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Welcome to those of you who I have recently "met"! My policy is to give all subscribers access, as pretty much the only posts I lock to general access are uploads of things that I don't want generally available, or things that I want to limit to a specifically fandom audience.
( A little intro so you know what you're getting into: )
( Fandom-wise: )
in memoriam
wednesday reads and things
Jan. 21st, 2026 05:42 pmWhat I've recently finished reading:
The Bear and the Serpent, the second book of the Echoes of the Fall series by Adrian Tchaikovsky. As with most books that have multiple storylines and POVs, there were parts I liked better than others; I was more interested in Loud Thunder's adventures as reluctant war leader (and Lone Mountain's journey to the coast) than I was in the goings-on of the River Lords. However, I really liked the bits of cultural worldbuilding there as well, particularly the Wolf priest and the Snake priest(ess) coming to an understanding, and the uneasy relationship of Asmander and Asman which sort of echoed that between Maniye and Akrit Stone River.
Toward the end, it became clear that this series ties into the Shadows of the Apt series, which I had read the first book of (Empire in Black and Gold) a while back, but didn't really feel inclined to continue. So when I finished, I grabbed book 2, Dragonfly Falling, but it only took me a few chapters before I had the "yeah, nah" feeling again, so I guess I won't read that series.
What I'm reading now:
I was about to buy book 3 but then my library hold on Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo came in unexpectedly quickly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wychwood had reviewed it and it sounded up my alley) so I'm reading that now - hey, it's got people who turn into animals too!
What I've recently finished watching:
S2 of The Empress, which was really enjoyable. The setting of a great power in decline desperately trying to hold onto its glory through ill-advised military ventures is great escapism from...oh, never mind. They do have more magnificent dresses, though!
Actually one thing that struck me about this series is that although the women are formally valued only in their ability to produce boy babies, the narrative highlights their strength, the way they are the iron rods stapling things together. They may be swaddled in yards of cloth that make it difficult to run through the forest, but Elisabeth goes out and looks the people in the eye and talks to them, Sophie has a place at the council table, Charlotte gives Maximilian advice (and he listens) - well, they all give men advice, and the men ignore them at their peril.
What I'm playing now:
Still Ghost of Tsushima. Getting close to the end of the first part, I think!
The Bear and the Serpent, the second book of the Echoes of the Fall series by Adrian Tchaikovsky. As with most books that have multiple storylines and POVs, there were parts I liked better than others; I was more interested in Loud Thunder's adventures as reluctant war leader (and Lone Mountain's journey to the coast) than I was in the goings-on of the River Lords. However, I really liked the bits of cultural worldbuilding there as well, particularly the Wolf priest and the Snake priest(ess) coming to an understanding, and the uneasy relationship of Asmander and Asman which sort of echoed that between Maniye and Akrit Stone River.
Toward the end, it became clear that this series ties into the Shadows of the Apt series, which I had read the first book of (Empire in Black and Gold) a while back, but didn't really feel inclined to continue. So when I finished, I grabbed book 2, Dragonfly Falling, but it only took me a few chapters before I had the "yeah, nah" feeling again, so I guess I won't read that series.
What I'm reading now:
I was about to buy book 3 but then my library hold on Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo came in unexpectedly quickly (
wychwood had reviewed it and it sounded up my alley) so I'm reading that now - hey, it's got people who turn into animals too!What I've recently finished watching:
S2 of The Empress, which was really enjoyable. The setting of a great power in decline desperately trying to hold onto its glory through ill-advised military ventures is great escapism from...oh, never mind. They do have more magnificent dresses, though!
Actually one thing that struck me about this series is that although the women are formally valued only in their ability to produce boy babies, the narrative highlights their strength, the way they are the iron rods stapling things together. They may be swaddled in yards of cloth that make it difficult to run through the forest, but Elisabeth goes out and looks the people in the eye and talks to them, Sophie has a place at the council table, Charlotte gives Maximilian advice (and he listens) - well, they all give men advice, and the men ignore them at their peril.
What I'm playing now:
Still Ghost of Tsushima. Getting close to the end of the first part, I think!
wednesday reads and things
Jan. 14th, 2026 04:32 pmWhat I've recently finished reading:
The Tiger and the Wolf by Adrian Tchaikovsky, first book in the Echoes of the Fall series. This is a fantasy Bronze-Age-ish world where tribes not only identify with an animal-god, but tribal members can shapeshift into the form of that animal at will. Interestingly, people can see at a glance which animal-tribe people are part of, seeing their "soul"; each also has its own culture which seems appropriate for the associated animal, i.e. the Wolf people are pack-oriented, aggressive, dominating, while the Bear people are big and shambling and prefer their solitary caves. The story follows a teen girl, Maniye, who has two souls and therefore two forms - that of her father, the Wolf that raised her, and that of her mother, a captured Tiger - but it's more of an adult story than YA, even though it's largely a coming-of-age narrative. There are hints of dark things coming, the return of the "Plague People" who the people of this land came here to escape; these are people who have no souls, which again is something plainly visible. I liked this a lot! So I'm reading the second book now, The Bear and the Serpent.
(I should say, I really like the major Bear character, Loud Thunder, who basically wants to sit in his cave with his dogs and sometimes go out and hunt and not be bothered by, ugh, people, but unfortunately has a Destiny, and hates it. Also the major Serpent character - the Serpents in general are super interesting, sort of the wise elders of the world.)
What I'm currently watching:
We finished S1 and are now mid-S2 of The Empress. It's oddly butting up against The Leopard now as we're getting to the Italian provinces of the Austrian Empire agitating for freedom and a united Italy, even mentioned Garibaldi. I love the history of it all, the problems of an old world inexorably moving into the modern times, rulers having to face the collisions of the privilege they love and the reality of being a good leader. Also the costumes, especially the womens' gowns, are fantastic.
What I'm currently playing:
Still Ghost of Tsushima. It's so pretty! And I appreciate that there are a number of female swordsmen and archers, even if it's not strictly historically factual.
The Tiger and the Wolf by Adrian Tchaikovsky, first book in the Echoes of the Fall series. This is a fantasy Bronze-Age-ish world where tribes not only identify with an animal-god, but tribal members can shapeshift into the form of that animal at will. Interestingly, people can see at a glance which animal-tribe people are part of, seeing their "soul"; each also has its own culture which seems appropriate for the associated animal, i.e. the Wolf people are pack-oriented, aggressive, dominating, while the Bear people are big and shambling and prefer their solitary caves. The story follows a teen girl, Maniye, who has two souls and therefore two forms - that of her father, the Wolf that raised her, and that of her mother, a captured Tiger - but it's more of an adult story than YA, even though it's largely a coming-of-age narrative. There are hints of dark things coming, the return of the "Plague People" who the people of this land came here to escape; these are people who have no souls, which again is something plainly visible. I liked this a lot! So I'm reading the second book now, The Bear and the Serpent.
(I should say, I really like the major Bear character, Loud Thunder, who basically wants to sit in his cave with his dogs and sometimes go out and hunt and not be bothered by, ugh, people, but unfortunately has a Destiny, and hates it. Also the major Serpent character - the Serpents in general are super interesting, sort of the wise elders of the world.)
What I'm currently watching:
We finished S1 and are now mid-S2 of The Empress. It's oddly butting up against The Leopard now as we're getting to the Italian provinces of the Austrian Empire agitating for freedom and a united Italy, even mentioned Garibaldi. I love the history of it all, the problems of an old world inexorably moving into the modern times, rulers having to face the collisions of the privilege they love and the reality of being a good leader. Also the costumes, especially the womens' gowns, are fantastic.
What I'm currently playing:
Still Ghost of Tsushima. It's so pretty! And I appreciate that there are a number of female swordsmen and archers, even if it's not strictly historically factual.
wednesday reads and things
Dec. 31st, 2025 03:54 pmHappy end-of-2025! Here's to a better 2026 in whichever ways make the most difference to you. (I'm hoping that personal and spousal health challenges abate, and that democracy makes a comeback across the world and in my country.)
I haven't written about media since the beginning of the month because OMG Yuletide! (Let me be clear: it's great fun and enormously satisfying on a personal level to be part of the team that corrals all of the moving parts, but it is also a great deal of work. Also, I had a pinch hit to write, and a treat I really wanted to get in as well.) But now it's all over save the author reveals (for real this time, oog). And I did read and watch and play some things this month!
What I've recently finished reading:
The Daughters' War by Christopher Buehlman, the prequel (written later) to The Blacktongue Thief I didn't love this as much as I did the first, largely because while Galva is a great character, her voice is simply not as engaging as Kinch's voice. She's younger and more earnest here, and it is interesting to see her being shaped by war into the character she is in the other book. But it is war, here, and war is hell, and this war is particularly hellish; not just the conflict between human (kynd) and goblin, but the conflict between Galva and her asshole brother the incompetent general. There is canonical f/f. There is a lot of backstory that illuminates aspect of the first book. I liked it, but I'm looking forward to the actual sequel to The Blacktongue Thief.
An Age of Winters by Gemma Liviero, which I think B got as part of Kindle Unlimited. Historical crime fiction set in 17th C Germany, where mysterious child deaths are attributed to witchcraft, and the clergyman investigates. The narrator (for the most part; there are sections told by a castle functionary) is the clergyman's housekeeper, Katarin Jaspers, and while her narration is engaging, it's also very coyly used to hide the fact that she is an unreliable narrator both because she only knows what she herself can see or deduce, and also because things are left out that she does know, which feels a bit gimmicky. The pacing is terrible and the reveals come all at once in a rush of exposition. However, the story is interesting and the writing is quite atmospheric (and claustrophobic, oof, so glad I don't live in a theocracy), so I read it all but felt let down by the way the ending was presented.
What I'm reading now:
On![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thistle_chaser's rec, Adrian Tchaikovsky's The Tiger and the Wolf. He is certainly a prolific author with a very wide genre range: this is a fantasy primitive-culture world (it appears to be Bronze Age) where tribes not only identify with a guiding animal spirit, but tribal members can Step (i.e., shapeshift) into the form of that animal at will. The story feels a bit like some African-inspired YA I've read, as the primary protagonist is a 14-year-old girl of the Wolf - whose mother was of the Tiger, and who therefore does not fit in with her clan and her culture.
I don't love it as much as Thistle did, but also Thistle DNF'ed the second book, so it's possible I will simply like the whole series!
(Also, I've been reading Yuletide stories, of course...)
What we recently finished watching:
S4 of The Witcher, which has absolutely terrible ratings on IMDB but I thought was fine, if (as usual) I was more interested in some threads and less in others. I wonder whether the terrible ratings come from the recasting of Liam Hemsworth as Geralt (I thought he was fine), the very non-game-like casting of Laurence Fishburne as Regis (it took me a while, but ultimately I thought he was magnificent), Ciri/Mistle (this is book canon! and nodded to in the game!), or just Jaskier's hair looking, astonishingly, even uglier than it did in the first three seasons. Possibly it was the interweaving of three (or four, depending on how you look at it) very separate storylines that made it feel like either nothing or everything was happening.
(Though I will admit the WTF musical episode was legit terrible, and its 3.7/10 rating seems high to me.)
Death by Lightning, the Netflix miniseries about James Garfield, who was nominated as a reluctant compromise candidate by the Republican party in 1880, won the presidency partly due to the corrupt New York state political machine, whose do-nothing alcoholic layabout Chester Arthur was chosen vice presidential candidate, then promptly went about attempting to reform the spoils system and give black men representation and listen to the people and be generally a upright person and good leader, and was assassinated for his trouble. Some of the dialogue seemed a bit odd to my ear (did 19th century politicians really say "fuck" that much?!?!) and the character of Charles Guiteau was very cringe (props to Matthew Macfadyen I guess!).
But I did enjoy it a lot! And looking at the existing photographs of the principals I'm very impressed with the casting and makeup and such. Mostly I now want to read a really good biography of Garfield, and also of Arthur, who sobered up, cast off his corrupt cronies, and implemented the reforms Garfield had outlined.
What I'm watching now:
Just started The Empress, which is so far reminding me of The Leopard in that it's a foreign-language film about royalty in love juxtaposed against war and revolution, and also, the costumes are fabulous.
What I have played some of but not finished:
Spider-Man Remastered - I got past the Shocker main quest, finally, but - I decided I just don't like this game. It's too much, too many things, Peter is kind of a smart-ass, I'm not a superhero-media fan, and so on.
Death Stranding - this was free on Epic, and had really great reviews, but the whole premise kind of creeped me out. It's not a horror game, but I dislike the horror elements. I also found the story not interesting enough, at least at the start (admittedly I didn't play all that far in), and the looooooong cinematics sort of boring.
Gris - this is actually a cool atmospheric puzzle-platformer! But I suck at platformers and got stuck (a ways in, admittedly). I might give it another try, but it doesn't scratch the itch of "adventure game with a story" for me.
Horizon Forbidden West (replay) - It was kind of fun to replay the beginning, but now really I am just preferring looking over B's shoulder every so often. I remember the fun bits but ugh the hard bits.
What I'm playing now:
I'm maybe 4 hours into Ghost of Tsushima, which B played last year and really enjoyed. I'm liking it so far. I got to pet a fox! (And then real-me leaned forward and petted my real cat Cricket, who has resumed her habit of sitting between my keyboard and monitors. In fact, she's there right now!)
Happy New Year, everybody!
I haven't written about media since the beginning of the month because OMG Yuletide! (Let me be clear: it's great fun and enormously satisfying on a personal level to be part of the team that corrals all of the moving parts, but it is also a great deal of work. Also, I had a pinch hit to write, and a treat I really wanted to get in as well.) But now it's all over save the author reveals (for real this time, oog). And I did read and watch and play some things this month!
What I've recently finished reading:
The Daughters' War by Christopher Buehlman, the prequel (written later) to The Blacktongue Thief I didn't love this as much as I did the first, largely because while Galva is a great character, her voice is simply not as engaging as Kinch's voice. She's younger and more earnest here, and it is interesting to see her being shaped by war into the character she is in the other book. But it is war, here, and war is hell, and this war is particularly hellish; not just the conflict between human (kynd) and goblin, but the conflict between Galva and her asshole brother the incompetent general. There is canonical f/f. There is a lot of backstory that illuminates aspect of the first book. I liked it, but I'm looking forward to the actual sequel to The Blacktongue Thief.
An Age of Winters by Gemma Liviero, which I think B got as part of Kindle Unlimited. Historical crime fiction set in 17th C Germany, where mysterious child deaths are attributed to witchcraft, and the clergyman investigates. The narrator (for the most part; there are sections told by a castle functionary) is the clergyman's housekeeper, Katarin Jaspers, and while her narration is engaging, it's also very coyly used to hide the fact that she is an unreliable narrator both because she only knows what she herself can see or deduce, and also because things are left out that she does know, which feels a bit gimmicky. The pacing is terrible and the reveals come all at once in a rush of exposition. However, the story is interesting and the writing is quite atmospheric (and claustrophobic, oof, so glad I don't live in a theocracy), so I read it all but felt let down by the way the ending was presented.
What I'm reading now:
On
thistle_chaser's rec, Adrian Tchaikovsky's The Tiger and the Wolf. He is certainly a prolific author with a very wide genre range: this is a fantasy primitive-culture world (it appears to be Bronze Age) where tribes not only identify with a guiding animal spirit, but tribal members can Step (i.e., shapeshift) into the form of that animal at will. The story feels a bit like some African-inspired YA I've read, as the primary protagonist is a 14-year-old girl of the Wolf - whose mother was of the Tiger, and who therefore does not fit in with her clan and her culture. I don't love it as much as Thistle did, but also Thistle DNF'ed the second book, so it's possible I will simply like the whole series!
(Also, I've been reading Yuletide stories, of course...)
What we recently finished watching:
S4 of The Witcher, which has absolutely terrible ratings on IMDB but I thought was fine, if (as usual) I was more interested in some threads and less in others. I wonder whether the terrible ratings come from the recasting of Liam Hemsworth as Geralt (I thought he was fine), the very non-game-like casting of Laurence Fishburne as Regis (it took me a while, but ultimately I thought he was magnificent), Ciri/Mistle (this is book canon! and nodded to in the game!), or just Jaskier's hair looking, astonishingly, even uglier than it did in the first three seasons. Possibly it was the interweaving of three (or four, depending on how you look at it) very separate storylines that made it feel like either nothing or everything was happening.
(Though I will admit the WTF musical episode was legit terrible, and its 3.7/10 rating seems high to me.)
Death by Lightning, the Netflix miniseries about James Garfield, who was nominated as a reluctant compromise candidate by the Republican party in 1880, won the presidency partly due to the corrupt New York state political machine, whose do-nothing alcoholic layabout Chester Arthur was chosen vice presidential candidate, then promptly went about attempting to reform the spoils system and give black men representation and listen to the people and be generally a upright person and good leader, and was assassinated for his trouble. Some of the dialogue seemed a bit odd to my ear (did 19th century politicians really say "fuck" that much?!?!) and the character of Charles Guiteau was very cringe (props to Matthew Macfadyen I guess!).
But I did enjoy it a lot! And looking at the existing photographs of the principals I'm very impressed with the casting and makeup and such. Mostly I now want to read a really good biography of Garfield, and also of Arthur, who sobered up, cast off his corrupt cronies, and implemented the reforms Garfield had outlined.
What I'm watching now:
Just started The Empress, which is so far reminding me of The Leopard in that it's a foreign-language film about royalty in love juxtaposed against war and revolution, and also, the costumes are fabulous.
What I have played some of but not finished:
Spider-Man Remastered - I got past the Shocker main quest, finally, but - I decided I just don't like this game. It's too much, too many things, Peter is kind of a smart-ass, I'm not a superhero-media fan, and so on.
