Monthly roundup culture consumed – September 2016

I hope September treated everyone with dignity and respect. I’m afraid my culture consumption has been a little light on this month – too many work events and family obligations preventing a good read!

Books

I finished Lois McMaster Bujold’s Falling Free (Book 1 in the Vorkosigan Saga). I enjoyed the book, but my initial concern that it didn’t seem to contain anyone called “Vorkosigan” in it was born out. I am assuming that it was some kind of prequel book, that has been listed as Book 1 for anyone wanting to read chronologically? In any case, the book was a good story, but not enough to make me immediately want to pick up another in the series. I’m told I should definitely try the next one, Shards of Honour, which I might do in the fullness of time.

I started the first book in Tansy Rayner Robert’s Mocklore series, Splashdance Silver. It is interesting to go back and look at the earlier work of an author you admire. I won’t say much here, because I’ll probably do a full review once I’m finished the book.

TV

You know what I did? I got lazy and missed the last couple of episodes of the second series of Marvel’s Agent Carter on Channel 7’s catch up TV. Really kicking myself on that front – now I’ll have to wait to be able to obtain it through alternate legal means to find out how the story ended. Very disappointing. I believe that is the last series of Agent Carter, which is a damn shame.

Have been catching up on the latest series of Musketeers, but must admit to be finding it harder going this series. Not exactly sure why, I think the clash of modern sensibilities with the realities of a 14th century French monarchy are starting to overwhelm the show. Still, there is still a nice balance of both swash and buckle, so I keep going back.

Lots of the DC universe TV series are starting up this week – Arrow, Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow. I’m in two minds about a couple of these series – almost ready to let some of them go. I might give them each a few weeks and see how I feel.

Speaking of superheroes, I watched the first episode of Luke Cage on Netflix last night. Looks really good – that is one superhero show I’ll definitely be sticking with.

Movies

Besides taking my daughter to see Secret Life of Pets I’ve been once again cinema free this month. I’m considering going along to see The Magnificent Seven, but that isn’t really SF so not much point in mentioning it.

I did watch the extended cut of Batman vs Superman on Blu-ray last week. It’s still not the best superhero movie of the year, but I did find that the extra material plugged a few gaps for me and made the movie seem a bit more coherent. I especially felt that Lois Lane came out seeming much more well rounded, which was good.

I rewatched Captain America Civil War as well (a father’s day gift). I really like Spiderman. Just sayin’.

Other

Issue 219 of Antipodean SF is out now, including my eBook versions (I actually got them done on time this month).

I have an Xbox, but I don’t really play it much anymore. I did, however, purchase a new game – Deus Ex – recently, which I’m looking forward to giving a whirl. I’ve always been a sucker for an futuristic augmented human game (harking back to my favourite game back in the day, System Shock).

From a writing perspective, things have been meandering along slowly. I’ve almost finished a first round of edits on my 27,000 word novella, The Reclaimers. Next I’ll be typing out the first 20,000 or so words of a science fiction novel or novella (depending on how much more story there is in it). I quite like the characters in this one, so looking forward to revisiting them (I hand wrote the story about 6 months ago).

So, what have you been up to?

Author: mark

A writer of speculative fiction and all round good egg. Well, mostly good. OK, sometimes good.

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