It’s already February, which is absurd. What is time, even? How is time?
January has been okay. I’m hoping to go to the UK in August for WorldCon, and I’ve been having fun over-researching, as is my wont. Got sick briefly, although fortunately, it was just a cold. I also finally got my ass to SF for the first time in, er, years. (Considering how close I live to San Francisco, you’d think I’d visit more. Then again, public transportation here is … not the best.) We saw Yayoi Kusama’s Infinite Love at the MOMA and Takashi Murakami’s Unfamiliar People – Swelling of Monsterized Human Ego at the Asian Art Museum, and that was an awful lot of fun.
from Takashi Murakami’s Unfamiliar People – Swelling of Moisturized Human Ego
Here’s what else I’ve been up to! (Spoilers: it’s mostly television.)
WRITING
My short story “Jinx” came out last week at PseudoPod, which was a very nice surprise. This is a pretty dark SFF horror story about a woman who begins having some serious concerns about her new romantic relationship, and—well. Things get worse from there. “Jinx” is wonderfully narrated by Alethea Kontis, and—HEAVILY IMPLIED SPOILERS here—a story for anyone who ever thought that Groundhog Day is kind of a creepy romantic comedy, actually. If you check it out, I hope you enjoy it!
Also, I’ve officially started revisions on my novel! There’s a lot to do, but I’m excited about it—so long as I don’t think too hard about, you know, trying and failing to get an agent again (failing to get an agent can be … disheartening), or how the fuck I’m gonna market this weird ass book, or literally everything about the publishing industry right now. (Every bit of publishing industry news is just one more garbage fire on top of a leaning tower of garbage fires.) But those are far future worries! For now, revisions!
READING
January was full of short reads, mostly novellas and novels under 250 pages. Most recently, I’ve read T. Kingfisher’s Thornhedge—it’s quite charming—and Caitlin Doughty’s Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? And Other Questions About Dead Bodies, which is also quite charming, in its own cheerfully morbid way. (The artwork by Dianné Ruz, in particular, is fantastic.) I also just finished Foz Meadows’s fantasy novella Finding Echoes, which I rather liked. (I’d love to see a sequel or even a novel set in this verse.) Neon Hemlock publishes really interesting stuff—they’re honestly a dream market of mine, assuming I can ever get my act together and actually finish a novella—and they just dropped another new book this week for The TBR: Loving Safoa by Liza Wemakor.
MOVIES
Honestly, I haven’t been watching a lot of movies lately, but we did just rewatch The Mummy for the 80th billion time, and that was delightful.
TV
Currently Watching:
Gyeongseong Creature
I’m not deeply invested in this one yet, which surprises me a bit—I mean, it’s a monster story set in the 1940’s, what’s not to like—but I’m just interested enough to keep going, albeit at a very unhurried pace. The main romance feels very lackluster, although admittedly, that’s not an uncommon complaint for me; my more serious complaints are Han So Hee, who isn’t quite working for me as the FL, the pace in general (it feels … off), and the fact that—at least so far—the stellar supporting cast is being seriously underused. That being said, I do really like several people in this cast (Jo Han Chul, Wi Ha Joon, Ok Ja Yeon, Ahn Ji Ho, and especially Kim Hae Sook, who always manages to steal the scene, no matter how little screen time she has). I also rather like Park Seo Joon as our ML, and I’m pretty much always here for action and gore, so. We’ll see.
Marry My Husband
So, this is exactly the kind of kdrama I don’t normally check out: actually current, wildly popular, barely speculative, and barely about murder. But Mek watched a show for me, so I’m watching a show for her. Honestly, I’m enjoying it more than I expected, although I’m only about six episodes in so far: I really enjoy Park Min Young here as she quietly seeks survival/vengeance, Na In Woo has a killer arched eyebrow and hot Mr. Darcy vibes, Choi Gyu Ri is just goddamn adorable, and Lee Yi Kyung is somehow playing the most abhorrent, funniest, and clueless villain, all at the same time.
The glasses trope is kinda killing me, though. You know the one: take off the glasses, cut the hair, switch out a slightly frumpy sweater for a nice dress, and suddenly this clearly already gorgeous person is “suddenly” stunning? Fuck off. Marry My Husband has not one but two examples of this BS trope, and it’s both ridiculous and aggravating, particularly in Na In Woo’s case, who rocks the holy shit out of those black frames, I mean, Jesus.
The absolute funniest thing about this show is not the show itself, but how much trouble I have with its very simple title. I keep calling it either Murder My Husband (fair enough) or Marry My Dead Husband (a very different type of show, probably!)
