Books; also, film

[hawkwing_lb]

Prince Caspian is not made of fail. Well, I don't really remember the book. And I don't watch films for the thinky, and this one wasn't especially clever, what with the somewhat predictable narrative, the irritatingly obvious - and repetitive! - Christian allegory, and the completely deus ex machina ending. Also, forced tension.

The battle scenes went on a bit long, too.

However. It had pretty boys, horses, swordfights, archery, and talking animals, and there were one or two - possibly even three - moments I couldn't help loving. (The badger and the soup, for example, and the moment where Susan says to Lucy, "It looks like you'll be going on alone after all." Even if Lucy is the most irritatingly pious little girl I've ever seen acted, Susan the archer is made of a win that speaks to my heart.)

And I more than slightly liked the soundtrack.

Books 2008: 80

80. Kelley Armstrong, The Summoning.

Young adult. Diverting enough, if tedious at points. Ends in medias res.

Comments

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

Edmund is still my favorite one..

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

The movie Edmund has an incongruous accent, though. And not nearly enough screentime.

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

There is that small problem. Even I, an American, can notice this unmatched set of accents.

And could you, pray tell, figure out exactly what kind of accent Ben Barnes was, er, exhibiting? Something vaguely Spanish by way of Russia, perhaps?

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Susan and Peter are within standard-range-of-deviation. Lucy sounds as though she has something that might once have been a lisp. But Edmund, alas, does not sound British-public-school at all. This is sadly especially noticeable when he's reading out Peter's challenge to Miraz, so what should've been a fairly solemn moment was interrupted by me trying not to giggle at how his accent shifted about.

I don't know. But I kind of liked it: it sounded foreign, but not recognisably anywhere in particular. And he was, ah. Kind of good looking, too. :)

[jimsmyth.livejournal.com]

Kelley Armstrong? Children's book?

That woman gets around. Been reading her "Women of the Supernatural" series (Quite adequate Modern Fantasy/Romance, in that Anita Blake-inspired subgenre -- certainly better than the egregious example provided by the putative founder.) I knew she also write a pretty decent hitwoman-hunting-a-killer-of-hitmen book (is that a genre?) that was pretty solid thriller.

A children's book will certainly give be something else to read during the long wait for the hardback-to-paperback transition of her most-recent-known.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Yep.

It's not the best. Certainly serviceable, but I didn't find the narrator either especially engaging or especially likeable.

(Which is to say, I didn't find it a patch on Bitten or Stolen.)