What I’ve read:
The Library of the Dead (Edinburgh Nights book 1) by Tendai Huchu. I loved it and am halfway through book 2. The MC is a teenage girl, Ropa, who can speak with the dead. She works as a message courrier for ghosts in order to support her grandmother and younger sister. I wish I was more familiar with the city because she runs/bikes all over town delivering messages, dodging rival hustlers, getting mixed up in secret magical high society, and solving a child abduction mystery all while being hilariously cheeky af with a hybrid Scottish-Zimbabwean dialect/accent. It’s a fun and funny read with lots to say about society in general.
The Immortal Dark by Tigest Girma. From Google: “The story follows Kidan as she navigates a world of Black vampires and secret societies, living with Susenyos while seeking revenge and answers, blending romance, mystery, and a fresh take on vampire lore.” The vampire lore was cool, unfortunately the plot was pushed along by the MC constantly asking the wrong questions and making biased assumptions. It became tedious. I won’t be following up on the trilogy.
A Forgery of Fate by Elizabeth Lim. Google sums it up as: “The story follows Truyan Saigas, who agrees to a marriage contract with the dragon lord to save her family from debt, only to become entangled in his plot to overthrow the tyrannical Dragon King. It’s known for its vivid world-building, focus on family, and delicious food descriptions…” It’s a cozy-adjacent, romantic, adventure based in Asia folklore. I loved it.
How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler. Goodreads sums it up as “…a memoir that uses ten different sea creatures as a lens to explore the author’s own life as a queer, mixed-race science journalist…” It was so-so for me. Memoires aren’t my thing. I liked that I could related to their half white half Asian growing up in North America experiences. The sea creatures’ info were interesting. Some of the juxtapositions felt a bit weak or too obvious.
Squib (the Coldstream Chronicles #1) by Helen Harper. It is a spin-off from the Cat Lady Chronicles which I loved. The MC is a “squib” meaning a regular non magical person who lives in a magical enclave called Coldstream. She runs a business of dealing in favors and secrets. Her current client is the Alpha of a powerful werewolf clan. He’s reluctantly looking for a mate and she reluctantly agrees to help him find one… anyone’s guess where this is headed 😉
Son of the Morning: A Novel by Akwaeke Emezi. This one was surprisingly spicy. I was not expecting explicit foreplay in the first few chapters. 😆 Why don’t all spicy romance novels pace themselves like that? I don’t usually read angels/demons heaven/hell biblical themed books. This was the one exception that was worth it.
What I watched: The Diplomat. I’m late to the party but love that I can binge all three seasons. Soooo good!
What I played: Dispatch. Fuck. What a great game. I laughed. I cried. I felt the bright glow of pride when my underdog team started working with instead of against me. Pro tip, don’t get the Switch 2 version. It’s censored and I missed out on all the phosphorescent dangling dicks, lewd gestures, singed ballsacks, etc. @farscythe I think you will love it.
What I listened to: the Dispatch playlist. It’s fantastic!
What media have you been consuming this week?
Watched Fallout. Finished EP 7. A little slower than the previous season but more creepy with all the Vault Tec lore.
Still want to strangle Hank because I helped Shady Sands (when I played Fallout many many moon ago) and he fucking nuked it.
I watched The Roses on a plane. Great acting and dialogue. I was a big fan of the original War of the Roses which was mostly filmed on Whidbey Island not too far from where I live. If you like dark comedy, this is a pretty good film.
I am still reading Your Dad Stole My Rake. It is a pretty funny book that almost everyone can relate to but especially dads. I can’t believe how much I relate to some of his family stories.
I’m listening to Freedom!
My wife is in Chicago for the week so I’m taking a much-needed respite from Silent Witness. We’ll wrap it up when she gets back. I’m filling the time by watching the stupidest stuff I can find. Also, still reading Paradise Lost while Winter blows it’s last wad outside.
thanks…i guess ill be giving dispatch a shot then…i was on the fence about it as it looks interesting…buuut..well..not the kind of game i normally play…might wait til i get a discount tho..as ive got a few games im still playing through i really should finish before ballooning my library more
watching was i finished season 1 of twisted metal..which is good fun with some entertaining characters…just dont think to hard about how that world works….coz..well it just doesnt..
havent started season 2 yet…not sure if turning the story line into a tournament style thing is going to work out…. but i guess ill let yous know once ive watched it
currently playing.. still trying to finish final fantasy 7 remake…and then moving on to rebirth…and as of today ive got carmageddon rogue shift as a blow off valve/timewaster for whenever i get annoyed at final fantasy again (read i got my ass handed to me by fuckin sepiroth again)
its a solid rogue like combat racer…but carmaggeddon it is not…or at least…its about as carmaggeddon as stathams deathrace is anything to do with the og deathrace…fun in its own right..but they are not the same
(also..ugh zombies..just let me run over innocent pedestrians minding their own business like a good little psychopath k?)
gameplay wise its actually a lot closer to twisted metal than carmageddon
anyways its good chaotic fun for the most part and meant to be played in fairly short stints… tho…the handling of the cars definitely could use some help..
i mostly paid for it with leftover xmas steam credit..so it only cost me a tenner…and its worth that easy.. but im not sure theres enough game there for the actual 39.99 asking price at the moment
that said..its release day…and it actually works properly..no bugs or glitches…just smooth sailing…feels like a rarity nowadays
…the lincoln lawyer has a fresh run that has him up on the murder charge that the format closed the last season with him finding out he’d been framed for
…I’m not really a fan of that part…just seems like they never let the ending be the ending because they’re in a hurry to cram in a beginning they won’t let you start on until you’d more or less forgotten about it before you can turn it off…& the one is generally supposed to be a bolt from the blue rather than a not-so-fast epilogue like the coda in a raymond chandler story
…oddly…I sort of am, I think, a fan of all the other parts that make up this version of the lincoln lawyer…it’s like if better call saul was mamdani or something…the whole character just works & the support cast are individually great but also more than the sum or something…I don’t care if bits of it seem as convincing as burn notice…it is itself very well & I like that about it?
What I read: I raided the Project Gutenberg archives
https://www.gutenberg.org/
and dug up a couple of Dorothy Sayers’s Lord Peter Wimsey murder mysteries. My favorite kind of fiction, fulfills my three favorite geners: Set in the past, set abroad, and the characters are rich.
I then turned to E. M. Forster’s A Room With a View. I’ve read Howards End and A Passage to India and Maurice, of course, I am a gay man, but that’s what I have been doing.
…a room with a view is a good one…that & howards end even managed to still seem good despite being ones I had to “do” for exams what seems like it must surely be as long ago as they were written but technically wasn’t
…the whole thing in…pretty sure it’s howards end…but either way in the merchant ivory production it would be a character played by helena bonham carter…about the idea of an independent income being like a tiny bit of firm footing that’s all that keeps not just your head above the water line but without which you’d be swept away to drown being a product of the same thinking that hears orchestras & sees goblins…even wilde seldom produced characters more earnest?
I’ve been mainlining Gold Zone all day and all I want to know is who looked at a steep hill and was like “You know what we need? A ramp, for jumping!”
oh also..came across this the other day..made me think of @luigi-vuoto
looks like it might be good fun tbh
The mystery seems to be quite a tangled mess in need of shearing.
…oh, the matted fleece we weave…when first we practice who deceives
…or…baaa, humbug…you know…suddenly it makes more sense to me how this got commissioned?