It was disappointing in season 2 when Admiral Cain and the friction she and Pegasus brought to the fleet with them lasted only two episodes. It was a rich vein of storytelling and drama that Moore and Company just dropped. Razor attempts to rectify that by fleshing out what happened to Pegasus before they met up with Galactica and also by giving Lee, as a the new battlestar commander, a mission to call his own. Up until the last 15 minutes of the movie, you think that is all you are getting. Until, Kendra Shaw, the Pegasus officer that has been central to the movie, discovers a Cylon hybrid who tells her, and I’m paraphrasing here, Kara Thrace will lead everyone to their death. That’s when you realize that this hour an a half you just sat through wasn’t about Kendra Shaw, Lee Adama or Admiral Cain at all. It was all about giving the viewer that one nugget of information about Kara Thrace. It should be no surprise that was the least interesting part of the episode for me.

Kendra Shaw is a great character, in concept. Unfortunately, the woman they cast to play her looked and sounded ridiculous in her tough girl act. Her idea of menace is talking deep and frowning. Of course, she and Kara clash, not because of any logical reason, but because they are two alpha women and they are supposed to clash. If this were real fan fiction instead of creator canon fan fiction, Shaw and Thrace would have been involved in a torrid lesbian relationship – based on mutual dislike, natch – making the final scene where Shaw orders Thrace to leave her behind on the Cylon base star fraught with emotional meaning. That would have been much more interesting. As written and shown, Shaw’s sacrifice was meaningless because she never developed an emotional attachment to other characters, nor did the viewer particularly care about her.

My biggest problem with Razor, though, was that it was shown so long after the events in the show occurred. I was constantly trying to remember if this was before or after New Caprica, Baltar running for President, Billy dying, Lee and Dee…This all happened so long ago, roughly when Roslin was dying and having hallicunations about Baltar and Six. It had been so long since the Pegasus was even a part of the fleet that throwing it back into the story was jarring. Honestly, I don’t really see the point of the movie whatsoever. Take away the one quote by the Hybrid at the end of the movie (that Kendra hears before she dies and none of the main characters ever become aware of) and this movie could have been a high-priced DVD extra or webisode.

Other Thoughts

• While I thought the movie was pointless, overall, there were a couple of great scenes. When Cain asked for her XO’s sidearm and shot him in the head it was shocking, even though I knew it was coming.
• It was barely suggested in during season two, save by Cain’s intake of breath to Six’s line, “You’re not my type” before she killed her, but it makes sense there was a relationship there.
• Are the Cylons really so stupid to send a Six onto a battlastar where another six is station? I guess so.

I love naps. I descend from a long line of nappers. Sunday afternoon naps were as routine on the Lord’s day as attending church morning and night and eating a large Sunday lunch. My dad took a 20 minute nap in his recliner every day when he came home for lunch. He would lean back, fall asleep almost immediately, then pop up in 20 minutes (without the aid of an alarm clock), blink a couple of times, push the footrest under the chair, stand up and leave for work. We call them power naps today, my dad was just “resting his eyes.” To honor the memory of my late father, I take a nap every afternoon, sometime between 1:00 and 2:00 p.m. I believe I’ve become a little infamous in my neighborhood for it. People I don’t even know say to my friends, “Did you know that Melissa L takes a nap every day?” Instead of being embarrassed by it, I’ve decided to embrace it. After all, research is on my side.

Besides the health benefits and the fact that I will be one of the Smucker’s Centurions in 68 years, great ideas come to me when I’m napping. Just the other day, an entire blog post snuck into my unconscious, seeped into my brain and when I woke up, I had the outline for a blog post that I hadn’t known how to write. There have been other instances where a cat nap has helped me unravel thorny plot or character problems. Sometimes, I don’t even really sleep. I simply close my eyes, stop thinking so hard and let my subconscious take over.

Naps aren’t the only brainstorming tool I have but I have found that sitting down at a computer or with a pen and paper and trying to think through plot mechanics rarely, if ever, works for me. My best ideas come to me unbidden, when I’m thinking of something else entirely. The trick then is to get the brilliant idea down on paper before I forget it. (Not only do I come from a long line of nappers, but there are more crazy people back there than I care to admit.) So, the trick for me isn’t thinking about it but doing the opposite. Below are other activities that, more often than not, lead to inspiration.

Taking a Shower – Warm water, rubbing soap all over your body, massaging your head…how can you not be relaxed when you take a shower?

