Diversions

On Friday, oidhche and palingyuan came to my place for Big Bang Theory. I started recording at the beginning of the season, figuring we'd catch up before long, and now we have. oidhche was disappointed: not only there is no new content, but he won't get any more for at least three weeks. This weekend palingyuan and I will be at Philcon, and the following weekend I'll be in Massachusetts. We'll need to pick a new TV series for Friday nights. Oid thinks he'll just catch up to me with Star Trek and we can go from there.

Speaking of which, on Sunday I finished out the first season. Total score: of 28 episodes, I had definitely seen 8 before. Ten I'm fairly certain I could not have seen previously, or I would have remembered them. And the remaining ten I might or might not have seen before. Since I had trouble remembering some of them by the end of the disc they were on, it's entirely possible I could have seen them 20 years ago and not remembered. Anyway, that's roughly a third each way, which is not bad.

Meanwhile, on Saturday I finished reading The Iron Duke by Meljean Brook. While it's technically a romance novel, and follows some of the conventions of that genre, I don't think the romance gets in the way of the story. Certainly it's not the sort which sticks rigidly to a formula and has the sex scenes at prescribed page counts. It's also a mystery/adventure, and a very good one for a cross-genre work. And oh yes, it is also the steampunk novel I've been hoping to find all year. It has characters and plot and world-building that immersed me sufficiently that the clockwork and the airships and all actually made sense. Even the giant sea monsters made sense. And now I want MORE. Since there's no more from that world to be had yet (I read the short story the weekend before), I care enough to try some of the other stuff that's out there. And THAT is what I've been trying to find, the answer to why-should-I-care/what's-in-it-for-me.

So, now I've (finally) started reading Girl Genius.