Story on the Brain

This is a fascinating book. It's an epistolary novel, consisting of letters back and forth between two young women, but each woman is written  by a different author. Isn't that brilliant? I really want to do this. In fact, Jacob and I started one of these but he dropped out after a couple, which apparently happens all the time. I had no idea this was a thing! I absolutely want to do this now, so if there's anyone out there who has the commitment and follow-through for such a fun project, let me know! Also, the authors did this wonderful thing. Remember how I'm always complaining about magic being poorly written? And I insist on a good metaphor? Well, they have one. There's a thing called a focus, which a magician uses to strengthen and increase and, well, focus his or her power. And the authors describe it as glasses, spectacles. I kind of want to quote this because it's brilliant. "It seems there are a great many magicians who, in order to use their ma...

Rewatching season one of Battlestar Galactica and suddenly realizing how much of the awesomeness comes from dramatic irony, things we know that the characters don't know. Of course there's the thing about how we know that Earth is real. And we know who's a Cylon when the other characters don't. That's a huge part of it, right there--who's a Cylon? And part of *that* is that we only know a few of them at the beginning, so anyone could be. In season one we only know Six, Leoben, Sharon, and Doral. So if someone accuses someone else of being a Cylon, we don't know whether they are or not. What else? We know that Laura has cancer but most people don't. Just the doctor, Billy, and Lee. From the miniseries we know that Starbuck brought about Zak's death, but we find that out right when Lee does. Adama doesn't find out for a couple of episodes. A whole lot of the tension of season one comes from the backstory among Lee, Starbuck, and Adama. And Adam...