Late to the game: The Great British Baking Show

Who else knows about this show?  And why wasn't I told sooner? 

The outside world is just awful - and getting awfuller - and to escape, I retreat into my Netflix account.  Usually I tend towards genre stuff but even Supernatural and Ash Vs. Evil Dead have been too grim for me lately.  I churned through The Good Place and the Queer Eye reboot, both of which worked at being both entertaining, warm and light enough to keep the dismals away.  But there aren't very many episodes of either show and once done, I needed something else.

Enter The Great British Baking Show.  There are only three seasons/series on Netflix, I believe, and I have already gotten through S1.  But I just love it.  All the home baker contestants are supportive of each other (as soon as they work through their initial nerves), the judges manage to find something positive to say about almost every bake and although the hosts are silly, they too are very supportive when a contestant starts to freak out.  It is lovely, civilized (everyone has cups of tea during down-time), inconsequential but engaging enough to keep me entertained and distracted.  I understand that there has been a bit of a recent shake-up with the original show's cast but I don't care.  I have nearly two seasons left to watch and I plan to enjoy every moment.

Mini book review: Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King and Owen King

Sleeping Beauties is a 2017 collaboration between horror master Stephen King and his son.  No, not Joe Hill, pretty famous in his own right, but Owen King, who still relies on the family name.  This ponderous book follows what happens in small town Appalachia - standing in for the world - when a pandemic brings down all the women.  When a female human falls asleep, she does not wake up and becomes wrapped in a cocoon.  When the men try to take the cocoons off, the sleepers attack, violently and mindlessly - so it's better to leave them wrapped up.  A very few women stave off sleep - the insomniacs, or those with access to amphetamines or cocaine - but for the most part, the men of the world are adrift.  And that does not go well.  Oh!  And there's a supernatural woman - goddess or witch, perhaps - who has ushered in this state of things.  Some of the men want to protect her.  Some of the men don't.

I'm sounding pretty flip here but I did like Sleeping Beauties reasonably well.  It reads largely like a Stephen King book (so I wonder how much collaboration the co-authors did), with its detailed, intricate world-building and knowledge of small town life.  It's also a fairly political novel: King is liberal and it is clearly pro-feminist, as well numerous digs at the current administration.  Lots of the characters (and there are LOTS of characters) are pretty thinly sketched, including Evie, the goddess/witch, and one would think that she would be more developed, being so intrinsic to the story and all.  I wouldn't put it up with King's best works by a long shot but would put it lower-middle of the pack.