In Which I Try To Decide This Or That: The Sunshine Blogger Award 2021 from Hamlette’s Soliloquy

Posted on by CC

Hullo, my dear readers!

A few things first, just so they’re out of the way.

1. No, I’ve not passed on.

2. I apologize for my unannounced, AWOL-like activity (as in, announcing a blogathon before Christmas and then not doing it). I had some Things come up and are still Up and I can’t really shake them yet (no – they’re not Dreadful Things, but certainly not on the Wonderful side), but –

3. I’ve returned. With no reviews yet, sadly. And it’s been a struggle for me to decided whether or not to post these tag responses at all. Since the reviews I’ve started are rather half-baked and I’m not pleased with them enough for publishing. So to get some inspiration (insert dramatic choir music), I’ve returned for now with some fun tag questions & responses.

Hamlette over at Hamlette’s Soliloquy came up with a batch of lovely (and rather dichotomous) questions for the Sunshine Blogger Award.

I shall take a little time here to spotlight her blog: it’s filled with fun and thoughtful reviews, movie snapshots/related comments, and favorites lists. Our tastes are rather similar: I especially enjoy her focus on older classic films as well as new ones just released in theaters!


Fantasy or sci-fi?

Typically fantasy. But some sci-fi can be deliciously philosophically engaging – and not to mention prophetic (Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game and related books, Pierce Brown’s Red Rising saga, Susanne Collins’ The Hunger Games Trilogy, Lois Lowry’s The Giver, and the classic dystopia such as Orwell’s Animal Farm, 1984, Huxley’s Brave New World, Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, and C.S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength), and I love those as well.

Tragedy or comedy?

I think my go-to movies are usually comedy, but it has to be fairly clean and well done. Flipped (movie and book – although I prefer the movie’s ending tenfold), The Man From UNCLE (2015), The Princess Bride, Knight & Day, MIB: International, Leap Year, Kate & Leopold, Hitch.

But boy, oh boy, you can learn a lot of life lessons in tragedies, as I’ve found in The House of Mirth, King Lear, A Monster Calls. (These are all books.)

Fiction or nonfiction?

Fiction.

Unless we’re talking about history, economics, or philosophy.

Snow or rain?

If I’m drivin’, rain.

Otherwise, Snow all the way because it means Winter, Narnia, and Christmas. I don’t want to give up all the snowflakes sparkles when it’s really cold out (it’s better than confetti during a party any day of the week), and how everything looks so splendidly bright by moonlight on a snowy landscape. You can see everything.

source

Orange juice or apple juice?

Orange juice. Apple is typically too sweet for my taste. Which is funny, because I love eating sweet/non-tart apples.

Christmas or Easter?

Christmas.

source

Middle-earth or Narnia?


“For NARNIAAAA!”

But can I take some vacation trips to Middle-earth?


 Marvel or DC?

Marvel.

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I do love all the main characters in DC, though – Superman, Batman, and especially Diana Prince/Wonder Woman. But I think overall the Marvel films are the best. Their ability to weave the enormous cast of characters along with the storylines is nothing short of epic.


(I’m only talking about the movies because I’ve never read a single comic.)

Star Wars or Star Trek?

I don’t love either as much as I love Narnia and Middle Earth. But there are specific things I love about both every time I watch them.

For Star Wars, I love all the magnificent concept art in Star Wars (most of it created and handdrawn by Ralph McQuarrie) and the redemption arcs of Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker and Kylo Ren/Ben Skywalker.

As for Star Trek, Leonard Nimoy’s Mr. Spock in the original TV show and films and Benedict Cumberbatch’s Khan in the alternative timeline/reboot Star Trek: Into Darkness are what I stay for.

Old movies or new movies?

This is a tossup. Some new movies can be brilliant and I love how clear the picture is and the cinematography and colors. But a lot of old ones have my heart.

Like Captain Blood.

Old books or new books?

Classics. I’m trying to get into some newer books, but it’s hard to find ones that are worth my time. Recently I’ve been trying to dip my feet into more indie (independently published books).

Some honorable classical mentions: C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, Dostoevsky, Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Homer, Rafael Sabatini (Captain Blood, Scaramouche), Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, and of course, Baroness Emmuska Orczy (The Scarlet Pimpernel).

Some honorable mentions for new(er) books: The Red Rising saga (thanks to Maya for the recommend in her blog post and her newsletter), Flipped (thanks to The Bookshop Barista for mentioning how wonderful the movie adaptation is – which is absolutely true), and of course, Tales of Goldstone Wood (see Knights of Farthestshore).

Sunshine Blogger Award Rules  

  1. Thank the blogger who nominated you in the blog post and link back to their blog. 
  2. Answer the 11 questions the blogger asked you. 
  3. Nominate 11 new blogs to receive the award and write them 11 new questions. 
  4. List the rules and display the Sunshine Blogger Award logo in your post and/or on your blog. 

(I shall skip making new questions because I’m very interested in reading your responses to the ones I answered above. 🙂

The Story Sponge

Maya Joelle

Sarah – Sixty-Something Trees

Lemon Duck – World of Chronicles

Chalice – Lionhearted Art

Emma Starr – Seven Billion Smiles

Kendra – Literary Love

Evelyn – the rain-dreched writer.