Driving – When my kids were little and annoying, I would strap them into their car seats and go for a drive. Not only would it calm them down, it would calm me down. I do some of my best thinking while I’m driving and was quite alarmed when I realized I didn’t remember the drive I just made, I was too busy living inside my head.

Routine Daily Tasks – I had a story breakthrough the other day while making a sandwich. Luckily, I remember the breakthrough but completely forgot the sandwich. Lord knows I have enough routine tasks in the day (dishes, floors, laundry, cooking) that brilliance would shine from every pore.  Unfortunately, there is no record of me shining with brilliance on a regular basis. I’m optimistic, though.

Running – I wrote some of my best stuff when I was running five days a week. You would think that would be motivation enough to get me back out on the road, wouldn’t you? Somehow, it’s not. Walking the dog takes the place of running these days.

Now it’s your turn: How do your best ideas (writing, work, personal) come to you? Are you a napper? Or are you one of those strange people who say, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead?”

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I don’t write much about music because, of my interests, I know very little about it.  My expertise on the subject consists of “I like this,” or “this sucks.” And, I’m not interested enough in it to learn the history or study the subtleties between jazz and blues or alternative and indie. I know what I like (alternative) and what I don’t like (country, though I have gone through phases of listening to the genre). Unfortunately, Snow Patrol‘s latest album, Fallen Empires (★) falls into the “this sucks” category.

I love Snow Patrol. I’ve been listening to their 2008 album, A Hundred Million Suns regularly for the last month or so, an album that in my opinion, is strong from start to finish. There may be a couple of songs I don’t like, but they don’t stand out. What stands out is the album is fun to listen to and that, my friends, is my main requirement for music.  The best song on the entire album is the final song, “The Lightening Strike,” a 16 minute marathon of a song which is really three songs in one. I love the way the mood of the song evolves and changes as the song morphs from one sound to another.

I’ve always been a proponent of buying entire albums instead of the trend of individual songs. I love albums that have a coherent message or theme. Think Green Day’s American Idiot (one of the best albums of all time, IMO) and anything from Arcade Fire. I would have put Snow Patrol in that category before hearing Fallen Empires because their previous albums had a coherence that is completely lacking in Fallen Empires.  Most of the songs are slow, boring, full of ear worm phrases and riffs and are completely disconnected from each other in sound and style. It seems the album was made with an eye to maximize the number of songs that could be licensed for end of episode slow-mo montages on ABC dramas. In that regard, Fallen Empires is a resounding success. As an album with a coherent vision, consistent sound and pleasurable listening experience, it is an utter failure.

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One of the most difficult aspects of dieting is making good choices. If I’m craving something sweet, I know an apple is a better choice than a Swiss Cake Roll. So, I choose an apple. Something like this follows:

1. Use apple corer to slice my apple.
2. Take a bite, enjoy the healthy crunch of good nutrition.
3. Chew for an exceptionally long time (I left the skin on.)
4. Swallow. That? Was awesome.
5. Be proud of myself.
6. Eat another slice.
7. Feel better than all those fatsos eating Swiss Cake Rolls.
8. Eat another slice.
9. Think about how much I despise people who eat apples whole. Note that it reminds me of horses eating apples and that eating apples is almost as loud as eating chips.
10. Wonder if I have any chips.
11. Start on slice number four.
12. When will this fucking apple end?
13. Consider adding peanut butter to my apple to make it interesting again.
14. Calculate how many calories/grams of fat that would add.
15. Decide to just have a little peanut butter on one slice of apple.
16. Open the peanut butter jar and smell the wonderful aroma of high fat food.
17. Thank the lord there are no life threatening allergies in my home.
18. Spoon some peanut butter on my apple slice. Lick it off.
19. Decide that half an apple is better than a whole Swiss Cake Roll.
20. Toss the remaining apple in the trash, where it belongs.
21. Eat a spoonful of peanut butter.
22. Repeat, with chocolate chips.
23. Feel a bit of guilt.
24. Resolve to eat an apple tomorrow.

In the scenario above, Cry the Beloved Country is the apple. I liked it for a while. Then I got bored. There is nothing that is drawing me back into it and there are too many enticing alternatives. Sure, they probably won’t enrich my mind but now I want to be entertained. I’m sure I will finish it. One day. But, not today. Or tomorrow. Or this week. Maybe next month.

