He is NEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeever Going To Finish This Thing

*headdesk*

From EW.com:

The Thrones-verse rumor mill went into overdrive Tuesday as outlets jumped on a comment attributed to George R.R. Martin’s editor that hinted the New Mexico-based fantasy author might write eight books for his epic Song of Ice and Fire saga instead of the long-planned seven...




You know, if he would stop adding extraneous subplots with a bazillion characters, he might could finish.  I cannot think the initial endgame was this damn complicated. Honestly, the "Mereneese Knot" could've been handled in (at most!) a quarter of the time and would have made just as much damn sense.  And don't even get me started on superfluous Greyjoys (who still have not been cast... showing exactly how 'essential' some of them came off as being...)


I did laugh at one of the comment-strings though.

>My Advice to George: Get an editor and LISTEN to that person.

>>He HAS an editor.  {...}  She did a Q&A the other day.  She basically says she never cuts anything and is a slave to George completely.

>>>>>Eventually Emilia Clarke will get around to freeing her.

Drunk History

Drunk History is back on Comedy Central for a second season.

From EW.com:

With the second season of Comedy Central’s Drunk History just a month away from hitting the air, let’s pour you a tall, frosty glass of casting news: David Cross, Laura Dern, Patton Oswalt, and Charlie Day are among the notable names who will pop up this summer on the only TV series in which an intoxicated narrator shares a true-but-lesser-known tale from our nation’s past while celebrities act out his or her version of the story.

Arrested Development fans will be pleased as spiked punch to learn that three cast members — Cross, Tony Hale, Alia Shawkat — will appear this season. A trio of alums from Friday Night Lights (Adrianne Palicki, Zach Gilford, Jesse Plemons) are also getting the call to re-enaction, as are three stars from The League (Paul Scheer, Nick Kroll, Jason Mantzoukas) and two from Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Terry Crews, Joe Lo Truglio). And if it has always been your very specific dream to see Courteney Cox as first lady Edith Wilson, Johnny Knoxville as Johnny Cash, and Laura Dern as trailblazing investigative journalist Nellie Bly, well, then this season is your lucky one.

“Casting season 2, I had one thing in mind — to keep clear eyes and a full heart so I wouldn’t lose,” Drunk History host/co-creator Derek Waters tells EW. “I was lucky enough to get several cast members from Friday Night Lights as well as the Hollywood Hall of Fame of my favorite dream actors to work with, no matter what their IMDb star meter is.”

As you can see in these images from various episodes, Stephen Merchant and Cross are teaming up to play George Washington and Friedrich Wilhem von Steuben, who was Inspector General and Major General in the Continental Army under Washington’s command. In another story, John Lithgow (pictured above) will offer up his version on Washington, while Chris Parnell does his best impression of Benedict Arnold and Winona Ryder assumes the role of his second wife, Peggy Shippen. And, yes, that’s Jordan Peele formulating his take on pioneering chemist Percy Julian.

Other returning guest stars who are popping up in new roles include Jack Black, Casey Wilson, and Jack McBrayer. Also keep an educated eye out for such famous folks as Charlie Day, Lisa Bonet, husband Jason Momoa, Tim Heidecker, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Busy Philipps, Jason Ritter, Matt Walsh, Jerry O’Connell, Jon Daly, Emily Deschanel, Bobby Moynihan, Nathan Fielder, Steven Yeun, Retta, Brett Gelman, Ken Marino, Jayma Mays, Martin Starr, Jeffrey Ross, Michaela Watkins, and, sure, Jaleel White.

Paget Brewster and Jen Kirkman are among the season 1 narrators slated to return, while new storytellers include Jonah Ray, Phil Hendrie, Duncan Tressell, Molly McAleer, and Morgan Murphy.

Need a drink after making it through all these names? Go ahead. You’ve earned it.

The season 2 premiere, which is set in Montgomery, Ala., debuts July 1 at 10 p.m. on Comedy Central.



To give an example of "Drunk History" a partial of one of the stories from Season 1:

Wednesday Reading Meme

Not really doing the meme.  I've got my copy of the latest Dresden Files book, though.  Haven't gotten far.

I did make the ... mistake(?)  {It's hard to call it a mistake when I did it on purpose.  Oh well...}

Anyway, I made the mistake of reading an Amazon .99 novella simply because I had read the blurb for it several days earlier and the premise stuck with me until I went, 'Oh, screw it! I want to see if they can pull the darn thing off.'  Sometimes people can pull off problematic premises.  Sometimes it's fun just to watch people try (and when they do pull off a hat trick, I respect it). The reason the blurb stuck with me was because I knew that premise would be difficult to make work. (It's hard to sell sympathising with serial adultery.  I'm just sayin'.)