Death Stranding - this was free on Epic, and had really great reviews, but the whole premise kind of creeped me out. It's not a horror game, but I dislike the horror elements. I also found the story not interesting enough, at least at the start (admittedly I didn't play all that far in), and the looooooong cinematics sort of boring.
Gris - this is actually a cool atmospheric puzzle-platformer! But I suck at platformers and got stuck (a ways in, admittedly). I might give it another try, but it doesn't scratch the itch of "adventure game with a story" for me.
Horizon Forbidden West (replay) - It was kind of fun to replay the beginning, but now really I am just preferring looking over B's shoulder every so often. I remember the fun bits but ugh the hard bits.
What I'm playing now:
I'm maybe 4 hours into Ghost of Tsushima, which B played last year and really enjoyed. I'm liking it so far. I got to pet a fox! (And then real-me leaned forward and petted my real cat Cricket, who has resumed her habit of sitting between my keyboard and monitors. In fact, she's there right now!)
Happy New Year, everybody!
a handful of Yuletide recs
Dec. 27th, 2025 06:06 pmDecember has been busy-busy for me between Yuletide preparation (as a mod) and Yuletide preparation (as a participant who also took on a pinch hit), but now, ahh, everything is done and I can reap the rewards!
My awesome gift (5-minute fandom: British Airways "May We Haveth One's Attention" Safety Video):
A British Original: Discovering Haddersford House and Its Residents (2248 words, gen)
Summary: A magazine article from the world where characters in costume drama occasionally come to life of their own--and stick around after the cameras stop rolling and the crews have gone home.
I really had no idea what to expect from this request (just that I had to have something about this marvelous video!) and I love how it's played with an absolutely straight face. Also, there's a nod to Planet Vancouver, hee!
Speaking of the ridiculous played straight, this is understandable (and hilarious) with only osmosis knowledge of The Godfather:
An Offer You Can’t Refuse (Unless You’re Lactose Intolerant) (1008 words, Godfather movies, gen)
Summary: On the day of his daughter’s guinea pig’s wedding, Don Vito Corleone received a request he could not immediately refuse.
Absolutely the best Godfather fic ever.
The rest of my recs really do require canon knowledge, but I know many of you know these canons:
Memories Are Made of This (4002 words, Northern Exposure, Ed Chigliak-centered ensemble gen)
Summary: “So this is Cicely,” Ed said, gazing wide-eyed up and down Main Street. “Where’s the rest of it?”
This is wonderful - like an episode of the show, warm and funny and a little bit off-kilter.
Hoar and Hound (2236 words, Cadfael Chronicles, Brother Cadfael-centered gen)
Summary: On a frigidly cold December night, Cadfael follows a trail through the abbey grounds.
A lovely, thoughtful portrait of the abbey and of Cadfael. The way he quietly assesses the needs of the people (and creatures) around him is perfectly in tune with canon.
Dis Manibus (1364 words, Frontier Wolf, Alexios/Cunorix, Alexios/Hilarion, G)
Summary: Alexios goes out to make an offering to the shades of the dead, but he does not go alone.
This is lovely and tender and measured, and has something of Sutcliff in the descriptions. For me Alexios/Hilarion only works if it honors the close friendship between Alexios and Cunorix, before things went bad - and this is perfect.
We Greet the Peoples of the Tower (1717 words but heavily illustrated; Chants of Sennaar, gen)
Summary: There are some oddly regular scratch marks on a wall in the Alchemists' level...
Basically this is a fangame (though the game part is optional; the first set of chapters are illustrations with glyphs as in the game, and the second half holds the translations), a whole new level in which the Monster goes seeking the other peoples to assert he is a human and their brother. It's a moving story that fits with the game themes, and it's just very cool!
Actually, if you've played Chants of Sennaar, I recommend all the Yuletide works for the game as the fandom has clearly brought its A-game, they're all great. (The one above is just extraordinarily so!) And there are two Madness works I haven't even looked at yet!
My awesome gift (5-minute fandom: British Airways "May We Haveth One's Attention" Safety Video):
A British Original: Discovering Haddersford House and Its Residents (2248 words, gen)
Summary: A magazine article from the world where characters in costume drama occasionally come to life of their own--and stick around after the cameras stop rolling and the crews have gone home.
I really had no idea what to expect from this request (just that I had to have something about this marvelous video!) and I love how it's played with an absolutely straight face. Also, there's a nod to Planet Vancouver, hee!
Speaking of the ridiculous played straight, this is understandable (and hilarious) with only osmosis knowledge of The Godfather:
An Offer You Can’t Refuse (Unless You’re Lactose Intolerant) (1008 words, Godfather movies, gen)
Summary: On the day of his daughter’s guinea pig’s wedding, Don Vito Corleone received a request he could not immediately refuse.
Absolutely the best Godfather fic ever.
The rest of my recs really do require canon knowledge, but I know many of you know these canons:
Memories Are Made of This (4002 words, Northern Exposure, Ed Chigliak-centered ensemble gen)
Summary: “So this is Cicely,” Ed said, gazing wide-eyed up and down Main Street. “Where’s the rest of it?”
This is wonderful - like an episode of the show, warm and funny and a little bit off-kilter.
Hoar and Hound (2236 words, Cadfael Chronicles, Brother Cadfael-centered gen)
Summary: On a frigidly cold December night, Cadfael follows a trail through the abbey grounds.
A lovely, thoughtful portrait of the abbey and of Cadfael. The way he quietly assesses the needs of the people (and creatures) around him is perfectly in tune with canon.
Dis Manibus (1364 words, Frontier Wolf, Alexios/Cunorix, Alexios/Hilarion, G)
Summary: Alexios goes out to make an offering to the shades of the dead, but he does not go alone.
This is lovely and tender and measured, and has something of Sutcliff in the descriptions. For me Alexios/Hilarion only works if it honors the close friendship between Alexios and Cunorix, before things went bad - and this is perfect.
We Greet the Peoples of the Tower (1717 words but heavily illustrated; Chants of Sennaar, gen)
Summary: There are some oddly regular scratch marks on a wall in the Alchemists' level...
Basically this is a fangame (though the game part is optional; the first set of chapters are illustrations with glyphs as in the game, and the second half holds the translations), a whole new level in which the Monster goes seeking the other peoples to assert he is a human and their brother. It's a moving story that fits with the game themes, and it's just very cool!
Actually, if you've played Chants of Sennaar, I recommend all the Yuletide works for the game as the fandom has clearly brought its A-game, they're all great. (The one above is just extraordinarily so!) And there are two Madness works I haven't even looked at yet!
wednesday reads and things
Dec. 3rd, 2025 06:23 pmIt is snowing! And I have a Cricket-cat on my desk and a Mantis-cat on the cat tree behind me; ever since we got back from our Thanksgiving vacation trip they have been sweetly clingy, especially to me. (Though I have to give props to the cat-sitter we hired through Rover.com; though I warned her that our neighbor, who had cat-sit for us previously, had never actually seen our cats, she coaxed them out of hiding on day 2 and by the middle of the week they were literally eating treats out of her hand - part of the Rover deal is daily pet photos, so I have proof!)
What I've recently finished reading:
In audio, We Are Legion (We Are Bob), book 1 of the Bobiverse series by Dennis E. Taylor, which B had downloaded from the library for our long drives to and from Scottsdale because he'd seen reviews that compared it to Murderbot. (Spoiler alert, it was nothing like Murderbot, other than that the main character is a sort of human+computer hybrid, has drones as auxiliaries, and did the equivalent of hacking its governor module - uh, removed the controlling code? - early on.)
Bob is a nerdy engineer in the early 21st C (i.e., now). After selling his tech company to a bigger one for a ton of money, he signs up to have his head cryonically frozen to be revived in the future - and straightaway gets hit by a car, killed, and frozen...and revived in the mid-22nd C into a world where the US is now a theocracy competing with the Brazilian Empire and China for world dominance. Eventually Bob's brain-copy is put into a space probe and launched amid an incipient terrestrial nuclear war, at which point the story branches out into exploration of a variety of SF staples: sentient space ships, exploration of strange new worlds, terraforming, first contact with primitive alien life, space war among competing powers, space colonization, and so on.
It's very obviously written by an engineer who is a science fiction fan, with copious homage to various classics in the genre. Lots of handwaving around the science, including one bit I have a hard time accepting, that copies of Bob (and Bob eventually makes lots of copies of his brain, which are then further copied by his copies) all differ slightly from the get-go. It seems to me an exact copy would only begin to diverge once it started having different experiences. The viewpoint characters, all iterations of Bob, don't have particularly interesting or extensive arcs; it's more that each one picks a different mission and goes after it, and we get their narrative. There is no romance or sex.
I think I probably would have abandoned it somewhere in the middle had I not been listening to the audio version, but it was sufficiently entertaining to carry us through two long drives. It's the first of a series but has a reasonable ending, even though there are many threads left hanging for future books.
In text, I started but did not get all that far into Katabasis by R. F. Kuang. Cool premise, smooth writing - but I disliked Alice, the viewpoint character, and there was just something off-putting about the whole thing. It's possible that I'm just not a fan of "dark academia" - it feels vaguely unfair to me, please keep dangerous activities for fully-grown-up adults! Anyway, I put it down, and picked up...
The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman, which was a recommendation from P. Djèlí Clark as part of the NYT "What to Read" series, in a set of "Great Fanatsy Novels With Unlikely Heroes." Which turned out to be a nice reminder that I should not read things that I don't enjoy and should read things I do, because I totally fell into this book and loved it a lot! Medieval-ish crapsack fantasy world in which the thief Kinch Na Shannack must go on a quest for the Taker's Guild in order to clear the debt he's incurred through his education in thievery.
What hooked me into the story was the first-person narrative voice, which is rambling, profane, and funny as hell. The other characters are entertaining as well, and there are a lot of truly excellent female characters. I also really liked the worldbuilding, from the weird magic, to the linguistic and geographic details, to the slowly-unfolding history of the goblin wars. There are a lot of tiny guns hung on the wall early that go off to great effect late, which I always appreciate. There is also a cat.
Alas this is the first book of a series in which the second is expected to be published next year, but it does end in a reasonable place. Also there is a prequel which I have already checked out.
What I've recently finished playing:
I completed Monument Valley 2, which was just as delightful as the first game!However, I'm having difficulty getting Horizon Forbidden West to run now, for some reason, so I may have to abandon my NG+ and find something else to play. ETA Whew, it finally worked! Though, we'll see how long I manage to replay before wanting to do something new.
What I've recently finished reading:
In audio, We Are Legion (We Are Bob), book 1 of the Bobiverse series by Dennis E. Taylor, which B had downloaded from the library for our long drives to and from Scottsdale because he'd seen reviews that compared it to Murderbot. (Spoiler alert, it was nothing like Murderbot, other than that the main character is a sort of human+computer hybrid, has drones as auxiliaries, and did the equivalent of hacking its governor module - uh, removed the controlling code? - early on.)
Bob is a nerdy engineer in the early 21st C (i.e., now). After selling his tech company to a bigger one for a ton of money, he signs up to have his head cryonically frozen to be revived in the future - and straightaway gets hit by a car, killed, and frozen...and revived in the mid-22nd C into a world where the US is now a theocracy competing with the Brazilian Empire and China for world dominance. Eventually Bob's brain-copy is put into a space probe and launched amid an incipient terrestrial nuclear war, at which point the story branches out into exploration of a variety of SF staples: sentient space ships, exploration of strange new worlds, terraforming, first contact with primitive alien life, space war among competing powers, space colonization, and so on.
It's very obviously written by an engineer who is a science fiction fan, with copious homage to various classics in the genre. Lots of handwaving around the science, including one bit I have a hard time accepting, that copies of Bob (and Bob eventually makes lots of copies of his brain, which are then further copied by his copies) all differ slightly from the get-go. It seems to me an exact copy would only begin to diverge once it started having different experiences. The viewpoint characters, all iterations of Bob, don't have particularly interesting or extensive arcs; it's more that each one picks a different mission and goes after it, and we get their narrative. There is no romance or sex.
I think I probably would have abandoned it somewhere in the middle had I not been listening to the audio version, but it was sufficiently entertaining to carry us through two long drives. It's the first of a series but has a reasonable ending, even though there are many threads left hanging for future books.
In text, I started but did not get all that far into Katabasis by R. F. Kuang. Cool premise, smooth writing - but I disliked Alice, the viewpoint character, and there was just something off-putting about the whole thing. It's possible that I'm just not a fan of "dark academia" - it feels vaguely unfair to me, please keep dangerous activities for fully-grown-up adults! Anyway, I put it down, and picked up...
The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman, which was a recommendation from P. Djèlí Clark as part of the NYT "What to Read" series, in a set of "Great Fanatsy Novels With Unlikely Heroes." Which turned out to be a nice reminder that I should not read things that I don't enjoy and should read things I do, because I totally fell into this book and loved it a lot! Medieval-ish crapsack fantasy world in which the thief Kinch Na Shannack must go on a quest for the Taker's Guild in order to clear the debt he's incurred through his education in thievery.
What hooked me into the story was the first-person narrative voice, which is rambling, profane, and funny as hell. The other characters are entertaining as well, and there are a lot of truly excellent female characters. I also really liked the worldbuilding, from the weird magic, to the linguistic and geographic details, to the slowly-unfolding history of the goblin wars. There are a lot of tiny guns hung on the wall early that go off to great effect late, which I always appreciate. There is also a cat.
Alas this is the first book of a series in which the second is expected to be published next year, but it does end in a reasonable place. Also there is a prequel which I have already checked out.
What I've recently finished playing:
I completed Monument Valley 2, which was just as delightful as the first game!
But I was flying back from the Bay Area on Wednesday, and catching up with things the last few days, and heading down to the Phoenix area on Monday for a Thanksgiving Week vacation, so it's now or never.
This past trip was to visit my brother and his family, and also to do crosswords and cryptics with his group, who I meet every Saturday morning on a Zoom-equivalent for puzzling; I was there in person two years ago and wanted to do it again. But since I was going to be in the area I coordinated with an OTW meet-up group for dim sum on Sunday and met several of my fellow tag wranglers and other volunteers, and then got together withhamsterwoman for a lovely afternoon of chatting and walking and sightseeing along the Embarcadero.
So, part of traveling is being on planes! And being on planes means lots of time for reading! I had been intrigued by a Yuletide promo post about a book duology, and though I didn't manage to get to it before Yuletide, I did find it at my library in time for this trip:
The Philosopher's Flight and The Philosopher's War by Tom Miller - this is an alt-history set in World War I with an odd kind of magic, "empirical philosophy", which involves drawing arcane sigils with different materials to do things like make plants grow faster, heal the sick, fly, and summon the wind. It's dominated by women, who are generally more talented at it, but the protagonist of the series is a young man who dreams of following in his mother's footsteps as a rescue and evacuation flier (literally, flying) for the military. Alt history and unusual magic systems are catnip for me, but I was a little worried that it being about the rare talented man in a woman's field would detract.
Actually, it was fun and funny, and inverted some sexist tropes and history in an entertaining way. Robert is not better than all the women, he's just pretty good, and better than most men. And seeing how the system is rigged against him in ways both overt and inherent holds up a mirror to real-world sexism: he has to work twice as hard to be considered half as good as a woman, he needs a special dispensation to study sigilry at Radcliffe, and a (female) general's recommendation to join the rescue corps, where he's called Sigilwoman 3rd Class, and addressed as "ma'am" - but eventually is regarded by the women around him as their "little brother", and distinguishes himself in his work as equal to his "sisters". A thoughtful treatment of politics and the military, too, and loads of unintended consequences wherever you turn. I enjoyed it!
What I've recently finished watching:
S3 of The Diplomat, but woohoo, that was a fun one. A little more relationship drama than I personally would have liked, but it was interesting to watch Kate basically being Hal while being oblivious to that fact, and also, people being shitty to each other while also acting in what they honestly perceived as being in the best interest of their country (or the world), and also, how actions have (often unintended, see above) consequences, and you just have to grit your teeth and deal. Also, can I just say how great it was to see a competent president? Especially a competent female president, who gives no fucks as to what she looks like to people who at the end of the day don't matter, for the important things. (Not that she's not flawed, but still. Better than the actual venial disaster we have.)
While I was at my brother's, we watched the French stop-motion animated comedy A Town Called Panic, which was an absurd fantasy-adventure delight. I laughed a lot! It was very weird! One of my nieces insisted I watch a couple of episodes of Bee and Puppycat with her, and - that was also very weird. I am not really sure what it is about! It is a cartoon about a girl and her possibly alien pet, who brings her to ... an interspacial temp agency? I may actually try to watch it more seriously this winter while riding the stationary bike, it's very pretty, and part of my ??? is that I couldn't hear the audio very well, but if I watch it at home at least I can use subtitles (and headphones).
We are now watching S4 of The Witcher.
What I'm playing now:
I finished Monument Valley, and have started poking at Monument Valley 2 (put it on my laptop and played a little while I was in California). I also have started playing Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered, though I'm not sure I'm going to stick (heh) with it. It's really designed for a controller, so that's what I'm using (and the haptic feedback is nifty) but I also suck at using a controller, so my web-swinging movement is far from smooth and combat is mostly random button-mashing. I also feel like it's very distracting, with all of the CRIMES! I'm supposed to go stop while I'm just trying to get to my next quest!
So as I mentioned last time, B started playing Horizon Forbidden West and I've been looking over his shoulder every so often because I loved that game. Finally I decided...to start a NG+! Which I've never done. I never replay games! I tried to replay Dragon Age II and it annoyed me so much I didn't even get to Kirkwall. But I went right through the tutorial (fun!) and into Chainscrape, and..I might keep playing? We shall see! I've turned up the difficulty since I'm so buff and have so much gear. I think I need to look up how these things go...
