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Three Bodies, one novella and a novel: more reviews!
Three Bodies Problem (Netflix): Background: I haven't read the trilogy, though I did listen to a (German) radio adaptation three years ago, which I had mixed feelings about. Otoh, I stopped watching Game of Thrones around season 5 or 6, so know the things Benioff & Weiss did to infuriate a great many of their viewers in the eigth and final season only via osmosis. Which perhaps is one reason why the duo's existence as producers of the Netflix adaptation didn't keep me from watching. Also: Benedict Wong!
Having now finished the first season, I found I liked it without feeling passionate about it. My big problem with the story as told in the radio adaptiation (as I hadn't read the actual books) was that Ye Wenjie, who for much of the first story/book came across as the most sympathetic character to me, was then revealed as the villain, and not only could I not suspend my disbelief enough to buy her series of trauma experiences and disillusionment with humanity would transform her into the leader of a murderous cult, the whole "fifth column for the enemy" trope is one I intensely dislike in general, due to all the damage it did so often in history, and here in particular because in a Chinese story written by a Chinese author published in China (i.e. getting party approval), it made me wonder whether this was supposed to signal retrospectively that Ye Wenjie's imprisonment in camps had been right. It felt a bit like the movie Hero which is gorgeous to look at but sticks in my throat with its final conclusion that the government is in fact correct to employ brutal and lethal measures in the service of national unitiy. Now, in the Netflix version Ye Wenjie still invites the San-Ti because she feels that humanity has gone so much off the rails that it is unable to fix itself, but this time, either because seeing is different from listening, or because Rosalind Chao plays older Ye Wenjie with so much going on in her while the radio actress played her post reveal only hissing her lines, I believe this as her reaction. (Mind you, things going from bad to worse on our planet in the years since I listened to that radio adaptation also helped.) Speaking of Rosalind Chao, I think I've only seen her as Keiko O'Brian on DS9, and she really was amazing here. Up to and including that last scene with Tatiana. I do hope for some flashbacks next season.
So I'll certainly keep watching if they get to film the rest of the trilogy as well (never something granted with Netflix).
In the last week, I also indulged myself by buying two Barbara Hamblys, a novella - "Hagar", and a novel "Crimson Angel". Hagar is set during His Man Friday, when Ben is off to Washington with Dominique, Chloe and Henri, and shows us Rose investigating a case of her own during that time... with the dubiious assistance of her mother-in-law. The Rose and Livia combination was what convinced me that I needed to buy that novella right now. I mean, Ben is a wonderful pov and main character for the series, but it is fascinating to read how these two very differnt women interact when he's not around. I was also deeply intrigued by the fact Livia did with Rose what she refused to do with her own children throughout the books of the series I've read, i.e. talk about Ben's father and her relationship with him.
Crimsom Angel was a regular novel of the series, in which Barbara Hambly found an excuse to actually send off Ben to Haiti (in the last third, he refuses to go before that for all the sensible reasons, but the plot is constructed in a way that means his family's lives are on the line) and thus to incorporate some of the tragic and complicated history of the first black Republic. Cast-wise, it's a Ben-Rose-Hannibal centric book, which uses, not for the first time, the fact that Rose, while a woman of colour, never was a slave, thus does not share one key experience that formed her husband, and gives us some background on her white relations that's pure Gothic with a 21st century twist. The evil backstory villain was so dastardly that I was wondering whether, like the villainess of the novel Fever Season, he actually existed, but google didn't help me here. Mind you, even if he didn't, what he does is exactly the kind of thing that can happen if you give a group of people complete power over another group, as the actual history of Haiti both in its Sainte Domingue colonial past and after amply demonstrates. I also appreciated that Hambly gave Ben an actual moral dilemma tailored for his personality. We all know he'd never be tempted by blood money. But the spoilery thing? That's different.
Having now finished the first season, I found I liked it without feeling passionate about it. My big problem with the story as told in the radio adaptiation (as I hadn't read the actual books) was that Ye Wenjie, who for much of the first story/book came across as the most sympathetic character to me, was then revealed as the villain, and not only could I not suspend my disbelief enough to buy her series of trauma experiences and disillusionment with humanity would transform her into the leader of a murderous cult, the whole "fifth column for the enemy" trope is one I intensely dislike in general, due to all the damage it did so often in history, and here in particular because in a Chinese story written by a Chinese author published in China (i.e. getting party approval), it made me wonder whether this was supposed to signal retrospectively that Ye Wenjie's imprisonment in camps had been right. It felt a bit like the movie Hero which is gorgeous to look at but sticks in my throat with its final conclusion that the government is in fact correct to employ brutal and lethal measures in the service of national unitiy. Now, in the Netflix version Ye Wenjie still invites the San-Ti because she feels that humanity has gone so much off the rails that it is unable to fix itself, but this time, either because seeing is different from listening, or because Rosalind Chao plays older Ye Wenjie with so much going on in her while the radio actress played her post reveal only hissing her lines, I believe this as her reaction. (Mind you, things going from bad to worse on our planet in the years since I listened to that radio adaptation also helped.) Speaking of Rosalind Chao, I think I've only seen her as Keiko O'Brian on DS9, and she really was amazing here. Up to and including that last scene with Tatiana. I do hope for some flashbacks next season.
So I'll certainly keep watching if they get to film the rest of the trilogy as well (never something granted with Netflix).
In the last week, I also indulged myself by buying two Barbara Hamblys, a novella - "Hagar", and a novel "Crimson Angel". Hagar is set during His Man Friday, when Ben is off to Washington with Dominique, Chloe and Henri, and shows us Rose investigating a case of her own during that time... with the dubiious assistance of her mother-in-law. The Rose and Livia combination was what convinced me that I needed to buy that novella right now. I mean, Ben is a wonderful pov and main character for the series, but it is fascinating to read how these two very differnt women interact when he's not around. I was also deeply intrigued by the fact Livia did with Rose what she refused to do with her own children throughout the books of the series I've read, i.e. talk about Ben's father and her relationship with him.
Crimsom Angel was a regular novel of the series, in which Barbara Hambly found an excuse to actually send off Ben to Haiti (in the last third, he refuses to go before that for all the sensible reasons, but the plot is constructed in a way that means his family's lives are on the line) and thus to incorporate some of the tragic and complicated history of the first black Republic. Cast-wise, it's a Ben-Rose-Hannibal centric book, which uses, not for the first time, the fact that Rose, while a woman of colour, never was a slave, thus does not share one key experience that formed her husband, and gives us some background on her white relations that's pure Gothic with a 21st century twist. The evil backstory villain was so dastardly that I was wondering whether, like the villainess of the novel Fever Season, he actually existed, but google didn't help me here. Mind you, even if he didn't, what he does is exactly the kind of thing that can happen if you give a group of people complete power over another group, as the actual history of Haiti both in its Sainte Domingue colonial past and after amply demonstrates. I also appreciated that Hambly gave Ben an actual moral dilemma tailored for his personality. We all know he'd never be tempted by blood money. But the spoilery thing? That's different.