You may remember in my 12 Days of Boredom post about writing I stated it is better for me to research, then write. There are fewer distractions. Notice I say fewer. I’m still easily distracted by history and research, most recently by the 1870 US census of Jack County, Texas. But, before I get to that riveting document (no sarcasm intended) let me tell you, briefly, how I got there.

There are three parts to this novel, with the largest part taking place at a US Army fort in 1871. Of course, there is a town that supports the fort and, logically, my heroine will visit the town, and will live there for a short while. I’m definitely not a fan of pages and pages of description but setting the scene is required. Since these are real places, a certain amount of veracity is necessary. Ergo, searching the internet for the history of Jacksboro, Texas. There isn’t much there and doesn’t appear to be a historical society in the town, save the 4-H museum (did you know, Jacksboro was the birthplace of 4-H? You’re welcome.) What I do know about the town, I’ve pieced together from a myriad of Texas history sources and, randomly, I hit on the 1870 census. When I studied it, I realized the town was much bigger in 1871 than I originally thought.

This is not a bad thing, but it has made me stop down in writing and forced me to do more thinking. How much information or description do I give? Since this is in first person I have to think of how much detail this character would notice and, eventually, put down on paper. Should I leave out the description entirely and rely on readers’ preconcieved ideas of Western towns to fill in the blanks? You see, whichever avenue I choose, I have to be consistent throughout the book. It would be weird for her to describe Galveston in detail and give very little thought to Jacksboro.

I also have to remind myself while I’m looking at The Townsmen volume of Time/Life’s The Old West series that I am probably the only person in the world – or one of a few – that is distracted by the question of where did they get their windows? Was there a glass blower in town? Did they ship them across country? How many broke along the way?

You see my problem. Luckily, I know this is temporary. This has happened to me a couple of times recently and I always get jolted out of my own head and back onto the page. I feel I’m almost there in this instance because, when it comes right down to it I’m writing fiction. I don’t have to be 100% truthful. All I’m required to do is to honor the truth and I doubt anyone will question my integrity if I don’t give specifics about the challenges of transporting glass across thousands of miles of bad road.

I’ve never been a huge Marilyn Monroe fan. I don’t dislike her, necessarily, but I’ve never bought into the pop culture obsession with her. She was an average actress with an incredible figure and loads of sex appeal, the latter two things being what made her a star. More than contributing anything of substance to her profession and the world, she created the phenomenon of stardom born of being popular and filled the indescribable need that fuels the pop culture psyche. If Marilyn Monroe were in her prime today, she would be the most popular reality television star on the planet.

My desire to see My Week With Marilyn was not piqued by the AV Club Book vs. Movie article  by Tasha Robinson. Using the books by Colin Clarke the movie is based on, Robinson paints a harsh picture of Clarke, a characterization borne out by the content of the books but is, of course, absent from the movie. The “sheltered, well-educated, full-of-himself twenty-something” Clarke of the book is replaced in the movie by a “fresh-faced, nice young man, but essentially a personality-free cipher.” I’ve seen enough movies to know that this is standard operating procedure for Hollywood – see my review of We Bought a Zoo – but it is a different thing to go into a movie knowing that half of the movie is bastardized than discovering that after the fact. Why did I see the movie? Two reasons. My mom wanted to see it and I wanted to see Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe.

The movie opens with Williams as Monroe performing a musical number. I’m not conversant enough in Monroe’s oeuvre to say what number, from what movie, and frankly don’t care. While I watching the number I thought, “Michelle Williams is playing Marilyn Monroe” and wondered, vaguely, if they padded William’s tummy and hips to give her Marilyn’s hourglass figure. I had, days before, come across the 1957 movie The Prince and the Showgirl on TCM and managed to watch 15 minutes of it before being bored to tears and saw, firsthand, how pouchy Monroe’s stomach was.(I am not being critical of it – Lord knows that would be the pot calling the kettle black since a pouchy stomach is my defining physical characteristic – just making an observation.) It takes about 15 minutes or more for Williams as Monroe to arrive in the movie and I spent that time playing, “Oh! There’s that actor.” By my count, I saw Lily Potter from Harry Potter,  DCI Foyle from Foyle’s War, Jo from MI-5, Carson from Downton Abbey and Hermione from HP. (You see, Christy, watching all those BBC and Masterpiece shows do pay off.) Once the movie gets going, though, it doesn’t take long for me to forget this is Williams playing a part. By the end of the movie, I believed I was watching the real Marilyn. There are two still photographs at the end of the movie and I am still not sure if they were shots of Marilyn or of Williams as Monroe.

