Follow Friday (16)

Follow Friday is hosted by Rachel of Parajunkie.com and Alison of Alison Can Read  If you want to join in the fun just head over the blogs mentioned above and start checking out the various answer for today's question:  


Q: Define what characteristics your favorite books share. Do they have all a kick as heroine or is it the hot love interest the Alpha Male? 


Well, this is going to be a different answer because my favorite books fell on TV/movie based shows such as Stargate: Atlantis books, Starfleet Academy books (in J.J. Abrams universe) and Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising Series. The common thread of these books are they have more or less team-centric stories and loads of adventure to thrill the heart. :D 

Stargate Atlantis: Reliquary by Martha Wells

Stargate Atlantis: Reliquary by Martha Wells
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read this years back after the TV show ended its run. I wasn't disappointed at all with the book. Few authors can capture the voices of TV characters and Martha Wells did an awesome job here. I felt like I was watching another episode of the show in fact, it made me wish this was turned into an episode. :D Great exploration piece, enjoyed another peak into Sheppard's ATA gene difference which made me also wish the show's writers have expanded more into that mythos they've put forth. I thought it would delicious background to play around while the team where in the Pegasus Galaxy.

Oh, seeing Joe Flanigan in all the challenges Wells put the character through would make all Sheppard fans want more. Rodney and Sheppard's camaraderie (which sometimes mean trading barbs with the scientist)was executed very nicely and we see a briefly that he cares for the major in his own huffing way. :) Teyla fighting against the drug etc.

View all my reviews

Waiting on Wednesday (3)

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted here, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

Winterling by Sarah Prineas

I followed this link from one of my fave authors in Stargate: Atlantis book series,Entanglement by Martha Wells tweets. After reading the summary, I'm  psyched! I hope the paperback won't be too far behind. :D

Summary from Goodreads:

With her boundless curiosity and wild spirit, Fer has always felt that she doesn’t belong. Not when the forest is calling to her, when the rush of wind through branches feels more real than school or the quiet farms near her house. Then she saves an injured creature—he looks like a boy, but he’s really something else. He knows who Fer truly is, and invites her through the Way, a passage to a strange, dangerous land.

Fer feels an instant attachment to this realm, where magic is real and oaths forge bonds stronger than iron. But a powerful huntress named the Mor rules here, and Fer can sense that the land is perilously out of balance. Fer must unlock the secrets about the parents she never knew and claim her true place before the worlds on both sides of the Way descend into endless winter.

Sarah Prineas captivates in this fantasy-adventure about a girl who must find within herself the power to set right a terrible evil.

Hardcover, 256 pages

Expected publication: January 3rd 2012 by HarperChildrens

Exposition

...provides the reader or the audience the background, the plot, the setting, the supporting characters, and the theme to help us understand the story.

As a very neophyte screenwriter I've been attentively watching several of my favorite TV shows and observed how the writers crafted their expositions. Of course, wishing to have the luxury of reading the script at the same time the episode was aired would have been cool but I can only do so much. Sure, there are DVD sets and Ebay (hahaa) but I can't certainly buy all of them. I can only choose. Anyways, here are a few of them...

Credit www.tvovermind.zap2it.com

For Supernatural,  concise crafting of the Winchester brothers dialogue (not too wordy) delivered the plot quickly and the who's who they had to deal with. The What was usually presented through reading unexplained deaths in the newspaper like from Season Three: The Kids are Alright. Given the nomadic lifestyle and their type of job, the brothers used newspapers as a source to check out killings or disappearances, which they could tell had a supernatural cause connected to it. Information gathering on a certain lore was through the internet, the local library or their father's journal , which was heavily used from Season One and Season Two, I think). I can't recall if in the third season the journal was prominent. I may have to wait for the reruns. Through later seasons, the newspapers were very handy and information passed by their family friend/fellow hunter, Bobby, would launch the brothers into full on investigative mode.

Credit www.mywatchmovies.blogspot.com

For Smallville, the characters have to lay it out for the audience a little. Exposition was delivered between two or three characters, depending which big three of  week story is it.  The presentation sort of followed one of the characters thought processes like a normal brainstorming session to deduce either the motive of the antagonist (an example between calculating Tessa and feisty Chloe in Season Nine: Sacrifice or the solution of a problem  the main characters were facing like in Season Six: Justice.

For Stargate: Atlantis, Dr. Rodney McKay  usually provides the background of what the team has encountered as being the closest expert in Ancients and their technology. An example from Season One: Hot Zone.  I sometimes found that giving the scientist the whole brunt of the story (in several other episodes) can be a bit tiresome and drag everything down. Would a particular episode fared better if the exposition was given to another 'expert' or it was broken down with another semi-regular character? Maybe.

Something to remember for the day: "Good exposition, however, never simply "dumps" information in our lap." Read more from The Script Lab. 

Now, let's try to apply it with my drafts.