Book update

I just updated the eBook again. It'll take about 12 hours for it to process, so it's not available yet.


This time I made what I'd call significant revisions. I didn't change any theories or arguments, but I tried to tighten up the reasoning and the writing. That means that I deleted some stuff which I thought was repetitive or confusing (mostly in Amends); added some transitions; clarified some points which, on re-read I thought were unclear; and moved some passages around in order to improve the flow.


If anyone wants to discuss the book in comments under this post, they can do that without spoiler warnings. New viewers beware!

Book Update

I just updated the ebook at Amazon. I made changes which will, I hope, improve readability. There are just minor changes otherwise. It takes about 12 hours for the new version to be available; I understand that those who already own it should be able to get the updated version.

The book is available here.

ETA: There are spoilers in the comments below because the book covers all 7 seasons.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D

No spoilers in this post. Just speculation, though I'm not even sure it rises to the level of that. Call it "gut reaction".

What I'm about to say originated, as so often, with a comment by shadowkat. After the premiere, she said that Skye (Chloe Bennett) reminded her of Faith (Eliza Dushku). Not only do they look vaguely alike, but shadowkat felt that their mannerisms were similar and the dialogue suggested character similarities.

After last night's episode, I decided she's right. Or at least close to right. Chloe Bennett does look a bit like Eliza, and other things reinforce that. But I'm going to modify her suggestion to say that last night's plot, especially the ending, convinced me that the model isn't Faith, it's Echo (Dollhouse, for those who haven't seen it).

I'm speculating that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is Joss's chance to do what he wanted to do with Dollhouse, but wasn't able to because the network kept interfering. The fact that his brother and sister in law, both of whom were involved in Dollhouse, are very actively involved here seems like another clue.

If I were to start with this assumption and draw inferences, I could make some guesses where the plot is going. I could also suggest some character matches between the two shows. I won't do that because I don't want to spoil things for anyone, but if you've seen Dollhouse, I suspect you'll begin to note some similarities.

I'll check back in as we go through the season to see how this post holds up.

Joss's Top 3

This week's issue of Entertainment Weekly has an interview with Joss. If you haven't seen it, among other things, he mentions what he considers his top 3 episodes from all of his shows: The Body; Once More With Feeling; and Objects in Space (Firefly).

I think that's right, and I expect that judgment will hold up over time.

Quick note about "updates"

I just now realized that the page breaks I used in most of the posts had the effect of messing up the formatting by deleting the line break before the next paragraph. As a result the paragraph right after the page break wasn't separated and it could be confusing to read. I went through and (I hope) fixed that. There are no "updates" other than this clean up.

Site update

At the urging of red satin doll, I've added a link feature over on the right below the search function. The links go to the Introduction and to each season. That way, you find all the episodes for a given season collected together (though in reverse order). I hope that makes navigating the site easier.

If anyone has other suggestions, feel free to make them. I haven't spent much time figuring out how to get blogger to do stuff, so I may be overlooking a lot.

100,000!

100,000 page views, that is. And less than half of them are mine. I swear.

Thanks to everyone for reading. I never expected that so many would.

Special thanks to everyone who's commented -- you enriched both this site and my own view of the show.