Call in the Librarian

I've been watching a television series, also a set of direct-to-cable movies, which are basically another variation on the Warehouse 13 scheme. I think they miss a bet, though. The titular warehouse was filled with artifacts that had been associated with historical figures or events and had absorbed really, really specific magical properties generally relating to the Trivial Pursuit synopsis of the thing. Like, a life preserver off the Titanic causes icebergs to appear sort of thing.

In the case of the New York Metropolitan Library, the artifacts are rather more generic, and largely have whatever powers would make the plot work. In fact, "make magic sparks that cause things to blow up" might cover at least half of them.

Excalibur, for instance, flies around and has a personality. Not exactly what you'd think of a sword most known for being stuck in a stone (and I know, I know, but the show oddly has some justification; as much as it is one of those nerd cred things to know that the Sword in the Stone is another, un-named sword, Mallory collected -- and used -- both versions.)

On the other hand, the surrounding material is hyper-detailed. Whereas Warehouse 13 gave the lead to two ex-cops, leaving one side character to do all the babbling about inscriptions in Babylonian, The Librarian has the book-guy as the lead. "The Librarians" (the television series) ups this by having three as stars. Aside from the one ex-cop bodyguard type, there isn't a Watson in the place.

But I noticed something there. Most of the details are side details and don't matter (and generally don't get explained to the cop, either). Those are the dense geekery about art, literature, and history. The stuff that actually plays in the plot is much, much more simplified, often in fact wrong, and is spelled out carefully so the audience can follow along.

It is subtly enough done I don't think you notice it most of the time. Somehow, though, the show signals when it is just "look, they are talking smart again" and when it is "here's the big clue."

Another thing that makes this possible is that the protagonists are always ahead of the viewer. You aren't expected to have guessed before they did. Not most of the time. So that also means the show really doesn't have to explain all this stuff to the viewer. They can just take it on trust.

Apropos of that, the matter of scripts for Star Trek, the Next Generation came up on a forum I am on. It is pretty well known that the writers were never asked to come up with the technobabble. They'd just write; "Geordie techs the tech and saves the Enterprise." The showrunners would fill in the appropriate "reverse the polarity on the main deflector array" or whatever themselves.

***

I've been plowing through the Paris book. Almost up to the chapter I left off on. But there are several places where I haven't closed up the incisions yet. I just moved one of Huxley's excerpts from where it was throwing off the pacing of the Parkour sequence, stuck it in the middle of the steampunk cabaret scene, and that means I need to pretty much rewrite it. Which I was going to do anyhow; it is going to be longer, and I'm taking the camera inside the "laundry boat" this time.

I have a half-dozen books on Paris which I've read, but I can't remember nearly enough. I was crawling along, nearly stalled out, for so long on this book I've forgotten far too much. That, and the sources I had for the really detailed depictions of the lives of the artists are rather rambling. No way to flip to the exact page and refresh my memory.

With luck that won't happen again, though. Most of the big research left I hope to do just as I hit the scenes in question. There's another book excerpt at Rodin's studio. There's a visit to the Van Gogh Experience. And to finish out Part II, a midnight break-in to the Paris Opera House (the old one, which is now, oddly, just ballet.)

And there's a bit more on the Gates of Hell, and on Herge and Tintin, the Pompidou center...I've already essentially written those scenes, though, so with luck I won't need to do anything beyond a few quick checks.