Apologies to Nora Roberts

A good while back (in 2017, which is a horrifying nine years ago) I was pretty harsh on Nora Roberts, on the basis on The Next Always which I tried to read and then gave up on. I owe her an apology, because since then I've enjoyed plenty of her novels – but as audiobooks, not as paperbacks.

Roberts is a good example of the differences between an audiobook and a paper novel. Things you like listening to would not necessarily thrill you as reading matter, and vice versa. The typical Nora Roberts novel is, in my view, ideal for the audiobook medium. I had an especially good time with her latest Lost Bride trilogy: Inheritance, The Mirror and The Seven Rings. The plot in brief: Sonya, a feisty web designer who's just thrown out her cheating fiancé and quit her job, inherits a lovely Maine mansion from an unknown uncle. It is full of friendly ghosts, plus one hostile one. Sonya has to figure out how to break a curse in order to help the friendly ghosts to move on, as clues are conveniently drip-fed to her.

Plot-wise, the whole story could easily be condensed into one volume. But as an audiobook listener, I appreciated the hanging-out-with-characters scenes which annoyed me in The Next Always. I wallowed in the cosiness of it all while I did my chores and Sonya, her best friend Cleo and their respective love interests cooked and ate good food, went for outings, acquired charming pets, interacted with the friendly ghosts (that was my favourite part) and were successful at their jobs. 

Would all this have bored me had I read it? Possibly. The Lost Bride trilogy did not try to interest me in the minutiae of renovating a hotel or helping a kid in the bathroom, so I think I would have liked it more than The Next Always even on paper. What I am sure of is that I got more enjoyment from the trilogy as listening matter than I would have got in book form.

When I read, I like the story to have some momentum and not get too stuck in one particular place, however appealing that place may be. In an audiobook, on the other hand, I don't mind dwelling for a little longer than necessary story-wise in a pleasant fictional world. So the attractive settings and friendly banter of Roberts's novels work very well. The sex scenes are a bit of a trial for me, as I don't much care for the Rugged Hero type that Roberts's heroines fancy, but that's a minor quibble.

Conversely, there are gripping reads that work less well as audiobooks. If a novel has a huge cast of characters, for instance, it's a disadvantage for an audiobook as you can't just flip back the pages to remind yourself who X was, then easily find where you were again. If an author has a certain style you're particularly partial to, it can fly by you too easily while you're distracted by making the bed or cleaning the kitchen. For this reason, I only occasionally listen to my downloaded audiobook version of A Tale of Two Cities, although it is very nicely read by Martin Jarvis. It would be interesting to find out if P.G. Wodehouse works in the audiobook medium or not: I suspect not, but I could be wrong.

So, sorry, Nora, for not finding the best way to enjoy your novels sooner. If I can find something equally feel-good in paper form as Blue Dahlia (the Roberts novel I'm currently listening to) to get me through January, I'll be very lucky.

Zootopia/Zootropolis 2 – Is the sequel better than the original?

I do appreciate the Epiphany holiday, which comes around just when you're feeling a bit grumpy that Christmas is in essence over. Not if the Three Wise Men have anything to say about it, it's not! For some lucky Swedish employees like me, what with the 6th being on a Tuesday, we get an extra "squeeze day" off this year. But it does mean that I have no excuse not to get a blog post in.

It's time to talk about Zootopia 2, released as Zootropolis 2 in Europe (why? I guess I could ask AI). Although Zootropolis 2 is in my opinion a somewhat better title – would you really name a city "Zootopia"? – I'll stick to the original title for the rest of the post for simplicity's sake. Zootopia 2 has become a smash hit which Disney Animation sorely needed, and also happens to be a very good film. But is it as good as the original Zootopia, or even better?

