what in the who now?

[such_heights]

+ In department of 'omg this had better be a totally unfounded rumour': Fox to commission a RTD-penned US remake of Torchwood? WHAT. And I am just not thinking about how I would feel if it did turn out that RTD did indeed blow up his old show then go and make a brand new shiny one. May this never come to pass!

+ In happier news, queerlit50 is starting up, similar to 50books_poc. Read some queer authors! Tell me about them! :D My reading list for the next few weeks includes Sarah Waters' Fingersmith, Mary Renault's The Persian Boy, and Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint, so I will probably chat about those over there.

+ Also, oxoniensis's ninth porn battle is taking prompts.

+ eta: Also! The help_haiti auction closes in just over 24 hours. There's a lot of things still available over there very reasonably, and everything's all listed and indexed so it's easy to find something you might like.

Comments

[virginia_bell]

Re. the second item on your list, if you haven't read Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty, I would recommend it!

[such_heights]

You know, that has been sitting on my shelf for the longest time - I watched the BBC mini-series and loved it! I think I am unconsciously saving it for when I have some time to really dig in, which alas is not for a while. (Silly academia.) But your rec pushes it up the list!

[lorannah]

Hmmm... I'm not sure what to make of the RTD one - he seems to dislike revisiting shows he has already done, so I can't see him doing a direct re-make, but doing something in the same universe but American - possibly.

*Sigh* Personally I can't see myself watching. I do think he has talent, he is great at creating characters and I think he writes quiet scenes very well - but for me he fails fundamentally as a show runner. I don't think plots are his strong point, nor character arcs, and he doesn't seem to care either about the big picture or the small details. I think he'd be much better used having someone to draw out his creativity and direct it more. Then again, I is not a big shot in TV so what the hell do I know.

[such_heights]

I don't even know any more. I am certain there's more or less nothing they could do to get me to watch it, though!

[crooked]

what. i just. WHAT!? no. no, no. emphatically NO. and that article said they are going to try to make a US version of Doctor Who? WHAT, YOU CANNOT. Dr Who is charmingly British. that's. you just. WE DON'T HAVE POLICE BOXES. what would the US tardis be?

it's too early in the morning for this clusterfuck. :|


on other news: PORN BATTLE \o/

[such_heights]

I KNOOOW. :( Dammit, US, stop stealing our shows! An American Doctor Who is just unthinkable - how can you possibly reboot and erase 40 years of history?

[crooked]

SERIOUSLY. there are plenty of brilliant shows that are homegrown that, you know, Fox cancels before they even get their footing. so maybe try one of those before you try Torchwood. and it would have to be SO watered down if it's on regular broadcast tv. I JUST.

the best case i can make against this off the top of my head? the american Life on Mars. ugh.

[such_heights]

Haha, yes, omg. Although, I did hear about the US Life on Mars finale, and it sounded HILARIFYING. They are on a mission to find life! on! mars! In fact, they are on a gene! hunt! The lulz, they are epic.

[crooked]

AHAHAHA YES. XD i didn't watch more than, idk, maybe 15 minutes of the pilot, but i read about the finale. HILARIFYING IS THE BEST WORD FOR IT.

[makai]

Like canceling Dollhouse! And as far as remakes go, The Sarah Connor Chronicles were off that whole Terminator thing and apparently had a following but - canceled. Firefly was canceled too, as we all know very well. Seriously, if he wanted to go American, why Fox?

[contrarywise]

Well, there was the 8th Doctor. Whose teevee movie was, IIRC, a partial Fox production and it aired in the U.S. on Fox. And we all know how well that was received... *eyeroll*

I'm hoping like hell that this is a bogus rumor. Because seriously, there's practically no way that could go well.

[ineffabilitea]

I follow neither Who nor Torchwood and even I know that is a bad idea.

[such_heights]

Right! Some truths are quite apparent!

Also, omg, hi, you rockstar, I cannot quite believe the bidding that's been going on in my vid thread. Thank you so very much!

[ineffabilitea]

You see, I woke up that morning with a vid idea that (I think) is genius, and the realization that I was not going to learn to vid just to make it. And then, there was this auction and the chance to help Haiti, and I just figured it was fate. Fate, I say! :D

[miarrow]

Ha. HA.

Oh, RTD. I'm so glad Fox is the first place you're going. You are now going to feel like what it is to be on American television at its worst.

Don't worry, it'll get advertised terribly and the show will bomb immediately.

[such_heights]

Hahaha, okay, from a schadenfreude perspective that would be awesome.

[glinda]

queerlit50! I am so very excited about this, but sad because I've already signed up to do 50books_poc and I can't do both at once. However, if I can find some books by queer writers of colour I shall be very, very excited and write some recs for the comm. Also I want to read all the books you mentioned there. (I've been wanting to read Tales of the City - my local library has them all - for ages now, and this isn't helping my restraint!)

[such_heights]

Oh goodness, I definitely can't meet the challenge! If I read even 25 books of any description this year I'll be really happy. But yay, I hope you find some things to rec!

[glinda]

I'm such a slow reader these days :( Once upon a time I would have been all '100 books in a year? Pfff... nay bother'. Now not so much.

*points downwards*

zahrawithaz has made an awesome list of books and authors that meet both criteria! Very excited.

[zahrawithaz.livejournal.com]

You know the expression, "ask, and you shall receive"? I started to reply to you here, but it got too long.

So finally I did a post listing books by queer writers of color. I have 66 titles so far:
http://zahrawithaz.livejournal.com/12471.html

Hope it helps!

[glinda]

This is all kinds of awesome, thankyou.

