thalia_seawood

Ten years have passed since I last posted on my journal.

While I did not write here, I still spent a lot of my free time on writing. Together with my friend Mika, I worked on a novel which we have now self-published.



"Stars and Ravens" takes place in an imaginary world. It is in many ways a detective/mystery novel with hopefully unexpected twists and numerous secrets which the reader can decipher alongside the characters.

We play with clichés and have interwoven motifs from the Gothic genre with bizarre elements; comedy, drama and horror go hand in hand.
Anyone who loves complex characters, diverse romances (slow-burn) and subtext should be happy.

As our novel is that monster understandably dreaded by publishers -- the first novel in a series of several books, very long and written by newbies -- we decided to self-publish it on Amazon for now. It is available as a Kindle eBook, and in several markets can also be purchased as a paperback.


In case you're interested, you can e.g. find it here:

Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Amazon.de

We would be thrilled if you checked it out and -- in case you read and enjoyed it -- left a rating or review on Amazon or GoodRead.

Yesterday, I finally watched the new Harry Potter movie.

I feel rather frustrated by this movie. Halfblood Prince is my favorite HP book - no doubt due to the fact that one plot line focuses on Draco Malfoy and another on Snape, my two favorite characters in the HP universe.

The movie does a great job when it comes to the visuals, e.g. the look of the Burrow, the Quidditch rehearsal, the pensieve scenes, Aragog's funeral. (Although I think they went over the top with the "bleached look".) Some scenes are caught perfectly, but overall they just lose one of the major plot lines of the book...

To me it feels as if the screenwriter/director didn't get a core theme of the book, i.e. Harry has to learn to look behind the surface.
Well, movie 5 also suffered from a similar problem. Here I thought a large point of the book was that Harry had to learn that father figures can make mistakes (e.g. his own father, Sirius and Remus reg. his treatment of Snape) and that he himself can make mistakes and still go on living (Sirius' death). But both of these themes were mostly lost, Sirius comes across as perfectly heroic and Harry never seems to doubt any of his father figures.

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I have now watched the movie four times and have plans to watch it for a fifth and sixth time. There are times in once life where one has to be the tiniest bit fannish.

What I have noticed during my repeated watching is that the movie is very symmetrical: Many themes are repeated at least once and scenes echo one another.

Here are some examples:
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Only a week or so ago, I realised that a new Star Trek movie is coming out. At first, I had planned on ignoring it, but the pull of my first fandom proved to be too strong. I read some reviews, watched two clips on YouTube - and decided that I do want to see this movie after all. :-)

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This morning I'm very cheerful.
It's amazing that so many people went to the election in America - 73 % or more? That's impressive!
I'm also delighted that Obama won! I believe that this is one of the moments in history that will be remembered for a long, long time.

Reactions behind the cut.
I've decided to read slowly. After all, this is the last Harry Potter book.

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rayakina was so kind to write a poem for me that's dedicated to Norrington.
I've tucked it behind an LJ-cut since it contains spoilers.

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I haven't posted any Jossverse reviews in ages due to a very busy RL which resulted in a lack of fannish motivation.
Then I spend an evening showing Buffy to my oldest friend hopefully winning another fan. (She liked the show and took season 1 with her for further watching.)
Anyway, rewatching episodes made me realise how much I care for this show.
Today I snuggled up on the coach and watched various episodes from season 3, 4 and 7.
I then decided that I want to finish my reviews of Buffy. There are "only" 30 reviews left after all and I enjoyed processing the episodes by writing. In addition, season 6 is actually my favorite season on Buffy. It deals with a lot of painful issues, but I heart it nonetheless. Season 7 isn't perfect, but without it season 6 would be incomplete. After all, the painful issues are resolved in season 7 and all the characters learn from their mistakes and grow so much.
Of course, I'm no longer a first time viewer now, but a second time viewer, so I will no longer speculate what may happen next and there might be spoilers for future events.

Regarding reviews for Angel: I will first focus on finishing my reviews for Buffy. If I still have energy left afterwards, I will continue my reviews for this show. Not sure I will cover all episodes, because the season 3 episodes felt mostly mediocre and I'm not sure I would like to rewatch them. Not right now anyway. We'll see.

Anyway, here are my thoughts for As You Were. I started this review *months* ago; time to complete it...


As You Were
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When DS9 was first aired, I used to watch the show on a regular basis. Since many episodes were already released in English, before there were on TV, I even bought a lot of tapes. (Oh my, 10 years ago, the price for a video tape with only 2 episodes was quite high.)
To cut a long story short: I loved that show. My love, however, fizzled out around season 6 since I just didn't care for how some characters were developed. (I was so unhappy with the treatment Dukat got or that Jadzia was chronically underused as a character.)

Anyway, my husband got me the complete DS9 DVD box and I watched a couple of season 7 episodes today.

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Happy new year to everyone!

I've been enthusiastically watching Babylon 5 and am now up to episode 3.8.
Some impressions...

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