Media log

I don't have very much to say about this one but the Murderbot books are always very fun and a great time. The character writing is so strong and that's mainly what has me coming back to this series :-)

For the first half of this book, I wasn't really sure if I liked it. It's such a loud, boisterous story and it struck me as deeply discordant for a while, but there comes a point, about midway through, where it all clears out into an explosion of further chaos—or maybe this point is just the one where the barrier between you and the book comes down—and you suddenly understand even though nothing in the storytelling has technically changed. Really bewildering and wild, more of an experience than a proper story. Tough, but I liked it in the end.

Presents a good deal of info but I felt that what makes this book unique ("a scenario") was also what held it back. It often felt as if the author was trying to dramatize or narrativize, which annoyed me because it got in the way of the actual nonfiction. I mean, I already know nuclear bombs are apocalyptic and scary; I don't need to read about the American president dying in the woods to remember. This is probably more an issue of me choosing the wrong book, but I found this really lacking overall, even despite the new information I got.

Thematically excellent movie. The grossness, the fluids, the incestuous elements... really good! My gripe is moreso to how it was executed. I feel like this movie might have worked much better as a written work *in its current form*. The cinematography wasn't particularly interesting to me and I often found myself wondering if the reason it was a movie was because that was the medium Ducournau knew how to work with rather than being the medium the story was best suited to. Average all in all, though I know this movie is well-beloved, so I might just be missing something.

Limetown is one of those things I've been meaning to get around to for forever. I think I must have started it as a young teen because the first episode (or at least, the premise of it) was definitely familiar. It's such a recognizable name in fiction podcasting and I was pleased to see that, for the most part, it really lived up to my expectations. The first half, maybe even 3/4ths, is so good. The mystery presented is so vast and the way the story goes about investigating it is deeply satisfying—but the answer provided in the last episode felt like a bit of a cop-out to me. It didn't strike with the same weight as the mystery itself. Beyond that, this show is expertly-produced. The voice acting is incredible, the sound scaping, the music... what an atmosphere! Would highly recommend for the first four episodes alone.