[torachan]

Ooh, thank you! I have quite a few on my to-read list, but no way are there 66, so I'm sure there must be some good stuff in there I was unaware of! *goes*

[topaz_eyes]

As soon as I saw which network I knew it was a Bad Idea. A. Very. Bad. Idea. XP

They tried rebooting Doctor Who in the US in 1996. It. Didn't. Work. What makes them think it'll work again this time?

[such_heights]

I DON'T KNOOOW.

Though hey, at least last time they gave us the Eighth Doctor, for which much can be forgiven.

[cherrybina]

I will never understand this need to remake everything into something American. And it's not like in this case they want to make an English language version or something. DO THEY THINK WE WON'T BE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND THEM WITH THE ACCENTS?

[glass_icarus]

THIS THIS THIS OMG.

[such_heights]

I HAVE NO IDEA. Just - argh, it happens so often, it's madness!

[sunnyrea.livejournal.com]

I saw the Torchwood news too. Seriously ridiculous. Makes me want to head!desk.

[snorkackcatcher]

That Fox news sounds even worse than Fox News. Assuming for the sake of argument that it's not complete horseshit, I can't understand why the BBC would do such a thing or what advantage they see in it other than "oo, Hollywood people want to do stuff with us!!!111". It sounds like lose-lose for them. If it fails (and given that Fox are notorious for spiking shows before they've even had a chance to get started, that's hardly unlikely), it knocks a big hole in the DW brand in the USA. If it succeeds, it could be even worse, as it would probably subordinate the original show(s) to a supporting role to the US version. I suppose they might be hoping to make bigger bucks than they could otherwise and think those risks are worth it, but I really wouldn't bet on that.

[zahrawithaz.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to say how much I love Mary Renault. The Persian Boy is wonderful. Have you read the book before it in the sort-of trilogy, Fire from Heaven?

I also highly recommend Renault's The Last of the Wine.

Many, many people love Fingersmith, but I thought The Little Stranger and Tipping the Velvet were both much better. I'll be curious in your thoughts.

[such_heights]

Renault is totally new to me, I'm looking forward to her! And The Night Watch is the only Waters I've read, so I'll be interested to see what her other work is like.

[iambickilometer]

I don't even know, re: Torchwood. I think I'd like the idea more if it weren't going to have Jack in it. And if it weren't Fox. But hey, at least it'll get canceled pretty quickly if it actually happens!

The Fingersmith was a good read, though. I think I liked it better than Tipping the Velvet.

[such_heights]

Hee, yes, it's some consolation!

The Night Watch is the only Sarah Waters I've read, so I'm looking forward to getting stuck into more. :D

[fallingtowers]

Ooooh, Mary Renault. I really loved Fire from Heaven (the first volume in her Alexander trilogy), The Persian Boy, The King Must Die (probably the one book with the least queer content among her historical novels, though), The Last of the Wine and The Mask of Apollo. Her 20th-century gay novel, The Charioteer, might also be of interest to you.

An LJ friend of mine is a huge fan of Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint-universe, and I always feel a bit guilty for liking it more in theory than in practice: Queer protagonist yay! I just wish that Alex weren't so emo in the first book, and his son in book three seems to be a chip off the old block in that regard. I also wish that she'd written more about the lesbian pirate queen in volume 3 than about the young and emo gay dudes, but maybe that's just me. :)

New Zealand writer Keri Hulme (The Bone People) identifies as asexual, by the way, just in case that you should ever be looking for an asexual author with international acclaim.

And while I'm not sure whether Patricia Duncker is actually queer (I didn't find any overt reference during a quick Google search), I almost suppose so since she was editing an anthology of lesbian feminist fiction in 1980 or so. 'Course she could still be a straight ally, who's recently become interested in queer theory too. However, regardless of whether she qualifies for the challenge, I'd really recommend her historical novel James Miranda Barry, if you don't know it already -- a book with a protagonist whose gender identity remains undetermined to the last.

Dorothy Allison is definitely a lesbian, though. I recently read her semi-autobiographical novel, Bastard out of Carolina, which is wonderfully written, but extremely triggering wrt domestic violence and rape.

[fallingtowers]

Oh, two more things:

Someone mentions Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy below. AFAIK, the author has never identified as anything but straight, but if you should find some time to go beyond the challenge, I can't recommend it highly enough. Deals with queer themes, bisexuality, homoeroticism, homophobia, classism, sexual abuse, masculinity, gender roles, violence, pacifism, and the Great War, and I can't recommend it highly enough. I might be kinda biased, because I wrote about 120 gushing pages about it for my M.A. thesis, but it might be worth a try. ;)

On a completely unrelated note:

Did you get anything in the mail lately...?

[such_heights]

Thank you so much for all the recs! *hordes* Oh, how I look forward to the summer when I will really get a chance to read.

And I found a 'come to the post office, you have mail' thing when I got back to the house today, so I'm guessing maybe it's that? :D

[fallingtowers]

And I found a 'come to the post office, you have mail' thing when I got back to the house today, so I'm guessing maybe it's that? :D

If this mysterious message was about an Amazon package, yes, that might have been me... :)

[torachan]

Oh man, I saw that Torchwood thing yesterday and was just like WHAT. The most telling part was a line in the article I read that said this Torchwood would have a more global perspective, rather than the limited perspective of the current version. Where of course, global means US. Because the US is global in the same way white people are universal, amirite?

[such_heights]

I think you may be onto something! *facepalm*

[kel_reiley]

Sarah Waters' Fingersmith, Mary Renault's The Persian Boy - i've read both of those, very good! i also enjoyed The Night Watch by Sarah Waters and Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy

am currently rereading A Strong and Sudden Thaw by R.W. Day (it's good, though it could be better, but i can't help rereading it every once in a while, usually when it's freezing out!)

re: torchwood... i'm so not thinking about that anymore

[such_heights]

I adore the Night Watch - the only Sarah Waters I've read so far, so I'm looking forward to more!