Just finished reading K.J. Parker's Devices and Desires. What struck me at first was "Eh, no, medieval people didn't think like that," but after mentally shifting gears to thinking of it as an author tract like HPMOR, with modern characters in a quasi-historical setting, it was much more enjoyable.
Do blog posts count? Out of Yvain's nearly uniformly excellent posts WHO BY VERY SLOW DECAY stands out in July. He is not kidding when prefacing it with the trigger warnings "death, pain, suffering, sadness". Ignore them at your peril.
Vihart's "Twelve Tones" is quite possibly the most mind-expanding mix of interdisciplinarity (math, music & creativity) in 2013 I've seen so far: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4niz8TfY794
I guess it falls to me to fill this up.
In Memoriam, a reimaging of Toaru Majutsu no Index that generally raises the competence of everyone involved. Significant changes; prior knowledge not required.
Overlady, Zero no Tsukaima as seen through the lens of the Overlord games. Guess who's the new Overlady. Prior knowledge of ZnT definitely required; prior knowledge of Overlord positive but not required.
Halkeginia Online: Sword Art Online meets Zero no Tsukaima meets Island on the Sea of Time. In short, Louise summons Alfheim, as it turns out that AGI beats magic but AGI has odd priorities. Prior knowledge of ZnT and SAO required. Warning: TVTropes link.
Uchibi Sasuke: Naruto crackfic-with-plot. Highly amusing. Prior knowledge preferred, but fic is not to be taken seriously.
Game Theory: Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, with a slightly saner and far more rational Precia Testarossa. Highly recommended, prior knowledge of Nanoha preferred but not required; it's a rewrite. Complete, sequel in progress.
Descending:
"Don't Shoot the Dog" by Karen Pryor is about conditioning / elementary hedonics for humans and other mammals. This book is really really important and I should write more about it at some point.
http://www.sagaofsoul.com/ for all your "magical girls who wonder why their attacks are much less powerful than the mass-energy of the matter they can apparently create, who teleport to space so they can look at the Earth, and who synthesize unbihexium so scientists can get a look at it" needs.
Descending order:
Qualia the Purple; copying over my interim review from MAL:
Qualia the Purple was quite the curious read. I started it after being linked it as possibly the only example of manga discussing 'philosophical zombies', then I noted the second main character had purple eyes and began reading it to see if she'd be a hafu for my essay (the art is not great and the story was not compelling enough to keep me reading), then I kept reading because it seemed like it was improving into a light fluffy Haruhi Suzumiya-style manga with some superficial science, then it veered hard into Higurashi-level horror, then it did some shallow quantum mechanics, then it veered into really good hard SF on an almost Greg Egan level with a remarkable take on Lagrangians & Fermat's Principle of Least Action (the closest I can think of are Chiang's "Story of Your Life" and Egan's "The Infinite Assassin"), and then impressed me even more by observing that quantum indeterminacy seems like it should apply to the past as w
It's not a mistake (or it shouldn't be) to post about something that's come up before. You advertised it differently, and I imagine your recommendation carries more weight than mine here. And now we have the link to an earlier recommendation, which is I think the main reason for that one thread rule.
I just want to mention how much I appreciate these threads: this is my most trusted source of media recommendations! Thank you to all involved.
As it turns out, Day Watch is on Netflix. (Unfortunately, this is the sequel to Night Watch, which is not on Netflix. Argh.)
It was directed by Timur Bekmambetov, who also directed Wanted and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. However, those things happened long after Day Watch, so his style here is a bit less refined -- which quite suits the setting.
As far as I can tell, the Night Watch movie covers about half of the plot of the first book. Day Watch roughly covers the second half of the first book, dealing with Anton's attempts to recover the Chalk of Fate in order to undo a bad decision he made in his past. Of course, because it has this ability, practically everyone on either side also wants the Chalk.
Good things: The movie may not be true to the book, but it is thematically true to it. Kostya's father was perfect. The casting of Gesser, Zabulon and Olga was flawless. Svetlana was chosen well, though her acting was not great. The subtitles are very excellent -- they use typographical effects to translate the tone of the speech. The mood is spot-on, and the plot captures the back-and-forth of the two sides quite well, with plenty of stereotypically Russian humor.
Bad things: Anton. Sadly his actor doesn't do a great job. The scenes that happen in the Twilight can be difficult to follow. The translation itself is bad in many places, and inconsistent with the book's translation. There probably won't be a sequel, which means -- barring a reboot -- there won't be a canonical film adaptation of the series.
This is the monthly thread for posting media of various types that you've found that you enjoy. Post what you're reading, listening to, watching, and your opinion of it. Post recommendations to blogs. Post whatever media you feel like discussing! To see previous recommendations, check out the older threads.
Rules: