Amph What book are you reading right now?

You do realize Desolation of Smaug is coming out this very month, right, Prince of Mirkwood person?

 

Umbridge makes the book. Best evil character in the series. The dark tone does get tiring quite easily but I still love it.

 

Oops my bad, i meant next week,

 

I love Umbridge because there is nothing redeemable about her character at all. All of the villains by the end of the story either die, redeem themselves, or both. Not her though. Imaulda Staunton was good, but she didn't capture anywhere near as much of the unpleasantness of the character which is perfectly fine since it's a fairly difficult to near-impossible role.

 

How would it be a difficult to near-impossible role?

 

Way better villain than Voldemort. Loved the Undesirable #1 poster of Harry she had with the note "To be punished." Saw that on a reread of DH and loved it.
Imelda Staunton wasn't as amazing as the book version but she had some good moments. I loved when Harry told her "Sorry professor I must not tell lies." and whatever he told her in DH.
An extended OOTP movie is needed.

 

To play an unpleasant and irredeemable character in a young adult franchise? That's a pretty tough role to take on.

 

Book Umbridge on a scale of 1 being the nicest person ever to 10 being the most unpleasant person ever was a 20.
I wanted Voldemort gone but Umbridge? I wanted her to die a violent death or live out the worst life possible.

 

And she doesn't experience any of those things which is great. I mean yeah, it's implied at the end of DH, but it's never seen to the reader (or read heh).

 

I would have liked it if she had been bitten by a werewolf and forced to live like one without biting someone else on the full moon.
I am also ticked that Lucius Malfoy wasn't punished for the Chamber of Secrets incident.

 

I think he was taken off the Board of Governors at the end of Book 2 actually.

 

Still deserved more than that. Circumstantial evidence and all that.

 

I'm not currently reading this book (or any book), but I wanted to mention it to help spread the word that Greg Weisman's book "Rain of the Ghosts" has been released. Here's an excerpt of a message that he posted at Ask Greg:

 

Well at this point we should take this discussion into the Potter thread, but I don't think there was enough evidence to point out that he was behind it all.

 

Probably should do that.

 

Very exciting stuff!

 

That's one of the reasons I like it. It's freaking hilarious.

 

Also she doesn't look like a toad. That was my favorite part about her in the books. She is your douchiest elementary school teacher multiplied by 10.

 

When I think Umbridge, I think Angelica Houston for some reason.

 

Perhaps because of her role as the evil stepmother in Ever After?

 

Ascension (FOTJ)...been trying to finish FOTJ forever now.

 

And we're back! Set a few decades after Moonwar, Selene, formerly Moonbase, is a thriving city built around nanotechnology. But things aren't looking so great for Earth, as the greenhouse cliff disasters have begun. Dan Randolph, former low-earth-orbit privateer now CEO of Astro Corp, wants to mine the asteroids and move industry and production into orbit. And he'll do it at cost, making no profit. But Mitt Rom-, er, Martin Humphries, billionaire CEO and Atlas Shrugged fan, wants to take over Randolph's company and have only rich people live in Space while everyone else dies on Earth. So when Humphries proposes Randolph build a fusion engine (something never done successfully before), Randolph hesitantly agrees, because a fusion engine is what would make travel to the asteroid belt economical. However, he's facing opposition from the Global Economic Council, which rules Earth in everything but name only, and New Morality (the villains from Moonwar), a fundamentalist Christian group that has massive sway in the US government. Having recovered from being unsuccessful in the very first Terra-Luna conflict, New Morality has a bone to pick with the new Selene-produced fusion spaceship. So when they deny Randolph permission for him to use his new fusion spaceship to go to the asteriod belt, he decides that maybe his privateering days aren't over...

Overall a pretty good book. Does the good balance of science/tech vs drama/conflict that I had mentioned in my previous reviews. I feel this is what Moonwar should have been.

 

currently devouring the comic CHEW. it stars an FDA agent named Tony Chu with the power to eat things (like apples... or a finger) and get a psychic reading off of them. its pretty bomb.

 

It's maybe the last surviving play written solely by him. But no, he's got other plays probably written later.

Like . . . The Two Noble Kinsmen. A collaboration with John Fletcher, it's about in line with the other romances -- acceptably entertaining, but lacking real depth or a gripping plot. The titular kinsmen don't have much distinction, and I can't say the play does much with their squabble over the love of a woman they've never met to explore big ideas.

I also finished Tales of the Jazz Age. Delightful. "The Jelly-Bean," "May Day," and "The Lees of Happiness" are quality drama, full of the sort of lighthearted melancholy Fitzgerald does so well. The Lees of Happiness is especially interesting as somewhat of a departure from his normal style, a quiet, sentimental, sincere study that doesn't go in the expected Fitzgerald directions. The outright comic stories are good too, from the uproarious "The Camel's Back" to the gloriously nonsensical trifles "Mr. Icky" and "Jemina, the Mountain Girl" to the cheeky, audience-tweaking "Porcelain and Pink." If the book has a weak point, it's the stories classified as fantasies. "O Russet Witch" is enjoyably experimental and gets at some interesting ideas, but "Tarquin of Cheapside" is just a collegiate lark. "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" is memorable, but it's just Fitzgerald toying around with fantasies of luxury and then twisting it to get a story out of it -- it's entertaining but not his best work, not that resonant. "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" also sports a memorable premise, but it's a fairly light parody of society. Still, even his lesser works are entertaining, and the majority of the stuff is a riot, moving and evocative, or both. This Fitzgerald kick I've been on has been a real pleasure.

 

Benito Cereno by Herman Melville