Movies: The Irregulars and Gunpowder Milkshake

Both these movies have multi-racial casts and pass the Bechdel test.
For me, that's icing on the cake rather than a requirement.
But — iced cake.

 

I've been looking at Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, and Paranormal books for a while now. Lately I've expanded to movies and TV series.
Endless delights delivered to my computer screen.
We live with such splendid technology.

First, consider the tongue-in-cheek, cynical, and bloody romp that is The Irregulars.

It's "a British mystery adventure crime drama television series" created by Tom Bidwell for Netflix."*

Some paths in the Magical Wood  are well trampled. Beer bottles and McDonald wrappers litter the roadside.
I'll admit to being jaded about powerful lost heirs, schools for angsty teenage wizards**,  colorful squaddies on the battlefield of clashing magical empires, and other staples of the genre.

One could make the case that The Irregulars is wuxia
which is trope and utterly predictable,
but it's a story I like.
Finding such a story with good tropework is sweet. 

Irregulars is a nugget of gold in the spoils pile of the Sherlock fictive universe.

Gunpowder Milkshake also pleased me.
This one glows with subtle, intelligent acting from everybody on the set.

Now, there are long sequences of car chases and kung fu fighting and extras dying bloodily ***.
Presumably the intended audience likes car chases, martial arts, and gore.
Me, I fast forward through that stuff and it does not interfere with my enjoyment of the movie.****
Ain't technology grand?

A study of Jackie Chan's corpus of work might have kept the frenetic action scenes from being so boring.
I dunnoh.
Maybe it would have subverted the spirit of the story . . .
I have no wisdom in critiquing movies and my taste is not especially commercial.

Final thoughts on Milkshake is that it worked for me and I recommend it.  

 

*  I pulled the description from the wiki so it must be true.

** I wasn't much interested in teenagers even when I was one.

*** Some of the violence is disturbing. Most of it is like those old Westerns where cowboys have 37 bullets in their handguns and spin and fall dramatically when hit,

**** Some Romance readers flip past pages of the explicit and go on with the story. It's a skill.

 

Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, and Paranormals: A List

These books are full of good storytelling, fine characterization, lyrical language, and intelligent world building.
Eminently readable.

Some are legit free online.
Most all are in the online section of major libraries.
Many are relatively cheap to buy.
 

Buying books supports authors.
So does checking them out of your library.

 

Ben Aaronovitch. Midnight Riot, Rivers of London.

Douglas Adams. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Hitchhikers Guide series.

Ilona Andrews.  Magic Bites. Kate Daniels series. 

Peter S. Beagle. The Folk of the Air.

Patricia Briggs. Moon Called. Mercy Thompson series.

Lois McMaster Bujold. The Curse of Chalion. World of Five Gods series. 

Emma Bull. War for the Oaks.

Jim Butcher. Storm Front. The Dresden Files. 

Gail Carriger. Soulless. Parasol Protectorate series.

Susan Cooper. The Dark is Rising. Dark is Rising Series.
MG/YA

David Eddings. Pawn of Prophesy. The Belgariad.

Jasper Fforde. The Eyre Affair. Thursday Next series.

Jeaniene Frost. Halfway to the Grave. Night Huntress series.

Neil Gaiman. Good Omens.

Lev Grossman. The Magicians.  Magicians trilogy.

Charlaine Harris. Midnight Crossroad. Midnight Texas.
This Charlaine Harris is not to be confused with the most excellent C. S. Harris who writes Sebastian St Cyr books.  

Robin Hobb. Assassin's Apprentice. Farseer trilogy.

N. K. Jemisin.  The Killing Moon. Dreamblood series.

Diana Wynne Jones. Deep Secret.  

Mercedes Lackey. Burning Water. Diana Tregarde Investigations series.
Also Born to Run. Serrated Edge series.

Ursula Le Guin. A Wizard of Earthsea. Earthsea series.
MG/YA/Adult.

Fritz Leiber. Our Lady of Darkness.
He's better known for his short stories. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

Madeleine L'Engle. A Wrinkle in Time. Wrinkle in Time Series.
MG/YA/Adult

C. S. Lewis. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Narnia series.
MG/YA/Adult.

R. A. MacAvoy. Tea with the Black Dragon. Black Dragon series.

Anne McCaffrey. Dragonflight. Dragonriders of Pern series.

Seanan McGuire. Rosemary and Rue. October Daye series.

Robin McKinley. Sunshine. 

Barbara Michaels. Ammie, Come Home.
She's also Elizabeth Peters.

Naomi Novik. His Majesty's Dragon. Temeraire series.  

Terry Pratchett. The Color of Magic.

Phillip Pullman. The Golden Compass. His Dark Materials series.

Spider Robinson. Callahan's Crosstime Saloon. Callahan's Place series.

Patrick Rothfuss. The Name of the Wind. Kingkiller chronicles.  

Brandon Sanderson. Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians. Evil Librarian series.
MG/ YA

Lisa Shearin. The Grendel Affair. SPI files.

Mary Stewart. The Crystal Cave. Arthurian saga.

J.R.R. Tolkien. The Fellowship of the Ring. Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Carrie Vaughn. Kitty and the Midnight Hour, Kitty Norville series.

Manly Wade Wellman. John the Balladeer. Silver John books.

Connie Willis. To Say Nothing of the Dog. Oxford Time Travel series.

Roger Zelazny. This Immortal.

Library Book Titles That Stick to Your Kindle

Here’s how to get rid of those old library book titles that ghost in your Mac computer’s Kindle list.

 

1) Caveats.

Are you willing to empty your computer's Trash can? If not, you can't get rid of your ghosts in this way.

This is a Mac computer fix. I don't know if it works on other Kindle devices. 

If you have .pdf files, personal documents, or books from non-Amazon sources stored in your computer's Kindle, you should copy them elsewhere. They may die a horrible death if you do not.

In this fix you will lose the date of acquisition of your Kindle books in your Kindle. Accurate date of acquisition will remain at Amazon but your Kindle acquisition date will revert to the date of the fix.

2) At the end of Step 8 the list of books in your Amazon Content & Devices library will match the library in your Kindle. Your currently borrowed library books will be in both places. The dozens or hundreds of borrowed-and-returned ghost library books will appear in neither place.

3) Directions:

At Amazon go Content & Devices / Library.

You can take screen shots of the Amazon book list as a backup in case anything goes wrong.

4) In your computer,  go to the Kindle app program.
(In my machine that's Finder/Go/Applications/Kindle app.)
Uninstall Kindle by moving it to Trash.

Now go to the Trash icon and empty Trash. I had to do this twice before it took.

5) At Amazon, go to Content & Devices / Devices. Deregister your Kindle App for Mac.
If you have other Mac devices you do not need to deregister them.

Now  re-register your Kindle App for Mac.

6) On Amazon search for and buy Kindle for Mac.
It’s a freebie.
Download it to your computer and install it. 

7) On your computer the Kindle library should show as empty. 

8) Back at Amazon, go to the Content & Devices library. Send everything into your new Kindle. This may take a while. There will be no ghosts.