There was one years and years ago by a Playboy Centerfold—I’m thinking early 70s—that made life at the Playboy mansion sound kind of dreary.

Poor Cassandra was cursed to always be right and not believed. Melisandre, on the other hand, seems to be believed, but seems unable to accurately read her own visions. Really really doubt that Stannis is Azor reborn. Danaerys seems the one most in line with a bunch of portents—the comet in the first book foretold of…

Well, GRRM can’t carry out the comparison too far since there’s no son to kill Selyse, but I’ve always thought Stannis was a study in hubris. He convinces himself that no matter what he does he’s in the right, but his definition of what is “right” has been very self-serving.

Plus, there’s that whole warg/Ghost thing. Jon’s soul can go a visiting while they get the body back together.

I was wondering if the whole burn-Shireen thing was going to fail because the Baratheons aren’t really the blood of kings.

They’re rushing now. I expect that in the WOW version Stannis will be desperate and feel he has no choice—which would indicate that Theon and his sister somehow escape or are killed some other way.

Well, it’s one thing to be a religious fanatic and another to actually see your only child screaming for you while she burns to death.

So why didn’t she just write a lightly fictionalized novel—she’d still get the publicity and she wouldn’t be on the hook for the exaggerations and distortions.

This. There have always been Stannis fans who seem to have ignored the earlier portents in the book—Stannis’ sense of justice conveniently disappears when it comes to his ambitions—i.e. killing his bro through magic. Also, when someone saves your life, as Davos did, it’s not really “justice” to cut off their fingers.

The first couple of Wachowski films I saw were terrific—Bound and The Matrix, but they’re sort of a classic case of almost too much talent—the abundance of visual imagination gets in the way of pacing, storytelling and character development. I wanted to see Jupiter Ascending—it looked gorgeous in the trailers, but my…

I’d forgotten about Strange Days until this thread came up and then I remembered it along with the other movies. I agree it had the problems you mention—but it had some interesting things to it which makes me feel like it shouldn’t be as forgotten as it is—not the least the way it gets (as does eXistenZ how absorbed…

It came a few years before the other ones. Looking back, the 90s were an interesting time for SF/Fantasy movies. Strange Days was another one. It didn’t get great reviews at the time, but I found it interesting and visually striking.

Well, I disagree with you on both, but I respect that you’ve seen them and thought about them. eXistenZ is my least favorite of the ones I mentioned, but it did stick with me and it certainly had a visceral (ugh) feel to it. As for Dark City, knowing what the hero is up against doesn’t inherently kill suspense—you…

Yep. I looked at this and thought the only reason Arizona doesn’t show up on the plus-racist side is that it doesn’t have a large African-American population. I think the study is valid as far as it goes, but it didn’t look for racism toward other groups. In Alaska, for example, the discrimination tends to be toward…

At the time, Roger Ebert actually ranked Dark City over The Matrix—Dark City was his best movie of the year. I saw Dark City before the Matrix, so the Matrix didn’t have the same impact on me that it did on those who hadn’t seen Dark City deal with similar themes. I like both films, but I actually prefer the noir look…

Ah, the extra rich, meaty taste of crickets.

I think that’s the theory—less sunnier, more northern climes have the pale folk—with the exception of the Inuit who got their Vitamin D from raw seal liver.

Oh, but they know they’re ridiculous. This is the British sense of humor at work. Plus, even silly hats can be functional—anything with a brim is going to protect you from the sun. (Not that that’s a big problem in England.)

Yeah, she married a ballet dancer with NYCB—one of those, oh-I’m-past-40-marry-young-hot-guy marriages. She didn’t want kids. It never sounded like the great love affair of all time, more like two good-looking people mainly supported by her income. I suspect not a lot held them together and he’d be surrounded by young…

Yes, well, that is a problem, but then this is GRRM we’re talking about—his original intent was a trilogy. I think there have been occasional suggestions of 2 to 3 more books . . . (sigh)