The plot is more or less what you'd expect. Optimistic bunny cop Judy Hopps and her new (police) partner, the cynical fox Nick Wilde, investigate another mystery that turns out to be a conspiracy, and end up being chased by their colleagues all over the city while trying to fix everything. Meanwhile, their partnership comes under strain. Somewhat unexpectedly, Judy is the one most willing to break rules for the Greater Good while Nick wants to play it safe. They fight, they make up, they become closer, and their reputation as crime-solvers is finally restored, while the city learns a new lesson in tolerance, this time towards reptiles.

I had a lot of time for the first film (or movie, as we're talking Disney and the US), so it's a relief that the sequel is as enjoyable as it is. I love Judy and Nick and their dynamic, and of course I ship them – judging by the reaction of a shady ant-eater when they're posing as a couple undercover, interspecies relationships are unusual but not impossible in this world. On rewatching the first Zootopia on Disney Plus, I also have to admit that in some ways, the sequel is a shade better than the original.

For one, it has the edge when it comes to pacing. The first Zootopia had to introduce us to the whole concept of the animal-ruled world and its capital, so the first half can feel meandering. When the sequel comes along, we're already on board, and the plot unfolds in a more streamlined way, which will probably make the sequel a tad more rewatchable. The focus on the Hopps-Wilde relationship is very welcome (though kids may fidget a bit in their big heart-to-heart scenes). Here, it truly feels as if the sequel isn't just repeating the same beats as the original, but digs deeper. New side characters like Gary De Snake are endearing, the animation top-notch (of course) and the Zootopia cityscapes as fascinating as ever, with lots of little gags strewn in to chuckle over.

In one instance, though, the original trumps the sequel, and because of the kind of movies Zootopia and Zootopia 2 are it's not unimportant. I thought the discussion about the nature of prejudice was way more interesting in Zootopia than in Zootopia 2.

Yes, you heard me. I'm actually praising the social commentary in an animated film. I willingly admit, normally I'm sick of political messaging being rammed down my throat when all I want is to enjoy a piece of entertainment. How annoyed I get depends on whether I agree with the sentiment (it happens) or the conclusions drawn (not often) by the earnest people who are trying to force-feed me their musings on the State of Society. The "let's fight prejudice" message is a tricky one. In itself, it's not controversial, though there are very different schools of thought on how prejudice is best counteracted (I'll not go into details, not when I should be talking about Zootopia 2). But it really has been done to death, and the very lack of controversy feeds into the messaging fatigue here. It's nice that you're for world peace, dear filmmakers. Can we move on now?

If we have to have a "let's fight prejudice" message in an animated film, though, I thought the first Zootopia handled the topic rather well. It showed that overcoming prejudice isn't always easy, not when your experiences seem to confirm the notions you already have unconsciously tucked away. It acknowledged that "real life is messy" and that it can take time to reach a mutual understanding. Moreover, by showing how the predators, not the prey, become a target for a smear campaign, it highlights that prejudice can cut all sorts of ways. You can be comparatively privileged but still become a victim of prejudices fuelled by envy and resentment. At the same time, it's not as if Vice-Mayor Bellwether (the film's twist villain, a put-upon sheep) didn't have a case.

There's no such nuance in Zootopia 2. We are informed at an early stage by Gary that reptiles "aren't the bad guys – they are", "they" being a family of powerful entrepreneur lynxes who run the city part of Tundra Town and want to expand it. Though the story has its twists and turns, there's nothing in it that overturns this initial statement. As soon as we hear that the lynx family's ancestor, who's supposed to have invented the city's crucial weather machine, is called Ebenezer, we know that he will turn out to be a crook. So, rich lynxes bad, outcast reptiles good. Nothing that we haven't seen in a myriad of other films, and not exactly the kind of setup to make you think. 

I predict that later Zootopia films will go the same way and lean more into the buddy-cop (or possibly something more) dynamic between Judy and Nick rather than explore the prejudice theme. Fine by me, as long as we're acknowledging that this is what's going on, and that there's nothing we can really take away message-wise from a film that tells us to beware of lynxes (they look quite cuddly, though, not gonna lie) and root for the underdog. Zootopia 2 is great fun, and I'm up for the inevitable sequels. But a film of ideas it is not.