Other Thoughts:

• It is amazing how sexy Williams as Monroe made a khaki pencil skirt and a collared shirt look. There isn’t one star in the world today that could pull it off.
• Williams is, of course, at the top of the Oscar list for Best Actress, as she should be.
• Which brings up another point: when there are actors/actresses nominated for imitating a real person, especially a real person that is familiar to the world at large, they almost always bring home the Oscar. Sometimes it is a deserving win, other times it is not. In a year like this year, you have Williams as Monroe and Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher going up against Viola Davis as a fictional black maid in Mississippi. In any other year, Davis would be the winner, hands down, but this year I bet she loses to Streep or Williams. I rather wish there was a separate category for performances based on real people, but that will never happen for a myriad of reasons.

Related articles

• My Week With Marilyn (nochargebookbunch.com)
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The son, who has significantly more screen time and a bigger story, isn't even in the poster. False advertising.

As a wife and mother, I’m starting to get a complex. It seems like Hollywood is rooting for my demise. I guess, though, Hollywood has always mined the Father Left Alone to Raise His Kids on His Own OMG What Will He Do? storyline for emotional impact. Because, you know, it’s so much more difficult for men to deal with their kids after the loss of a wife/mother than it would be for a woman to deal. (As I’m trying to think of movies that have reversed this scenario it occurs to me that Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close has done just that. I will have to see that movie – though is it a coincidence that this movie has gotten much worse reviews that the two above? *ponders*) We, as viewers, have been conditioned to have a certain emotional reaction to these stories and this reaction is due, I believe in no small part, to the fact that it is always the men that are persevering through the perilous waters of grief while parenting precocious and/or rebellious children. By using this shortcut, the actors, writer and director don’t have to work as hard as they should to pull those emotions out of us.

Let’s start with We Bought a Zoo, a much more depressing movie than the title would indicate. A movie that sells you a romantic, family comedy with a few wacky hijinks with the title, casting of Scarlett Johannsen and the standard older child rebel boy and younger, sweet faced moppet sister…

I have to stop down here and relate to you one of my all time storytelling pet peeves: the large disparity in siblings ages. Classic Hollywood was absolutely shameless in this area. Off the top of my head, I give you “The Philadelphia Story” and “The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer.” I’m sure with very little effort, I could come up with dozens more. Modern Hollywood still drags this out. Both “We Bought a Zoo” and “The Descendants” are guilty of it, having children that are 6-8 years apart in age. I’m curious how prevelant a large gap in ages is across the country because I can tell you, with 100% certainty, that it is rare in suburbia.

…While on the one hand I respect the hell out of Soderberg and company for not going the “And The Love of a Good Woman Pulls Them All Through” route, on the other hand, I’m irritated that they didn’t. First and foremost, you do not cast Scarlett Johannsen opposite Matt Damon unless you plan to have a significant romantic subplot. “But, her beauty was toned down!” you say. “She looked like a normal person!” Girl, please. Scarlett Johanssen toned down is still one of the prettiest women on the planet. I have not read the book that We Bought a Zoo is based on but I am willing to bet that Scarlett Johanssen’s character is no where to be found. If you’re not going to go there, why create the character and cast her? I’ll tell you why. To get people in the theater so you can disappoint them while ripping their heart out and making them feel guilty for being disappointed. This movie wasn’t about wacky hijinks or healing a grief stricken broken heart. It was about a family, mainly the father, coming to grips with the premature death of a perfect spouse. It was about a father and a son coming to grips with each other. It was heart wrenching. It was manipulative. It was effective. It was also Hollywoodized in ways it probably shouldn’t have been. The kids were aged up significantly from their real life counterparts. The older son was the only one that seemed to have an issue with the mother’s death. The seven year old daughter was the emotionally stable one of the three, giving sage advice at times. (And also shouting “We Bought a Zoo!” with enthusiasm, probably for the misleading trailer.) I guess Hollywood doesn’t want or know how to deal with very young children (which is what Benjamin Mee had when his wife died) dealing with death. Maybe that would be too much to ask of a young actor.

We Bought A Zoo (★★★) was a good movie that packed an emotional punch. But, it wasn’t what they sold to the public. I wanted my kids to see this movie, badly, but when they wouldn’t I went with friends. I’m so glad my kids didn’t go because it is not a movie for kids. In any way, shape or form. Not that the material is inappropriate, but the subject matter would either be over their head or uninteresting or both.