Answer: Nope, the writer did not pull it off.

Cannot even pretend to be surprised by that.  But...erm... it managed to undershoot my already low expectations.  It was like the writer wasn't even trying to find a way to make the reader view the lead's actions as anything more complex than blatant narcissism (that really never quite changes) ... which, fine, if that's what the story is about.  But in this case we're apparently supposed to root for the adulterous female lead to salvage her marrage.   Err....narcissism is going to be difficult to root for.  If you want your characters' marriage to survive, you're going to have to make her actions look like more than a three year narcissistic temper tantrum.

Having seen the 'quartet' of novellas this was included within (and even having read one of the others and having found the other novella of dubious merit).  I will state that I think the entire quartet reads like a "Sex and the City" AU fanfic. I didn't catch that with the first novella, but after reading the second one then looking back at the first,  I think the first was a take on Carrie/Big  (I can totally see that now.  It explains so much about weird plot choices and why those characters were annoyingly childish).  The  second story with the serial adultery was clearly a 'Samantha' story.  The lead character even had Samantha's 'voice,' which is what made it so obvious as a Sex and the City AU.  Except, frankly to give Samantha credit, she wasn't as childish as this novella character.  That was part of what blew this one so badly.  The character just seemed to be have motivations more complicated than a three year temper tantrum as though she was an immature sixteen year old.  (Hey, I get the characters have marital issues, but has the femal lead ever heard of using WORDS to settle anything?)*

Anyway, not including the name of book or writer because why would anyone need to know?  This is not a rec. It was short, unsuccessful, and leaves an unsavory aftertaste. I liked SAtC's Samantha much more than this character (seriously, this character had all the maturity of a character in 'Mean Girls').

---

*  Okay, the thing that in retrospect has me seriously side-eyeing the writer -- a lot -- is trying to figure out what she was trying to accomplish in the denouement, which included one of the female character's previous lovers returning to attempt to rape her.   The easiest explanation for 'why did the author do this?'  is slut shaming, right?  Not pretty, but pretty typical fanfic-wise (and this reads like professional fanfic).

But... here was where it got weird.   The author did a fake-out (why, I cannot imagine).  Throughout the novel it's pretty easy to decide that the female character has treated her husband like crap (basically because she's treated her  husband like crap). So when the husband tells the female lead that he's done with their marriage, he's well within his rights to say so. Then he has second thoughts and decides to go after her (why he ISN'T done with her isn't particularly convicing.  But that's a separate gripe.)....  Cut to the next chapter.

The female lead goes to the door, answers it, and the dialog mostly fits with where the last chapter left off with the husband, leading you to think that she's speaking to the husband (meanwhile the name of the male visitor is witheld from the reader... which is a 'tell' in and of itself).  It's not until the male visitor goes into rapist mode that the writer reveal's that the guy in question is NOT the husband.

So...why did the author set that scene up that way?  What possible motive did the author have in making the reader question whether the husband had just decided to go rapist (Was the author 'punishing'/slut shaming the female lead with sexual assault?  Ew.   Beyond that, why make it sound like it's the husband?  Was it that the reader -- who was predisposed to side with the husband -- being intentionally played?  Perhaps made to inappropriately 'root' for the husband to 'retaliate' only for the writer to show the reader with the reveal of it being the gross guy that this situation terribly wrong? Is she 'shaming' any reader who might have thought that if it were the husband, he could in any way be 'justified'? (Or was it supposed to be 'see?  She had it coming to her by having had a series of exta-marital affairs!) 

The whole thing creeped me out.

I realized that it wasn't the husband from the start because, why was the name being with-held? There was no reason to hide the assailant's name if it actually were the husband, so it had to be a fake-out.    But,  if we are to like the husband (which I think we are.  I wasn't at all sold on the marriage between the characters.  And didn't for a moment buy that these two could have a successful relationship in the future, but the husband was a generally a decent human being).  So why fake the reader with it temporarily looking like he was a potential rapist?

Seriously, did not get what the writer was going for with that fake out.  Just glad the female lead wasn't raped, because ew. ew. ew.

And I do tend to think that the assault was mostly a writer 'punishing' the female lead....which is ew, ew, ew.  (I may not have liked her, but she didn't deserve to be assaulted).

And I'm still bamboozled by the the decision to write the scene as a mislead so that the reader temporarily thinks it's the husband attempting the rape.  Er... what did that serve?