Ron

Tu quoque or not to quoque, that is the question Is it better in the minds of the populace to ad hominem or to not hominem at all or should we sling facts at the tide of our woes and by words of wisdom slay them

I watched this movie last night (for the second time). Even though I remembered parts of the movie from the first watch of it I stuck around and finished it because... well, it's a decent movie and Josha Stradowski is pleasant to look at, and I wouldn't kick Majd Mardo out of bed either.

Damn, I can’t get that picture out of my head. I guess that comes with the territory when you have your pic as your avatar. Of course, your expression is pure imagination!

Now that you mention it, I seem to recall that Rand did this (agonize and worry) with all the women that were drawn to him through the endless books. Just another one of those things you must roll your eyes at, even if metaphorically done.

I've watched all five available episodes and my fears have been somewhat eased for the series. My least favorite character is Matt at this point, which is contrary to my liking him well in the books. It might be the actor, I'm not sure, but he did end up being replaced for season two, although the reason for his leaving is left to speculation as there is no official reason given for the departure. I can see @Myr point about the misandry in the series. More importantly, this very female centric story telling is going on in seemingly all storylines -- men are too often portrayed as the big bad wolf and woman are the heroes in about everything you can watch these days. It's tiresome! I can remember when the storytelling seemed more evenhanded before the nonviolent Me-Too pogrom began, some men were bad, and some were good and some women were good, and some were bad. The bad characters usually got the ending they deserved, whatever their sex -- most of the time. Bonnie and Clyde: Both bad, both dead just how it should be. I did often overlook things in the books that a good friend detested. Nynaeve's braid events being one of them @Headstall, an occasional "not again" in my head got me through them. Rand al Thor's character is so far neither here nor there for me persona-wise. And while I get the @Daddydavek bear reference concerning Perrin... That's man-wolf not bear-man, though both are furry so there’s that. Of all the characters, I think Perrin is the saddest and deserving of pity.

I was going to write something clever here but it sounded better in my head!

Who's that ghost knocking on my door? Why, it's none other than Tears for Fears and with new music from a forthcoming release in January 2022. Yea!!!

I slapped some shtick into my, ahem, poem-ed Thanksgiving greeting in my status update. Does that count?!

I went back and read the beginning of the first book. If this series had begun with that, it would have snatched the viewer and set a better beginning for the series, I think. Finishing up episode three tonight.

You should read them. Brandon Sanderson brought back the interest of reading that I found in the first few books of the series, which was lacking in much of Robert Jordan's writing in the last several books in the series.

At the top of the New England Independent Bookseller Association's Local Bestsellers list in paperback fiction: Dune - Frank Herbert, Ace

@Zombie That's one way of doing, yes.

Dean Stockwell who played Dr. Wellington Yueh in Dune has passed away at the age of 85 years old. He was a child actor from way back in Erroll Flyn movies and he was in a whole slew of additional movies and several television series over his years as an actor.

I fully expect that seeing Dune for the first time in a theater would leave a person with good feelings about their experience. I have watched the movie three times now on a Sony XBR 55" 4K HDR tv with full array local dimming (no Dolby Vision), on HBO Max through my Apple TV+. It looks great even on this size television. It also allows, I should say forces, me to pay closer attention to what's going on rather than the big overall look of the movie because the actors become more front and center, you pay close attention. I find that it's lacking in basic information that was not only compelling in the book but needed to give a better picture of events. The Boston Globe gave Dune a 2.0 Star review, the Washington Post had two reviewers, and both gave the movie 3 Stars. My contention is that Dune is a 2.0 Star movie as it stands. Social media figures believe that part two of the movie will enlighten viewers of things that were glossed over in part one. That is dreaming because Dune and specifically the Paul Atriedes character is nothing if not forward thinking (dreaming?) and what was missing will not somehow miraculously show up. At the end of the day my feeling is that without the fullness of seeing Dune part-two, any review may be described as jumping the worm.

A wraith is bad enough but if you put a ring on it ...

This is another one of those words that I like. But I never understood obstreperous to include being aggressively snoopy.

When I first read about the coming changes to tags, I was reminded of a story I read in Fantasy & ScienceFiction magazine. I have gone back through many, many years of issues but I have been unable to find the exact reference I was looking for. The gist of the story, though, was that an author who was getting no real-estate for her writing was offered a job as an editor for a "Best of" anthology. Why? Because she wasn't writing for a sub-sub-genre system where every story had its own niche; her writing, while excellent, was too general. So instead of say, being listed as Drama, a story had to be Drama/Slash/Slash/Something-Or-Other to gather a following. And it didn't matter if a story was the best of the best in its genre, it had to land in the favorite, current sub-sub-genre of the time to be included in any anthology titled "Best of". The story was beautifully written, and I was stunned by it; is this what story writing will become I thought? It also ties in nicely with this sub-tagging that GA appears to be swinging into. Does GA really mean to micro-categorize stories in such a way that readers never have to exposed beyond their niche, a niche that grows ever smaller, never to discover unfamiliar writing?!

Firing-Crank!

I thought it looked like a dirty-dirty word and in a sense I was right.

This is one of my favorite words. This word means you could be anything, or... well, something or other.

Sheet music gives me cognitive dissonance. What?! Why?! What does it mean?!!!

Upon first look at the word of the day I thought that it sounded like a bowel disorder... As it turns out I wasn't far off.

While I do enjoy Mr. Dick's writing overall, I am not a fan of alternate history in general since I find it far too derivative in nature to be interesting. One can be creative, I feel, without wholly relying on the past to become transcendent.

@Daddydavekposted a recent status update that Amazon is showing a video series later this year based on the late Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time book series (a favorite even if I wasn’t always pleased with the author, and finished by Brandon Sanderson based on the author’s notes) and included a link with a preview. It didn’t look all that promising to me because it looked like Amazon was going for flash and bang, but it was a short video which tried to cram a lot of images into it, so who knows? With Amazon’s The Expanse based on the book series by James S.A. Corey (which I know, like me, you’re a fan of), they did such an outstanding job that I wonder if the books are any better. So, one could hope that Jordan’s work will be translated well into film. ABC filmed Legend of the Seeker which was based on the late Terry Goodkind’s The Sword of Truth novels, and it lasted two seasons. The books are another favorite fantasy series of mine. I made it through two episodes of the show and called it quits. Aside from the abominable film quality, crappy locations and bad actors, it had none of the elements that made the books so good.The show was like making a bad Planet of the Apes television series if done by CBS. Oh, wait, they did that! Then, also, Apple TV+ has Isaac Asimov’s Foundation coming. I’ve watched the preview and it certainly is polished but how well will it resemble the novels’ and the authors intent? Better to be careful for what you ask for, there’s a mixed bag of quality available. Though lately that quality has been on the upswing.

Was I not clear in my remarks that you quoted? Of course, the stylings of the son wouldn't be those of the father and when you add Kevin J. Anderson (I've read his Terra Incognita: Book 1 and 2 and his writing voice is hugely different from that of Frank Herbert) into the mix... well, I wouldn't expect the books to read the same. But the prequal books do add insight into what went on before and how we ended up with the world of Dune and its politics. I thought having the information provided in those books was useful and they weren't bad reading, and that was a plus. I'm hopeful, considering the director, Denis Villeneuve had a hand in writing the script. The reviews I read said as much but overall, they said there was a something-something lacking that prevented them from making an emotional connection. We'll see and I am looking forward to watching the movie, make no mistake. I'll be watching at home through HBO MAX and my 55" Sony screen. I'll miss the overall grandeur on the smaller screen, but I've got a kicker of a sound system to help compensate for the loss.