Recently Finished:
Circle: Two Worlds Connected
Circle is the reason I’m watching Marry My Husband. It’s a 2017 SF drama starring Yeo Jin Goo, and I’ve been curious about it for years now. I finally found it on the Roku Channel, of all places, and though the abrupt commercial breaks are hilariously awful—they’d cut scenes mid-dialogue—I’m really glad I watched this one.
Circle takes place primarily in two timelines. The first half of the show, Beta Project, is set in 2017 and is about a college student, Woo Jin (Yeo Jin Goo) trying to find his missing twin brother, Beom Gyun (Ahn Woo Yeon), who’s disappeared while trying to prove that aliens are not only real but responsible for a series of suicides on campus. The second half of the show, Brave New World, is set in 2037 and is about a detective Joon Hyuk (Kim Kang Woo) who, while investigating the first murder in a crime-free city where all citizens have been implanted with emotion-suppressing chips, is also secretly investigating the disappearance of twin brothers from 20 years ago.
Some improvements could be made, like, there is one bit of particularly clunky foreshadow—although, in fairness, it’s a pretty challenging twist to foreshadow well. I really enjoy the show’s fast pace but can’t help but feel that the show might’ve benefited from a 16 episode run instead of a 12, just to really delve deeper into certain revelations, side characters, etc. That being said, I absolutely love the concept and setup of this show. I found the story very entertaining: all the thematic work about identity and memory works really well for me, plus the structure of this show means you end up with two cliffhangers per episode, which is very enjoyably aggravating. And the cast is great: as always, I really like Yeo Jin Goo in this—he’s an extremely expressive actor, and he cries so very well—but I also really enjoyed Kim Kang Woo, Gong Seung Yeon, Ahn Woo Yeon, Seo Hyun Chul, and Lee Gi Kwang (also in Marry My Husband, incidentally, although I’m far less interested in his character there).
My biggest complaint about Circle is that we only get one scene as Yeo Jin Goo dressed up as a scary female ghost, which is just rude. I understand we have a missing brother to find and all, but bills still need to be paid, and that house isn’t going to haunt itself!
Sweet Home (Season 2)
Well, that was a hot mess of a season, wasn’t it? There are some things I enjoy here: Go Min Si continues to be excellent. I liked her interactions with Song Kang, and in general, missed his character more than I expected to—possibly because I was just so apathetic about the majority of the many, many new characters. I did enjoy a few of them: Oh Jung Se (I do like a mad scientist), Kim Shin Rok (I’ve loved her since Beyond Evil), and Jung Jin Young (who, TBH, is just playing the Nice Soldier here, but I really liked him in Love in the Moonlight). I’m also pretty happy with the last Big Development.
But enough to watch Season 3? Oh, I don’t know. S2 didn’t work for me on, like, multiple levels. We spend a lot of time on new characters that I just don’t give a shit about. I hated how Yi Kyung’s character arc was handled. (The fact that it included one of my least favorite SF/F tropes probably didn’t help.) I desperately missed the S1 OST, which I know sounds petty, but I really do feel the music in Sweet Home was unique and apocalyptic and gave the show a completely different vibe. (Except Imagine Dragons, of course. That shit was just awkward.) And while I don’t object to a time jump on principle, I don’t think the execution worked well here at all. I’m curious about a few things in S3, sure, but my confidence in actually liking the season is very low.
And finally . . .
Gave Up On:
Death and Other Details
I have always been weak for private detectives, ensemble casts, murder mysteries, and murder mysteries on boats—but I have to admit, this one’s lost me. It has nothing to do with Knives Out, mind; I fucking adore those movies, but Rian Johnson did not create the meta whodunnit, and I’m not convinced the blatant ripoff comparisons I’ve seen thus far are fair. (It’s also not the accents, although when they wander so badly even I can tell … yeesh. Too much to hope we’re going for a plot twist here?)
Still, this cast is a lot stronger than the material. Like, I’m always here for Mandy Patinkin and Rahul Kohli, I’ve enjoyed Jere Burns since his Justified days, and I’d definitely be interested in seeing more of Angela Zhou, Lauren Patten, Michael Gladis, and Karoline. The initial setup is fun, I like the overall look of the show, and I really enjoyed one of the early Big Reveals. Unfortunately, the more we get into the actual mystery, the less I’m enjoying it. I only watched four episodes, I think, and it already feels awfully convoluted. I’m not terribly interested in most of the characters, either, and their secrets have largely bored me. (I also actively disliked how the show handled one secret in particular.) I really wanted to be into this one, and maybe I’ll go back to it if I start hearing amazing things, but right now I’m just not enjoying this show enough to keep going.