jverkamp.com

Solving Woodworm

Mon, 21 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Woodworm is a cute little PICO-8 puzzle game about a cute little worm… that eats wood. You can play it for free right now right here!

The goal is to turn this:

Into this:

There are a few rules to keep in mind:

The block (and the worm) are affected by gravity
The block can be split by into multiple pieces by eating it completely apart
The worm can crawl up the side of blocks, so long as two (consecutive) segments of the worm are touching walls

And that’s really it.

So let’s solve it!

A Fistful of Charms

Sat, 19 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Okay, enough vampire/demon nonsense for a moment, let’s talk about weres.

As the joke goes, you don’t have to be faster than the wolf chasing you, just faster than everyone else running away.

Turns out that trying to get letter-of-the-law against multiple packs of werewolves has consequences. For everyone involved.

Nick… is a real piece of work. I will grant him the one small saving grace that he (along with most of the world) thought Rachel dead as part of Every Which Way But Dead¹… but that doesn’t make him any better a person. At least Rachel eventually realizes it? Sort of. Mostly. Ish.

Rachel and Ivy… come to a serious head in this book. Which went about as badly as I expected. I do wish the best for Ivy, but she certainly doesn’t make that easy at times and Rachel is not helping matters here.

It (among a number of other plotlines in these books) are yet a bit more of Rachel being so sure she’s right and never quite taking responsibility for when that goes sidewise.

Jenks? I am so glad to see him back again. The whole running off because of not being trusted last book, I get that. But Jenks is just so fun.

“Plan B?” Ivy said. “What is plan B?”
Jenks reddened. “Grab the fish and run like hell,” he muttered, and I almost giggled.

And now there’s a whole lot more Jenks. Which … kind of weird and I don’t really get it. I do wonder if that’s going to be a recurring theme or was a one off. Half-related, the entire premise that Pixies only live ~20 years and Jenks is just about there? I’m not sure how to deal with this.

Overall, a fun read and I appreciated a new set of problems. Onward!

Side note: Trent’s near complete absense was a bit strange. On one hand, it’s not his flavor of nonsense going on this time around, so it makes sense. But on the other hand, we have crime and rare artifacts, I fully expected that to bring him in.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Sat, 19 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Oh, that’s my favorite of teh trilogy by a solid margin.

It’s great! All the way from the introduction with a young Indy. The introduction of the whip. The hat. His love of snakes.

From there, we get a big world trotting mystery with some great action scenes…

Are you crazy? Don’t go between them.
Go between them, are you crazy?

…big archeological puzzles…

But in the Latin alphabet, “Jehovah” begins with an “I”.

…the dynamic between Indy and his father…

I suddenly remembered my Charlemagne. Let my armies be the rocks and the trees and the birds in the sky.

…Nazis…

I hate these guys.

…and a big supernatural finale.

He choose… poorly.

Oh it’s a wonderful movie.

Watch it!

Which of course means Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is up next… hmm.

Every Which Way But Dead

Mon, 14 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

And oh, that climax. This is most certainly going to come back and bite Rachel. But honestly, what other choice did she even have?

– me, re: The Good, the Bad, and the Undead

Yup.

All that vampire/demon business of the previous book? Causing all sorts of chaos this time around.

Rachel, remaining entirely absolutely sure she is right about everything to the detriment of everyone around her? Also chaos-causing.

Nick-trauma and Rachel not realizing that ’thing never done before’ was causing some serious issues? Chaos.

Nick is out of town, so totally platonic date with Kristen¹. Who apparently has murdered people, because… duh? Vampire?², but he promised not to do it anymore. Chaos.

I do appreciate seeing Demon Al as an actual demon. Holding a prisoner for a thousand years. I’m just waiting for an attempted redemption arc there, but as it is it feels good when Rachel gets one over on him. And Ceri has some interesting potential.

Oh these books. Onwards!

The Good, the Bad, and the Undead

Tue, 08 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

And away we go!

Where Dead Witch Walking set up the world, it’s here where we really start setting up Rachel Morgan and go as investigators in their own right. And of course, they’ve stumbled right into a serial killer targeting leyline witches. Good times that.

There is quite the cast of characters this time around. Trent Kamalack is back and as morally ’totally morally gray, but maybe for good reasons’ kind of person–and we do get to learn the what/why he is, which is neat.

“Come work for me, and I’ll tell you.”
My eyes went to his. “You are a thief, a cheat, a murderer, and a not-nice man,” I said calmly. “I don’t like you.”
He shrugged, the motion making him look utterly harmless. “I’m not a thief,” he said. “And I don’t mind manipulating you into working for me when I need it.” He smiled, showing me perfect teeth. “I enjoy it, actually.”

Head local vamp Piscary is scary and understated. Rachel’s mother is wacky. Her father… had secrets. And Nick… well, I’m happy if Rachel is happy, but that is so not going to go well.

Worldbuildingwise, getting more into what exactly layline magic is, how demons work in this world (parallel reality that’s not really Hell go!), how these vampires are different, and more ‘humans are terrified of tomatoes’ than you can shake a stick at. It’s a fun world and I always like seeing how many different ways you can turn common tropes.

On another hand… man Rachel is kind of an idiot sometimes. She’s so absolutely sure shre’s right even when everyone around her is trying to get her see the truth. Oy that was frustrating. One would htink that trying to set out on her own would make her a little more risk averse–but I suppose that’s not in the cards.

And oh, that climax. This is most certainly going to come back and bite Rachel. But honestly, what other choice did she even have?

Overall, it’s a fun series and I’m happy to keep going. Onward!

Lies Sleeping

Sat, 05 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Faceless Man on the run–and trying to ring in1 some new form of chaos to bring London to its knees. Along the way, we’ll bump into new characters and, even better, fill in a few more holes in the histories of others. Each step we get closer to Molly’s tale is well appreciated. And man. Lesley has some trauma to work through. I love the fact that she’s not completely evil and off the deep end, but trying desperately (in her own way) to do the right thing.

Dead Witch Walking

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Making a spell is easy. It’s trusting you did it right that’s hard.

Another new (to me) urban fantasy in a ’the supernatural world has been made public’ world? Yes please!

This time around, we have Rachel a witch and, as of the start of the story, bounty hunter. Frustrated with her job, she decides to quit.

I sighed. I hated the maze of bureaucracy with a passion, but I’ve found the best way to deal with it is to smile and act stupid. That way, no one gets confused.

And in this world, you just don’t do that. So now she’s gone from bounty hunter to having a price oh her head, backed only by her friend(ish) and former co-worker, living Vamp Ivy and Jenks¹, a four-inch tall pixie.

If that wasn’t enough, she’s also stumbling into a super natural drug trade, a whole rat fighting ring (from impressively up close and personal), and summoned demons.

Rachel is a lot of fun. Perfectly competent and willing to fight for it, even if things don’t always go right. I enjoy Ivy, even if she’s still mostly closed off through this book. Room to grow. And Jenks is hilarious. “You think my kids just popped out of the ground?” and all.

