You know, this blog thing is really rather fun. It's sort of like talking to yoursef: an activity I very much enjoy, though I generally try not to do it in public. Apparently doing it on the internet is socially acceptable, though.

Anyway, let's see, I can go ahead and wibble on about the stuff I didn't get around to last night. So, OK, yeah, I'm currently re-reading Dune. (Actually, this isn't completely unrelated to last night's post, either, as it was my 9th grade English teacher (one of the few English teachers I've met who didn't look down his nose at science fiction), who recommended the book to me in the first place, back in my impressionable teenage years. And he was also the guy who introduced me to the Who's Tommy. We actually covered the rock opera in class. Spent weeks on it, subjecting the thing to full-out literary analysis. It was great. Gave me a new appreciation for both literary analysis and rock music. That guy was so cool.)

So, right, where was I? Re-reading Dune, yes. One thing that kind of strikes me about this book this time around is how nearly the entire first section -- something on the order of 200 pages -- consists of almost nothing but people sitting around talking. They just spout loads and loads of exposition at each other, and then we get exposition of the exposition, as everybody privately analyzes everything everybody else has said. It's really pretty amazing that Herbert actually makes this work. It may be the fact that his world-building is so intrinsically interesting that does it. Or maybe I've just got it so deeply ingrained in my head the Dune is a classic work of science fiction that I can't admit to myself that it actually doesn't work as well as it should. Not that I'm usually terribly inclined to cut a book a break based solely on its reputation, but, hey there is a first time for everything, and I do have to admit that it is kind of slow going. But I'm only on page 226, so we'll see.

As I also mentioned last time, there was a new epsiode of Farscape on tonight, and that has me totally doing the happy dance. I've fallen utterly and completely in love with this series in recent months, and I was getting really impatient waiting for Sci-Fi to air the rest of this season's episodes. I've already seen some comments about today's episode on the 'net in which people described it as kind of disappointing after the long wait, but, personally, I quite liked it. And I'm going to ramble on about it now, because that's the kind of thing I do. (Someday when I'm really bored, maybe I'll post my psychological analysis of Captain Crais or something.)

Oh, um, WARNING: vague-ish spoilers for Farscape episode 319: "I-Yensch, You-Yensch." Proceed at own risk.

Right, so, like I said, apparently some people found this one disappointing, and I wouldn't exactly call it the best FS episode ever, myself, but it did nevertheless feature that great blend of disparate elements that is one of the things I best like about the show: a twisty plot with a bit of action, some heavy emotional drama, some sly humor... And, hey, I can forgive the annoying blue aliens, because they gave Rygel a chance to show how sharp and clever and ruthless he can be when he's pressed. I always like seeing that side of Rygel. One of the things I love about that character is that, although he often serves as the comic relief, or as the plot device to get the rest of them in trouble, he's as complex and interesting a character as any of them. And his interactions with Scorpius were great. Those two make a downright frightening team.

And speaking of complex and interesting characters... The other main story thread in the episode concerned the character of Talyn, and I find myself continually impressed by how real and believable a character Talyn is, considering the fact that he has no lines of dialog and no face to display his emotions. It's very much to the credit of both the writers and the actors (whose reactions to Talyn pretty much have to serve to define his character) that he comes across as a real person, with real problems and real emotions. I actually felt really, really bad for him. Of course, I'm a great big softy, I know, and maybe it's not all that hard to manipulate me emotionally, but still...

Did I mention that this was a great show? This is a great show. You should watch it. Go rent the DVDs right now. I'll wait.