In The Descendants (★★★★), George Clooney is brilliant as an emotionally closed off, unlikable man, Matt King, navigating the coming death of his comatose wife. While bringing people together to say goodbye to his hospitalized wife, his oldest daughter tells him that her mom, his wife, was cheating on him. The movie then becomes a bit muddied, as I’m sure anyone’s emotions in that situation would become. Is he grieving for the death of his wife or for the death of the relationship, of the trust he thought they had? Through his journey to find the other man so he can say goodbye to Matt’s wife – which is admittedly a magnanimous thing to do – the viewer can see why the wife would be driven to cheat on Matt. He is emotionally unavailable and, they tell us, always focused on work. It is obvious he loved his wife deeply, too. He bites his tongue when his father-in-law praises his daughter as being a good girl, faithful and too good for Matt. I don’t think I would have had the fortitude to keep silent in the same situation. Clooney plays King with all the complexity that the character he deserves and, at the end, you aren’t sure whether his motives in regards to a family land deal are for the common good or as a way to ruin a big deal for his wife’s lover. There is lots of Oscar talk around Clooney for the role, all deserved.

Grace is the nominal centerpiece of the episode which means they have to manufacture a way to get her lost in the woods so she can talk to the ghost of the ex-boyfriend and Red John minion she killed at the end of Season Three. Luckily, they include a Chinese assassin posing as a whore to add a bit of comic relief to the proceedings, otherwise we would have had to sit through painfully obtuse conversations where we learn nothing significant or important about anything. Is Grace coming to terms with the fact that she about to marry a psychopath who was only interested in her as a way to get to Jane? Who knows? The fact that she kept the necklace given to her by her crazy dead fiance would indicate, “No.” Honestly, the only thing of significance to this entire story is the fact that she kept the necklace, draping it oh so artfully over the orchids on her desk. I’ve always thought that the necklace was some sort of bug to allow Red John inside the CBI. Now, instead of throwing it away, she put it right in the center of things. Sometimes, these people are so stupid you wonder how they can function in society.

The supposed to be interesting but not really Z plot has to do with Wayne Rigsby, his ongoing affection for Grace and his new girlfriend who drops the bombshell at the end of the episode that she is pregnant. OMG! What does that mean for requisite love affair on the show? Nothing, since Wayne is a stand up guy he definitely will stand by his girlfriend and though I think he’ll stop short of marrying her he will probably ask. I feel for the girl. She’s a sweet, if annoyingly nervous, character that deserves more than being Wayne’s second-choice behind Grace.

Other Thoughts:

• I’m surprised it has taken three and a half seasons for the show to use the title, “My Bloody Valentine.”
• Poor Cho. Talk about the most underdeveloped and underutilized character on the show. Over the course of three seasons he’s been given – what? – one background episode, chronic back pain and a hooker for a love interest. If I was Tim Kang, I’d be pissed.
• I didn’t get a good look at the book Jane was reading at the end. Did anyone recognize it?
• The case of the week was notable only in that Joaquim de Almeida was the mob boss. I always think of him as the Big Bad in Clear and Present Danger.
• I watched Simon Baker on Letterman the other night. Wow, was that a horrible interview, through no fault of Baker’s. It reminds me why I dislike those late night shows so much. Letterman and Leno are horrible interviewers. Truly atrocious. I haven’t watched Fallon so I will reserve judgement on him.
• Next week is a repeat. Here’s hoping they return with sweeps episodes, which are always of higher quality.

What did everyone else think of My Bloody Valentine? Am I being too harsh? Not harsh enough? Do you find these same weaknesses in the show? I would love to hear a different perspective.

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I have, in my reading life, gone through a phase centered on every genre – thrillers, espionage, mysteries, historical fiction, classics, horror, young adult, non-fiction, fantasy and romance. You name it, I’ve read it. I have settled comfortably into my two preferred genres – historical fiction and classics – but still read the odd fantasy, mystery and young adult books to keep things fresh. One genre I tend to avoid is romance, not because I’m snotty and think it is beneath me. No, I have very fond memories of my romance genre phase. In fact, I can trace my devotion to reading to my middle school and high school years when I would devour Danielle Steele and Sidney Shelton books over the summer. There is one Danielle Steele book that stands out, I believe it was “Crossings,” about two people who met on a ship crossing the Atlantic and their ill-fated love affair across generations. I think it was ill-fated. Maybe no one died. Maybe they were just star-crossed. Anyway. I revisited the genre in the mid-late nineties, in particular Nora Roberts who seems to publish a book every other week. While I always closed one of Roberts’ books very with a smile on my face, I began to resent those heroines and their romantic paramours. My husband, as awesome as he is (and he is awesome in many, many ways) could not ever live up to the fictional lovers that populate romance novels. I posit that, through no fault of their own, no husband can. These men are designed to be fantasy, to be unrealistic. While I know that, logically, I couldn’t help but be a little resentful that I hadn’t married a man who could build a boat in his rustic barn and then take me sailing off the coast of Cape Cod.