The worldbuilding is a lot of fun. I always like trying to figure out what’s diffrerent about this particular urban fntasty world and there is plenty of that here. Born vampires–living and only turning more traditional after death. Pixies and fairies, running their own smaller scale wars over garden space. Genetic engineering run amuck–leading to a perfectly reasonable fear of tomatoes.

It’s quite a a world.

And it’s fun to have the main character be a witch. I’m not entirely certain how much of a witch’s magic is natural versus learned just yet, but mostly human magic user is always a fun point of view.

So far I’m cautiously optimistic. I do love a good urban fantasy. It’s a fun world (with openly acknowledged supernatural characters!) with fun characters and a lot of room to grow. And grow it did–with 18 out as of now².

Onward!

Taskmaster Australia: Series 2

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I have no idea how I ended up watching season 2 of Taskmaster Australia before Season 1, but go with it! It’s not like there’s that much of an overarching plot between seasons that you have to keep up with.

And man, this is a fun bit. Another series, another Taskmaster! And another assistant!

Tom (Gleeson). And lesser Tom (Cashman) are a lot of fun together. I love that lesser Tom can never keep a straight face when teh contestants screw up. It’s delightful.

And oh the cast was a lot of fun. Anne and Lloyd as a couple on the show together made for some great moments. Wil and Tom being old friends is a dynamic we’ve seen before in the British version but it’s always fun. Josh was quite a wildcard at times. And Jenny was one of the reasons I came to this version of the show–I’ve seen her acts on YouTube before and she’s a wonderfully weird mix and has a lot of those ‘young enough to make the other contestants feel old’ moments.

Overall, another great season of Taskmaster. I’m going to have to catch more of the Australian version! LIke season 1 😄.

Love it.

Onward!

2025 Book Bingo

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 00:01:00 +0000

Let’s do it again (again (again (again)))! Previous years: 2024 Book Bingo 2023 Book Bingo 2022 Book Bingo 2021 Book Bingo Rules: Must be speculative fiction (SF, fantasy, horror with speculative elements) Limit the number of novellas (fewer than 40k words or defined by the author as such) or combine them A book of short stories counts Graphic novels/manga should be treated as novellas Web novels count (if they’re long enough) Audiobooks count Official thread

2024 Book Bingo Retrospective

Mon, 31 Mar 2025 23:00:00 +0000

BINGO! Here we go. Bingo: 2024 Book Bingo! Bingo Card Mini-reviews Bingo Card 2024 Book Bingo Toggle Display Mode Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch Hard Mode ✓ First in a Series Read the first book in a series. Hard Mode: The series is more than three books long. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson Hard Mode ✓ Alliterative Title Read a book where multiple words in the title begin with the same letter.

The Fire-Moon

Sun, 30 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A quick story about deserts, magic, sacrifices, and necromancy all in a quasi-Egyptian world. I loved the worldbuilding and main character, I think if anything, it’s far too short as a novella. I wanted more!

Although, from what Teshar had heard, every pyramid was intended to be entered. People would want to bring offerings for the dead Emperor, servants would want to tend things every once in a while; a lot of people prayed to past Emperors, because they were easier to talk to than the pure gods, and more accessible than the living Emperor or Empress.

The ever escalating tension of who Teshar (our main character) is and what she did to deserve to be treated like she is is fascinating (especially when you get to the why). I enjoy seeing the magic of the world escalating as we get to the obvious ‘Teshar must save the day’ conclusion.

“…my mother, bless her kind, silly soul, once pointed out to me that pretty women look like everyone else, whereas beautiful women look like themselves…”

Overall, a fun story (that could have been longer). It’s always interesting to find a solid self-published and little reviewed work just like this! Worth a try.

Snow Crash

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We are all susceptible to the pull of viral ideas. Like mass hysteria. Or a tune that gets into your head that you keep humming all day until you spread it to someone else. Jokes. Urban legends. Crackpot religions. Marxism. No matter how smart we get, there is always this deep irrational part that makes us potential hosts for self-replicating information.

Well that’s a bit of straight up dystopian cyberpunk, straight out of the 90s. It’s fascinating to see the mix of hope and fear when it comes to technology–virtual realitiies as both a way to dream and a means of control; a patchwork of corporate strongholds, each sovereign in their own right; a nuclear sidecar; a floating city circling the Pacific Ocean. It’s a lot…

This is America. People do whatever the fuck they feel like doing, you got a problem with that? Because they have a right to. And because they have guns and no one can fucking stop them.

And then add on to that a mix of memes (in the ‘viral/self-propagating idea’ rather than quickly spreading joke images) and linguistics. The Tower of Babel and ancient Sumerian. ‘Programming’ the human mind. It’s a fascinating idea, even if the fine details feel a bit off at times.

And then characterwise. Oof. Hiro is a nerd power fantasy. He’s the best at sword fighting and a world class hacker and always wins.

Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world.

Also his name (or at least the name he goes by) is Hiro Protagonist. A bit on the nose?

I did really enjoy Y.T. though. 15 year old skater courier chick, street surfing and hitching rides on passing cars (etc). She’s a fun and high energy–and it’s a bit weird that’s she’s only 15.

It was, of course, nothing more than sexism, the especially virulent type espoused by male techies who sincerely believe that they are too smart to be sexists.

Overall, a neat story and a decent example of cyberpunk moving into the 90s–which admittedly I haven’t read much of. It’s been on my to-read list forever and I’m glad to have finally read it!

The Eyes Are the Best Part

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A salty liquid trickles down my throat. The outside is crunchy cartilage. I jam it into my left cheek and bite down with my molars; jellylike matter explodes within my mouth.

Whelp.

That is most definitely a horror book. Not in the ‘jump and scare you’ sort of vibe or really even the ‘serial killer is coming for you sort. But an ever building sense of what is real and what isn’t, body horror, and what-the-heckery? This book has that in spades.

It’s all built on a foundation of a messy home life going multiple periods of transition all at once. A feeling of alienation. Sexism and racism, sometimes subtle, sometimes not. Learning to deal with (or not) their changing world(s).

How do I explain to her that the home I miss isn’t a place? It’s a time when my life made sense. When things made sense.

Characterwise, I think Ji-won’s point of view did a good job of being just as (eventually) freaked out as the reader is getting as her life gets upended. That, I appreciated. And I really feel for her mother and sister, both before the events of the story and just maybe even more after…

New mother’s boyfriend George is… kind of cartoonish, but dealing with a divorced mother and a man who will say the right things? Well, that’s part of the mess of the situation, no?

And then new school friends Alexis and Geoffrey. I … the change with Geoffrey felt like Ji-won reacted before she knew what might be going on there. And perhaps I missed something, but… he did not deserve everything he got. Which I suppose leads all the more into the horror of it all.

Island in the Sea of Time

Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

What if the modern day island of Nantucket was transplanted whole and complete 3000 or so years into the past.

That’s it. That’s pretty much the entire basis of the setting.

From there, you get a book ranging from ‘how do we survive’ to ‘we can’t change anything?!’ to ‘how do we stop one of our own from building his own empire and taking over the world’.

