills, depression or child protective services than against some apocalyptic evil. (And yes, I know that that comes from the fact that I'm hardly likely ever to face an apocalyptic evil. Unpaid bills, on the other hand...) There's humor to be found in these more mundane situations, but they're too close to reality to be escapism.
After that, I watched the final episode of The Invisible Man which we'd taped on Friday. It was a pretty good episode. I'm glad it didn't end with a cliffhanger because I really loathe seeing series end that way. It's profoundly unsatisfying. This episode didn't really make for a satisfying ending either, but it wasn't exactly unsatisfying. The big evil group had been frustrated once more but only temporarily. The main characters had gone their separate ways but come back together in the realization that they liked working together and wanted to keep fighting the big evil group. Changes, major changes, had occurred that would likely have altered the dynamic in future stories. Basically, the series still had somewhere to go, and now it'll never go there except in fanfic.
This made me wonder about endings of other series. Is it better to see something keep going until it decays and dies or to see it cut off early? Is a planned story arc of a certain length better? I don't know. I've got mixed feelings about all of this. If something staggers on until it collapses, I can be sure that I've seen all of the good stuff that team could create around that basic premise. If it ends early, I don't have to suffer through the bad stuff, hoping desperately for improvement or wondering what ludicrous thing the writers will do to keep the story going a little longer even when I feel the characters should have ceased to care or resorted to different tactics to solve the overarching problem (The latter rather fits my feelings about the most recent Pretender movie).
This morning, I finished reading Sword & Sorceress XIX. I found it at David's Books yesterday and hadn't previously seen it out. I've enjoyed this series of anthologies which surprised me because I never liked Marion Zimmer Bradley's writing much. I've read a fair amount of it, too, because during middle school and high school I scrounged any fantasy/science fiction that I could find in the Goodwill store, the bus depot's used rack, etc. There was never much, and I read a lot I wouldn't have otherwise. In college I sampled more MZB because I had friends who loved her work and who were sure I would too if I just read one more of their favorites. Anyway, I was dubious about the Sword & Sorceress anthologies until after I'd borrowed and read a few. Then I started collecting. I've rarely come across stories in them that I was sorry to have spent time on, and I can't often say that of an anthology.
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Books
Date: 2002-02-07 09:12 pm (UTC)The first two in that Weber series are available online (http://www.baen.com/library/067157793X/067157793X.htm), if that format is acceptable. It's how I was hooked on it...
As for Bujold, I happen to have a spare copy of The Warrior's Apprentice on my shelf, withering away for want of a reader. E-mail me (mailto:agray@sysmatrixnet) if you're interested.
Re: Books
Date: 2002-02-07 09:14 pm (UTC)Re: Books
Date: 2002-02-20 09:10 am (UTC)But I think she will. She loved Falling Free, and loving one book by an author usually leads to seeking out other books by that author.
no subject
Date: 2002-02-13 05:12 pm (UTC)Hey!
Date: 2002-02-14 04:54 pm (UTC)I agree with you on the Buffy thing...after all the implied sex and stuff, it's a little hard to enjoy things as much as before. I don't mind, it's just not quite the Tuesday night I had in mind, exactly. Oh well.
*hugs*
Re: Hey!
Date: 2002-02-20 09:08 am (UTC)