So, I gave up romances. It wasn’t a huge loss, after all, since almost every novel has some element of, if not romance, at least a love interest. As do movies and television shows. That is a good thing because I am a sucker for that stuff. I blame coming to age reading Danielle Steele and Sidney Sheldon for my giddy excitement about relationships in almost every television show I watch and every movie I see. If that element is missing, I am usually disappointed. I am such a product of Hollywood’s ideas of romance that it’s a little pathetic, but there you are.

Then, a couple of years ago, I discovered Georgette Heyer through a Jane Austen blog I follow. Heyer was an early 20th century novelist, publishing 58 novels over 50 years, contemporary (at the time) mysteries, historical fiction and most notably, Regency Romances. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with how that relates to Jane Austen, Austen lived and was published during the Regency, the time in England’s history when the Prince Regent effectively ruled instead of his crazy father, King George III. I won’t go into the details of the period, for that click on the link in the previous sentence, but it was a very distinct time for British culture and is very different from the era that the 19th century is best known for, Victorian England.  Heyer’s Regency romances were inspired by Jane Austen’s work and as a result, she is very popular with Austen fans. Her novels are occasionally reviewed on Austen websites such as Austenprose (one of my favorites) and it was one such review, along with my shiny new Kindle, which motivated me to purchase Cotillion. After finishing the book in two days (Heyer’s novels are insanely quick reads) I purchased another through Kindle, then another, then another…I finally had to make myself read a different author. My Mastercard couldn’t take much more.

A popular idea when dieting is to eat one, small piece of high quality chocolate a day, satisfying your sweet tooth but not wrecking your overall weight loss goal. I’ve never been able to do that because – come on – it’s high quality chocolate. Who can eat just one? I’d rather completely deprive myself because I know if I eat one I’ll sit down and eat the whole bag. Reading Heyer is a bit like that for me. Her Regency romances are confections of light-hearted fun, populated with witty characters – some ridiculous – living in a world that is difficult for the 99% to fathom but loads of fun to visit. Because Heyer was writing 100 years after the time her novels were set, she included loads of details and information about that society. That is one reason reading Heyer would be an excellent pre-cursor to Jane Austen. Austen didn’t take time to describe dress or carriages or the like. She knew her readers understood that without explaining it. Heyer didn’t have that luxury and her novels are historical snapshots of a period that is as fascinating as it is foreign.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed a Kindle version of a Heyer novel on sale for $1.99. Of course I bought it, which led to another, then another…Surprisingly, I didn’t enjoy the last of the trio as much as the other Heyer novels I’ve read so this time it wasn’t difficult to move on. Below are brief reviews of the three I most recently read and my favorite Heyer novels I’ve read over the last couple of years.

Sprig Muslin (★★★★) Heyer’s novels almost always contain a rich, handsome, well dressed and roguish hero and a poor, plain or feisty heroine who, for one reason or another, resists his charms. Sir Gareth Ludlow is all of these, with an added dimension – he lost his true love seven years earlier and has never recovered. He decides he needs to marry and settles on asking a somewhat plain, retiring acquaintance of his, Lady Hester to be his wife. On the way to her country home to ask, Ludlow meets a seventeen year old girl who has run away from home as a gambit to force her grandfather to allow her to marry a Army officer. She is alone, without money but with enough spunk and ignorance to get herself in trouble. He convinces her to allow  him to escort her where she’s going but instead takes her to Lady Hester’s, causing quite a stir among her family. Because she is so similar in temperament to his dead fiance, they all believe that Amanda is his lover. Hester refuses him, Amanda runs away and Ludlow goes after her. This leads to all sorts of complications, chief among them Ludlow getting shot and, through  events I can’t even begin to explain, Hester coming to a roadside in to nurse him back to health. You know where it is going to lead before it gets there but it is one of Heyer’s more interesting rides. If I had a quibble, it would be we don’t spend enough time with Hester and we spend too much time with the immature, annoying Amanda. On the whole, it ranks up there as one of my favorite Heyer.