As one does.

The historical basis is pretty interesting. It’s not a period I know terribly much about–although to be fair, there are a few cultures here that had to be invented mostly whole cloth.

Like the builders of Stonehenge–they never wrote anything, so we have only scant records of what they might have been like–or the writers of Linear A and B (the former only deciphered in the 50s and the latter having not done yet).

But then you have fascinating bits–like you can’t very well trade with the local Native Americans for corn–it won’t spread to this part of the world for thousands of years.

The linguistics alone–learning to speak various languages to various people was particularly interesting to me. It’s a lot to go from the idea that modern Lithuanian may be the closest to proto-Indo-European to being able to speak it, but for the sake of the story, it’s interesting!

The survival aspects are a combination of ‘go humanity’ and a bit much at times. The idea that they just so happen to have all the experts they could possibly need–ancient fishing and farming, blacksmithing, metalurgy, chemistry. Nantucket is not that big. And lucky they just so happened to bring back the Coast Guard’s one large sailing ship with them. But again, it’s a story. Everyone trying and then… just dying out wouldn’t be nearly as interesting.

One interesting aspect of the story was that we never really learn (at least in this first book) why or how the island was sent back in time. Are they actually in their own past? Or in some alternate reality? But … does it really matter? Again, it’s a story. The survival and exploring the world as it was is the point.

I actually kind of like that we don’t need to know why any of this happened. Just enjoy the ride. I would like to see how things change over a much longer time period–but I imagine that’s a much harder bit of research.

Overall an interesting book. Quite long. I’ll prob ably read the sequels at some point but not at the moment. Onward!

The Dark Talent

Sun, 23 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Some of you have been waiting for years to read this, the final volume of my autobiography.

I cannot really imagine that being the last book. Or at least the last one that would be published for another 6 years! Now, in hindsight, it’s obvious (and my kids’ totally already knew), but man. That’s NOT AN ENDING.

“Fine,” Grandpa said. “You fetch your evil Librarian mother from the jail. I’ll go warm up the giant penguin!”

Ahem.

“Well, that was fun,” Grandpa said as he climbed to his feet. “Anyone dead?”
“Does my pride count?” Draulin asked, dusting herself off.
“I don’t think so,” Grandpa said. “I killed that years ago. Dif, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but shoving my grandson out of planes is usually my job. So next time, kindly refrain until I give the word.”
“Sorry, sir,” Dif said, looking abashed.”

The Dark Talent sees Alcatraz. Sans Dark Talent, off on a mission to save the world … and to save the girl. Just don’t let Bastille hear you say that.

It’s a lot like the rest of the series. New Smedrys (oh Dif), new worldbuilding (the HIBRARY! Beneath Washington DC!), new schenanigans (that is quite a library; also, rocket powered penguins), and a big new battle at the end (leading up to that oft forementioned SACRIFICE UPON AN ALTAR OF ENCYCLOPEDIAS).

But it’s not the ending. And the ending can more than tell you that, which… is honestly getting kind of old.

It’s doubly painful since not only did it end quickly, but it also ended painfully. In a series where guns put people in comas and main characters have magic powers seemingly purposely designed (hmm) to get them out of trouble… well, it’s a bit of a shock.

It’s still a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to where in the world the series will actually end… For real this time? Onward!

The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry

Thu, 13 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Well that’s a fun story (and a great cover and title 😄).

Basically, take a struggling thief/con artist (with a tendency towards fire magic), give her a job bodyguarding a soon to be married young Lady and… see what happens. There are some crazy fight scenes, a few light plot twists, a skeletal mouse that goes BONG¹, and … perhaps a chance to fall in love²?

Characterwise, man this is quite a cast. We have the Delly–our protagonist thief that can light things on fire–but the supporting cast are even better. Winn. A part troll illusionist/brawler–with quite the accent and past. Mrs. Totham, the ~~Necromancer~~ Body Scientist. The academic. The lady. The mother.

And of course Buttons.

I’ll leave that one for you to discover, but each time I the narrator read ‘Buttons said, “Bong.”’ I found myself grinning. It’s just weird and delightful.

Settingwise, it’s quasi-Victorian, which is a lot of fun. The language is a bit weird at times, with quite a few unexpected ‘fucks’ jumping out at you.. but apparently that’s about when the term really started to take off and branch out, so…

…her perception of egregious enfucktation in her current, present, and unfortunate familial circumstances…

It’s a fun setting though, going from the cities you most often see in a Victorian style out into the country and back. I want to see more of this world!

Plotwise, I didn’t expect the ‘protection’ mission itself to take up such relatively little of the book. It’s more an inciting incident than anything, but I’m glad for it. When we moved on from that–I was not at all ready to move on from this book. It’s all fairly straight forward (I expected a late book twist that never really materialized).

Overall, that was yet another delight of a book and if anything in this review struck your fancy–well worth the read!

Side note: This is apparently a sequel of sorts? Oops. From what I’ve seen, it’s more set in the same world with minor crossovers. But I’m going to have to go back and read it now!

Small Miracles

Tue, 11 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Chocolate shouldn’t be a sin at all. Everyone deserves a bit of chocolate.

Gadriel, a former (now fallen) Guardian Angel owes her angelic bookie¹. And all she has to do to come clear is to tempt one sinless mortal–Holly Harker. Should be easy, it’s what she does now…

So of course wacky hijinks ensue, things go wrong, people get hurt (not badly, it’s not that sort of book), and just perhaps–everyone comes out of it a bit better than they went in.

Believe me, plenty of people claim they love someone because they get the warm fuzzies around them - but love is something you do. Quite often, it’s something you choose.

It’s such a fun reading, reminding me fairly strongly of Good Omens². Both in theme, but also in style. It’s a little bit irreverent, a little bit touching, and a lot of fun.

Structurally, the near constant footnotes detailing what is/isn’t a sin (points, The Good Place style) and the running score for Holly and her niece are a lot of fun. I didn’t expect that to work as well in an audiobook as it did, but each time I heard that little chime, I got a little smile.

Overall, another good read (on a bit of a run of those!). Well worth a try.

Someone You Can Build a Nest In

Sat, 08 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This book is … a weird mix of horror and romance, cozy and queer and weird all at once.

Basically, your main point of view is this shape shifting monster who eats people–who the author does quite a job of making you feel for, especially as–between the whole eating people thing–she ends up finding a family of her own and perhaps even falling in love.

Not at all where I would have expected the story to go from just the title and cover (and oh, that is a delightful cover).

It does get a weird bit ‘modern’ feeling at time, especially when Shesheshen (the monster protagonist) oscilates between having no idea how humans human (I get it, I really do)…

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” Homily said, hand going to her throat through the scarf. “I get self-conscious.”

“If you weren’t conscious of yourself, who would you be conscious of?”

…to feeling strongly about consent quite a number of times.

Then she realized the human woman was waiting for consent. Shesheshen sank more under her witch’s hat, and extended a foot. Once it was offered, Homily patted one of her meaty hands on Shesheshen’s calf. Why was she doing that? And why did it feel pleasant?