This past trip was to visit my brother and his family, and also to do crosswords and cryptics with his group, who I meet every Saturday morning on a Zoom-equivalent for puzzling; I was there in person two years ago and wanted to do it again. But since I was going to be in the area I coordinated with an OTW meet-up group for dim sum on Sunday and met several of my fellow tag wranglers and other volunteers, and then got together with
hamsterwoman for a lovely afternoon of chatting and walking and sightseeing along the Embarcadero.So, part of traveling is being on planes! And being on planes means lots of time for reading! I had been intrigued by a Yuletide promo post about a book duology, and though I didn't manage to get to it before Yuletide, I did find it at my library in time for this trip:
The Philosopher's Flight and The Philosopher's War by Tom Miller - this is an alt-history set in World War I with an odd kind of magic, "empirical philosophy", which involves drawing arcane sigils with different materials to do things like make plants grow faster, heal the sick, fly, and summon the wind. It's dominated by women, who are generally more talented at it, but the protagonist of the series is a young man who dreams of following in his mother's footsteps as a rescue and evacuation flier (literally, flying) for the military. Alt history and unusual magic systems are catnip for me, but I was a little worried that it being about the rare talented man in a woman's field would detract.
Actually, it was fun and funny, and inverted some sexist tropes and history in an entertaining way. Robert is not better than all the women, he's just pretty good, and better than most men. And seeing how the system is rigged against him in ways both overt and inherent holds up a mirror to real-world sexism: he has to work twice as hard to be considered half as good as a woman, he needs a special dispensation to study sigilry at Radcliffe, and a (female) general's recommendation to join the rescue corps, where he's called Sigilwoman 3rd Class, and addressed as "ma'am" - but eventually is regarded by the women around him as their "little brother", and distinguishes himself in his work as equal to his "sisters". A thoughtful treatment of politics and the military, too, and loads of unintended consequences wherever you turn. I enjoyed it!
What I've recently finished watching:
S3 of The Diplomat, but woohoo, that was a fun one. A little more relationship drama than I personally would have liked, but it was interesting to watch Kate basically being Hal while being oblivious to that fact, and also, people being shitty to each other while also acting in what they honestly perceived as being in the best interest of their country (or the world), and also, how actions have (often unintended, see above) consequences, and you just have to grit your teeth and deal. Also, can I just say how great it was to see a competent president? Especially a competent female president, who gives no fucks as to what she looks like to people who at the end of the day don't matter, for the important things. (Not that she's not flawed, but still. Better than the actual venial disaster we have.)
While I was at my brother's, we watched the French stop-motion animated comedy A Town Called Panic, which was an absurd fantasy-adventure delight. I laughed a lot! It was very weird! One of my nieces insisted I watch a couple of episodes of Bee and Puppycat with her, and - that was also very weird. I am not really sure what it is about! It is a cartoon about a girl and her possibly alien pet, who brings her to ... an interspacial temp agency? I may actually try to watch it more seriously this winter while riding the stationary bike, it's very pretty, and part of my ??? is that I couldn't hear the audio very well, but if I watch it at home at least I can use subtitles (and headphones).
We are now watching S4 of The Witcher.
What I'm playing now:
I finished Monument Valley, and have started poking at Monument Valley 2 (put it on my laptop and played a little while I was in California). I also have started playing Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered, though I'm not sure I'm going to stick (heh) with it. It's really designed for a controller, so that's what I'm using (and the haptic feedback is nifty) but I also suck at using a controller, so my web-swinging movement is far from smooth and combat is mostly random button-mashing. I also feel like it's very distracting, with all of the CRIMES! I'm supposed to go stop while I'm just trying to get to my next quest!
So as I mentioned last time, B started playing Horizon Forbidden West and I've been looking over his shoulder every so often because I loved that game. Finally I decided...to start a NG+! Which I've never done. I never replay games! I tried to replay Dragon Age II and it annoyed me so much I didn't even get to Kirkwall. But I went right through the tutorial (fun!) and into Chainscrape, and..I might keep playing? We shall see! I've turned up the difficulty since I'm so buff and have so much gear. I think I need to look up how these things go...
wednesday reads and things
Nov. 5th, 2025 05:52 pmWhat I've recently finished reading:
Europe at Dawn by Dave Hutchinson, and thus finishes the Fractured Europe Sequence. I enjoyed it a lot, though sometimes it made me feel as though I just wasn't smart enough for it; there are a lot of chapters which begin so completely in medias res that you just have to soldier on until you hit the background/flashback that explains what is going on. Although the last book ties up some of the loose ends, they are only loosely tied, so to speak, and it feels very open-ended. (To be fair, there was no overarching action plot here, just generally tying up ends and solving mysteries. Also I didn't realize for far too long that some of the POV chapters were actually in the past relative to present action (or rather, took place at the same time that some of the events in other books took place; time has passed.)
What I've recently finished listening to:
The Strange Case of Starship Iris wrapped up its final season a few weeks ago. I liked it overall, though I definitely preferred the political action/adventure parts more than the personal relationships parts, other than the general bonding of the crew as a unit. I also found it rather on the nose with respect to Current Political Events, but hey, it's not Jessica Best's fault that she wrote an SF podcast about freedom-fighting rebels up against a juggernaut of an iron-fisted government just when, you know. waves hand around helplessly
What I've recently finished playing:
Dragon Age: The Veilguard! I enjoyed playing but I was ready for it to be over. I (female Qunari mage) romanced Harding, but the romance content is -->.<-- (Though admittedly there was some nice emotional content relative to the romance near the end.) On the one hand, the fact that most of the decisions about what to do and say don't seem to have much effect on things made it feel less fraught and scary, like - I often look up spoilers for major decisions because I don't replay games and so I want to make sure I don't end up with some horrible ending. On the other hand, it probably contributed to me feeling less involved with the game on an emotional level.
I didn't like that the choice of race and faction didn't have a whole lot to do with anything. I mean, I had extra Shadow Dragons dialogue, but mostly I didn't know anything extra about Minrathous. And I was Qunari - but an adopted war orphan with zero connection to anything remotely Qun, so I felt really dumb talking to Taash (and especially Shathann) about Qunari customs.
I did really love the graphics, and all the very interesting landscapes, the different cities and landscapes (the Ossuary!!!) and especially the Crossroads. The companion banter is super fun and I sort of wanted to set them all up with each other! I especially loved Taash and Lucanis talking about capes, hee. I did everybody's quests, of course, and got everyone to Hero status, and all my factions to three stars.
I did the Regrets of the Dread Wolf questline and met Mythal, and...I really tried to give good answers, but every time I failed, to the point where I figured there was no way of avoiding the fight. So I ended up having to fight her and hoo boy that was tough. And then! I looked at an "endings" walkthrough and it said I had to have resolved the quest peacefully to get the best ending, so I resigned myself to having screwed up, but haha it turns out they recommended that only because that is such a tough fight, yay, I got the best ending.
(I did not look up spoilers for the rest of the endgame, but fortunately I managed to not get my sweetheart killed.)
Anyway, it was fun, but when I finished I didn't want to jump into another epic right away, so I started playing Monument Valley, which several of you had recommended to me - and that was delightful! It's like, what if M. C. Escher had designed a puzzle game? I finished the first game and am now doing the "appendices". I also have the second game, so that's probably next.
B is playing Horizon Forbidden West, and I can't resist looking over his shoulder every once in a while. The Horizon games are still my favorites! (He's still in early days, not yet to the Embassy, just doing stuff in Chainscrape.)
Europe at Dawn by Dave Hutchinson, and thus finishes the Fractured Europe Sequence. I enjoyed it a lot, though sometimes it made me feel as though I just wasn't smart enough for it; there are a lot of chapters which begin so completely in medias res that you just have to soldier on until you hit the background/flashback that explains what is going on. Although the last book ties up some of the loose ends, they are only loosely tied, so to speak, and it feels very open-ended. (To be fair, there was no overarching action plot here, just generally tying up ends and solving mysteries. Also I didn't realize for far too long that some of the POV chapters were actually in the past relative to present action (or rather, took place at the same time that some of the events in other books took place; time has passed.)
What I've recently finished listening to:
The Strange Case of Starship Iris wrapped up its final season a few weeks ago. I liked it overall, though I definitely preferred the political action/adventure parts more than the personal relationships parts, other than the general bonding of the crew as a unit. I also found it rather on the nose with respect to Current Political Events, but hey, it's not Jessica Best's fault that she wrote an SF podcast about freedom-fighting rebels up against a juggernaut of an iron-fisted government just when, you know. waves hand around helplessly
What I've recently finished playing:
Dragon Age: The Veilguard! I enjoyed playing but I was ready for it to be over. I (female Qunari mage) romanced Harding, but the romance content is -->.<-- (Though admittedly there was some nice emotional content relative to the romance near the end.) On the one hand, the fact that most of the decisions about what to do and say don't seem to have much effect on things made it feel less fraught and scary, like - I often look up spoilers for major decisions because I don't replay games and so I want to make sure I don't end up with some horrible ending. On the other hand, it probably contributed to me feeling less involved with the game on an emotional level.
I didn't like that the choice of race and faction didn't have a whole lot to do with anything. I mean, I had extra Shadow Dragons dialogue, but mostly I didn't know anything extra about Minrathous. And I was Qunari - but an adopted war orphan with zero connection to anything remotely Qun, so I felt really dumb talking to Taash (and especially Shathann) about Qunari customs.
I did really love the graphics, and all the very interesting landscapes, the different cities and landscapes (the Ossuary!!!) and especially the Crossroads. The companion banter is super fun and I sort of wanted to set them all up with each other! I especially loved Taash and Lucanis talking about capes, hee. I did everybody's quests, of course, and got everyone to Hero status, and all my factions to three stars.
I did the Regrets of the Dread Wolf questline and met Mythal, and...I really tried to give good answers, but every time I failed, to the point where I figured there was no way of avoiding the fight. So I ended up having to fight her and hoo boy that was tough. And then! I looked at an "endings" walkthrough and it said I had to have resolved the quest peacefully to get the best ending, so I resigned myself to having screwed up, but haha it turns out they recommended that only because that is such a tough fight, yay, I got the best ending.
(I did not look up spoilers for the rest of the endgame, but fortunately I managed to not get my sweetheart killed.)
Anyway, it was fun, but when I finished I didn't want to jump into another epic right away, so I started playing Monument Valley, which several of you had recommended to me - and that was delightful! It's like, what if M. C. Escher had designed a puzzle game? I finished the first game and am now doing the "appendices". I also have the second game, so that's probably next.
B is playing Horizon Forbidden West, and I can't resist looking over his shoulder every once in a while. The Horizon games are still my favorites! (He's still in early days, not yet to the Embassy, just doing stuff in Chainscrape.)
wednesday reads and things
Oct. 29th, 2025 07:04 pmWhat I've recently finished reading:
Europe at Midnight and Europe in Winter, the second and third of the Fractured Europe Sequence by Dave Hutchinson. The first was a reread (and again, I was surprised at how much I'd forgotten in the 10 years since I read it the first time), but I really enjoyed the SF aspect of The third book went into more detail about Rudi's family background, and about how the actual mechanism of [spoiler] is basically the biggest and most important secret in the world, and about the Coureurs and their function.
I actually requested this for Yuletide, and one of my prompts was "worldbuilding - what's happening in the US?" and...one character meets with someone who has a Texas passport, so, there's a whole lot hinted at by that tiny detail right there!
What I'm currently reading:
Europe at Dawn, the finale of the series. This one feels more like various vignettes set in this universe, though I expect everything will come together eventually. I do like how the Situations that the Coureurs handle are all matter-of-fact cloak-and-dagger: a woman walks up to our POV character and says something fairly banal, and he responds with a similar sentence; when she's gone, he finds a slip of paper in his pocket with the name of a hotel in another city; he goes there and checks in, and there's another slip of paper in the bedside Bible; he finds the car with the number plate on that paper and he gets in and drives across the border and leaves it in the parking lot of a certain cafe, then he takes the train home. It's all very mysterious! and fun! (and leaves me wondering why go to all that trouble to hide things in places in so many steps, but...)
(B is reading the Fourth Wing series and enjoying it. I'm kind of gobsmacked.)
What I started watching and abandoned:
The Fall of the House of Usher, which, okay I liked the transposition to a very modern gothic story aboutthe Sackler pharmaceutical empire a family which developed and heavily marketed an extremely addictive opioid, but I am not a fan of horror and gore and shows in which everybody is a horrible person. We lasted 3 episodes.
What I'm watching now:
Season 3 of The Diplomat, which got off to a magnificent and twisty-turny start!
Europe at Midnight and Europe in Winter, the second and third of the Fractured Europe Sequence by Dave Hutchinson. The first was a reread (and again, I was surprised at how much I'd forgotten in the 10 years since I read it the first time), but I really enjoyed the SF aspect of
spoiler for the cool reveal at the end of the first book, which is explored in the second book
the Community existing as a private England overlaying Europe in another dimension; the idea of the map (somehow) becoming the territory is just fascinating!I actually requested this for Yuletide, and one of my prompts was "worldbuilding - what's happening in the US?" and...one character meets with someone who has a Texas passport, so, there's a whole lot hinted at by that tiny detail right there!
What I'm currently reading:
Europe at Dawn, the finale of the series. This one feels more like various vignettes set in this universe, though I expect everything will come together eventually. I do like how the Situations that the Coureurs handle are all matter-of-fact cloak-and-dagger: a woman walks up to our POV character and says something fairly banal, and he responds with a similar sentence; when she's gone, he finds a slip of paper in his pocket with the name of a hotel in another city; he goes there and checks in, and there's another slip of paper in the bedside Bible; he finds the car with the number plate on that paper and he gets in and drives across the border and leaves it in the parking lot of a certain cafe, then he takes the train home. It's all very mysterious! and fun! (and leaves me wondering why go to all that trouble to hide things in places in so many steps, but...)
(B is reading the Fourth Wing series and enjoying it. I'm kind of gobsmacked.)
What I started watching and abandoned:
The Fall of the House of Usher, which, okay I liked the transposition to a very modern gothic story about
What I'm watching now:
Season 3 of The Diplomat, which got off to a magnificent and twisty-turny start!
Dear Yuletide Writer
Oct. 22nd, 2025 12:33 pmThank you for writing a story for me! I am ![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p2.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
Isis on AO3. As long as you generally stick with things I like and avoid things I dislike, I will enjoy your story even if it doesn't take on any of my vague prompts, which are really just suggestions. All my prompts are at least mildly spoilery so you may want to take care expanding those sections.
If you're not feeling inspired about your assignment and want to try something else, the British Airways "May We Haveth One's Attention" Safety Video is literally a 5-minute fandom (okay, 5:22), Il Gattopardo | The Leopard (2025) is 6 1-hour episodes, and you can write my request for the Fractured Europe Sequence based only on the first 2 books (out of 4). For my Shardlake request, you need only the fifth book, but my request is highly spoilery and ideally you should read the book before looking at my request, which seems like a big ask!
Treats are enabled and welcome! I've included general art likes in the "nattering" section for artists interested in making Wrapping Paper treats (and if you draw me a treat I'll try to write you the story that goes with it!).
Likes: I like historical (if appropriate) and worldbuildy detail, scenery porn, what-if AUs, original characters (along with, not instead of, any requested ones, unless otherwise specified), pastiche of canon style, time travel, bodyswap, bodysharing, ghost/afterlife stories, mythological and supernatural elements, and magical realism. (These fantasy elements are welcome in canons that don’t have them, unless specified.) As you can probably tell from my specific fandom details, the setting and worldbuilding are as important to me as the characters, so I'm not a fan of AU that completely changes the setting, but if you have a brilliant idea, go for it; I would prefer "interesting" to "mundane" AUs, e.g., in SPAAAACE yes, coffeeshop no. (Coffeeshop in SPAAAACE, okay!). I would like happy endings and no major character death, though feel free to kill off original or minor characters as your story requires.
DNW: I do not want fic focusing on pregnancy or children (mentions of either are fine), A/B/O or BSDM dynamics, mundane modern AUs, or major character death (other than canon deaths). I do not want anything that contradicts the characters being cisgender as presented in canon, unless they are canonically not cisgender. I do not want fic that uses neopronouns (e.g. 'xie') – please use 'they' for nonbinary or agender characters, or whatever these characters use in canon. I do not want nonstandard capitalization or punctuation other than in the title. I very strongly prefer past tense; if you feel your story really needs to be in present tense for stylistic reasons that's fine, but I want it to be a conscious choice, not a default.
I do not want unrequested noncanon ships involving canon characters even in the background, other than those I've specifically mentioned I'm okay with. Canon ships, mentioned past relationships with OCs, and implicitly canon ships (such as people’s parents) are fine, as are OC/OC relationships. Please don't break up any specified relationships or put my requested characters in relationships other than the ones I've mentioned I like.
Characters: The characters I've chosen are the ones I want the focus on, but the choice of what kind of story to write and who to include in it lies with you. Feel free to take things in whatever direction you like and/or include characters I haven't mentioned, including original characters, though please keep the focus on my requested characters (except as noted). For worldbuilding requests, feel free to use canon characters or original characters as you choose.
Crossovers: I love crossovers, but if you choose to write one, please make sure (either through checking my fic, tags [reading will find books, viewing will find movies and TV shows, games will find games, and some fandoms have tags as well; also you can check my Goodreads 'read' shelf for books, though I haven’t updated it in a while], asking my friends, or asking one of the other mods to ask me) that I know the other source. I have a particular soft spot for crossovers with real historical characters in historical-fiction fandoms.
