Oh, yeah. Two reviews.
Mar. 23rd, 2008 07:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalThe Yiddish Policemen's Union, Micheal Chabon
Summary: Meyer Landsman is a hard drinking police detective in Sitka, an island off the coast of Alaska set aside as an independent, yiddish speaking haven for Jews during the turbulent years just after World War 2, after the nascent state of modern Israel is destroyed by Palestine. Now, sixty years later, it's two months away from reverting to US control, forcing the millions of Jews there to face a second Diaspora. But Landsman is less worried about that than solving the mystery of the dead man found in an apartment in the flophouse where he's lived since he divorced his wife, who turns out to have a close connection to the Black Hats, Ultra Orthodox Jewish mobsters who seem mysteriously unconcerned about the upcoming Reversion.
Review: Chabon creates an interesting alternate universe for this hard-boiled detective novel, based off of a true-life proposal for an safe haven for European Jews in the then territory of Alaska that briefly went through Congress before being killed. More focused in perspective than his previous novel The Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, it rolls along at a fast pace, Chabon wisely using his worldbuilding to complement his characters' motivations, not as end unto itself like many AU stories.
Stargate: SG-1, The Ark of Truth
Summary: After ten long years, Stargate Command may finally have a lead on a device that could help them defeat the Priors, the human priests of the Ori, an offshoot of the Ancients that was recently wiped out by a weapon created by Merlin.
Review: Essentially this made for DVD movie is the season cliffhanger for Season 10 and the opener for the Season 11 that never happened. It's slightly prettier than the average SG-1 episode (check out those helicopter shots of Teal'c marching across some mountains), but it's basically a TV episode writ large. Fans should love it (I did), but newcomers might be baffled. Actually they would be baffled, though the DVD includes a ten minute 'prelude' which sums up Seasons Nine and Ten for the clueless.
Summary: Meyer Landsman is a hard drinking police detective in Sitka, an island off the coast of Alaska set aside as an independent, yiddish speaking haven for Jews during the turbulent years just after World War 2, after the nascent state of modern Israel is destroyed by Palestine. Now, sixty years later, it's two months away from reverting to US control, forcing the millions of Jews there to face a second Diaspora. But Landsman is less worried about that than solving the mystery of the dead man found in an apartment in the flophouse where he's lived since he divorced his wife, who turns out to have a close connection to the Black Hats, Ultra Orthodox Jewish mobsters who seem mysteriously unconcerned about the upcoming Reversion.
Review: Chabon creates an interesting alternate universe for this hard-boiled detective novel, based off of a true-life proposal for an safe haven for European Jews in the then territory of Alaska that briefly went through Congress before being killed. More focused in perspective than his previous novel The Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, it rolls along at a fast pace, Chabon wisely using his worldbuilding to complement his characters' motivations, not as end unto itself like many AU stories.
Stargate: SG-1, The Ark of Truth
Summary: After ten long years, Stargate Command may finally have a lead on a device that could help them defeat the Priors, the human priests of the Ori, an offshoot of the Ancients that was recently wiped out by a weapon created by Merlin.
Review: Essentially this made for DVD movie is the season cliffhanger for Season 10 and the opener for the Season 11 that never happened. It's slightly prettier than the average SG-1 episode (check out those helicopter shots of Teal'c marching across some mountains), but it's basically a TV episode writ large. Fans should love it (I did), but newcomers might be baffled. Actually they would be baffled, though the DVD includes a ten minute 'prelude' which sums up Seasons Nine and Ten for the clueless.
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Date: 2008-03-24 01:54 am (UTC)