Reading

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New Comm!

At long last and with absolutely no demand whatsoever, I have created a comm for

polyshipweek !

This has been such a fun event to run these last few years, and I thought it would be nice to bring it here too.

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Silksong is finally out! "Fortunately" I didn't make it home by 4pm on Thursday meaning I only had to wait a little over an hour of frequent refreshing until I could finally buy the game xD

It's so much fun! Very reminiscent of Hollow Knight in a good way: atmosphere, gameplay, level design... And very hard. But (most of) the fights are fun to figure out, and the successes feel great. Tbh the main reason why I wish it didn't take me so long is because I'm already really looking forward to watching others play, but I also don't want any spoilers.

( Minor gameplay spoilers )

My actual playthrough, the first almost ten hours, with plenty of spoilers:
(Benchmark, I have three achievements for defeating bosses so far and explored a bit further into the ~next region; and I strongly suspect the first three bosses will probably be the same for most people.)
( My actual playthrough, with spoilers )

Yesterday I played until 2am, today hopefully not quite as long. Tomorrow I'm at a friend's birthday party, and I might think the timing more unfortunate if I didn't suspect my wrists will be glad for the break... But I have no other plans for Sunday except play, looking forward to it. (Well, that and watch a few of the MCSR Playoffs finale matches when I need a break, we'll see.)

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life series smp

Past Life

Past Life ended, and it was great. The teams were fantastic, the gimmick was fun but more in the background than in the previous too which was a nice change of pace, the improv was on point, the stories came together so well again.

I watched several videos each week, sometimes more sometimes less, and there's plenty I still want to watch eventually and some I want to watch again. I wanted to go over my notes again too to clean them up and add some more, but if I don't post them now I don't know when it will happen, so here is the first draft. (Which is already at 7k.)
I'm typing this while admiring my shiny new Life series desk mat btw, very pretty.

( #1 Early early on )

( #2 Tango with a mustache )

( #3 The Secret Society )

( #4 Joel with a mustache )

( #5 The Proposal )

( #6 Fire! )

( #7 - Records are made to be broken )

( #8 - The Finale )

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Media roundup, August

Metal from Heaven, by August Clarke:

In an industrializing fantasy setting with a horribly oppressed labor class, a lesbian highwaywoman seeks her revenge. Reading this was roughly like being hit over the head, so much was happening. It was quite satisfying and the whole hung together, but it picked up and abandoned complete genres as it went. I'm not sure its politics fully held together, but it sure was a ride.

Where the Axe is Buried, by Ray Nayler:

A revolution brews in a world where the West is ruled by AI Prime Ministers and the Federation is ruled by the President, who maintains his grip on power by transferring his mind to new bodies. Very meaty, though no individual idea was especially novel, it was put together in a satisfying way. I liked solving the puzzle of who was pulling the strings and the larger plot, but despite its ostensible focus on systems, it is very much a Great Man type of story. Really enjoyed!

The City in Glass, by Nghi Vo:

The story of a demon who loves a city, told over centuries. A beautiful read, but not too much substance. Well, it was still satisfying as a story of grief and moving on, but because of how brief each described snapshot is, it felt less substantial than it ought to have? I enjoyed this, but found it forgettable.

Semiosis, by Sue Burke:

Pacifist colonists escape the war and ecological disaster on Earth for a distant planet, and the story of the colony and the alien life they encounter is told by one character per generation for seven generations. The science is pretty bad and not consistent: if no Earth plants/animals can survive, why are humans the exception? Why not try to bring some samples over? And then after all the detail about how the biochemistry is different... it's similar enough that they are largely affected by drugs the same way. I also wish it dug more into the difficulties of pacifism or how specific culture is (the prohibition on eating the dead is not universal even on Earth...). Basically, while the story itself was satisfying and I really enjoyed the conceit of the generations passing, I wish it were more than it was.
PS: If you're worried about reproduction on the new planet and only have frozen ova/sperm for reproductive technology, why not have way more woman colonists in gen one?
Spoiler CW: there was two paragraphs of on screen rape that came out of nowhere

Gauguin (game): A sudoku like game that I enjoyed for being a bit tricky to figure out. I was searching for puzzle-y games to play while nursing, and went through several similar type games (Tents and Trees, Star Battle) for being too easy... I wanted to like Cosmic Express or Mini Metro for this, but they require too much movement during gameplay. Games like Two Dots and Candy Crush get a little too same-y since they aren't solvable the same way, and games like Rummikub and Azul are too solvable when played against the computer. Basically, I'm too picky, and I fear the end result of this is that I really need to get into Tsumego...

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books,
tv

Murderbot

I'm a big fan of the Murderbot books, so I was looking forward to the show, especially after I started hearing that it was good. The plan was to watch it all at once with L, since season one isn't very long. It took a while to find the time, but it became more urgent when I had a meeting scheduled with a client who I talked about the books with last year and who'd asked me how I liked the series on our first phone call this year ^^
L and I started watching together, but L didn't like it very much so I watched the second half on my own. And after watching the show I reread all of the books, and then I read a lot of fic.

I enjoyed it! I didn't like the very first scene because that wasn't how I'd imagined it somehow (in hindsight, not sure why I had such an immediate averse reaction to that scene in particular); but that somehow helped me immediately separate show-verse from book-verse and then I could accept all the other changes more easily (well. most of them) and overall I had a good time.
I'm very glad I waited to watch until the first season was done, considering how short the episodes were, with very effective cliffhangers too.

( TV show spoilers )

I really enjoyed rereading the books afterwards, too. ( Spoilers up to System Collapse )

The same client - my client, and that word sounds different even in that approximate context now ^^ - recommended I read Project Hail Mary next so that is next on the list - after a bunch more MB fic, most likely, because I'm enjoying those a lot.

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Ink to Film Podcast Recording at WorldCon

If you missed the live recording of the Murderbot interview episode at WorldCon, you can watch it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-JRHSABM24

This includes the special message to me that the show's cast sent, which was awesome.

***

I'm still sick, but getting better bit by bit.

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silver elite

Silver Elite: Chapter 17

We open the chapter with Wren reminscing about her parents, who she barely remembers. Her uncle talked to her about them some.
( every time wren is horny for cross i wish for death )

Back

I'm back, sort of. We did a week of vacation after WorldCon, then got sick on the last day, so I'm still recovering. Covid tests were negative, so I think it's just a bad cold. It probably wouldn't be so bad if we hadn't had to do a full day of travel from 6:00 am to 10:30 pm to get home.

More later, but one of my favorite things was the really wonderful piece that N.K. Jemisin wrote about me for the program book.

***

Big thing I wanted to mention here: https://www.humblebundle.com/books/martha-wells-murderbot-and-more-tor-books

This is a 14 ebook Humble Bundle from Tor, (DRM-free as usual) and you can select a portion of the price to donate to World Central Kitchen.