Style: I generally prefer plot (as in, things happening; doesn't have to be elaborate or long – as contrasted with character studies), past tense, and lots of dialogue. But these are preferences, not hard DNWs, and if you have a brilliant idea that requires present tense and no dialogue, go ahead. My only hard preferences are for conventional pronouns (he/she/they as appropriate), capitalization, and punctuation. I'm happy with epistolary fic, journal entries, and other nonconventional formats, and if you want to create interactive fiction (second person is fine for this, or otherwise as you prefer), go for it! I have no preference on story length - make it as long (or as short) as it needs to be.
Sex and relationships: Explicit sex okay, non-explicit sex is okay, no sex is okay, but any sex should be in believable language for that era or fandom. UST, gen, het, slash, femslash, whatever. It's all good. I don't care for PWP, as I need at least a little context that establishes the world and those characters. I also prefer sex scenes that focus on emotions and perceptions rather than on the mechanics of what goes where: think M-rating rather than E-rating, and I'm totally fine with fade-to-black. I am rather vanilla in my preferences where kink is concerned: mouths, hands, genitals, toys, all are fine, but I am not interested in BSDM, bloodplay, watersports, spanking, or fetish play. I like kissing, touching, oral sex, penetrative sex, frottage, pegging, mutual masturbation, outdoor sex, indoor sex, and pretty much any position two bodies can contort themselves into. I am not interested in threesomes, moresomes, or poly fic in these fandoms. I am absolutely fine with a gen work in any of these fandoms.
Wrapping paper challenge art treats: I would love art for any of these fandoms! I like both serious portraits and funny little cartoons. I have a soft spot for art in which one character is doing something typical-but-alarming, and the other is rolling his or her eyes, or reacting with horror, or getting ready to douse them with a bucket of water, or whatever. Stylistically, I love interesting and experimental compositions, unusual perspectives, emphasis on textures such as hair and clothing, and scenery porn (Mountains! Trees! Cliffs with water crashing on them! Brooding ruins of an ancient castle!) and I like line drawings as well as full color. I really like stylized artwork that depends on a limited color scheme (my favorite colors are blues and greens; I also like black-and-white and grayscale), and not-too-detailed sketches that feel dynamic. I like art-pastiche such as playing cards and tarot cards, posters, and so on. If I receive any art treats, I will do my best to write a ficlet for the artist based on the art!
And now, on to the prompts!
I watched this homage to British costume drama (and airline safety video!) and was instantly charmed. Feel free to take it anywhere along the crack continuum that you like: is this a strange alternate world in which airplanes were invented much, much earlier? Did the historical characters time-travel forward, or the flight attendants time-travel in reverse? Did a real queen isekai into the filming of an airline safety video and just deal with it with royal aplomb? Why are Anne and George sitting in airline seats in the parlor? (Do they invite the flight attendants to their wedding?) And, the most provoking question of all: how did the Scots get seatbelts on their horses?
Additional DNW for this fandom: don't break up Anne and George! However, any other relationships here are fair game, and I'd be intrigued by something like Scot/flight attendant or Queen/pilot.
I first read Europe in Autumn and Europe at Midnight nearly 10 years ago, when the "Xian Flu" was a far-fetched SF imagining and the "Global War on Terror" was not nearly so global. I'm re-reading these books now in preparation for reading the rest of the series, and let me just say it's landing rather differently.
The worldbuilding in this series delights and enthralls me! I would love anything about the splinter polities, about the Line, about the Campus or the Community or the Coureurs, on scales small (the discovery of an entrance to the Community) to large (a seemingly-stable country splitting into pieces). Past, present, or future; Europe, or beyond - what happened in Asia? In North America? while all this is happening in Europe? There are intriguing hints that the US has had a civil war, and that Texas has become its own country! The little bits of story with secondary characters hint at lots of things outside the scope of the novels that could be filled in. Or - and I don't know yet if these get answered in the books, but if it doesn't - how does mapping an alternate dimension make it spring into being? What was Mundt's "trick of topology"?
(Please note that as I write this letter, I've only read the first two books and about half of the third, but I will have read the entire series by Yuletime.)
I enjoyed this costume drama set in the waning days of the Sicilian nobility and the rise of the Kingdom of Italy. I'm specifically looking for a canon-divergence AU here: please give Concetta a happy future. Maybe she runs off with Tancredi to America; maybe she runs off to Paris with Angelica! Maybe she gets married to Bombello after all, and it works out. Or perhaps she finds joy in her stewardship of the Salina estate, somehow, if you want to keep things closer to canon. I'd be intrigued with a crossover with historical RPF of the period, or any appropriate fandom I'm familiar with.
DNW a romantic relationship between Concetta and any of her siblings or parents, or Calogero, but I'm fine with her finding love with an OC, male or female, or a minor character ditto.
This show gave me vibes of Peaky Blinders set in the late 19th C San Francisco Chinatown Tong Wars, with a generous helping of Game of Thrones. I'd love a story about any of the nominated characters, particularly their backstory or an imagined future after the show (you are welcome to canon-divergence away canon deaths). Some specific things that interest me:
- How Ah Toy and Nellie navigate their romantic relationship (forbidden in multiple ways!)
- Lai's hero-worship of Ah Toy, her silent steadfastness, the way she blossomed at the vineyard
- Hong's ridiculous cheery attitude in the face of a thousand insults and injuries, his matter-of-fact approach to his sexuality
- Wang Chao's careful balancing act at the fulcrum of the warring tongs and the police
- The fraught father-son relationship of Father Jun and Young Jun
Please don't break up canon relationships. General DNW of unrequested noncanon ships involving canon characters applies here except for the following: I vaguely ship Wang Chao with Richard Lee (growing out of their developing understanding during their forced road-trip); Lai might be interesting with Penelope or Mai Ling, if you could figure out how to get them together, or an OC (male or female) or any other non-nominated character; Hong with an OMC or any non-nominated male character, before or after his time with Marcel. However, please feel completely free to write gen!
I read the first few Shardlake books a few years ago, and then read the rest of them in one fell swoop this summer. I feel like they just got better and better! Heartstone, where we meet Hugh Curteys, was possibly my favorite, because it contains one of my favorite tropes, and if you haven't read these books please stop here because MAJOR SPOILERS...
...I am absolutely weak for the "girl disguises herself as boy" plot, especially in historical contexts where women's lives are circumscribed by the prevailing social/religious attitudes. I really love the way Sansom has written Hugh here; he fully inhabits the character he has taken on for himself. Even once Shardlake figures it out, he still refers to Hugh with male pronouns, which implies to me that for Hugh, being male is not just his cover story but the identity he has chosen to live.
I'd really love a story about Hugh's new life in Antwerp working in the cloth trade, and I'm fine with it being set with him back in England talking to Shardlake, or epistolary, or just completely about Hugh with no involvement from Shardlake and the other characters. I'm fine with gen, or with him attempting a romance either with a man or a woman (original character) - it's up to you whether it goes well or disastrously, considering his secret and the setting. But please keep things firmly set within the historical context of these books.
Additional DNW for this fandom: No Hugh/Jack or Hugh/Matthew. I'm cautiously open to Hugh/Nicholas, and although there are not a lot of appropriate female characters in these books, if you can think of one, that's fine. Original characters are of course fine here.
If you're not feeling inspired about your assignment and want to try something else, the British Airways "May We Haveth One's Attention" Safety Video is literally a 5-minute fandom (okay, 5:22), Il Gattopardo | The Leopard (2025) is 6 1-hour episodes, and you can write my request for the Fractured Europe Sequence based only on the first 2 books (out of 4). For my Shardlake request, you need only the fifth book, but my request is highly spoilery and ideally you should read the book before looking at my request, which seems like a big ask!
Treats are enabled and welcome! I've included general art likes in the "nattering" section for artists interested in making Wrapping Paper treats (and if you draw me a treat I'll try to write you the story that goes with it!).
Likes: I like historical (if appropriate) and worldbuildy detail, scenery porn, what-if AUs, original characters (along with, not instead of, any requested ones, unless otherwise specified), pastiche of canon style, time travel, bodyswap, bodysharing, ghost/afterlife stories, mythological and supernatural elements, and magical realism. (These fantasy elements are welcome in canons that don’t have them, unless specified.) As you can probably tell from my specific fandom details, the setting and worldbuilding are as important to me as the characters, so I'm not a fan of AU that completely changes the setting, but if you have a brilliant idea, go for it; I would prefer "interesting" to "mundane" AUs, e.g., in SPAAAACE yes, coffeeshop no. (Coffeeshop in SPAAAACE, okay!). I would like happy endings and no major character death, though feel free to kill off original or minor characters as your story requires.
DNW: I do not want fic focusing on pregnancy or children (mentions of either are fine), A/B/O or BSDM dynamics, mundane modern AUs, or major character death (other than canon deaths). I do not want anything that contradicts the characters being cisgender as presented in canon, unless they are canonically not cisgender. I do not want fic that uses neopronouns (e.g. 'xie') – please use 'they' for nonbinary or agender characters, or whatever these characters use in canon. I do not want nonstandard capitalization or punctuation other than in the title. I very strongly prefer past tense; if you feel your story really needs to be in present tense for stylistic reasons that's fine, but I want it to be a conscious choice, not a default.
I do not want unrequested noncanon ships involving canon characters even in the background, other than those I've specifically mentioned I'm okay with. Canon ships, mentioned past relationships with OCs, and implicitly canon ships (such as people’s parents) are fine, as are OC/OC relationships. Please don't break up any specified relationships or put my requested characters in relationships other than the ones I've mentioned I like.
Other general nattering about my tastes - characters, crossovers, style, sex likes, art likes
Characters: The characters I've chosen are the ones I want the focus on, but the choice of what kind of story to write and who to include in it lies with you. Feel free to take things in whatever direction you like and/or include characters I haven't mentioned, including original characters, though please keep the focus on my requested characters (except as noted). For worldbuilding requests, feel free to use canon characters or original characters as you choose.
Crossovers: I love crossovers, but if you choose to write one, please make sure (either through checking my fic, tags [reading will find books, viewing will find movies and TV shows, games will find games, and some fandoms have tags as well; also you can check my Goodreads 'read' shelf for books, though I haven’t updated it in a while], asking my friends, or asking one of the other mods to ask me) that I know the other source. I have a particular soft spot for crossovers with real historical characters in historical-fiction fandoms.
Style: I generally prefer plot (as in, things happening; doesn't have to be elaborate or long – as contrasted with character studies), past tense, and lots of dialogue. But these are preferences, not hard DNWs, and if you have a brilliant idea that requires present tense and no dialogue, go ahead. My only hard preferences are for conventional pronouns (he/she/they as appropriate), capitalization, and punctuation. I'm happy with epistolary fic, journal entries, and other nonconventional formats, and if you want to create interactive fiction (second person is fine for this, or otherwise as you prefer), go for it! I have no preference on story length - make it as long (or as short) as it needs to be.
Sex and relationships: Explicit sex okay, non-explicit sex is okay, no sex is okay, but any sex should be in believable language for that era or fandom. UST, gen, het, slash, femslash, whatever. It's all good. I don't care for PWP, as I need at least a little context that establishes the world and those characters. I also prefer sex scenes that focus on emotions and perceptions rather than on the mechanics of what goes where: think M-rating rather than E-rating, and I'm totally fine with fade-to-black. I am rather vanilla in my preferences where kink is concerned: mouths, hands, genitals, toys, all are fine, but I am not interested in BSDM, bloodplay, watersports, spanking, or fetish play. I like kissing, touching, oral sex, penetrative sex, frottage, pegging, mutual masturbation, outdoor sex, indoor sex, and pretty much any position two bodies can contort themselves into. I am not interested in threesomes, moresomes, or poly fic in these fandoms. I am absolutely fine with a gen work in any of these fandoms.
Wrapping paper challenge art treats: I would love art for any of these fandoms! I like both serious portraits and funny little cartoons. I have a soft spot for art in which one character is doing something typical-but-alarming, and the other is rolling his or her eyes, or reacting with horror, or getting ready to douse them with a bucket of water, or whatever. Stylistically, I love interesting and experimental compositions, unusual perspectives, emphasis on textures such as hair and clothing, and scenery porn (Mountains! Trees! Cliffs with water crashing on them! Brooding ruins of an ancient castle!) and I like line drawings as well as full color. I really like stylized artwork that depends on a limited color scheme (my favorite colors are blues and greens; I also like black-and-white and grayscale), and not-too-detailed sketches that feel dynamic. I like art-pastiche such as playing cards and tarot cards, posters, and so on. If I receive any art treats, I will do my best to write a ficlet for the artist based on the art!
And now, on to the prompts!
British Airways "May We Haveth One's Attention" Safety Video: Any (Georgian Queen, Anne, George, Scots on Horseback, Worldbuilding)
I watched this homage to British costume drama (and airline safety video!) and was instantly charmed. Feel free to take it anywhere along the crack continuum that you like: is this a strange alternate world in which airplanes were invented much, much earlier? Did the historical characters time-travel forward, or the flight attendants time-travel in reverse? Did a real queen isekai into the filming of an airline safety video and just deal with it with royal aplomb? Why are Anne and George sitting in airline seats in the parlor? (Do they invite the flight attendants to their wedding?) And, the most provoking question of all: how did the Scots get seatbelts on their horses?
Additional DNW for this fandom: don't break up Anne and George! However, any other relationships here are fair game, and I'd be intrigued by something like Scot/flight attendant or Queen/pilot.
The Fractured Europe Sequence - Dave Hutchinson: Worldbuilding
I first read Europe in Autumn and Europe at Midnight nearly 10 years ago, when the "Xian Flu" was a far-fetched SF imagining and the "Global War on Terror" was not nearly so global. I'm re-reading these books now in preparation for reading the rest of the series, and let me just say it's landing rather differently.
The worldbuilding in this series delights and enthralls me! I would love anything about the splinter polities, about the Line, about the Campus or the Community or the Coureurs, on scales small (the discovery of an entrance to the Community) to large (a seemingly-stable country splitting into pieces). Past, present, or future; Europe, or beyond - what happened in Asia? In North America? while all this is happening in Europe? There are intriguing hints that the US has had a civil war, and that Texas has become its own country! The little bits of story with secondary characters hint at lots of things outside the scope of the novels that could be filled in. Or - and I don't know yet if these get answered in the books, but if it doesn't - how does mapping an alternate dimension make it spring into being? What was Mundt's "trick of topology"?
(Please note that as I write this letter, I've only read the first two books and about half of the third, but I will have read the entire series by Yuletime.)
Il Gattopardo | The Leopard (2025): Concetta Corbera di Salina
I enjoyed this costume drama set in the waning days of the Sicilian nobility and the rise of the Kingdom of Italy. I'm specifically looking for a canon-divergence AU here: please give Concetta a happy future. Maybe she runs off with Tancredi to America; maybe she runs off to Paris with Angelica! Maybe she gets married to Bombello after all, and it works out. Or perhaps she finds joy in her stewardship of the Salina estate, somehow, if you want to keep things closer to canon. I'd be intrigued with a crossover with historical RPF of the period, or any appropriate fandom I'm familiar with.
DNW a romantic relationship between Concetta and any of her siblings or parents, or Calogero, but I'm fine with her finding love with an OC, male or female, or a minor character ditto.
Warrior (TV 2019): Any (Ah Toy, Father Jun, Hong, Lai, Nellie Davenport, Wang Chao, Young Jun)
This show gave me vibes of Peaky Blinders set in the late 19th C San Francisco Chinatown Tong Wars, with a generous helping of Game of Thrones. I'd love a story about any of the nominated characters, particularly their backstory or an imagined future after the show (you are welcome to canon-divergence away canon deaths). Some specific things that interest me:
- How Ah Toy and Nellie navigate their romantic relationship (forbidden in multiple ways!)
- Lai's hero-worship of Ah Toy, her silent steadfastness, the way she blossomed at the vineyard
- Hong's ridiculous cheery attitude in the face of a thousand insults and injuries, his matter-of-fact approach to his sexuality
- Wang Chao's careful balancing act at the fulcrum of the warring tongs and the police
- The fraught father-son relationship of Father Jun and Young Jun
Please don't break up canon relationships. General DNW of unrequested noncanon ships involving canon characters applies here except for the following: I vaguely ship Wang Chao with Richard Lee (growing out of their developing understanding during their forced road-trip); Lai might be interesting with Penelope or Mai Ling, if you could figure out how to get them together, or an OC (male or female) or any other non-nominated character; Hong with an OMC or any non-nominated male character, before or after his time with Marcel. However, please feel completely free to write gen!
Matthew Shardlake Series - C. J. Sansom: Hugh Curteys
I read the first few Shardlake books a few years ago, and then read the rest of them in one fell swoop this summer. I feel like they just got better and better! Heartstone, where we meet Hugh Curteys, was possibly my favorite, because it contains one of my favorite tropes, and if you haven't read these books please stop here because MAJOR SPOILERS...
...I am absolutely weak for the "girl disguises herself as boy" plot, especially in historical contexts where women's lives are circumscribed by the prevailing social/religious attitudes. I really love the way Sansom has written Hugh here; he fully inhabits the character he has taken on for himself. Even once Shardlake figures it out, he still refers to Hugh with male pronouns, which implies to me that for Hugh, being male is not just his cover story but the identity he has chosen to live.
I'd really love a story about Hugh's new life in Antwerp working in the cloth trade, and I'm fine with it being set with him back in England talking to Shardlake, or epistolary, or just completely about Hugh with no involvement from Shardlake and the other characters. I'm fine with gen, or with him attempting a romance either with a man or a woman (original character) - it's up to you whether it goes well or disastrously, considering his secret and the setting. But please keep things firmly set within the historical context of these books.