It’s a concept worth enforcing, but I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that it just didn’t quite fit the whole ‘monster who doesn’t get humans’ thing and it jumped out at me.

On the other hand, I love how ‘alien’ Shesheshen is (when she’s not thinking about consent). She doesn’t really have a body of her own, building it around whatever she eats (or finds lying around). The descriptions of how she builds around organs and puts them to her own use gets awfully gory at times, but is also a lot of fun to read.

Overall, it’s yet another fun read and if you don’t mind a bit of gore and a weird horror/romance mix, it’s well worth it. None too shabby for a debut! (First novel; Wiswell has a few published shorts)

Side note: I … did not expect to find this was written by a man.

Nine Goblins

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Oh, T. Kingfisher is a lot of fun.

Smart goblins became mechanics. Dumb goblins became soldiers. Really dumb goblins became officers.

It’s this delightful little story about a world where Goblins are at war with the Humans and Elves. It’s told from the point of view of a ragtag group of Goblins who suddenly find themselves far behind enemy lines, having to ally themselves with … a veterinarian of all things.

It’s quite a funny book; the humor reminds me a lot of Discworld–take that as the compliment it is. I love reading about all the goblins. They are most certainly a wacky bunch of characters¹.

Wherever a goblin happens to live, he complains about it constantly. This is actually a sign of affection. A desert goblin will complain endlessly about the beastly heat and the dreadful dryness and the spiky cactus. He will show you how his sunburn is peeling and the place where the rattlesnake bit him and the place where he bit the rattlesnake. He will be thoroughly, cheerfully, miserable.

Oh, and of course the teddy bear²!

The bear not only had a set of stripes sewn on his arm, it was possibly the first teddy-bear in history to have received a medal for service to the elven nation.

And the contrast of an Elven veterinarian, getting into all the dirty, messy, ugly things vets have to do (when Elves normally only concern themselves with that which is fair beautiful and true) is great fun.

It’s a quick read (147 pages) and well worth the fun. Give it a try!

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Tue, 04 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Temple of Doom Temple of Doom has some major middle film issues going on. Both Raiders of the lost Ark and The Last Crusade are far better films. That’s not to say Temple of Doom is bad, just lesser. Actionwise, there’s a ton. Gun fights, bailing out a plane, tons of bugs, several fights in a mine, and a giant drop? There is barely time to breathe. Real world ethicswise… this is even worse than Raiders, which is saying something.

Orconomics

Tue, 04 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Not all who wander are lost; some are on quests.

That was a very strange book. More than anything, it felt like ‘what if all of the more game parts of Dungeons and Dragons were real, what would that change about the world?’. Oh, and dig into the economics of it along the way.

We literally have an adventuring industry with heroes funded by corporate interests buying stakes in the eventual loot. Some sort of ’level’ system where you can turn in records of kills for advancement. Noncombat Paper Carries (NPCs).

It’s… a D&D satire.

I think the biggest weakness to me was more one of expectations. I actually expected it to go even more into the economics (that don’t really make any sense) of a adventuring based society. It’s there, but it could have been so much more!

That being said, I did enjoy the book, it was a fun read and the sense of humor was on point. I’ll have to check out the sequels at some point.

Robogenesis

Tue, 04 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

And now the story begins for the last time.

So. That hint that it wasn’t all over? That was just the beginning.

We are all expressions of our own minds, projected onto the world.

The idea that the AI that lead to the end of the world wasn’t a unique event–just one that happened to go particularly sideways is a fascinating one. The story of people trying to rebuild in the ruins–only for another war to sweep over what’s left is terrifying. And the ‘what comes next’ of animal like machines, augmented humans, and self-aware / free robots is a fascinating basis for a story.

What is a mind, but a pattern? My mind or yours. Man or machine. Simply an arrangement of atoms. Each of us, a unique expression of the mind of the universe.

Honestly, I still think that Robopocalypse could stand as it’s own–and was the stronger book. But if it had to have a sequel, this was an interesting one. Now that we have it (and that I’ve read it!) I feel like we’re going to need at least one more. There are just so many ideas here, we need to go another step further!

But instead of the end, I’m pretty sure I found myself at the start of something.

Onward!

The Hanging Tree

Fri, 28 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Jeremy Beaumont-Jones had been lucky enough to be born rich. He wasn’t in the mad oligarch class but once you’re past a certain point, the sheer weight of your money sucks in wealth like a financial singularity. If you’re sensible enough not to blow it on race horses, cocaine or musical theatre, then it becomes a perpetual-motion money making machine.

The power of money–and those with power of their own, which tends to lead to money in it’s own ways.

And Peter getting caught right up to it, a favor called in.

It’s a whole mess of the posh/upper class world of London and all the problems that come with this–and how much they expect to be able to pay their way out of anything.

It took the Fire Brigade a day and a half to secure the remains of the house enough to recover Crew Cut’s body, which was described by Dr Jennifer Vaughan as ‘suffering from crush trauma’ and by Dr Walid as ‘mostly flat’.

Well. Almost anything.

I enjoy seeing more of Guleed, both in her role as a cop but also her getting more into the magical world–at least by proxy.

It’s fascinating to see more of Lesley. That’s such a mess throughout all of these books–and I really don’t know where we’re going from there.

And to finally face off more literally face to face with the Faceless Man? Awesome.

The plots and sudden resolutions continue in this book. At this point, I’m mostly used to it… but only mostly.

Side note:

Once the telephone had been invented, it was only a matter of time before the police got in on the new technology and, first in Glasgow and then in London, the police box was born. Here a police officer in need of assistance could find a telephone link to Scotland Yard, a dry space to do “paperwork” and, in certain extreme cases, a life of adventure through space and time.

That’s delightful.

Robopocalypse

Thu, 27 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I can only give you words. Nothing fancy. But this will have to do.

It doesn’t matter if you’re reading it a year from now or a hundred years from now. By the end of the chronicle you will know that humanity carried the flame of knowledge into the terrible blackness of the unknown, to the very brink of annihilation. And we carried it back.

In the near future, thinking machines are even slightly more everywhere than they are now. Take it one step further along the road to true general AI… and suddenly you go outright Skynet on the world. Robot Apocalypse. Get it?

The true knowledge is not in the things, but in finding the connections between the things.

This … was perhaps not the best time to read this book, with the ever increasing advances in LLMs and chatbots leading to upheaval in all manner of fields of work, along with the current instability (to put it mildly) in the United States. I think I need more stability in books right now.

To survive, humans will work together. Accept each other. For a moment, we are all equal. Backs against the wall, human beings are at their finest.

That being said, it was a fascinatingly structured book. From the very first chapter, we know humanity (or what’s left of it) eventually wins the war. Each chapter, we have comments like ’this is the last record of X’ or ‘Y had a part to play yet’ And as we go, the various plots cross and come together, sketching out the end of the world and what comes after.

I will murder you by the billions to give you immortality. I will set fire to your civilization to light your way forward. But know this: My species is not defined by your dying, but by your living.

