LKHate

So I'm reading Laurell K. Hamilton's "A Kiss of Shadows," since it's about elves and I'm writing an elf story, so I want to know what not to do. Is it a bad sign that on the very first page, I'm pretty sure the editor stopped trying?

I'd come to hide and I'd succeeded, but staring out at the thick, dirty air, I wanted to go home. Home where the air was blue most of the time and you don't have to water the ground to get grass to grow.

I think she means the sky is blue, since she's contrasting it with the L.A. smog, but who knows? Maybe in Illinois, the air is blue and people navigate by echolocation. And then you have things like...

I'd always thought Teresa, though she'd never traveled farther south than Mexico, would have made an excellent Southern belle.

The South is north of Mexico.

Also, Hamilton has a way of introducing characters all at once, with each getting walls of text describing their looks and dark secrets. It's a bit annoying that no one gets a specific introduction or is introduced when they become relevant to the plot. I feel like there'll be a test later on.

Review: Red

Trailers - Drive Angry looks like it could be fun, but mostly because Agent Mahone plays Death or something. It looks like he goes around snarking and killing people. Relevant to my interests. Fair Game looks like it might be slightly less realistic than the part of Black Dynamite where the hero fights Richard Nixon with nunchucks.

So, good movie. I actually thought it improved on the source material, which was just typical Warren Ellis spy stuff wanking. It kinda begs the question of why they bothered to adapt this from that... this has about as much to do with Ellis' writing as it does Two And A Half Men, so you'd think they could save some money and just think up their own title. But anyway, as a premise, it's a good excuse to have fun old character actors crowding the screen instead of, say, Paul Walker (although Karl Urban as the requisite young whippersnapper antagonist makes good). And Mary-Louise Parker makes a surprisingly good love interest, smart, resourceful, and quickly coming to enjoy all the wild shenanigans she's being dragged through. If Doctor Who needs a MILF companion, she has my vote.

If you liked The A-Team and/or The Losers, this'll probably be up your alley. If you don't know who Brian Cox is, you may want to sit this one out.