Additional DNW for this fandom: No Hugh/Jack or Hugh/Matthew. I'm cautiously open to Hugh/Nicholas, and although there are not a lot of appropriate female characters in these books, if you can think of one, that's fine. Original characters are of course fine here.
wednesday reads and things
Oct. 15th, 2025 04:40 pmHiya! It's been a while! I blame Yuletide. (The preparatory work is a Lot, even with all the comods and tagmods who do an amazing job of putting things together. So, make me feel like it was worthwhile: go sign up! 😁)
But I have been consuming media!
What I recently finished reading:
Chaos Vector and Catalyst Gate, the second and third books in the space-opera Protectorate series by Megan E. O'Keefe. I enjoyed the series overall, though I feel like O'Keefe slowed things down and lost momentum after the sequence of clever twists from the first book. The actual story behind the story turned out to be less novel and captivating than I was expecting, and although a few of the reveals were "a-HA!" great, some parts just felt as though the worldbuilding was being done on the fly, and the plot built around to justify it.
The writing occasionally felt a little fanficcy to me, like, "let's express found family sentiment here! Let's throw in an obstacle that turns out not to be one!" but overall it was easy to read and fairly entertaining.
Europe in Autumn by Dave Hutchinson, which like the first book of the previous series is a reread so I can read the rest of the books in the series. This one I first read in 2014, and as with the Protectorate books, I am stunned at how much I completely don't remember at all. Here's my review from 2014:
I guess the point is, I enjoyed reading this both as an escape and also as a a warning. On to the second book, which according to my notes I read in 2016 and liked even more (because it was mostly about the cool thing at the end of the first book)!
What I recently finished watching:
Two episodes of Resident Alien which was too cringe for me. I liked the concept, in theory? But the execution was excruciating.
Foundation S3, which - well, another way that civilizations crumble, I guess. I enjoyed it, particularly watching the various Cleons diverge from their assigned paths, but alas the problem with a generation-spanning epic is that the characters you liked in a previous season are (mostly) long dead now. Probably my favorite part was Bayta (and Toran, I guess) who felt very much like Star Wars characters to me.
What I'm still playing but not for much longer:
I'm about to start the endgame sequence (at least, that's what the quest screen tells me) of Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Time to kill those pesky gods!
But I have been consuming media!
What I recently finished reading:
Chaos Vector and Catalyst Gate, the second and third books in the space-opera Protectorate series by Megan E. O'Keefe. I enjoyed the series overall, though I feel like O'Keefe slowed things down and lost momentum after the sequence of clever twists from the first book. The actual story behind the story turned out to be less novel and captivating than I was expecting, and although a few of the reveals were "a-HA!" great, some parts just felt as though the worldbuilding was being done on the fly, and the plot built around to justify it.
The writing occasionally felt a little fanficcy to me, like, "let's express found family sentiment here! Let's throw in an obstacle that turns out not to be one!" but overall it was easy to read and fairly entertaining.
Europe in Autumn by Dave Hutchinson, which like the first book of the previous series is a reread so I can read the rest of the books in the series. This one I first read in 2014, and as with the Protectorate books, I am stunned at how much I completely don't remember at all. Here's my review from 2014:
A whole lot of elements in this book hit my buttons perfectly. There is the alternate-history/near-future aspect, which centers on the interesting idea that the EU has not just fallen apart but splintered into dozens of tiny pocket states (and I have to say, there was a strange resonance to reading the bit about Scotland's explosive parting from the UK only a month after the real-world vote failed). There is the largely Eastern European setting, the Estonian and Polish and Hungarian characters, which read delightfully exotic to this American (though I wonder how it will read to my European friends!). The writing is strong, never getting in the way of the story but frequently delighting me with clever phrases and evocative images, exactly the style I love reading. And I adored the idea at the heart of the eventual reveal.I mostly still agree with this, though I now think the pacing works better for me, maybe because I missed some details before or failed to understand how a later section made use of information from an earlier one. Also - there was an offhand bit of building up the undergirdings of this near-future world, the why of Europe having splintered into micro-polities, involving a pandemic of the "Xian flu" which "had brought back quarantine checks and national borders as a means of controlling the spread of the disease..." and I was, holy shit, this was published in 2014. (This fictional pandemic was 10-20x more deadly than Covid-19, which was certainly bad enough.) Other contributors to European disunity were "Economic collapse, paranoia about asylum seekers – and, of course, GWOT, the ongoing Global War On Terror," and about there I started thinking damn, if it wasn't for the Great Uniter (of everyone else against him) this would be playing out right now...and maybe it will play out here, as the states attempt to sort themselves by political party.
But...there were problems. The pacing was a little odd, slow to get going, with scenes (or parts of scenes) that did not obviously contribute to the story. Some, granted, played a part later. But it didn't feel tight to me; yet at the same time, there were all these questions that were answered in oblique ways, or left hanging such that clearly the reader was supposed to connect invisible dots, which made me feel a bit too stupid for the clever author - not as bad as Ken MacLeod's books make me feel (and there were bits of this that were reminiscent of his The Execution Channel, but along those lines. And the cool reveal I mentioned above comes practically at the end of the book - but when I hit it, I felt, that is what I want the book to be about! Not all this preparation stuff! And there wasn't enough about the cool part!
I guess the point is, I enjoyed reading this both as an escape and also as a a warning. On to the second book, which according to my notes I read in 2016 and liked even more (because it was mostly about the cool thing at the end of the first book)!
What I recently finished watching:
Two episodes of Resident Alien which was too cringe for me. I liked the concept, in theory? But the execution was excruciating.
Foundation S3, which - well, another way that civilizations crumble, I guess. I enjoyed it, particularly watching the various Cleons diverge from their assigned paths, but alas the problem with a generation-spanning epic is that the characters you liked in a previous season are (mostly) long dead now. Probably my favorite part was Bayta (and Toran, I guess) who felt very much like Star Wars characters to me.
What I'm still playing but not for much longer:
I'm about to start the endgame sequence (at least, that's what the quest screen tells me) of Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Time to kill those pesky gods!
wednesday thursday
Sep. 18th, 2025 05:29 pmWhat I've recently finished watching:
Wednesday season 2, and I enjoyed it a lot! Okay, there were parts I did not enjoy nearly as much as others; I could have done without the zombie gore and Pugsley in general, and Enid's new boyfriend drama as well. On the other hand! (Which I guess is Thing, no pun intended!) Here are some things I particularly loved, ( behind a cut because they are very mildly spoilery for S2, more spoilery for S1: )
Wednesday season 2, and I enjoyed it a lot! Okay, there were parts I did not enjoy nearly as much as others; I could have done without the zombie gore and Pugsley in general, and Enid's new boyfriend drama as well. On the other hand! (Which I guess is Thing, no pun intended!) Here are some things I particularly loved, ( behind a cut because they are very mildly spoilery for S2, more spoilery for S1: )
wednesday reads
Sep. 17th, 2025 06:05 pmWhat I recently finished reading:
A reread of Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O'Keefe - here's my original review from 2020:
Space opera that reminds me a bit of Imperial Radch smushed with the Expanse, though it doesn't feel like it's actually inspired by either. There's a sentient spaceship and a culture which dominates the universe and controls the gates which allow passage between worlds (which were invented using a mysterious technology that may have come from another civilization), and generally modern SF style views of gender and sexuality (the main characters, siblings, have two fathers, and there's a character who uses 'they' pronouns, presumably nonbinary). The story mostly follows Sanda, a 'gunnery sergeant' [this seemed odd to me for various reasons - she seems to be an actual officer, not a noncom, but I guess military ranks in this far future world are different?] who wakes up after a battle alone, on board a deserted enemy warship, which tells her that it's 230 years after the battle and that both sides' planets have been destroyed. Other POVs are Sanda's brother, Biran, who has been recently elevated to the political elite of their society, and Jules, a young gangster girl on a planet far away, whose narrative seems to have little to do with the main story until the very end when things are connected in order to set up the next book. I liked it a lot, though I felt that after the first few big reveals (which were great!) things dragged for a while before rushing to a climax that quickly went on to a cliffhanger.
Rereading my review, I guess I still agree with it! I'm sadly appalled that I forgot so many of the spoilery details in the intervening 5 years.
But I'm on to the next book in the series, Chaos Vector...
A reread of Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O'Keefe - here's my original review from 2020:
Space opera that reminds me a bit of Imperial Radch smushed with the Expanse, though it doesn't feel like it's actually inspired by either. There's a sentient spaceship and a culture which dominates the universe and controls the gates which allow passage between worlds (which were invented using a mysterious technology that may have come from another civilization), and generally modern SF style views of gender and sexuality (the main characters, siblings, have two fathers, and there's a character who uses 'they' pronouns, presumably nonbinary). The story mostly follows Sanda, a 'gunnery sergeant' [this seemed odd to me for various reasons - she seems to be an actual officer, not a noncom, but I guess military ranks in this far future world are different?] who wakes up after a battle alone, on board a deserted enemy warship, which tells her that it's 230 years after the battle and that both sides' planets have been destroyed. Other POVs are Sanda's brother, Biran, who has been recently elevated to the political elite of their society, and Jules, a young gangster girl on a planet far away, whose narrative seems to have little to do with the main story until the very end when things are connected in order to set up the next book. I liked it a lot, though I felt that after the first few big reveals (which were great!) things dragged for a while before rushing to a climax that quickly went on to a cliffhanger.
Rereading my review, I guess I still agree with it! I'm sadly appalled that I forgot so many of the spoilery details in the intervening 5 years.
But I'm on to the next book in the series, Chaos Vector...
wednesday reads and things
Sep. 3rd, 2025 01:02 pmWhat I've recently finished reading:
Empire of Silence by Christopher Ruocchio went back to the library, because my hold on Summer in Orcus came in. Sorry, Chris, I might try it again sometime.
Summer in Orcus by T. Kingfisher - again a book that someone on my flist recommended. 11-year-old Summer gets whooshed to another world by Baba Yaga, supposedly to find her "heart's desire", though she isn't really sure what that is or how to get it, and oops, the world she's ended up in, Orcus, is in crisis. Other reviews compared it to Narnia (as a more-realistic version), although I didn't really see that - though that's probably because I'm not super familiar with Narnia other than having read it ages ago and mostly forgotten it, as the author's afterword actually mentions the Narnia influence. To me it felt almost like a skewed retelling of The Wizard of Oz: a girl and her pet dog (er, accompanying talking weasel?) pick up companions with issues on a road trip (following a road of a particular color!) to see a powerful being who turns out to be a lot less powerful than everyone thinks. It's even precipitated by a witch and a house! Anyway, I enjoyed it okay, though I kinda wish
What I'm reading now:
I'm rereading Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O'Keefe, which was given to me by a friend years ago, and I read and enjoyed, but after trying and failing to find the sequels at my library, gave up on. Now one of my library systems has the sequels, so I am going to read them, but I figured I should first reread the first book since I've mostly forgotten it.
What I recently finished watching:
The Leopard, the Netflix miniseries, which is apparently a remake of a 1963 movie; both are based on a historical novel published (posthumously) in 1958, by Italian writer Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. It's basically one noble family's drama around their (for the most part) inability to cope with the 1860 revolution that led to the consolidation of Italian states into the Kingdom of Italy. The family and the titular "Leopard", a minor Sicilian prince, are fictional but apparently based on Lampedusa's ancestors.
It's a costume drama with gorgeous dresses, heaving bosoms, and horses, mostly, plus a little history. It was enjoyable enough to watch, anyway, and it did inspire me to look up some of the actual history.
What I'm watching now:
Just started S2 of Wednesday! We giggled through the entire first episode.
Empire of Silence by Christopher Ruocchio went back to the library, because my hold on Summer in Orcus came in. Sorry, Chris, I might try it again sometime.
Summer in Orcus by T. Kingfisher - again a book that someone on my flist recommended. 11-year-old Summer gets whooshed to another world by Baba Yaga, supposedly to find her "heart's desire", though she isn't really sure what that is or how to get it, and oops, the world she's ended up in, Orcus, is in crisis. Other reviews compared it to Narnia (as a more-realistic version), although I didn't really see that - though that's probably because I'm not super familiar with Narnia other than having read it ages ago and mostly forgotten it, as the author's afterword actually mentions the Narnia influence. To me it felt almost like a skewed retelling of The Wizard of Oz: a girl and her pet dog (er, accompanying talking weasel?) pick up companions with issues on a road trip (following a road of a particular color!) to see a powerful being who turns out to be a lot less powerful than everyone thinks. It's even precipitated by a witch and a house! Anyway, I enjoyed it okay, though I kinda wish
spoiler
the Forester (or Summer, or Baba Yaga, or even Reginald) could have actually helped the Queen-in-Chains - I felt sorry for her, trapped by a rash wish made as a teenager. Some people, like the Forester, can grow (maybe literally!) to live with their limitations. Some need help.What I'm reading now:
I'm rereading Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O'Keefe, which was given to me by a friend years ago, and I read and enjoyed, but after trying and failing to find the sequels at my library, gave up on. Now one of my library systems has the sequels, so I am going to read them, but I figured I should first reread the first book since I've mostly forgotten it.
What I recently finished watching:
The Leopard, the Netflix miniseries, which is apparently a remake of a 1963 movie; both are based on a historical novel published (posthumously) in 1958, by Italian writer Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. It's basically one noble family's drama around their (for the most part) inability to cope with the 1860 revolution that led to the consolidation of Italian states into the Kingdom of Italy. The family and the titular "Leopard", a minor Sicilian prince, are fictional but apparently based on Lampedusa's ancestors.
It's a costume drama with gorgeous dresses, heaving bosoms, and horses, mostly, plus a little history. It was enjoyable enough to watch, anyway, and it did inspire me to look up some of the actual history.
What I'm watching now:
Just started S2 of Wednesday! We giggled through the entire first episode.
Chicken Jockey from Minnesota
Aug. 28th, 2025 10:19 amPerhaps you're having the worst day in a week of worst days. Here's your remedy:
(she is ten years old! I adore her! The world adores her!)
(she is ten years old! I adore her! The world adores her!)
wednesday reads and things
Aug. 20th, 2025 04:11 pmWhat I've recently finished reading:
Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales by Heather Fawcett, which, it's the third book in the series, so if you like this series you will probably like this book. I particularly enjoyed the trope (which is not uncommon - it's also an element of the Invisible Library series, for example) that the Fae are governed by tales and stories, so the things that happen in their kingdoms generally follow the well-known structures of fairy tales. I also appreciated that the story wrapped around to include elements of the first book.
What I'm reading now:
My hold on Empire of Silence by Christopher Ruocchio came in, and - I can't remember why I put a hold on this book? Did one of you recommend it? I've started it but I am not finding the style particularly engaging. I'll stick with it for a while, though.
What I've recently finished watching:
Untamed, about which I must agree withtreewishes's assessment: "Excellent scenery and interesting characters, the plot, um." The drone shots of Yosemite are spectacular! The action taking place in meadows with cliffs in the background is beautiful! The very beginning has some really fingernail-biting rock climbing (both B and I, who used to climb, muttered at the total sketchiness of one of the placements...) and overall the scenery is just gorgeous. The characters and the way they interact, their backstories and their drama and trauma, are definitely interesting. The plot, um. I have a lot of niggling criticisms, like, there is no way an LA cop would be able to easily transfer to a park ranger job! There is no way an experienced law enforcement officer would go confront a dangerous person without backup! I am side-eyeing the idea of a hippie encampment being on park land and not cleared the hell out of there immediately they found it! I can't imagine a park far from major cities being a hub for [spoilers redacted]! But mostly it's just a ridiculously convoluted plot for the sake of ridiculous convolutions.
Apparently there will be a second season, but I have no idea what they are going to keep constant from the first - the people, the setting, ???
What I'm still playing:
I'm still playing Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and it's still entertaining.
Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales by Heather Fawcett, which, it's the third book in the series, so if you like this series you will probably like this book. I particularly enjoyed the trope (which is not uncommon - it's also an element of the Invisible Library series, for example) that the Fae are governed by tales and stories, so the things that happen in their kingdoms generally follow the well-known structures of fairy tales. I also appreciated that the story wrapped around to include elements of the first book.
What I'm reading now:
My hold on Empire of Silence by Christopher Ruocchio came in, and - I can't remember why I put a hold on this book? Did one of you recommend it? I've started it but I am not finding the style particularly engaging. I'll stick with it for a while, though.
What I've recently finished watching:
Untamed, about which I must agree with
treewishes's assessment: "Excellent scenery and interesting characters, the plot, um." The drone shots of Yosemite are spectacular! The action taking place in meadows with cliffs in the background is beautiful! The very beginning has some really fingernail-biting rock climbing (both B and I, who used to climb, muttered at the total sketchiness of one of the placements...) and overall the scenery is just gorgeous. The characters and the way they interact, their backstories and their drama and trauma, are definitely interesting. The plot, um. I have a lot of niggling criticisms, like, there is no way an LA cop would be able to easily transfer to a park ranger job! There is no way an experienced law enforcement officer would go confront a dangerous person without backup! I am side-eyeing the idea of a hippie encampment being on park land and not cleared the hell out of there immediately they found it! I can't imagine a park far from major cities being a hub for [spoilers redacted]! But mostly it's just a ridiculously convoluted plot for the sake of ridiculous convolutions.Apparently there will be a second season, but I have no idea what they are going to keep constant from the first - the people, the setting, ???