It’s a fascinating book and I think well worth the read… and I’m curious where exactly the sequel can possibly go next without more of the same.

Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens

Wed, 26 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Impossible things are really rough to do, you know.

And man, Alcatraz does all manner of impossible things this time around. There’s wacky tech (like Teddy bear grenades and giant flying bats (not made of glass)), wacky situations (Alcatraz getting a major (temporary) promotion (of sorts)), and powers (a Talent for Being Bad at Math). Pretty much exactly what you’d expect.

And all along, we’re getting more about the world building, one thing that I always enjoy in Sanderson’s books. There definitely seems to be a connection between it all–but exactly how it all works together and how that can make things go wrong… well, that’s the story, isn’t it?

Structurally, my kids were absolutely thrilled by the chapter numbering. The books are terribly meta, referring to chapters that don’t exist (because of skipping numbers) and with notes and comments going back and forth. It’s fun to read and honestly kind of impressive that we’ve gone this far…

And…

Boys, welcome to the wonderful world of talking to women about their feelings. As a handy primer, here are a few things you should know:

Women have feelings.

You will spend the next seventy years or so trying to guess what they’re feeling and why.

You will be wrong most of the time.

I like French Fries.

Alcatraz continues to fall for Bastille.

She was absolutely beautiful. She had long blonde hair, kind of the shade of a bowl of mac and cheese. She was smiling a wide, genuine smile—which was rather the shape of a macaroni and cheese noodle. She seemed to radiate light, much like a bowl of mac and cheese might if you stuffed a lightbulb into it. Her skin was soft and squishy, like— Okay. Maybe I’m too hungry to be writing right now.

In a very Alcatraz sort of way.

It’s a fun book and quite an ending. Of all the things to Break… Here we go, one more book from Alcatraz’s perspective / in the original series. We’ll have to see where it can possible go from here!

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark

Mon, 24 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

It has been a long time since I’ve watched these movies, but man do they actually hold up. From the moment the score first hits, through all the adventure and action scenes, right up to that face melting(ly awesome!) conclusion? There’s a ton of nostalgia, granted, but I still think it holds up even so.

As an introduction, we have it all!

Tomb robbing!

[Indiana needs his bullwhip to swing across a chasm]
Indiana: Give me the whip.
Satipo: Throw me the idol.
[they both see a stone door closing]
Satipo: No time to argue! Throw me the idol, I’ll throw you the whip!
Indiana: [throws the idol] Give me the whip!
Satipo: [drops the whip] Adiós, señor.

A fear of snakes!

[Upon opening the Well of the Souls and peering down]
Sallah: Indy, why does the floor move?
Indiana: Give me your torch.
[Indy takes the torch and drops it in, revealing hundreds of snakes all over floor of the Well of Souls]
Indiana: Snakes. Why’d it have to be snakes?
Sallah: Asps… very dangerous. You go first.

A mostly grounded world (if larger than life), before edging into the fantastical!

Indiana: The Ark of the Covenant, the chest that the Hebrews used to carry around the Ten Commandments.
Major Eaton: What, you mean the Ten Commandments?
Indiana: Yes, the actual Ten Commandments, the original stone tablets that Moses brought down from Mt. Horeb and smashed, if you believe in that sort of thing…
[the officers stare at him blankly]
Indiana: Didn’t any of you guys ever go to Sunday school?

Characterwise, Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones really makes the movie, but Karen Allens’ Marion and John Rhys-Davies¹ are great supporting cast and man Ronald Lacey makes quite the villain.

Plotwise, it’s a pulpy adventure film. The plot is about as clearly good guys (even if Indy is totally looting) versus bad guys, loaded with some awesome action scenes along the way, and a solid ending where the good guys win. And sometimes, that’s exactly what you want.

Overall, a great fun movie. I’m going to rewatch them all now! (The original trilogy. I suppose I’ll have to watch the new ones too? We’ll see.)

Exhalation

Sat, 22 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Two years, two bingos, two Five SFF Shorts, both by Ted Chiang.

Man I love his shorts.

This one goes more scifi and deals more with time travel and parallel realities than the other (which had more scifi interacting with religion), but I love them both.

In particular, I The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate and Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom were my favorites. The eponymous Exhalation was an interesting look at entropy. And The Lifestyle of Software Objects, by far the longest, had the time to go even more through the development of the idea over years (in universe).

It’s interesting, I think that especially from this book, I find that I enjoy scifi more in shorts–you have time to explore many more ideas there–and longer form in fantasy–really digging into the worlds and characters more than the ideas.

Agatha All Along

Fri, 21 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Oh that was a delight. Take Agatha (and the general fallout of her created world) from WandaVision, turn up the witchiness, and go on a magical mystical, somewhat terrifying adventure.

It’s a fascinating story and, honestly, if you would have left out a few scenes it would have worked perfectly well completely outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as well. And at this point, that’s a strong point in its favor.

Man Kathryn Hawn does great in this. I loved the supporting witch cast, especially Aubrey Plaza. She does unsettling and off kilter so well. And Teen–he was an interesting counterpoint. I’m not sure about the worldbuilding around either Rio (Plaza) or Teen (Locke), those parts felt weird, but the actors were awesome.

And of course… the song (I don’t see this version as spoilers, but some might).

Man that song has been stuck in my head for weeks now.

I personally would have dropped the last half of the last episode, the penultimate really works better as a conclusion. This really doesn’t need a sequel (although apparently there will be a third show as a ‘TV trilogy’ sort of thing?), but so it goes.

A quick mitmproxy setup

Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Another quick thing that I set up for the first time in a long time. It’s honestly as much a note for myself as anything, but perhaps you’ll find it useful too.

The problem: We were having intermittent issues with a content security policy. One of the warnings that cropped up was the inclusion of 'inline-speculation-rules' in the policy. This is currently only supported in Chrome and the issue was only appearing in Firefox. I could of course go through the effort of removing the header locally and testing–but what if I could lie to the browser and change the header on the fly?

Well, for that, you have a number of options. Burp Suite, ZAP, Charles Proxy. Many more, I’m sure. Any of these can modify traffic on the fly like that, but they’ll all designed for so much more than that, making them a bit unwieldy. What I really wanted was something that was a whole lot smaller and did only this one thing (or could be at least configured as such)

Enter mitmproxy. I’ve used it before, but never quite like this. As the name suggests, mitmproxy is designed to man-in-the-middle yourself as a proxy–feed all web requests through it and it can read requests, modify and forward (or block them), read responses, modify or replace them entirely, and all so much more.

Exactly what I needed!

Persephone Station

Sun, 16 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Space opera set on a backwater, mostly ignored planet with all sorts of secrets and corporate exploitation. Add in a cast of criminals and mercenaries and all sorts of characters that don’t get overmuch representation in the Sci-Fi of old (Lesbian, bi, and non-binary, oh my. And honestly, a cast of entirely women in the first place). And more than a touch of an exploration of Artificial General Intelligence–possible even more relevant with the current scope and expansion of LLMs–and you have quite a story.