Unknown Ajax (★★★) While the detail in Heyer’s novels are a strength, her inclusion into every novel of the dandy men of the time along with their fashion obsession and slang filled dialogue can grate on the nerves. This is apparent on almost every page of Unknown Ajax. Between the two competing regency bucks and the middle class heir that hides his upper class polish behind slang filled Scottish brogue, I could hardly understand what they were all saying. But, there were pirates, ghosts, a gunshot wound and a superb drawing-room drama at the end that made up for it.

Convenient Marriage (★★) Full disclosure – I didn’t finish this book, but I did read the ending. Another example of Heyer spending too much time with the annoying character. This one was set earlier than the other Heyer novels I’ve read, taking place during the American Revolutionary War. Plus, she gave the heroine a charming stutter. Well, it was charming when she wasn’t being annoying. Mostly she was annoying.

****

The Grand Sophy (★★★★★) This is, by far, my favorite Heyer. Sophy is the best Heyer heroine I’ve read. I might even like her more than Elizabeth Bennet. I know. sacrilegious. This is the novel I would recommend starting with. It has everything that is wonderful about Heyer.

The Reluctant Widow (★★★★★) A very close second. Through everyone’s favorite plot device, mistaken identity, a poor but gentile woman is talked into marrying a dying man. Things go downhill from there but in the most entertaining of ways.

Frederica (★★★★★) A rich man’s country cousins come to town and ask his assistance in launching them into society. As they get into one scrape after another, he can’t help but be charmed by the strong-willed and lovely leader of the bunch, Frederica, whose only goal is to see her siblings happy.

Faro’s Daughter (★★★★★) Unlike Austen, Heyer didn’t shy away from the vices of the rich of the time, notably gambling and love affairs. Faro was a popular card game of the time and Faro’s Daughter centers on a gaming house run by a woman and her young niece, Deborah Grantham, who is trying to find a way to restore her family to respectability.  There are two marriage offers, an attempt at buying her off, kidnapping and power plays between two head-strong characters. It’s all great fun.

Related articles

• Sprig Muslin, by Georgette Heyer – A Review (austenprose.com)
• Top 20 Jane Austen-inspired Books of 2011 (austenprose.com)
• Georgette Heyer: Biography of a Bestseller by Jennifer Kloester – review (guardian.co.uk)
• Georgette Heyer: Biography of a Bestseller by Jennifer Kloester (guardian.co.uk)
• These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer (violetcrush.wordpress.com)
• Nuts for a bleak winter (wordwenches.typepad.com)
• How I found the Regency Historical author – Ms Sherry Lynn Ferguson (apromontoryfirst.wordpress.com)

Much of the two episodes is focused on Baltar’s trial and, as great as the BSG writers are at everything else, they show their weakness in writing riveting courtroom drama. The sole exception is Lee’s cross-examination of Laura, which held a plethora of undertones, from their relationship from the beginning of the series and Lee’s complicated relationship with his father. The rather boring trial ends with Lampkin maniuplating the court to cross-examine Lee who is serving as defense co-counsel. As ridiculous as that is, it is a deal more realistic than Lee preaching to the tribunal and the audience under cross-examination about how their society has found numerous ways to forgive all transgressions, which he details, except in the case of Baltar. It was a sickening piece of pious chastisement by a navel gazing character that can’t decide if he loves or hates his father and doesn’t see that every action he has ever undertaken is a result of whatever feeling in that regard is at top of mind. I’m not saying that Lee was wrong, he wasn’t. But, for Baltar to be acquitted in that way was an incredibly lazy piece of writing. But, it did prove, yet again, that the “society” Roslin, Adama, etc. has worked so hard to maintain is a ghost of its former self.

In Laura’s cross-examination it is revealed that she is taking camalla extract again because her cancer has returned. The return of taking camalla means that she is having visions of the Opera House again, visions she discovers she shares with Athena, Hera and Caprica Six. When the fleet makes its final jump to the Ion Nebula, Laura immediately feels faint and the power of all the ships in the fleet goes out. While everyone on Galactica is running about, trying to find flashlights and return power to the ship, Tigh, Tory, Anders and the Chief follow the sound of the music they have been hearing for days. They all converge in a room on Galactica and realize they are Cylons. Coincidentally, or not, the power of all ships are restored and Cylon base ships jump into range.  After their initial shock and denial, Tigh orders them all to take their action stations and do their job.