What I'm still playing:
I'm still playing Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and it's still entertaining.
wednesday reads and things
Aug. 13th, 2025 04:25 pmWhat I've recently finished reading:
1984 by George Orwell (reread, but first read nearly 40 years ago, so.) This book requires a great deal of suspension of disbelief; it's more of an allegory of fascism, an exaggerated cartoon version, than it is actual fascism. But that's the point, I think. It's the authoritarian nightmare writ very very large, and I hope that enough people are reading it now to be scared into fighting the authoritarian nightmare which is slowly establishing its tentacles across the US. (And that they don't get so chilled by the downer ending that they believe that it's impossible to fight...)
A few things stood out to me about this book written in 1949. First, it's interesting that ideology isn't actually important here; the object is to amass and retain power, and I think that's true of our current regime. Second is the importance of stamping out every bit of creativity and independent thought, even getting rid of words describing creativity and independence, such that even the books and songs produced by the government are created by computers (cough AI cough) and lightly edited by humans. Very prescient and chilling! And of course the thing that brings this book to mind and has put it on so many contemporary reading lists is the idea of editing information about the past to bring it in line with what the government wants people to believe - which is what the regime is attempting now.
I mostly enjoyed it (if "enjoyed" is the correct word) though the protagonist's view of women was a bit madonna/whoreish, kind of weird, and I wondered how much it reflected the author's feelings. (However, it's obvious to me that the in-universe view of Jews is very clearly intended to be part of the throughline connecting to Nazism, so I am not sure why I feel more uncomfortable about the portrayal of women.) Also there's a whole section in the middle which is a lengthy quote from a purported book by Goldstein, the leader of the Resistance, and that's just ugh boring clunky exposition in the middle of what is for the most part powerful prose. But otherwise, I'm glad I read it again, in these times, where we are led by small men who want to amass power for power's sake, and be cruel for cruelty's sake, and put their boots on everybody's faces.
What I'm reading now:
My hold on the third Emily Wilde book by Heather Fawcett came in at the library, so I'm reading Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales. The beginning was terribly confusing but I'm starting to get into it.
What I recently finished watching:
We finished Arcane, which - I have mixed feelings about. Actually, it kind of reminds me of Andor - no, not the downtrodden rising up against the elite (though okay, there are some elements of that) but the plot veering off sideways and jumping around and things that seem like they're important getting dropped and things coming suddenly out of nowhere. (So maybe it was supposed to be a longer series that got canceled so they had to cram everything into the second season?) I am still not sure what Viktor's whole deal was, or what exactly the "arcane" is, or the invasion at the end, or...and then I looked up the game it's based on and it's a battle arena game, so I am not sure where this plot came from! Anyway, I loved the art, liked a lot of the characters and their relationships, didn't really care for the way the story evolved in S2.
What I'm watching now:
Untamed, which is the Netflix murder mystery miniseries set in Yosemite, not the Chinese drama - that one has a The in front of it. Eric Bana and Sam Neill are in it but we're really watching for the lavish scenery porn, which is definitely amazing. (Also some of it takes place in Mariposa, so it makes me think ofrachelmanija, though I don't know if it's actually filmed there or if it even makes sense to be taking place there.)
1984 by George Orwell (reread, but first read nearly 40 years ago, so.) This book requires a great deal of suspension of disbelief; it's more of an allegory of fascism, an exaggerated cartoon version, than it is actual fascism. But that's the point, I think. It's the authoritarian nightmare writ very very large, and I hope that enough people are reading it now to be scared into fighting the authoritarian nightmare which is slowly establishing its tentacles across the US. (And that they don't get so chilled by the downer ending that they believe that it's impossible to fight...)
A few things stood out to me about this book written in 1949. First, it's interesting that ideology isn't actually important here; the object is to amass and retain power, and I think that's true of our current regime. Second is the importance of stamping out every bit of creativity and independent thought, even getting rid of words describing creativity and independence, such that even the books and songs produced by the government are created by computers (cough AI cough) and lightly edited by humans. Very prescient and chilling! And of course the thing that brings this book to mind and has put it on so many contemporary reading lists is the idea of editing information about the past to bring it in line with what the government wants people to believe - which is what the regime is attempting now.
I mostly enjoyed it (if "enjoyed" is the correct word) though the protagonist's view of women was a bit madonna/whoreish, kind of weird, and I wondered how much it reflected the author's feelings. (However, it's obvious to me that the in-universe view of Jews is very clearly intended to be part of the throughline connecting to Nazism, so I am not sure why I feel more uncomfortable about the portrayal of women.) Also there's a whole section in the middle which is a lengthy quote from a purported book by Goldstein, the leader of the Resistance, and that's just ugh boring clunky exposition in the middle of what is for the most part powerful prose. But otherwise, I'm glad I read it again, in these times, where we are led by small men who want to amass power for power's sake, and be cruel for cruelty's sake, and put their boots on everybody's faces.
What I'm reading now:
My hold on the third Emily Wilde book by Heather Fawcett came in at the library, so I'm reading Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales. The beginning was terribly confusing but I'm starting to get into it.
What I recently finished watching:
We finished Arcane, which - I have mixed feelings about. Actually, it kind of reminds me of Andor - no, not the downtrodden rising up against the elite (though okay, there are some elements of that) but the plot veering off sideways and jumping around and things that seem like they're important getting dropped and things coming suddenly out of nowhere. (So maybe it was supposed to be a longer series that got canceled so they had to cram everything into the second season?) I am still not sure what Viktor's whole deal was, or what exactly the "arcane" is, or the invasion at the end, or...and then I looked up the game it's based on and it's a battle arena game, so I am not sure where this plot came from! Anyway, I loved the art, liked a lot of the characters and their relationships, didn't really care for the way the story evolved in S2.
What I'm watching now:
Untamed, which is the Netflix murder mystery miniseries set in Yosemite, not the Chinese drama - that one has a The in front of it. Eric Bana and Sam Neill are in it but we're really watching for the lavish scenery porn, which is definitely amazing. (Also some of it takes place in Mariposa, so it makes me think of
rachelmanija, though I don't know if it's actually filmed there or if it even makes sense to be taking place there.)wednesday reads and things
Aug. 6th, 2025 06:11 pmWhat I've recently finished reading:
Tombland by C. J. Sansom, the last of the Shardlake books. It's massive, I think the longest of these books, with a very long historical essay at the end which I'm slowly reading through. It's very firmly set within a historical event, namely Kett's Rebellion of 1549. Which is probably why it's so long. While some of the other books in the series include actual events such as the execution of Anne Boleyn or King Henry VIII's Progress to York, those are all mostly backdrop to the mystery plot. Here the plot is interwoven with the rebellion - actually kind of oddly, because it's really plot plot plot plot REBELLION REBELLION plot REBELLION, where suddenly the ostensible activity Shardlake's undertaking is put on the back-burner because of REBELLION, and it's mostly dropped until very near the end where the villain does a somewhat clunky exposition explaining everything. Not the smoothest of these books for sure, but still quite interesting, with great characters as usual.
What I'm reading now:
While I'm waiting for some holds to come in at the library, I started reading George Orwell's 1984, partly because one of the people I subscribe to on Substack (Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance) is hosting a group read of it. I haven't read it since I read it in college, for a class on "Utopias and Dystopias in Film and Literature", so it's pretty interesting to revisit. (And terrifying. Also, terrifying.)
Still watching:
We're getting close to the end of S2 of Arcane. I amused myself by abruptly recognizing Maddie's voice as Suvi in Mass Effect: Andromeda (Katy Townsend, typecast as a lesbian, I guess!). Then I checked the cast list and realized there are really so many actors I have heard in other things! But the only other one I recognized was Shohreh Aghdashloo, because of course I did, how can you not? (And hee, she was in Mass Effect (3) as well!)
Still playing:
Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which is finally getting a little less linear. I set the difficulty one step down (I was on normal=3/5, set it to 2) and it's much kinder - I still get killed a few times by the toughest enemies at the end of each quest before I kill them and prevail, but that's okay.
Tombland by C. J. Sansom, the last of the Shardlake books. It's massive, I think the longest of these books, with a very long historical essay at the end which I'm slowly reading through. It's very firmly set within a historical event, namely Kett's Rebellion of 1549. Which is probably why it's so long. While some of the other books in the series include actual events such as the execution of Anne Boleyn or King Henry VIII's Progress to York, those are all mostly backdrop to the mystery plot. Here the plot is interwoven with the rebellion - actually kind of oddly, because it's really plot plot plot plot REBELLION REBELLION plot REBELLION, where suddenly the ostensible activity Shardlake's undertaking is put on the back-burner because of REBELLION, and it's mostly dropped until very near the end where the villain does a somewhat clunky exposition explaining everything. Not the smoothest of these books for sure, but still quite interesting, with great characters as usual.
What I'm reading now:
While I'm waiting for some holds to come in at the library, I started reading George Orwell's 1984, partly because one of the people I subscribe to on Substack (Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance) is hosting a group read of it. I haven't read it since I read it in college, for a class on "Utopias and Dystopias in Film and Literature", so it's pretty interesting to revisit. (And terrifying. Also, terrifying.)
Still watching:
We're getting close to the end of S2 of Arcane. I amused myself by abruptly recognizing Maddie's voice as Suvi in Mass Effect: Andromeda (Katy Townsend, typecast as a lesbian, I guess!). Then I checked the cast list and realized there are really so many actors I have heard in other things! But the only other one I recognized was Shohreh Aghdashloo, because of course I did, how can you not? (And hee, she was in Mass Effect (3) as well!)
Still playing:
Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which is finally getting a little less linear. I set the difficulty one step down (I was on normal=3/5, set it to 2) and it's much kinder - I still get killed a few times by the toughest enemies at the end of each quest before I kill them and prevail, but that's okay.
Game: Gorogoa
Jul. 30th, 2025 05:46 pmHuh, I still haven't finished a book or a show (getting close on Tombland though) but I have played another game!
As I mentioned before, I told my brother about Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, and he enjoyed it so much he bought a bundle from the same publisher, Annapurna Games, and Gorogoa is one of those games, which he recommended to me. I bought it while it was still on sale for $5; it's back to $15, which, it's a great game but also very short (my time was 4.4 hours, and I'm a slow gamer!) so if it sounds interesting to you I recommend wishlisting it and buying it on sale.
This is a beautiful hand-drawn puzzle game. The plot is - obscure, to say the least (I looked at a Steam thread of people giving their interpretations, and they varied very widely!) but the basic story is a young boy's quest to collect five colored fruits. The puzzle mechanism, though, is something I'd never seen: the game window is divided into four panels (like a windowpane), and to progress you must zoom in and out on the panels, drag panels over one another (some of them have holes through which the lower panel can be seen), and move them around the game window (sometimes the panel is just a view on a larger area, which is revealed by moving; sometimes you must line up two panels in a particular way so something can pass between them). The panels are often not static art but contain moving parts, which you often must figure out how to take advantage of. Actually the Steam page "About this game" section does a pretty good job of showing how this works!
Now I am on to Dragon Age: The Veilguard. I have already died twice and I'm not even through the prologue part of the game, oog.
As I mentioned before, I told my brother about Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, and he enjoyed it so much he bought a bundle from the same publisher, Annapurna Games, and Gorogoa is one of those games, which he recommended to me. I bought it while it was still on sale for $5; it's back to $15, which, it's a great game but also very short (my time was 4.4 hours, and I'm a slow gamer!) so if it sounds interesting to you I recommend wishlisting it and buying it on sale.
This is a beautiful hand-drawn puzzle game. The plot is - obscure, to say the least (I looked at a Steam thread of people giving their interpretations, and they varied very widely!) but the basic story is a young boy's quest to collect five colored fruits. The puzzle mechanism, though, is something I'd never seen: the game window is divided into four panels (like a windowpane), and to progress you must zoom in and out on the panels, drag panels over one another (some of them have holes through which the lower panel can be seen), and move them around the game window (sometimes the panel is just a view on a larger area, which is revealed by moving; sometimes you must line up two panels in a particular way so something can pass between them). The panels are often not static art but contain moving parts, which you often must figure out how to take advantage of. Actually the Steam page "About this game" section does a pretty good job of showing how this works!
Now I am on to Dragon Age: The Veilguard. I have already died twice and I'm not even through the prologue part of the game, oog.
Game: Lorelei and the Laser Eyes
Jul. 22nd, 2025 02:02 pmI finished the game, yay! As I've mentioned before, this is a spooky atmospheric puzzle game, very stylized in grayscale with splashes of red, and a sort of phase-shifted overlay effect that makes everything look a little unreal. You play as a mysterious woman who has come to a mysterious hotel full of locked doors somewhere in Europe (Italy? Austria? Germany?) in 1963, at the request of a mysterious man for reasons of ??? The gameplay is very simple: you move with either a controller stick or arrow keys, and you have a single action button to interact with whatever is highlighted in front of you, or if nothing is, to bring up your "introspection" screen that includes inventory, "photographic memory" (images of everything important you've interacted with, text from books/documents/signs you've seen, etc), and "mental notes" which is where your quests, so to speak, show up, e.g. "Unlock room 1957" or "Broken elevator?" The game manual - once you find it :-) - is minimal, and a lot of the game consists of figuring out how you need to figure out the game. The story also makes little sense and is mostly vibes until you accumulate more information, as putting the story together is in some sense the point of the game.
The puzzles are mostly a matter of figuring out codes to open locks (doors, safes, puzzle boxes, computer logins) based on information that is usually near the lock, but may require extra information from books, letters, or other documents in order to transform into the needed code. Some things rely on Greek letters or Roman numerals; some rely on perspective or rotation or other transformation. Usually if I couldn't figure something out, it meant I didn't have the necessary auxiliary information, though sometimes I had it but didn't realize it was the missing piece.
I found the overall game structure really interesting, in that it's sort of separated into informal stages where there are a number of places you can go and things you can do (and a few things you can't do yet and can't figure out at all, e.g. a statue with a hole in it where obviously something is meant to go but you don't know what, or a room you can see but not enter) and within that, you can do things in any order you like, it's completely nonlinear. And then either something you do triggers an event which opens up additional places you can go/things you can do, or you solve a puzzle that gives you a key (possibly literally) to open up a new area. However, sometimes (probably often!) you receive access to a new area before you've solved everything in a previous area, though in order to fully progress the game you'll need to go back and solve whatever you missed. My brother and I compared notes occasionally, and marveled at how we often did things in completely different orders! For example, there's one area called the "Quiz Club" where you have to answer questions about in-game things in order to progress, and to get to it, you need to solve a puzzle that you have access to from fairly early in the game. My brother got there long before I did, because I missed that puzzle entirely until much later, but he was only able to answer a few of the questions, since he hadn't encountered the answers yet; by the time I got there, I was able to get through the whole thing fairly easily.
I did a bit more than 95% completion (there are some optional things you can do, some of which I chose not to) and finished in about 25 hours, which is probably dead slow, but I'm a slow gamer. I have 9 pages of notes - the facts and diagrams are of course saved in "photographic memory", but I wrote some things down so I could refer to them while in the game without having to access it (and sometimes it's not available, so you have to either remember or take notes). Also a few photos I took with my phone, heh.
The game is pretty inexpensive on Steam and goes on sale periodically (at the moment it's $17.49). As I mentioned in one of my updates, there is a really excellent hint guide on the steamcommunity.com site, which gently nudges you in the direction you should be thinking in order to solve the puzzles, rather than providing answers. You can pet the dog! You can drink espresso (after solving a certain puzzle...)! If you like puzzle games of this sort, I recommend this game!
The puzzles are mostly a matter of figuring out codes to open locks (doors, safes, puzzle boxes, computer logins) based on information that is usually near the lock, but may require extra information from books, letters, or other documents in order to transform into the needed code. Some things rely on Greek letters or Roman numerals; some rely on perspective or rotation or other transformation. Usually if I couldn't figure something out, it meant I didn't have the necessary auxiliary information, though sometimes I had it but didn't realize it was the missing piece.
I found the overall game structure really interesting, in that it's sort of separated into informal stages where there are a number of places you can go and things you can do (and a few things you can't do yet and can't figure out at all, e.g. a statue with a hole in it where obviously something is meant to go but you don't know what, or a room you can see but not enter) and within that, you can do things in any order you like, it's completely nonlinear. And then either something you do triggers an event which opens up additional places you can go/things you can do, or you solve a puzzle that gives you a key (possibly literally) to open up a new area. However, sometimes (probably often!) you receive access to a new area before you've solved everything in a previous area, though in order to fully progress the game you'll need to go back and solve whatever you missed. My brother and I compared notes occasionally, and marveled at how we often did things in completely different orders! For example, there's one area called the "Quiz Club" where you have to answer questions about in-game things in order to progress, and to get to it, you need to solve a puzzle that you have access to from fairly early in the game. My brother got there long before I did, because I missed that puzzle entirely until much later, but he was only able to answer a few of the questions, since he hadn't encountered the answers yet; by the time I got there, I was able to get through the whole thing fairly easily.
I did a bit more than 95% completion (there are some optional things you can do, some of which I chose not to) and finished in about 25 hours, which is probably dead slow, but I'm a slow gamer. I have 9 pages of notes - the facts and diagrams are of course saved in "photographic memory", but I wrote some things down so I could refer to them while in the game without having to access it (and sometimes it's not available, so you have to either remember or take notes). Also a few photos I took with my phone, heh.
The game is pretty inexpensive on Steam and goes on sale periodically (at the moment it's $17.49). As I mentioned in one of my updates, there is a really excellent hint guide on the steamcommunity.com site, which gently nudges you in the direction you should be thinking in order to solve the puzzles, rather than providing answers. You can pet the dog! You can drink espresso (after solving a certain puzzle...)! If you like puzzle games of this sort, I recommend this game!
thursday reads and things
Jul. 17th, 2025 07:02 pmI really did intend to post yesterday, but I didn't get to it. Well, it's Thursday!
