seamus2389

Phaedrus' Street Crew
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About seamus2389

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  1. Books, books, books...

    You can also read Especially Heinous here
  2. Allegorical prejudice in genre fiction

    I think Jemisin avoid that trap by showing that 'race' plays a factor in the world with regard to how certain skins colour/ hair type is associated with the dominate empire whose direct control has faded but that prejudice exists. With the onogers she is looking at how a society deal with a group of people who aren't equal in terms of the effect they can have, its looking at X-men and dealing with them purely as a group with 'superhuman' abilities. What ties it back to real world prejudice/oppression is the anger and desire for revenge/ burn it all down that people feel but don't have the associated ability to cause a volcanic eruption. Another example is Nnedi Okorafor who ties the historical with the allegorical in 'book of the Phoneix'. In that book the people who are experimented on for developing X-men like abilities are predominately non-white. Slight spoilers but 'the book of the phoneix' almost reads as a prequel to the Broken Earth books. Update - The tv show Black lighting is doing something similar with race, superpowers in a way that like the book of the phoneix ties into history
  3. Movie/TV recommendations

    His plays are pretty similar. The older ones are set in Ireland, mostly in the west. The spoiler is a tale from a play called the pillowman that I saw last year and the play and that play was a chance for him to but together his own fucked up fables. I also like his brothers movie (starring Brendan Gleeson) - Calvary about a priest in the west of Ireland who in confession is told he will be killed in a week by a man who was abused by a priest as a kid.
  4. Episode 413: Myth

    I will definetly check out these games after listening to this episode. Mentioning the Black company books the names of some of the enemy leaders sound like they are taken from the names of enemy leaders in the first Black company trilogy. Reading about the game and it has a few references to Irish mythology beyond the usual - The Tain and Balor and the Fir bolg all make an appearance and Connacht is the name of an actual place. Also the importance of explosives reminds me of the Malazan series of books which is a direct descendant of the Black Company books.
  5. Game of Thrones (TV show)

    Turns out Rowan also wrote that article I was looking for. https://medium.com/@RowanKaiser/in-conclusion-game-of-thrones-is-a-franchise-of-contrasts-3bc9bd8f4f40 This old one by Sonia Saraiya is also interesting to re-read. http://www.salon.com/2016/04/24/game_of_thrones_goes_to_war_the_once_radical_fantasy_is_now_the_establishment_for_better_and_for_worse/ Something similar happened with Breaking Bad in its last season where the last stretch of episodes had the highest ratings. Both are plot heavy shows that involve people trying to figure out how to come out on top and also are talked about alot on the internet. Between legal and illegal means it is/was easy to catch up before the end and the number of episodes for both shows are (BB 62 over 5 seasons, GOT- 67 over 7 so far) low compared to network tv like Lost which had 100+ episodes over 6 season with no Netflix and fewer people having access to torrents to catch up for its final season. Like Lost and the Soporanos, both BB and GoT occupy a certain space where it was covered alot by websites that write about Tv/pop culture and is a 'water cooler/ cultural touchstone' show that people can talk about in a time when tv viewing is increasingly fragmented in terms of the amount to watch and alot of people not watching shows at the same time. If you are someone who likes talking about tv/pop culture its your best bet these days to have a conversation. This article goes further into that aspect of it. https://www.theringer.com/2017/7/12/16078066/game-of-thrones-hbo-tv-monoculture-535f73ad5014
  6. Game of Thrones (TV show)

    This article made some interesting points on the show and books in terms of 3 kinds/tales of fantasy it combined and why that works against an ending that hits all 3. https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/9/1/16225980/game-of-thrones-finale-ending-impossible Does anyone here remember the article the write wrote years ago about the show being a 90's anti high fantasy adapted by people who were trying to make it like the Soporanos 'Prestige' tv but in the 2010s when both those genres had moved beyond those starting points which made the show kinda double dated as a work of tv and fantasy or that was my take away from it. I think the Steven Eriksons 'Malazan books of the fallen' series does combine those three strands in their endings but it also focus on different parts of history than kinda medieval English civil war(s) and have a lot more fantasy in terms of magic and gods etc playing a role - more heroic and subversive than history that way Kate Elliots 'Crown of Stars'might also fit although more the history and subversive, less heroic and less magic than Malazan. Maybe R Scott Bakkers prince of nothing which is the most anti-fantasy in terms of how vile the world/ plot but it hasn't fininshed yet no idea if will combine all three in the end The one thing all three have is a strong religious component that ASOIAF lacks.
  7. The bomb and beast casts were the last 'standard' video game podcast I listened to and I tried a couple like Polygons, Waypoint and US gamers since I dropped them earlier this year but I think that is a format of covering Video game that I have lost interest in. This is likely tied in with me losing interest in video games that aren't strategy, RPG games or ones cane and rinse/ retronauts do an episode on. Those two, along with 3 moves ahead, axe of the mad blood god are the only Video game focused podcasts I still listen to. Is there other video games podcasts that focus on a particular theme or genre or focus on a particular game per episode that are worth checking out? Abby and Bens new podcast is entertaining.
  8. Penny Dreadful (TV series)

    These two articles dig into why it ended the way it did and the problems with the shows Gothic background short changing the characters
  9. Books, books, books...

    If you like The unwomanly face of war you should check out Second hand time and Chernobly prayer both by the same author. Both are really interesting looks into the late soviet union and post soviet Russia/CIS.
  10. Books, books, books...

    Invisible bridge :The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan and before the storm : Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus by the same guy are also worth reading. For more 1960's america books - the Best and the Brightest covers the demotratic administrations handling of Vietnam, Robert Caro's LBJ series which currently goes up just after the Kennedy assassination and covers alot of American political history, America in the Kings years which focuses on the civil rights movement. I just fininshed a collection of critical essays on Mieveille published by Gylphi press who have also done a volume on David mitchell and Maggie Gee
  11. The Fast and the Furious series

    In honour of 8 this is happening. 7 was the one that may well be my jumping off point for the series. It t made me realise that seriesnow has a set formula and will stick to it rigidly. http://www.giantbomb.com/podcasts/film-and-40s-the-fast-and-the-furious-2001/1600-1892/
  12. Movie/TV recommendations

    The fictional series is also on the Netflix in Ireland and I am guessing the UK
  13. Riverdale

    It's definitely Twin Peaks inspired but maybe a bit of Veronica Mars although I might be calling that too early since I only watched the first episode after reading a review for the third which indicated it was actually digging into the whole student- teacher romantic trope which I cannot stand. I think I am going to wait till this season is over to see how it plays out. I like the visual aspects but good lord that show drops pop culture references like Mauro Ranallo
  14. The Idle Book Club 22: Wuthering Heights

    Arnolds adaption of the novel is the closest there is to the book. Chris misinterpreted 'love being a force of nature' as a positive thing, not a destructive thing which is more of what the film portrays it. One review I remember described it, particulary towards the end as becoming a horror film.
  15. Breaking Bad

    The difference between the Shield and BB is that tension of the Shield was within an episode, the cliff hangers are the ad breaks, by the end of the episode the particular crisis is over, in that way it operated like an episodic show. That changes in the fifth and 7th season but in both cases the fallout is equal to the build up and only a couple episodes in both seasons end on cliff hangers. The Shield had alot of background tension regarding the Strike Team had so much illegal stuff they were trying to keep hidden from those outside the team and in some cases each other.In the third fourth they had stopped doing all of their illegal activity but still had the threat of it hanging over them which drove the remainder of the show.