I enjoyed it. It’s a mix of older tropes and newer characters. For the most part, the story went as I was expecting, but that’s not a bad thing. And it was a fun listen.

I think my biggest pain point is that if anything, Persephone Station tries to do too much. I particularly like books exploring truly alien aliens and machine minds–and comparing and contrasting how they think and how we think about them thinking. There are hints of that here, but it could have been so much more!

In any case, I enjoyed it and think it worth a listen. Onward!

A kitchen calendar display running on an Orange Pi Zero 2W

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been on a home automation kick for the last little while, so what better time than to dust off an old project and put up a home / family dashboard in the kitchen/dining room!

Previously, I had this running off a FireTV and MagicMirror. This worked well enough… but oh man is the FireTV browser terrible. Plus I had to do some crazy things to get it to stay on and never could get it to launch right back into the display on a power outage. So now we have version 2!

In the end, I ended up with:

An Orange Pi Zero 2W for the brains
Armbian for the operating system
Chromium as the browser (I did try Firefox first…)
Home Assistant for the data, remote control, and UI
- WallPanel to hide the side/top bar
- Browser Mod for remote control

Not too bad.

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires

Tue, 11 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

If I had a nickel for every book I’d read recently where I went into it not really knowing much more than the cover and title and suddenly horror novel, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.

Fried Green Tomatoes and Steel Magnolias meet Dracula in this Southern-flavored supernatural thriller set in the ’90s about a women’s book club that must protect its suburban community from a mysterious and handsome stranger who turns out to be a blood-sucking fiend.

Which probably should have clued me in.

It’s a fascinating story that starts out fairly tame. A southern woman settled into a life of housewife–a life of long days, unthanked by her family.

“Why do you pretend what we do is nothing?” she asked. “Every day, all the chaos and messiness of life happens and every day we clean it all up. Without us, they would just wallow in filth and disorder and nothing of any consequence would ever get done. Who taught you to sneer at that? I’ll tell you who. Someone who took their mother for granted.”

And to brighten her days…

Sometimes she craved a little danger. And that was why she had book club.

That is, until a strange man moves in next door. With a mysterious aversion to sunlight.

Uh huh.

At some point, the book really gets into that ‘runaway freight train’ feeling. There are some serious body horror scenes in this book and it gets increasingly dark. I mean, it started with biting an ear off, but it goes quite a bit further than that…

Yeah, definitely a horror novel.

Overall, I enjoyed it. The American South housewife theme isn’t something I read overly much and it it’s interesting counterpoint to the vampiric horror. They’re both great examples of ‘pretty and polite on the surface–and absolutely not underneath’.

Worth a read, I’d say.

Foxglove Summer

Sun, 09 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We trooped off behind her into waist high bracken, down something that was not so much a path as a statistical variation in the density of the undergrowth.

Tne one where Peter goes to the country.

I wondered just when I’d become “the starling” and why everyone who was anyone in the supernatural community had such a problem with proper nouns.

And he’s so out of his element.

There are two children missing and it just so happens that one of Nightingale’s former colleagues is in the area. So of course Peter has to go check in on him… and gets entirely too involved in what does (of course) end up being something in the Folly’s department.

“What the hell is that?” he asked.

“It’s a magic spell,” I said, and Beverley snorted.

“Show off,” she said.

“I said I was going to do magic,” I said.

“But . . .” Dominic floundered around for a bit before pointing at me accusingly. “You said that there’s weird shit, but it normally turns out to have a rational explanation.”

“It does,” said Beverley. “The explanation is a wizard did it.”

“That’s my line,” I said.

I do like the ‘half in the open’ stance that this series takes to magic. Most people don’t know or care that magic is real, but that doesn’t mean that Peter can’t occasionally show off and actually use his tools for what they are…

There’s nothing quite like Latin for disguising the fact that you’re making it up as you go along.

Such as they are.

Characterwise, I really do like seeing Beverly again. She totally has a point that Peter basically ignored her for a book… well, not this time around. And there are going to be reprecussions of that, just you wait.

But not for the moment.

What we do get is a mystery wrapped up in even more slowly extending worldbuilding. Now we know a bit more about the Rivers and more than the very little we knew about the Fae. And of all the things…

“Mind you,” said Dominic, “when it comes to finding new ways to get themselves killed, sheep are bloody geniuses.”

Didn’t Charles Stross go a similar route in Equoid (spoilers)? There’s about a year between the two.

Overall, I enjoyed the story, it was a neat way to expand the setting. The ending was … weak. It felt like things just suddenly wrapped up right when they were getting interesting, which is a bit annoying. Onward!

Spider-Gwen, Vol. 6: The Life of Gwen Stacy

Sun, 09 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Gwens.

Looking for help.

And all for a secret (even to the Watchers…) cabal of Gwens.

Man comics sometimes. This is a hit more cosmic than I want right now.

And the next issue is… Spider-Geddon. I’ll come back to it.

The last with her father though was cute. Just a lot for a single issue.

Side note: the art dramatically shifted halfway through #33. Always jarring, that.

Spider-Gwen, Vol. 5: Gwenom

Sat, 08 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

And do we have Gwenom. Great name. Interesting new power set. Less interaction with the symbiote than you get sometimes.

… if that Venom Wolverine? That’s a terrifying idea.

Anyways, Gwenom. Great name, going to be a terrible idea for her. But she’s sort of stuck without many good ones…

Yeah. It’s dark.

And weird.

But what else is new?

We’re definitely heading to a conclusion here. Onward!

Setting up a Zigbee Tuya IR Blaster

Fri, 07 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I spent long than I would have liked setting up a touch of automation for our home media center setup. Specifically, we have a projector, an HDMI switch, and multiple input devices connected to it (Apple TV, Steam Deck, Switch at the moment).

There are a few things that are suboptimal with this setup, but so it goes. One thing that’s been bothering me for a while is that there’s no great way for the switch I have to easily switch devices. It has a remote… but where’s the fun in that? (Plus we lost it for a few months).

So I took this as a chance to finally set up an IR transmitter with Home Assistant, using Zigbee Home Automation!

It was a bit confusing to get it all working, so I’m sharing it half so I can reproduce what I did if I ever need to or so that anyone trying the same can get it working.

A lot of what I did was based first on this blog post.

A Man on the Inside

Wed, 05 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Well that was a fun show. Created by the Michael Schur (who also did the Good Place, check it out!) and with many overlapping cast members from the Good Place, I had high hopes.

When I learned that it was about a man learning to live in an assisted living center, I … wasn’t sure. Was there a supernatural element?

And then when it dropped (in the first episode and all the promotional materials, so I don’t see it as a spoiler) that he’s going in to assisted living as a SPY! Well, I’m intriuged.

It’s a fun show, hilarious at times (especially with just how bad Charles is at all this) and sad at others (it’s about old folks. Death, loneliness, and memory loss are just part of it). But it’s quite the ride all the way through.