What I recently finished reading:
The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison, the third book in the Cemeteries of Amalo sub-series of The Goblin Emperor books. I had gone into it with mixed feelings; not that I strongly cared about but I enjoyed it, overall. I liked the low-ish stakes plot, and the DRAGONS, and the fairly mild author's message of what makes a person a person, and the importance of basic rights and the rule of law, which, let's face it, is a relevant message these days.
Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky, stand-alone SF. Again, a lot of people whose reviews I follow didn't like it, but I did; Tchaikovsky is hit and miss for me, but this was a hit. A biologist who is also a political dissident on an extremely authoritarian Earth is exiled as prison labor on a planet with native life that is very weird and apparently hostile. This is basically another exploration of Tchaikovsky's Theme, which is at core, I think, "How can we see the Other as a Person? How do we overcome the instinct to be closed and tribal, and instead practice empathy, leading to discussion and exchange?" There are echos of the Children of Time series, in particular Children of Ruin (the second book), I think. There is also the strong contrast between a culture which gives lip service to the importance of individuality, but demands conformity, and a culture which emphasizes the communal and the good of the community. And of course, the importance of resistance, of holding to one's core beliefs even in the face of a terrible horrible authoritarian government.
I mostly enjoyed the style except for a few references which seemed a little too grounded in 21st century reality for this future in which humans are mining multiple far-flung planets. The structure and pacing worked well for me. Warning for a terrible horrible authoritarian government that doesn't give a shit about human lives other than their own, and body horror, and an ending which may strike some people as not entirely happy, but which satisfied me.sovay, it's very different from Elder Race but if these themes appeal I think you'll like it.
"Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy" by Martha Wells, a Murderbot short story, in which Murderbot doesn't explicitly appear, but ART | Perihelion has recently met it for the first time. It's from Iris's point of view, on a mission with the rest of the crew, and really the mission is just a framing device McGuffin for "Peri has changed because it met someone?!?", and I agree withrunpunkrun's take that there are way too many words devoted to them walking around on this mission which turns out to be not really relevant, compared to the actual point of the story. Still, it's nice to have a bit about Murderbot from not Murderbot's POV.
What I'm reading now:
Just started on the seventh and last Shardlake book by CJ Sansom, Tombland.
What I recently finished watching:
Murderbot! I enjoyed it! I (mostly) appreciate, or at least understand, the changes they made in adaptation. (Not sure why it's not enough for Pin-Lee to be Space Lawyer, but also must be Badass Fighter? And the Arada/Pin-Lee/Ratthi thing didn't seem to have any reason for being and just felt a bit cringe.) I really loved the ending, and Gurathin's whole general arc, and SANCTUARY MOOOOON, and Mensah is chef's kiss perfect.
Speaking of Sanctuary Moon, Murderbot vidded it! Okay, it was reallypollyrepeat, but: RADIOACTIVE by Murderbot [vid]!!!
What I'm watching now:
Arcane, because B watched the first episode during the winter, riding the stationary bike, and decided I might like to watch it with him, so moved on to something else so we could watch it together. Not very far into it yet.
What I recently listened to:
The third episode of S3 of The Strange Case of Starship Iris, which, I really liked this one!
What I recently finished reading:
The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison, the third book in the Cemeteries of Amalo sub-series of The Goblin Emperor books. I had gone into it with mixed feelings; not that I strongly cared about
spoiler
the Thara Celehar/Iäna Pel-Thenhior ship, but I had heard that the way it was sunk was awkward and issueficcy and felt like "I was going to write this relationship in but it felt pointless after all the fanfiction", and - yeah, it wasAlien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky, stand-alone SF. Again, a lot of people whose reviews I follow didn't like it, but I did; Tchaikovsky is hit and miss for me, but this was a hit. A biologist who is also a political dissident on an extremely authoritarian Earth is exiled as prison labor on a planet with native life that is very weird and apparently hostile. This is basically another exploration of Tchaikovsky's Theme, which is at core, I think, "How can we see the Other as a Person? How do we overcome the instinct to be closed and tribal, and instead practice empathy, leading to discussion and exchange?" There are echos of the Children of Time series, in particular Children of Ruin (the second book), I think. There is also the strong contrast between a culture which gives lip service to the importance of individuality, but demands conformity, and a culture which emphasizes the communal and the good of the community. And of course, the importance of resistance, of holding to one's core beliefs even in the face of a terrible horrible authoritarian government.
I mostly enjoyed the style except for a few references which seemed a little too grounded in 21st century reality for this future in which humans are mining multiple far-flung planets. The structure and pacing worked well for me. Warning for a terrible horrible authoritarian government that doesn't give a shit about human lives other than their own, and body horror, and an ending which may strike some people as not entirely happy, but which satisfied me.
sovay, it's very different from Elder Race but if these themes appeal I think you'll like it."Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy" by Martha Wells, a Murderbot short story, in which Murderbot doesn't explicitly appear, but ART | Perihelion has recently met it for the first time. It's from Iris's point of view, on a mission with the rest of the crew, and really the mission is just a framing device McGuffin for "Peri has changed because it met someone?!?", and I agree with
runpunkrun's take that there are way too many words devoted to them walking around on this mission which turns out to be not really relevant, compared to the actual point of the story. Still, it's nice to have a bit about Murderbot from not Murderbot's POV.What I'm reading now:
Just started on the seventh and last Shardlake book by CJ Sansom, Tombland.
What I recently finished watching:
Murderbot! I enjoyed it! I (mostly) appreciate, or at least understand, the changes they made in adaptation. (Not sure why it's not enough for Pin-Lee to be Space Lawyer, but also must be Badass Fighter? And the Arada/Pin-Lee/Ratthi thing didn't seem to have any reason for being and just felt a bit cringe.) I really loved the ending, and Gurathin's whole general arc, and SANCTUARY MOOOOON, and Mensah is chef's kiss perfect.
Speaking of Sanctuary Moon, Murderbot vidded it! Okay, it was really
What I'm watching now:
Arcane, because B watched the first episode during the winter, riding the stationary bike, and decided I might like to watch it with him, so moved on to something else so we could watch it together. Not very far into it yet.
What I recently listened to:
The third episode of S3 of The Strange Case of Starship Iris, which, I really liked this one!
wednesday update
Jul. 9th, 2025 07:00 pmI don't have much to say about books or TV, because I am still in the middle of my current read and current show. But! For those of you who casually enjoyed the podcast The Strange Case of Starship Iris, the third (and final) season is coming out now. There are a couple of "mini-sodes" which will help you catch up to what's going on, and two regular episodes, and the third will be out soon (it's out to high-dollar Patreons but I am a low-dollar contributor). I listened to the mini-sodes when they came out, and today on my run I listened to the first two regular episodes. Again, I kind of feel like I'm using dystopian fiction about authoritarian regimes as escapism from actual authoritarian regimes...
But the real reason I wanted to post was to say that I'm a bit more than 55% through Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, and there's a 30% discount for it in the Steam sale which ends tomorrow, so - if my post last week intrigued you, I encourage you to buy it, it's inexpensive, it's captivating, it's sophisticated and spooky and atmospheric with occasional touches of humor, fourth-wall smashing, and weird supernatural stuff, and the puzzles are clever and thinky and (mostly) fun. As I mentioned, I told my brother about it and he bought it - and he finished it last night! He admits he got so into it that he put in way too many hours too quickly, but he really loved it.
If you do buy it, the hints page at https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3249636035 is really great as it is nudge-y rather than sledge-y; it points you in the right direction (or tells you what a wrong direction is) which for me is mostly all I have needed.
Also, there are in-game espresso machines.
But the real reason I wanted to post was to say that I'm a bit more than 55% through Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, and there's a 30% discount for it in the Steam sale which ends tomorrow, so - if my post last week intrigued you, I encourage you to buy it, it's inexpensive, it's captivating, it's sophisticated and spooky and atmospheric with occasional touches of humor, fourth-wall smashing, and weird supernatural stuff, and the puzzles are clever and thinky and (mostly) fun. As I mentioned, I told my brother about it and he bought it - and he finished it last night! He admits he got so into it that he put in way too many hours too quickly, but he really loved it.
If you do buy it, the hints page at https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3249636035 is really great as it is nudge-y rather than sledge-y; it points you in the right direction (or tells you what a wrong direction is) which for me is mostly all I have needed.
Also, there are in-game espresso machines.
wednesday reads and things
Jul. 2nd, 2025 06:17 pmWhat I've recently finished reading:
Lamentation by C.J. Sansom, the 6th Shardlake novel. This is all about the heresy hunts in the last few years before Henry VIII's death - one faction wanted to go back towards Catholicism, one wanted a radical re-imagining of religion and social structures, and if you wanted to stay in the regime's good graces, you walked the narrow path of "the King is the divinely ordained leader of the Church, and whatever he says goes." Warning for historical burning of heretics, plus canon-typical violence; also for weird religion and contentious legal cases. Matthew Shardlake still has a crush on the queen (Katherine Parr).
What I'm reading now:
My hold on Katherine Addison's The Tomb of Dragons came in, so that. Just barely started.
What I recently finished watching:
American Primeval, which, huh, I've never before encountered media in which the Mormons are the bad guys. (This is not a spoiler. It's pretty clear from the get-go, but it gets more pointed and cartoon-villainy toward the end.) Definitely violent and gory, though also it felt very clearly written to Tug The Heart Strings (and then, often, deliberately kill the character it's just tried to make you care about) at which at least for me it failed to do. I liked Abish, Two Moons, and Captain Edwin Dellinger, and James Bridger amused the hell out of me, but - I mostly enjoyed it, but I don't feel it was superlative. I got tired of the filter to wash out colors so it looked almost old-photo sepia.
I did enjoy the historical setting of the Mormon War; as I mentioned last time, I researched it for my Yuletide story, and I think it's just an interesting time, the settlement/colonization of western North America.
What I'm about to start watching:
Murderbot! We always wait until enough episodes are out that we can watch ~every other day and not have to wait.
What I'm playing now:
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, which was recommended to me as a "spooky atmospheric puzzle game", and I'm enjoying it a lot. You play as a mysterious woman who has come to a mysterious hotel full of locked doors in what might be Germany in 1963, at the request of a mysterious man for reasons of ??? I told my brother about it because it's cheap in the summer sale at Steam, and he decided it sounded good so he is playing it now, a bit behind my progress but because of the nonlinearity he's ahead of me in some things. We're trying to give each other elliptical hints when needed.
Lamentation by C.J. Sansom, the 6th Shardlake novel. This is all about the heresy hunts in the last few years before Henry VIII's death - one faction wanted to go back towards Catholicism, one wanted a radical re-imagining of religion and social structures, and if you wanted to stay in the regime's good graces, you walked the narrow path of "the King is the divinely ordained leader of the Church, and whatever he says goes." Warning for historical burning of heretics, plus canon-typical violence; also for weird religion and contentious legal cases. Matthew Shardlake still has a crush on the queen (Katherine Parr).
What I'm reading now:
My hold on Katherine Addison's The Tomb of Dragons came in, so that. Just barely started.
What I recently finished watching:
American Primeval, which, huh, I've never before encountered media in which the Mormons are the bad guys. (This is not a spoiler. It's pretty clear from the get-go, but it gets more pointed and cartoon-villainy toward the end.) Definitely violent and gory, though also it felt very clearly written to Tug The Heart Strings (and then, often, deliberately kill the character it's just tried to make you care about) at which at least for me it failed to do. I liked Abish, Two Moons, and Captain Edwin Dellinger, and James Bridger amused the hell out of me, but - I mostly enjoyed it, but I don't feel it was superlative. I got tired of the filter to wash out colors so it looked almost old-photo sepia.
I did enjoy the historical setting of the Mormon War; as I mentioned last time, I researched it for my Yuletide story, and I think it's just an interesting time, the settlement/colonization of western North America.
What I'm about to start watching:
Murderbot! We always wait until enough episodes are out that we can watch ~every other day and not have to wait.
What I'm playing now:
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, which was recommended to me as a "spooky atmospheric puzzle game", and I'm enjoying it a lot. You play as a mysterious woman who has come to a mysterious hotel full of locked doors in what might be Germany in 1963, at the request of a mysterious man for reasons of ??? I told my brother about it because it's cheap in the summer sale at Steam, and he decided it sounded good so he is playing it now, a bit behind my progress but because of the nonlinearity he's ahead of me in some things. We're trying to give each other elliptical hints when needed.
thursday reads and things
Jun. 19th, 2025 04:30 pmWhat I recently abandoned reading:
I got just over halfway through Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao before deciding that YA mecha is not my thing, even when it's a YA mecha AU of Chinese history. I think I'd rather read an actual historical novel or even nonfiction about Wu Zetian, who seems to have been an impressive-as-hell woman. (I will take recommendations!)
What I'm reading now:
Lamentation, the 6th Shardlake book by C. J. Sansom. (An actual historical novel! 😁)
What I recently finished watching:
S2 of Andor, which as I said, weirdly ironic to be watching as we grapple with our own ascendant Evil Empire. The pacing of this season was strange, big time-skips and characters that had seemed important in S1 (or in early episodes of S2) disappearing completely, or reappearing briefly only to be killed. I was expecting more about Mon Mothma's family, after all the screentime lavished on the wedding and her sort-of-blackmail situation. I was also expecting more of a resolution, though that's probably because I only vaguely remember Rogue One, so a lot of the breadcrumbs were, "wait, who was that again?" instead of, "aha!" for me. But I liked Kleya a whole lot, and also the snarky ex-Empire droid, and some of the spycraft bits were fun.
What I'm watching now:
We are giving American Primeval a try, despite it probably being on the violent/gory side for our tastes. We're two episodes in, and - I immediately recognized Shorty Bowlegs from the most recent season of Dark Winds! (Derek Hinkey, playing Red Feather.) Also, there is a local(ish) woman in it, Nanabah Grace from Cortez just down the road, who plays Kuttaambo'i. An article about her in the local newspaper was the way I first heard of this series, actually.
I'm enjoying the historical stuff; it's set during the Mormon War, which I actually researched a bit for my Yuletide fic, the premise of which was that the main reason that Deseret became an independent republic in the alt-history of Francis Spufford's Cahokia Jazz was that President Buchanan backed down in the face of united Mormons and natives, as both religion and respect for the tribes were stronger in that universe's US. I also like seeing the Old West, even though it was all filmed in New Mexico pretending to be Wyoming, although I'm getting a bit tired of the washed-out sepia filter.
What I recently finished playing:
Okay, not quite finished, but I have completed the last major quest in Mass Effect: Andromeda, so it's basically over. (I mean, the credits rolled! Therefore, it's over!) I know that Andromeda is considered ME's poor stepchild, but - I really enjoyed it. The "major threat to the world as we know it!!1!!one!" of the main trilogy is such a staple plotline of video games like this that I appreciated the "survive, explore, and (hopefully) thrive in a NEW UNIVERSE (and also defeat the major threat to the world as we know it)" plotline for its novelty. I thought the structure of quests opening new planets and objectives in a rough but not strict order worked well, and I really liked that most (maybe all?) decisions are not hugely critical, so you don't doom yourself to a bad ending by choosing X instead of Y. I did check the wiki a few times when I was nervous about things, but pretty much none of these decisions made any real difference, which meant I was free to actually role-play as "what WOULD (me as) Sara Ryder do?" and I find that much more relaxing.
I wasn't quite completionist - I didn't do all the fetch quest type quests, and I didn't do one vault (Elaaden, which I might go back and do), but I did pretty much everything else. I liked the glyph puzzles, and I hated the Architects, ugh. I played mostly as what in the main trilogy would be Infiltrator (combat + tech). I romanced Liam (after a fling with Peebee). It was fun!
What I'm playing next:
I think I will try some shorter games; I got Lorelei and the Laser Eyes a while back because a friend recommended it, and Skabma - Snowfall from a recent deal, because it looked pretty. I might try Baldur's Gate 3 again - I never managed to get into it and found it frustrating and annoying. Eventually I plan to get Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and also probably Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which I've heard good things about.
(Or sell me on your favorite adventure game!)
I got just over halfway through Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao before deciding that YA mecha is not my thing, even when it's a YA mecha AU of Chinese history. I think I'd rather read an actual historical novel or even nonfiction about Wu Zetian, who seems to have been an impressive-as-hell woman. (I will take recommendations!)
What I'm reading now:
Lamentation, the 6th Shardlake book by C. J. Sansom. (An actual historical novel! 😁)
What I recently finished watching:
S2 of Andor, which as I said, weirdly ironic to be watching as we grapple with our own ascendant Evil Empire. The pacing of this season was strange, big time-skips and characters that had seemed important in S1 (or in early episodes of S2) disappearing completely, or reappearing briefly only to be killed. I was expecting more about Mon Mothma's family, after all the screentime lavished on the wedding and her sort-of-blackmail situation. I was also expecting more of a resolution, though that's probably because I only vaguely remember Rogue One, so a lot of the breadcrumbs were, "wait, who was that again?" instead of, "aha!" for me. But I liked Kleya a whole lot, and also the snarky ex-Empire droid, and some of the spycraft bits were fun.
What I'm watching now:
We are giving American Primeval a try, despite it probably being on the violent/gory side for our tastes. We're two episodes in, and - I immediately recognized Shorty Bowlegs from the most recent season of Dark Winds! (Derek Hinkey, playing Red Feather.) Also, there is a local(ish) woman in it, Nanabah Grace from Cortez just down the road, who plays Kuttaambo'i. An article about her in the local newspaper was the way I first heard of this series, actually.
