Shmee.Me

July 27, 2015

Shmee Reads The Tears Of Blood Series!

After reading the very decent book Starship Eternal by M.R. Forbes, I decided to give his fantasy books a try, and since his Tears of Blood series was on sale for three for a buck why not? (Unless you don’t like fantasy I guess) The three books in question are titled: His Dark Empire, His Cure for Magic, and His Dark Heart. Like Starship Eternal Forbes doesn’t add a lot to the fantasy genre, but his books are competent and engaging.

The stories follow a young girl Eryn who finds out she has what is known as ‘The Curse’, and an old man named Silas trying to remember his past. ‘The Curse’ is this universe’s name for magic, and all who have it are hunted down and killed, or forced to work for him. He is trying to keep control over everything, even if it means killing innocent people, and causing everyone in his empire to live in fear.

What I liked about this series is that it feels very much like it is ‘post fantasy’. Like the time of magic and elves has just past, and people are trying to live in what would be similar to the dark ages. Barely remembering the fantastic days before their time. Again this is nothing new, Game of Thrones is the same way, but unlike Game of Thrones there aren’t eight million people to keep track of. Just two, and two is enough.

I don’t think these books will blow you away, but they will entertain those who enjoy the genre. M.R. Forbes writes well, and his books are fun to read. They just aren’t amazing or new. Though there is nothing wrong with that. I wish I could write as competently. The Tears of Blood series is a good way to scratch your fantasy itch, but not much more.

July 24, 2015

I Love Short TV Seasons!

Recently a lot more TV shows have been releasing seasons in a shorter format. 13, 10, and sometimes even 6 episode series are becoming the new normal, and I think this is great! A shorter season means that the TV show can focus in on the central stories, and not get caught up with a bunch of pointless plot lines. That is not to say that a 26 episode season can’t be good, I still love The Flash and Arrow, but they definitely are prone to wander.

This is not the writers fault because to fill 26 hours of content you need to create multiple storylines and points of interest, but the viewers will not/cannot care about all of them, so any episodes that feature those plots will be quickly dismissed as filler. The Walking Dead has definitely suffered by going to 16 episodes. Again still good, but there are always a few episodes that the show could do without.

I understand from a TV channel’s perspective the more episodes of a hit show they can get the better, so they don’t have to juggle as many cycling shows. Especially now with the viewer’s expectation of year round quality programming, but a lot of those extra episodes are making the show worse, not better, and may even be loosing the show ratings, and by extension the channel.

A major bonus with shorter series is that they are easier to keep up with. If you get behind a season or two with a normal length show it is understandable to give up because you have like 50 hours of TV to watch to catch up, but with shorter seasons that time is obviously greatly reduced, and then people are more likely to watch the show live (well at least DVR’ed) since they are all current with what is going on.

I am all for the current migration towards shorter seasons. I hope that it is a trend that continues. We could all do with a lot less filler in our lives.

July 23, 2015July 23, 2015

DC And Hoopla Are A Match Made In Heaven!

When my local library system got Hoopla I didn’t pay much attention to it. It had a small number of books, and the movie and TV sections were worse. It slowly got better, but I still never went back to the App. That has all changed now however. DC Comics and Hoopla signed an agreement, so now a lot of DC’s digital trade paperback length comic books are now showing up on the site, and they say a lot more are to come. If you have never read any of the New 52, now is a great time to start since you can read a lot of them for free. Which is a pretty great price. They also have a good selection of older series as well like Neil Gaiman’s landmark Sandman.

I am not sure what the library’s game is here, maybe they never want me to go back to their buildings? Whatever the case, reading free comic books thanks to their agreement with Hoopla is wonderful. If you haven’t tried it out, you really should. Provided you have the right hardware unlike The Paladin.

July 22, 2015July 22, 2015

Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic II Just Got A Major Update! … Wait What?

‘Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II – The Sith Lords’ (nice short title there) turned ten on the PC this year, and it hasn’t had a major update in almost as long, but imagine my surprise when I looked in my Steam queue and there it was getting a 175 MB patch. It is a great update too. It includes widescreen support, save sync, Steam Achievements, a few bug fixes, modern controller support, and last but definitely not least mod support through Steam Workshop.

The widescreen support was a great addition since before you had to play the game in windowed mode for the game to run on a widescreen monitor, but the mod support is what really makes this update special because now to get all the unlocked content in the Restored Content Mod all you have to do is subscribe to it. It pretty much makes the unofficial patch official. Who knows maybe they will in the next update (we only have to wait ten years to find out).

If you didn’t play this game when it came out because it was a broken mess (who can blame you), there has never been a better time. Also since this game is always on sale it will probably only set you back a couple of bucks. It is great to see old games like this get fixed. I guess it is time to finish that Light Side play though I have always be meaning to get back to.

July 21, 2015July 21, 2015

A series of reviews by The Paladin

A truth of our time is that there is a lot of entertainment for us to consume. Also true is that we have only so much time to watch it all. Average shows or movies tend to slip through the cracks or fall down the TV schedule, so it’s nice to have Netflix or Amazon Prime to catch up on a TV series or Movie you meant to watch but just didn’t. Assembled below are three short reviews for some things I’ve watched recently and maybe you should too.

Ant-Man

Although Shmee has already reviewed Ant-Man, I’d like to add that Payton Reed did a fine job jumping into a difficult situation as Director. Audiences were excited for Evan Wright’s take on the Marvel Superhero Brand that we were all a little disappointed he left. Absent Wright’s direction, the film could have been slap-dash and paint-by-the-numbers, but I came away from the film really happy; having enjoyed my one hour and fifty-seven minutes (not counting the stingers at the end). Ant-Man had it problems, but I think it does something recent Marvel movies have not done – be small and deal with more ordinary people. Arguably that’s what draws us to Superheroes in the first place, the people behind the mask. Ant-Man explorers that just a little bit more and better.

Agents of Shield

Another Marvel property that I like, because it too follows the little guy (namely Agent Phil Coulson). Agents of Shield has its faults though. ABC has thankfully kept the show going, probably because someone in a meeting used the word “Synergy”. Agent Coulson and his team have changed a lot since the last season, which was slow to build and then after Captain America: Winter Soldier went sideways. Agents of Shield Season 2 builds on that last half of Season 1 and tells two stories that build into each other. A critique of Agents of Shield would be that the final story arc had a good section of the show taking place in a new-age massage parlor set that just really took me out of the show. All together though I enjoyed this season a lot and look forward to Season 3.

Ascension

Ascension was a SyFy event movie about a generational ship build during the days of Kennedy and sent off into space. All of the crew have not experienced the cultural revolution, 9-11, or any of the other events that have shaped American culture so they are a unique microcosm of society that has developed in their own way. A murder on the ship throws everything into chaos and we see the cracks that have formed in everyone’s relationships throughout the ship. Ascension then plays a slight of hand, by changing the show to something else… something not as compelling by episode two. Also there is a lot of hanky-panky. A lot of the appeal of Ascension for me was the idea of a generational ship half way to its destination and the society that has grown because of that reality. Ascension starts with that same premise, but then stops its world building to do something else. About half way through I was just watching to finish the series; which doesn’t really end with any real satisfaction since SyFy didn’t choose to turn the miniseries into a full blown series. All of the pieces seemed right for a compelling science fiction drama (beautiful sets, nice costumes, and even some compelling characters), the end rest though was just flat.