Clone Wars -- "Blue Shadow Virus" (Ep. 1.17)

-- Fear is a disease; hope is its only cure.

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This is another one-shot episode. I want to like it, but I don't quite, I think. The villain, Dr. Nuvo Vindi, is too cliche, too Nazi mad scientist. He even defends the right of life for a virus, the most deadly virus the galaxy has ever known.

And, fine, I get that. It's an interesting philosophical question. What right do we as humans have to try to eradicate diseases, which are also living things? But I don't think anyone is going to say that any living thing doesn't have the right to try to defend itself against things that are trying to kill it and a disease, by default, is attacking the host. So, yeah, I find the argument that a killer virus has just as much right to life as humans to be a little... weak. To say the least.

The threat is one of biological warfare. Dr. Vindi, working for the Separatists, wants to release a virus that could, potentially, wipe out all life in the galaxy. Of course, it wouldn't affect droids, so the droid army would be able to advantage of the chaos of a plague and defeat the Republic while they tried to halt the spread of the virus. From that perspective, I can't say it's a bad plan. And it mirrors the efforts of certain groups in our world to weaponize diseases for use in war.

Beyond that layer, though, it's just another rescue mission. Padme and Jar Jar, because they go off on their own, get captured by Vindi. Since Anakin's along, the focus is on rescuing Padme even though he knows the stakes are much higher. So we do get to see that some more, that Anakin's attachment to Padme is something that interferes with who he is as a Jedi. It's good development. But I do think I'm ready for them to lay off of the rescue missions for a little while, especially ones that involve Padme getting caught because she goes off like Lois Lane in pursuit of a story knowing that Superman will rescue her.

Okay, well, it's a fine episode. Taken on its own, it's an especially fine episode. Jar Jar is fine. Everything is fine. For the season, though, I don't think this one is particularly strong in comparison to some of the other stories.

Side Jobs (a book review post)

This is Dresden book 12.5. At least, that's usually how it's listed. It falls in between Changes (book 12) and Ghost Story (book 13), but, as suggested by the ".5" designation, it is not a novel. It is, in fact, a collection of short stories that fall within the series as a whole with only the final story falling in between books 12 and 13.

This book is a good reason why I don't generally tend to care for short stories and why I don't generally care to like first person very much.

So let's have a writing lesson (yeah, I know it's a book review, but I can't talk about this issue without the writing lesson):

First person is seductive, especially to the beginning writer. It's easy and it feels natural. But, see, it's a trap. When you're writing in first person, the author isn't writing from his/her voice, s/he's writing from the character's voice. The problem, then, is that most authors can't differentiate between their own voice and their characters'. And, you know, that's fine as long as you only ever write the one character in first person. But that's not what usually happens, and it's not what happened here.

Butcher's been writing Dresden a long time. Dresden's voice is distinct. But, see, it's that seduction of the young writer to write in first person, and Dresden's voice is really Butcher's (which is why we get the occasional preachy episode in the Dresden books). It hadn't occurred to me nor would I have ever noticed if Butcher hadn't decided to write from some other characters' POVs in these short stories.

There's a story from the POV of Thomas and, other than that Thomas reminds us that it's him, the story reads just like it's from the POV of Harry. Sure, it's an interesting story with all of the Oblivion War stuff in it, but Butcher should have switched to third person so that it didn't feel like Harry talking.

And there's a story from the POV of Murphy which is only differentiated by the fact that she spends a lot of time talking about Harry and that there are sections describing her hand-to-hand fighting. However, those sections have the exact same feel as Harry describing how he uses magic, essentially making it the same voice. The only other thing is the reference to men speaking Martian, but it's not enough to set the piece apart from all of the Dresden pieces.

A first person character voice should be as distinctive as listening to someone speak in person. Butcher doesn't pull that off, which was more than a little disappointing.

Then, there is the issue that the stories are of vastly variable quality with only a few feeling like they actually added anything to the Dresden world. And when the heck did Georgia become Butcher's Lois Lane? Really, we had to have two different stories about her getting kidnapped? I get that Will and Georgia are the only characters that Butcher has allowed to have any kind of long term relationship and they have to be the default for that kind of story, but, sheesh, damsel in distress much?

All of that said, if you're a fan of The Dresden Files, you'll want to read the book. "Day Off" and "The Warrior" were both very good and, actually, so is "Something Borrowed" (despite the Georgia kidnapping). And, then, "Aftermath" is almost essential reading. Almost. You could get by without it, but it's worth the read to fill in some space between books 12 and 13. And, of course, you get rescue Georgia again.