Reading, Watching, Playing
Jan. 26th, 2023 05:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_cubedNote: I'm not ignoring people who comment on my posts or reply to my comments on theirs. DW seems to have stopped emailing me when people reply to me. Ah, found the DW setting to turn email notifications back on. For some reason they'd switched to DW inbox only. I'll now see when people reply to me.
I tried reading A River Called Time by Courttia Newland and gave up about a quarter of the way through. I think this is a first novel. It was just way too much confusing stuff. It's a future London, except it's not this world, it's a vaguely parallel one. It's a semi-post-apocalyptic urbanscape. There's an artificial city in the middle of what used to be London isolated from everyone else and the protagonist gets in only to find it's just as much a screwed up society inside as out and he's still at the bottom. But he's special and has Egyptian religious magic powers, which are somehow quantum-related... I just gave up.
So, that's two books I've given up on recently and a third I almost gave up on. After that I wanted something light that I knew I'd enjoy so re-read Walter Jon Williams' Drake Maijstral books. I love these, more than his signature cyberpunk stuff which I quite like but there's almost nothing else like these Divertimenti. Any recommendations for similar SF Comedy of Manners gratefully received. I blasted through the three of these then went on to Stephen Blackmoore's Dead Things Not bad as far as dark urban fantasy goes. Quite a lot of Sandman Slim influences, I think, though perhaps that's just the L.A. setting. There's a series of these and I might read some more, but I realised there's a bunch of ongoing series that I'd missed the latest (and in at least one case final) installment of last year, so I've started a re-read of Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London, which has a backfill novella and a new novel I haven't read. There's also the final Alex Verus novel by Jacka Benedict. I may or may not re-read the previous 11 in the series, though as it's the final one I might do. Two trilogies I need to read the final book (and maybe re-read the rest of the trilogy) too: Naomi Novik's The Golden Enclaves, final part of the Scholomance Trilogy. I was surprised whencoth mentioned there would be a third book since the first two finished the story to some extent, though I can see there was room for the wider world to be taken on in a finale. Lastly, there's Robert Jackson Bennett's Locklands, finale of the Founders Trilogy. I highly recommend all these series for a look, providing you like the kind of book they are. The RJB one's closest similar books are, I think, Max Gladstone's main series of God-related books (even more so his previous Divine Cities trilogy).
Finished re-watching The Mandalorian, including Book of Boba Fett episode 5 on, in preparation for the next season in March. Continuing a watch of DOTA: Dragon's Blood. That's OK, but not as good as Dragon Age: Absolution. Binged the first three episodes of Season 2 of Legend of Vox Machina. DA:A and LoVM are great if you played D&D as a teenager, or even still do. Watched Lightyear from Pixar. Either chock-full of tongue-in-cheek SF references, or horribly derivative SF, take your pick. I enjoyed it but I suspect it's not for everyone. Some continuations I've been looking forward to (Carnival Row Season 2, Shadow and Bone Season 2) coming up and some new stuff that looks interesting (Lockwood and Co.).
Still playing through Alan Wake Remastered trying to find all the collectibles. Having completed on Easy and then on Normal I'm going through on Easy again to find most of the collectibles and to get better at the combat in preparation for going through on Nightmare Mode which has some extra collectibles only available on that difficulty level. Playing Unravel 2 with $DAUGHTER for a gentle coop platformer. A couple of side levels with insane difficulty, but nothing in the main story like the PID impossible second boss battle. On the final "world" in Ring Fit Adventure which I'm back to playing most days to improve fitness and help me lose weight after indulgences over Christmas/New Year.
Reading
I tried reading A River Called Time by Courttia Newland and gave up about a quarter of the way through. I think this is a first novel. It was just way too much confusing stuff. It's a future London, except it's not this world, it's a vaguely parallel one. It's a semi-post-apocalyptic urbanscape. There's an artificial city in the middle of what used to be London isolated from everyone else and the protagonist gets in only to find it's just as much a screwed up society inside as out and he's still at the bottom. But he's special and has Egyptian religious magic powers, which are somehow quantum-related... I just gave up.
So, that's two books I've given up on recently and a third I almost gave up on. After that I wanted something light that I knew I'd enjoy so re-read Walter Jon Williams' Drake Maijstral books. I love these, more than his signature cyberpunk stuff which I quite like but there's almost nothing else like these Divertimenti. Any recommendations for similar SF Comedy of Manners gratefully received. I blasted through the three of these then went on to Stephen Blackmoore's Dead Things Not bad as far as dark urban fantasy goes. Quite a lot of Sandman Slim influences, I think, though perhaps that's just the L.A. setting. There's a series of these and I might read some more, but I realised there's a bunch of ongoing series that I'd missed the latest (and in at least one case final) installment of last year, so I've started a re-read of Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London, which has a backfill novella and a new novel I haven't read. There's also the final Alex Verus novel by Jacka Benedict. I may or may not re-read the previous 11 in the series, though as it's the final one I might do. Two trilogies I need to read the final book (and maybe re-read the rest of the trilogy) too: Naomi Novik's The Golden Enclaves, final part of the Scholomance Trilogy. I was surprised when
coth mentioned there would be a third book since the first two finished the story to some extent, though I can see there was room for the wider world to be taken on in a finale. Lastly, there's Robert Jackson Bennett's Locklands, finale of the Founders Trilogy. I highly recommend all these series for a look, providing you like the kind of book they are. The RJB one's closest similar books are, I think, Max Gladstone's main series of God-related books (even more so his previous Divine Cities trilogy).Watching
Finished re-watching The Mandalorian, including Book of Boba Fett episode 5 on, in preparation for the next season in March. Continuing a watch of DOTA: Dragon's Blood. That's OK, but not as good as Dragon Age: Absolution. Binged the first three episodes of Season 2 of Legend of Vox Machina. DA:A and LoVM are great if you played D&D as a teenager, or even still do. Watched Lightyear from Pixar. Either chock-full of tongue-in-cheek SF references, or horribly derivative SF, take your pick. I enjoyed it but I suspect it's not for everyone. Some continuations I've been looking forward to (Carnival Row Season 2, Shadow and Bone Season 2) coming up and some new stuff that looks interesting (Lockwood and Co.).
Playing
Still playing through Alan Wake Remastered trying to find all the collectibles. Having completed on Easy and then on Normal I'm going through on Easy again to find most of the collectibles and to get better at the combat in preparation for going through on Nightmare Mode which has some extra collectibles only available on that difficulty level. Playing Unravel 2 with $DAUGHTER for a gentle coop platformer. A couple of side levels with insane difficulty, but nothing in the main story like the PID impossible second boss battle. On the final "world" in Ring Fit Adventure which I'm back to playing most days to improve fitness and help me lose weight after indulgences over Christmas/New Year.