I do love the cast, Ted Danson as Charles is amazing. I enjoyed Mary Elizabeth Ellis as his daughter Emily, even if her family troubles were a weird B plot. Lilah Richcreek Estrada as Julie did ‘I’m going to solve this problem whatever it takes’ wonderfully, and it was fascinating to see Stephanie Beatriz as head of staff Didi. I really need to watch Brooklyn Nine-Nine at some point…

And then all of the old folks inhabiting those halls… Man those were some performances. I honestly didn’t recognize any of them from other roles but I expect there are some well known names in there.

Overall, it’s a wonderful show and goes by quick. Well worth the watch!

Exposure

Wed, 05 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Of course I had to read the sequel!

It’s another story of Rita Todacheene, but this time getting into the absolute trauma of the first book.

It’s hard enough (I imagine) being a crime scene photography. Constantly exposed to all that fairly grisly death. But add to that ghosts only you can see screaming at you about solving their murders, but when few enough of your coworkers and bosses believe you–to the point of thinking you’ve lost your mind?

Oy.

So Rita is done. Heading back home.

Except this time… the ghosts are coming with her.

This time, rather than backstory the second plot being Rita’s past, we have another point of view–who we quicly learn is a serial killer caught up in his own paranoid worldview and bringing it violently to those around him. It’s a fascinating contrast to the first book and I really liked it. It reminded me a lot of various thrillers I read years and years ago, mostly by Dean Koontz.

Overall, it’s a solid sequel and I so wish the best and better for Rita. Oh I’m curious to see if there will be another! Where do you go from here?

WebCrypto SHA-256 HMAC

Wed, 05 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A quick random thing I learned that I found helpful (and you might too!):

async function hmac(text, secret) {
 let enc = new TextEncoder("utf-8");
 let algorithm = { name: "HMAC", hash: "SHA-256" };

 let key = await crypto.subtle.importKey("raw", enc.encode(secret), algorithm, false, ["sign", "verify"]);
 let signature = await crypto.subtle.sign(algorithm.name, key, enc.encode(text));
 let digest = btoa(String.fromCharCode(...new Uint8Array(signature)));

 return digest;
}

This is a function that uses the Web Crypto API to calculate a SHA-256 HMAC of a string given a secret value.

I mostly worked this out so that I could figure out how exactly TextEncoder worked, along with importKey (to turn a secret into proper key material) and also how to convert that back into a hex digest.

>> await hmac("lorem ipsum", "super secret")
"qArFX93Zi83ccIayhYnuFDpd4pk3eB4rZYDvNteobSU="

>> await hmac("lorem ipsum doler sit amet", "super secret")
"klTAioH5nNkguNhU2YcJshaZZtJW9DEb+MTqz4NWq8E="

>> await hmac("lorem ipsum", "even more super secret!")
"RoQLg2uz5KWLMJM72VExH5gZOls5bdZZyzHi678eDWs="

>> await hmac("lorem ipsum", "super secret")
"qArFX93Zi83ccIayhYnuFDpd4pk3eB4rZYDvNteobSU="

Disclaimer: This totally counts as rolling your own crypto. Don’t do this unless you know what you’re doing. 😄

Disclaimer disclaimer: I only rarely know what I’m doing. 😄 😄

Also, for what it’s worth, this is equivalent to the Python standard libraries’ hmac + base64 :

>>> base64.b64encode(hmac.digest(b'super secret', b'lorem ipsum', 'SHA256')).decode()
'qArFX93Zi83ccIayhYnuFDpd4pk3eB4rZYDvNteobSU='

Clifty Falls 2025

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A much warmer season to visit Clifty Falls than last year. A great park and some great trails.

View on Flickr

Shutter

Sun, 02 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Grandma always said to me that you never do things for people to get something in return. That is the white man’s way of living. You do it because they need you. You do it because if you don’t, no one else will.

Well that’s quite a book!

In a word, it’s an urban fantasy about a Diné (Navajo) forensic photographer that can see ghosts. But it’s so much more than that.

First, I love the main character: Rita Todacheene. Someone that can see ghosts and a cop (or cop adjacent) is something I’ve seen before, but it being a forensic photographer gave a particular poignancy to the whole thing. And the Diné angle was fascinating–I’ve seen a bit of it in other urban fantasy books, but they have a particular way of looking at death which really plays interestingly against someone that can see ghosts!

As a bit of setting, the attention to detail on the cameras and the craft of photography was a really interesting touch. Rita, growing up poor but from a whole line of photographers. You really get the feeling she knows and loves everything about it which really gives a certain feel to the story.

Content warning though: We do get a number of descriptions of what exactly she’s photographing. And some of those are grisly. At least we don’t get the pictures? (I don’t actually know for sure, I listened to this on audiobook…)

Structurally, the book alternates between the present day–Rita trying to solve crimes and stay mostly sane with ghosts hounding here–and the past: Rita’s time growing up with her grandmother on a reservation, first coming to terms with life, death, and all it means to her specifically. It’s a really nice contrast, pulling the two stories together.

Plotwise, it’s not the most complicated of mysteries. You mostly have enough clues to figure out where this is going, but oh the ride to get there. It’s still well worth it.

I learned early that no amount of prayer or smoke or love was ever going to change the fact that these lights wanted to talk to me. Even at three years old, I knew it was something that deeply terrified my grandma and our medicine man. It was something that I was going to have to hide from them. As I got older, I taught myself how to look beyond the ghosts and mute their voices.

Furysong

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

When a government ceases to protect its people, it becomes necessary to overthrow it.

Oy.

That’s how you end a trilogy.

Revolution on revolution, coup on coup. Love and hate, betrayal and double/triple/who even knows crossing. And death. Oh the deaths.

Finally, we get a conclusion (for now) of the revolution we were first introduced to in Fireborne. And the government in exile of Flamefall.

The characters are still a large driving factor here, especially (but not only!) Annie and Lee. We finally get an answer to the whole ‘will they / won’t they’ which I expect we all saw coming, but it’s all in how it happened… and what came next. There’s a lot of sweet here–and more than a helpful of bittersweet as well.

On top of that Griff is a fascinating point here. He got everything he wanted in Flamefall and a few things that he couldn’t bear. So for half the book, he’s the hero–and drowning himself in his sorrows. But add in Delo as an actual point of view this time around? A plot well worth it.

On the antagonists side, we have Ixion. Oh we love to hate them. Being the last book, they have to fall, but it’s going to be a long painful trip to get there. The (re)introduction of the Bassileans, their princess, and their gargantuan dragon. I think that’s a sort of difference in dragon breeds and hints at a larger world that I could do with more of. It’s interesting to realize that for all the chaos we’ve been through with these books, they’re only a tiny part of the larger world.

And then there’s Power. He is very much the most complicated character in these books, thoroughly in the morally gray category. Oh Power.

Overall, I loved these books. I’m going to have to see what else Rosaria Munda has done! Onward!

I just wanted it to be in writing, somewhere. I wanted it to be in writing that it was you. For me. It’s always been you.