Lee, no longer a military officer, can’t not help when the Cylons jump in. He gets his gear and hops in a Viper to help out. While engaging the enemy, he sees an unknown bogie to his left, goes to investigate and discovers Kara Thrace in a Viper. “Hello, Lee. It’s really me. It’s okay. I’ve been to earth and I’m going to take us there.”

The reveal of the Tory, Tyrol, Anders and Tigh, four leaders of the resistance on New Caprica, would be shocking if they hadn’t spent the entire two hours foreshadowing it. If you didn’t figure out what they were in the first episode you just haven’t been paying very much attention. Kara’s reemergence is quite a cliffhanger, but disappointing in a way as well. It is proof that the show doesn’t have the courage to kill off a main character and stick with it. Kara is back. Is she the fifth Cylon? That would be the logical answer. Unfortunately, when it comes to Kara’s story here on out. logic plays no part.

Other Thoughts:

• Baltar always lands on his feet. When Lampkin and Lee get him off, he is saved by three women, taken to his “new life” during the confusion of the power outage.
• 44,035 number of humans settled on New Caprica. 38,838 left.
• To discredit Laura as a witness, Lee up her camalla use and visions. She sees where he is going and begs him in an undertone not to do it. Egged on by his father calling him a coward, he asks her if she is currently taking camalla. Adama, ever protective of Laura, tries to stop it, to Laura’s surprise. When she answers in the affirmative Lee says no further questions, but she forces it, “Mr. Adama aren’t you going to ask me why? Finish what you started.”
• Lee’s cross-examination of Laura leads to Dee leaving him.
• Cute Roslin and Adama moment – she calls him first thing and they talk on the phone like couples talk to each other early in their relationship. It’s adorable.
• Baltar acquitted. 3-2 vote. Adama voted for acquittal. She can’t believe it but Adama stands up for his decision. Love that because it seems like too many times he acquiesces.
• The song that the four Cylons are hearing is a re-imagined version of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower.” Great version. Check it out on iTunes.
• “Celebrity trials inevitably bring out the crazies.”
• “I owe my life to Gaius Baltar and the decision he made that day.”
• “But then you humans always destroy the ones that love you, don’t you?”
• “Gaius Frakking Baltar.”
• “I even believe that our low life pond scum of a client deserves a fair trial.”
• “You’re my oldest friend, Saul. You never embarrass me.”
• “I’m calling you a liar and a coward. One who doesn’t have the guts to go after a man himself.”
• “Don’t let them see you sweat, Laura.”
• “Were you with us a few moments ago, in the lobby of the opera house?”
• “Sabotage. With music.”
• “There must be some kind of way out of here.”
• “So that’s it. After all this time. A switch goes off just like that.”
• “It’s true. We’re Cylons. And we have been from the start.”

Related articles

• Liveblogging BSG on BBC: Episodes 3.14/3.15/3.16 – “Kara Thrace and her special destiny? That sounds like a bad cover band, Sam.” (swampofboredom.com)
• BSG on BBC 2.20/3.01: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part 2/Occupation – “There is always a back up plan for victory.” (swampofboredom.com)
• BSG on BBC 3.02/3.03: Precipice/Exodus, Part 1 – “How many times do I have to shoot you, anyway?” (swampofboredom.com)
• BSG on BBC 1.10/1.11: Pegasus/Resurrection Ship Part 1 – “It’s like a dream.” (swampofboredom.com)
• BSG on BBC 3.17/3.17/3.18 – Two out of three ain’t bad (swampofboredom.com)
• BSG on BBC 2.16/2.17: “Sacrifice”/”The Captain’s Hand” – “And was it worth it?” (swampofboredom.com)
• BSG on BBC 2.18/2.19: “Downloaded”/”Lay Down Your Burdens, Part 1″ – “Something dark is coming.” (swampofboredom.com)
• BSG on BBC 2.12/2.13 – “Resurrection Ship, Part 2″/”Epiphanies” – “It’s not enough to survive, one has to be worth surviving.” (swampofboredom.com)
• BSG on BBC: Home Part 1 & 2 – “I’m putting our family back together.” (swampofboredom.com)
• BSG on BBC 2.08/2.09: Final Cut/Flight of the Phoenix – “All we have to look forward to is this.” (swampofboredom.com)