I'm enjoying the historical stuff; it's set during the Mormon War, which I actually researched a bit for my Yuletide fic, the premise of which was that the main reason that Deseret became an independent republic in the alt-history of Francis Spufford's Cahokia Jazz was that President Buchanan backed down in the face of united Mormons and natives, as both religion and respect for the tribes were stronger in that universe's US. I also like seeing the Old West, even though it was all filmed in New Mexico pretending to be Wyoming, although I'm getting a bit tired of the washed-out sepia filter.
What I recently finished playing:
Okay, not quite finished, but I have completed the last major quest in Mass Effect: Andromeda, so it's basically over. (I mean, the credits rolled! Therefore, it's over!) I know that Andromeda is considered ME's poor stepchild, but - I really enjoyed it. The "major threat to the world as we know it!!1!!one!" of the main trilogy is such a staple plotline of video games like this that I appreciated the "survive, explore, and (hopefully) thrive in a NEW UNIVERSE (and also defeat the major threat to the world as we know it)" plotline for its novelty. I thought the structure of quests opening new planets and objectives in a rough but not strict order worked well, and I really liked that most (maybe all?) decisions are not hugely critical, so you don't doom yourself to a bad ending by choosing X instead of Y. I did check the wiki a few times when I was nervous about things, but pretty much none of these decisions made any real difference, which meant I was free to actually role-play as "what WOULD (me as) Sara Ryder do?" and I find that much more relaxing.
I wasn't quite completionist - I didn't do all the fetch quest type quests, and I didn't do one vault (Elaaden, which I might go back and do), but I did pretty much everything else. I liked the glyph puzzles, and I hated the Architects, ugh. I played mostly as what in the main trilogy would be Infiltrator (combat + tech). I romanced Liam (after a fling with Peebee). It was fun!
What I'm playing next:
I think I will try some shorter games; I got Lorelei and the Laser Eyes a while back because a friend recommended it, and Skabma - Snowfall from a recent deal, because it looked pretty. I might try Baldur's Gate 3 again - I never managed to get into it and found it frustrating and annoying. Eventually I plan to get Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and also probably Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which I've heard good things about.
(Or sell me on your favorite adventure game!)
wednesday reads and things
Jun. 11th, 2025 07:16 pmWhat I've recently finished reading:
Heartstone by C. J. Sansom, the fifth Shardlake book. Looking back at my reviews, I think the author must have got his feet under him better as he went on, or else he just shifted to things more to my taste, because I had said the fourth was my favorite so far, but I think I liked this one even better! This story is set mostly distant from court intrigue, though it comes in at the end; Matthew is given a legal case by Queen Catherine Parr, and it intertwines with his own interest in the situation that led to Ellen Fettiplace's commitment to Bedlam. I'm not going to mention my favorite thing about this book, because it is a spoiler, but - this book contains one of my favorite things. :-) Also I like the way the various plots and sub-plots wind around each other: the legal case, Ellen's history, Barak's relationship with his wife Tamasin (complicated by her pregnancy), Matthew's problematic new steward. Okay, I lied, this book contains two of my favorite things, and the other one is a fascinating and detailed endnote about the real historical events that this book is built around. I loved this in Bernard Cornwell's Last Kingdom books, and I love it here.
The Maid and the Crocodile by Jordan Ifueko, which is related to the Raybearer series, and which several people in my circle read and enjoyed, so I got it from the library despite my having been disappointed in the series. And as the other reviews said, it was rather heavy-handed issuefic (so was the Raybearer series), but also had clever worldbuilding, charming characters and, I thought, better pacing than the series. (Also was in past rather than present tense, which I prefer.) However, will someone please tell Ifueko that "monotone" is NOT A SPEECH VERB DAMN IT?!?!
What I'm watching now:
We've got three episodes left to go of Andor S2, and gosh isn't it ironic to be watching
I did read the interview with the showrunner about how no, he wasn't inspired by current events (that is, recent events, obviously the show was written well before current events!) but it's definitely inspired by historical fascist governments and fights against them, and wow, we are just proving that what goes around comes around, that human foibles are universal, etc etc, but still, holy shit, right? Yeah.
But as I have said before, this is the wonderful thing about SF, that it can recast real issues in ways that make them easier to understand than when you are right in the middle of them argh.
Heartstone by C. J. Sansom, the fifth Shardlake book. Looking back at my reviews, I think the author must have got his feet under him better as he went on, or else he just shifted to things more to my taste, because I had said the fourth was my favorite so far, but I think I liked this one even better! This story is set mostly distant from court intrigue, though it comes in at the end; Matthew is given a legal case by Queen Catherine Parr, and it intertwines with his own interest in the situation that led to Ellen Fettiplace's commitment to Bedlam. I'm not going to mention my favorite thing about this book, because it is a spoiler, but - this book contains one of my favorite things. :-) Also I like the way the various plots and sub-plots wind around each other: the legal case, Ellen's history, Barak's relationship with his wife Tamasin (complicated by her pregnancy), Matthew's problematic new steward. Okay, I lied, this book contains two of my favorite things, and the other one is a fascinating and detailed endnote about the real historical events that this book is built around. I loved this in Bernard Cornwell's Last Kingdom books, and I love it here.
The Maid and the Crocodile by Jordan Ifueko, which is related to the Raybearer series, and which several people in my circle read and enjoyed, so I got it from the library despite my having been disappointed in the series. And as the other reviews said, it was rather heavy-handed issuefic (so was the Raybearer series), but also had clever worldbuilding, charming characters and, I thought, better pacing than the series. (Also was in past rather than present tense, which I prefer.) However, will someone please tell Ifueko that "monotone" is NOT A SPEECH VERB DAMN IT?!?!
What I'm watching now:
We've got three episodes left to go of Andor S2, and gosh isn't it ironic to be watching
Spoiler you can probably guess if you have seen the show
a manufactured riot as pretext for government crackdown while a riot is being manufactured as pretext for government crackdownBut as I have said before, this is the wonderful thing about SF, that it can recast real issues in ways that make them easier to understand than when you are right in the middle of them argh.
interesting links to fascinate people
Jun. 7th, 2025 03:21 pmPaul Krugman talks with Ada Palmer about her new (nonfiction) book Inventing the Renaissance. I came at this from the Krugman side (he's a Nobel-winning economist who used to write for the NYT, and I subscribe to his substack) but I figured some of you would be interested from the Palmer side (I never got into Terra Ignota, though). I found it really interesting! I read the transcript, but there's a link to the video conversation as well.
Speaking of Nobelists, a v. v. srs study found that countries with greater per capita chocolate consumption produce more Nobel laureates - so eating chocolate makes you smarter, right? :-)
Speaking of Nobelists, a v. v. srs study found that countries with greater per capita chocolate consumption produce more Nobel laureates - so eating chocolate makes you smarter, right? :-)
wednesday reads and things
May. 28th, 2025 05:05 pmWhat I've recently finished reading:
A Drop of Corruption, the sequel to The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. I liked it a lot (Din and Ana are great characters!), and I thought it was easier to follow than the first book, in the sense that I figured out the major twists and culprits before they happened (which is not a criticism, it means the appropriate breadcrumbs were dropped). The worldbuilding continues to be very weird and cool. Definitely one of the best Sherlock Holmes fanfics I've read! :-)
What I'm reading now:
I've gone back to the Shardlake series by C. J. Sansom and am now on the fifth book, Heartstone.
What I'm watching now:
Still Andor. The other night I dreamed we were giving a party, except our house was basically Mon Mothma's house on Chandrila and the party was like the wedding episode. And then I went into the bathroom to change clothes and I noticed that my husband had left the tap dripping water so the cats could drink it, just like in real life :-) And then I woke up.
What I'm playing now:
Still Mass Effect: Andromeda, heading toward the endgame. It's still fun! Except for having to kill another Architect, which is basically the thresher maw of the Andromeda galaxy, and I still hate both of those enemies!
A Drop of Corruption, the sequel to The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. I liked it a lot (Din and Ana are great characters!), and I thought it was easier to follow than the first book, in the sense that I figured out the major twists and culprits before they happened (which is not a criticism, it means the appropriate breadcrumbs were dropped). The worldbuilding continues to be very weird and cool. Definitely one of the best Sherlock Holmes fanfics I've read! :-)
What I'm reading now:
I've gone back to the Shardlake series by C. J. Sansom and am now on the fifth book, Heartstone.
What I'm watching now:
Still Andor. The other night I dreamed we were giving a party, except our house was basically Mon Mothma's house on Chandrila and the party was like the wedding episode. And then I went into the bathroom to change clothes and I noticed that my husband had left the tap dripping water so the cats could drink it, just like in real life :-) And then I woke up.
What I'm playing now:
Still Mass Effect: Andromeda, heading toward the endgame. It's still fun! Except for having to kill another Architect, which is basically the thresher maw of the Andromeda galaxy, and I still hate both of those enemies!
Chants of Sennaar animatic
May. 25th, 2025 05:38 pmMostly I'm just putting it here so I can find it again. But also, I rec this whether or not you have played the game, it's not really spoilery, and it's very cool:
Words by Phineas (at YouTube)
Words by Phineas (at YouTube)
wednesday media
May. 21st, 2025 03:13 pmWhat I recently finished watching:
S3 of Dark Winds, which GRRM (who is an executive producer of the show) makes a cameo in, hee. Also Jenna Elfman guest stars as an FBI investigator in from DC. This one goes hard on the "dark" part of the title, with some fairly gruesome crimes going on, as well as the emotional darkness from the fallout of the events of the previous season.
As usual I really enjoyed seeing my local landscapes, and the general Indian-country vibe of the show. (As I've mentioned before, I live not far from Navajo, though the local tribe is actually the Southern Ute; also, the college down the road is free for enrolled tribal members of any US tribe.) I was less a fan of how the season really consisted of very separate storylines, Bernie in the Border Patrol and Joe and Jim on the rez, however, the Navajo police investigation was well integrated with Joe's personal story, which made it all that more interesting. (Also here I have to admit that although I like Jim Chee as a character, I don't find him very attractive - a combination of Kiowa Gordon's chubby face and his truly dreadful 1970's costuming - so the romantic storyline was a little flat for me.)
However, damn do I love Bernie! However, her storyline confused me a bit, because it started out being about human trafficking but ended up being about drugs? But there was also a frightened Mexican family involved? Not sure what was going on there. I did figure out before the reveal who the bad guys and the complicit guys were (and heh, I bet the Republicans are none too pleased at the show painting the Border Patrol as a den of corruption) and wow, the ending of that bit was very kickass.
What I'm watching now:
S2 of Andor, which I only remember certain points from S1 so I was pretty confused during the first episode. Hopefully it will become clear(er) after the second episode, tonight.
S3 of Dark Winds, which GRRM (who is an executive producer of the show) makes a cameo in, hee. Also Jenna Elfman guest stars as an FBI investigator in from DC. This one goes hard on the "dark" part of the title, with some fairly gruesome crimes going on, as well as the emotional darkness from the fallout of the events of the previous season.
As usual I really enjoyed seeing my local landscapes, and the general Indian-country vibe of the show. (As I've mentioned before, I live not far from Navajo, though the local tribe is actually the Southern Ute; also, the college down the road is free for enrolled tribal members of any US tribe.) I was less a fan of how the season really consisted of very separate storylines, Bernie in the Border Patrol and Joe and Jim on the rez, however, the Navajo police investigation was well integrated with Joe's personal story, which made it all that more interesting. (Also here I have to admit that although I like Jim Chee as a character, I don't find him very attractive - a combination of Kiowa Gordon's chubby face and his truly dreadful 1970's costuming - so the romantic storyline was a little flat for me.)
However, damn do I love Bernie! However, her storyline confused me a bit, because it started out being about human trafficking but ended up being about drugs? But there was also a frightened Mexican family involved? Not sure what was going on there. I did figure out before the reveal who the bad guys and the complicit guys were (and heh, I bet the Republicans are none too pleased at the show painting the Border Patrol as a den of corruption) and wow, the ending of that bit was very kickass.
What I'm watching now:
S2 of Andor, which I only remember certain points from S1 so I was pretty confused during the first episode. Hopefully it will become clear(er) after the second episode, tonight.
thursday reads and things
May. 15th, 2025 04:35 pmBecause I was going to do this yesterday, but time is soup.
What I've recently finished reading:
I went back to the Nantucket Trilogy and read the last book, On the Oceans of Eternity by S. M. Stirling, which yay, did deliver on the exploration of the American continent which I complained about in my review of #2. But I think these books could have done with some rearrangement and editing and maybe being four books instead of three, because this was a (virtual) doorstopper, and it still felt as though a few of the threads came to abrupt ends. I mean, I liked it overall, though I did skim battle battle battle battle. And the characterization is pretty minimal - none of these characters are particularly compelling, or distinctive other than by tricks of locution, and the Evil people are Evil and the Good people are Good and Good wins yay. But the characterization of the situation is pretty good, the whole "modern people dropped in the Bronze Age" thing is just great, even if it does strain belief that they have enough intellectual resources and physical skills to make a go of it.
What I've recently listened to:
I recently found out that an acquaintance of mine, a neurologist, started a podcast late last year, and as I wanted to listen to something while running that wasn't politics for a change I picked out an episode from February (there are only nine episodes) that sounded interesting. Stranger Tongues, Stranger Tides is about communication between humans and non-humans; it starts with his own experiences with a scrub jay in his back yard, and moves on to discussions of experiments in communicating with animals, and attempts to communicate with his autistic son, and eventually communication with (possible) aliens and "AI" LLMs.
I really enjoyed it, and I think that if you liked Ed Yong's An Immense World and/or Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time series (and especially if you read my post from 2023 about Ezra Klein's interview with Tchaikovsky and their discussion of how his work is an exploration of personhood and AI) you may too. The entire podcast series is available at https://www.significant-podcast.com/ but I just typed Significant into my podcast app and found it that way. I plan on listening to the rest!
What I've recently finished reading:
I went back to the Nantucket Trilogy and read the last book, On the Oceans of Eternity by S. M. Stirling, which yay, did deliver on the exploration of the American continent which I complained about in my review of #2. But I think these books could have done with some rearrangement and editing and maybe being four books instead of three, because this was a (virtual) doorstopper, and it still felt as though a few of the threads came to abrupt ends. I mean, I liked it overall, though I did skim battle battle battle battle. And the characterization is pretty minimal - none of these characters are particularly compelling, or distinctive other than by tricks of locution, and the Evil people are Evil and the Good people are Good and Good wins yay. But the characterization of the situation is pretty good, the whole "modern people dropped in the Bronze Age" thing is just great, even if it does strain belief that they have enough intellectual resources and physical skills to make a go of it.
What I've recently listened to:
I recently found out that an acquaintance of mine, a neurologist, started a podcast late last year, and as I wanted to listen to something while running that wasn't politics for a change I picked out an episode from February (there are only nine episodes) that sounded interesting. Stranger Tongues, Stranger Tides is about communication between humans and non-humans; it starts with his own experiences with a scrub jay in his back yard, and moves on to discussions of experiments in communicating with animals, and attempts to communicate with his autistic son, and eventually communication with (possible) aliens and "AI" LLMs.
I really enjoyed it, and I think that if you liked Ed Yong's An Immense World and/or Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time series (and especially if you read my post from 2023 about Ezra Klein's interview with Tchaikovsky and their discussion of how his work is an exploration of personhood and AI) you may too. The entire podcast series is available at https://www.significant-podcast.com/ but I just typed Significant into my podcast app and found it that way. I plan on listening to the rest!
wednesday reads and things
Apr. 30th, 2025 06:10 pmWhat I've recently finished reading:
The Iron Will of Genie Lo by F. C. Yee, which is the sequel to The Epic Crush of Genie Lo which I read long enough ago I barely remembered much about, but one doesn't actually need to know about it, it's basically the Monkey King crossed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's fun, and a little silly in places, although it goes rather off the rails plot-wise and the ending feels a bit peculiar. On the other hand, it's fun, and it is still great to have a female protagonist whose special ability is that she can hit really hard.
I also read a couple of the stories in the March/April 2024 Reactor Magazine Short Fiction collection, which I don't remember why or how we had that: "The River Judge" by S. L. Huang, and "Median" by Kelly Robson. The former was lovely and evocative but felt fairly predictable; the latter was unpleasant and unsettling and stuck with me. It weirdly reminded me a little of Passage by Connie Willis.
What I've recently finished watching:
S3 of The Wheel of Time! I should have written this up just after we finished instead of waiting until it lost all its edges in my brain, oops. It's still a great show, and I'm particularly enjoying noticing the differences from the book series. I should probably write something up about it...
What I'm still playing:
Mass Effect: Andromeda! I've gotten to the 4th of I think 5 planets I need to? It's an amazingly huge game, so much to explore and do.
The Iron Will of Genie Lo by F. C. Yee, which is the sequel to The Epic Crush of Genie Lo which I read long enough ago I barely remembered much about, but one doesn't actually need to know about it, it's basically the Monkey King crossed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's fun, and a little silly in places, although it goes rather off the rails plot-wise and the ending feels a bit peculiar. On the other hand, it's fun, and it is still great to have a female protagonist whose special ability is that she can hit really hard.
I also read a couple of the stories in the March/April 2024 Reactor Magazine Short Fiction collection, which I don't remember why or how we had that: "The River Judge" by S. L. Huang, and "Median" by Kelly Robson. The former was lovely and evocative but felt fairly predictable; the latter was unpleasant and unsettling and stuck with me. It weirdly reminded me a little of Passage by Connie Willis.
What I've recently finished watching:
S3 of The Wheel of Time! I should have written this up just after we finished instead of waiting until it lost all its edges in my brain, oops. It's still a great show, and I'm particularly enjoying noticing the differences from the book series. I should probably write something up about it...
What I'm still playing:
Mass Effect: Andromeda! I've gotten to the 4th of I think 5 planets I need to? It's an amazingly huge game, so much to explore and do.