Eva-Joy – coffee, classics, and craziness

Eden – the happy hedgehog

Evelyn Brooks

The Questions

  1. Fantasy or sci-fi?
  2. Tragedy or comedy?
  3. Fiction or nonfiction?
  4. Snow or rain?
  5. Orange juice or apple juice?
  6. Christmas or Easter?
  7. Middle-earth or Narnia?
  8. Marvel or DC?
  9. Star Wars or Star Trek?
  10. Old movies or new movies?
  11. Old books or new books?

Feel free to answer these in the comment below as well! I’d love to hear from you.

Published by CC

“Holy wisdom is not clear and thin like water, but thick and dark like blood.” ~ C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces Profile image is Enjolras from Les Miserables (2012, Directed by Tom Hooper).

15 thoughts on “In Which I Try To Decide This Or That: The Sunshine Blogger Award 2021 from Hamlette’s Soliloquy”

  1. I enjoyed reading your answers (and it was great to hear from you again, by the way, it is a relief to learn that you have not passed on) and thanks for the tag! Though these questions seem somewhat impossible to answer, I will do my best. 🙂

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  3. Pingback: February Is Fantasy Month and Guess Who Needs to Reread Narnia (ft: the Narnia tag!) – Sixty-Something Trees

  4. This post was a joy to read. 🙂 I’ve been wanting to read Red Rising, and WOW all the quotes from it are really cementing that desire. And thank you so much for tagging me; I love these questions!

    Ha. “Fiction. Except…also nonfiction” was basically your answer and same. XD (Also I approve of that Bastiat quote! Bastiat was QUITE the writer.)

    Also, yes, Spock is the best. And if you’re looking for newer books that are good, might I recommend the Queen’s Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner? I don’t know if you’ve read them (or if I’ve mentioned them before…sorry if I have; I’m kind of obsessed :P), but they are modern fantasy with amazing characters, worldbuilding, and plot twists, and the most subtly powerful of writing styles, and vague Peloponnesian/Persian wars vibes. They have a lot of the elements that my favorite older books do (and I think we have…semi-similar tastes?), so you might like them? 🙂

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    1. Thank you, Sarah!! 🙂 I know! Maya did that in her newsletter and blog post (linked above at the end) and the quotes were what grabbed me as well. (There are quite a bit of mature content and esp. language content, though, just so you know. The story and characters and worldbuilding are fantastic though. And it’s one of the best works by a contemp. author I’ve ever read. The entire time I’m reading the series I’m thinking, PIERCE BROWN’S PROSE IS AMAZING AND I WISH I CAN WRITE LIKE HIM. My rather incomplete GR review of the first book is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3420922413)

      Oh yes! I love Frederich Bastiat – it’s wonderful to know that someone else has read his works as well.

      Do you have a Goodreads account I can link up to? (I don’t recall if I asked this before.)

      Anne Elisabeth Stengl (author pf The Tales of Goldstone Wood) recommended MWT on her blog before and it encouraged me to read The Thief. Which I did recently. Sadly I was not super impressed with due to the slow/poor pacing but I liked the revelations towards the end, and I look forward the later books. More of my thoughts/GR review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2473618565

      Haha – no prob! I think a lot of readers are obsessed with the Queen’s Thief! Thank you very much for the book series recommendation, Sarah!

      Have you ever read HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE? I’m totally obsessed with it ever since I read it back in December xD.

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      1. (Thank you for mentioning the level of content, I really appreciate that haha!) Ooh okay I will go friend you on Goodreads and then I will be able to keep up with your book reviews! (if you don’t mind of course) (and regardless I will definitely be checking the two you linked here :))

        I’ve only read “The Law,” and some other short things (maybe excerpts from actual books) but I want to read more, because yeah, I love Bastiat!

        Oh, cool. Aww haha I’m sad you didn’t love The Thief, but to each her own! And although I personally loved how it was paced, I do think the rest of the books are more…normally paced? Or something. So hopefully you will enjoy them more if you decide to read them! (And I know a fair amount of people aren’t into the series till the second/third book. Although such was not the case with me, clearly. XD)

        YESSS!!!! I love Howl’s Moving Castle. I read it my first semester of college, sprawled in a courtyard full of September sun, completely oblivious to passersby, deadlines, etc… I’m very fond of it and it is associated with Good Memories. ^.^ Have you read the sequel, Castle in the Air? I like that one a lot too, especially the character of Abdullah and the hilarious take on the genie and flying carpet elements of the Aladdin fairytale!

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        1. Yay! 🙂 I look forward to your friend request then. (Can’t wait to compare our reading lists.)

          Yes, The Law is awesome. I also really love this biography (it’s rather short but VERY accessible and interesting) on Bastiat by George Charles Roche III back in 1971. It’s available as a PDF read on the Mises Institute: https://mises.org/library/frederic-bastiat-man-alone

          xD If you read my review of The Thief, in it I expressed that I was probably ruined the experience due to reading Howl’s Moving Castle first, which moves rather fast in comparison and I appreciated Diane Wynne Jones’ writing style so much it was like dessert.

          Awww… I love that imagery, Sarah! 🙂 So Happy to hear that you love it as well!! I gushed about how much I love Howl’s Moving Castle @ https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3708234257

          I actually own Castle in the Air and House of Many Ways as well as HMC but I haven’t read those two yet. Will certainly be letting you know what I think of ’em though!

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  8. So many good answers here 🙂 I haven’t seen Kate and Leopold in a few years, but it’s just such fun.

    I also love orange juice and have no use for apple juice! Now, apple cider is a different story. I love that.

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