Raggedy Ann Stories

Thu, 30 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Well those are wonderful. It’s Toy Story nearly a century before Toy Story (I wonder just how old ’toys come alive’ stories are?), with a doll and her friends waking up and getting into all sorts of delightfully weird and cute trouble. Story by story. Raggedy Ann Learns a Lesson Raggedy Ann and the Kite Raggedy Ann Rescues Fido Raggedy Ann and the Strange Dolls Raggedy Ann and the Kittens Raggedy Ann and the Chickens Raggedy Ann’s New Sister Raggedy Ann Learns a Lesson And so it’s Toy Story!

Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia

Sat, 25 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Books are not fish sticks.

Now, we’re really in the Free Kingdoms. We spent a book learning that there’s a hidden world and another mostly underground (in the Library of Alexandria!), so it’s nice to get something really ‘hidden world’.

And man, the Free Kingdoms are strange. But that’s probably just the Librarian brainwashing coming through. Castles. Glass pigs. More castles. Kings. Councils. And even more Smedrys!

“Farting barf-faced poop!” a voice exclaimed from inside the pig’s butt.
(Sigh. Sorry. At least that’s another great paragraph to try working into a random conversation.)

Exactly.

One of the hilarious (from our point of view) issues that comes up this book is Alcatraz coming to his ‘Harry Potter’ moment. A world where he knows next to nothing, but everyone knows who he is. Apparently via the in-universe Alcatraz books, which is an extra level of weirdly meta.

Fame is like a cheeseburger. It might not be the best or most healthy thing to have, but it will still fill you up. You don’t really care how healthy something is when you’ve been without for so long. Like a cheeseburger, fame fills a need, and it tastes so good going down. It isn’t until years later that you realize what it has done to your heart.

There are just so many book/other geeky media references. I love them.

For example, take this story: “Once there was a furry-footed British guy who had to go throw his uncle’s ring into a hole in the ground.” Sounds dumb, doesn’t it?

Nothing is sacred!

“That’s bad,” Folsom said.
“She Who Cannot Be Named?” I asked. “Why can’t we say her name? Because it might draw the attention of evil powers? Because we’re afraid of her? Because her name has become a curse upon the world?”
“Don’t be silly,” Himalaya said. “We don’t say her name because nobody can pronounce it.”

Exactly.

Overall, it’s more Alcatraz. You have a fun plot, wacky characters, and just on the edge of too much meta commentary on writing/being a work of ‘fiction’. I’m still quite enjoying it.

And this is only halfway.

If a train left Nalhalla traveling at 3.14 miles an hour and a train left Bermuda at 45 MHz, what time does the soup have pancakes?

Where in the world (literally) can they go from here?

Broken Homes

Sat, 25 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

It’s a police mantra that all members of the public are guilty of something, but some members of the public are more guilty than others.

The more things change…

This time around, we have both Peter and Leslie as apprentices at the Folly, learning how to do magic things–

“I’d love to stick some high vestigia material into a mass spectrometer, but first I’d have to get myself a mass spectrometer and then I’d have to learn enough physics to interpret the bloody results.”

–and use those abilities to investigate those stranger cases in London.

The key is unlikely juxtapositions. Lots of people read books about the occult, but if you find them alongside books by or about Isaac Newton, especially the long boring ones, then hackles are raised, flags hoisted and, more importantly, notes made in my notebook.

…the more they remain the same…

And then they find a body sans face.

Attend a peace summit between Rivers/Fae. (I actually really do enjoy how fuzzy and ill defined Fae apparently are in this world. It’s interesting and feels somehow more ‘Fae’ than you often see.)

Move into an estate (British for project housing).

“Peter,” she said. “When you threaten people it’s usually more effective if they don’t have to spend five minutes working out what you just said first.”

It’s a strange book.

…until quite suddenly things aren’t the same anymore.

Oof.

That’s a brutal ending.

I’ll just leave it at that.

And immediately go start the next book.

Doctor Who: Season 2

Sat, 25 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Yeah, I’m still re-watching Doctor Who in fits and starts.

Well, after all that was great with Eccleston/Nine in season 1, how we get Tennant/Ten. Oh, I do enjoy his take on the doctor. It’s a perfect mix of a whimsical seeing what he can get away with–with the absolute feel of sadness and age that a being like the Doctor really should be feeling…

And all with Rose along for the ride. Rose gets a lot of hate at times, but I really think she was a pretty good first nu-Who companion.

In this season, we a fair few two parters, a bunch of great episodes. The Girl in the Fireplace is a great take on ’the Time Travelers wife’ sort of thing. Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel introduces us to some old foes. The Impossible Planet/Satan Pit really start getting into Doctor Who as sci-fi/horror (and I love it).

And then… there’s Love & Monsters. That’s… actually not that bad? It’s definitely one of the ‘Doctor-lite’ episodes, which are always something interesting to try. The ending is crass and kind of terrifying to really think about–rather than the laughs you might think they were going for.

Overall, a solid season!

And the special introduces Donna! Even if she won’t be back for a bit, she’s certainly a contender for my favorite companion.

Onward!

Freshly (Frosted) Solved

Thu, 23 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

And so it begins. Freshly Frosted It’s a cute little puzzle game about making a donut factory. It’s a lot like Solving Cosmic Express in that it’s a ‘puzzle on rails’, you are basically routing around the grid from source to target. In the way, we have to go to certain tiles in a certain order (in this case, to apply toppings to our donuts). Let’s do it! The first section (starting with Basic layout) is the final state of the solution.

Arcane: Season 2

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Well then. I absolutely loved [[Arcane: Season 1]]. I still loved Season 2… but I think they may have reached just a bit too far.

The art style is still amazing. We still have the same main steampunk/magitech/brightly colored visuals (Jink’s chaotic spraypunk style in particular), but there are also more scenes this time, with different styles matching the feel. Chaotic black slashes when a monster hunts, childhood crayon feeling drawings for memories, and SPACE for… well, spoilers. And oh, the glitching. Weird, but quite the style.

The characters… I think at it’s heart, this show is about Vi and Jinx and man do they go through a lot in this season. I already felt for Jinx–even if I wasn’t sure she could ever be redeemed in season 1–and they just turn it up. On top of that, you have Jayce/Viktor, which… man that one hurt this season. Plus Vi/Cait (go them!), and Mel/her mother (this one didn’t get nearly as much time as it needed), and Ekko (this could have been a whole season… or left out entirely).

Mostly, I think this was the biggest problem with this season. It’s only 9 episodes, mostly short of 45 minutes. That is not enough time to fit everything that they tried to put in this show. I could have easily watched an entire season focussing on any one of those plots above… and they tried to fit it all in. We get some resolutions… but so much is left undone.

Apparently there won’t be an Arcane Season 3; instead, we’ll get one or more spinoff shows in the same universe but with other stories/settings/characters. This is absolutely for the best.

Speaking of feel, the first season did a good job of feeling real/grounded. It was a story of class warfare and the introduction of magic into a steampunk world. It all ‘fit’. Here, we get quite a bit more of the more ‘cosmic’ side of what’s apparently also kicking around in this world. I liked it, don’t get me wrong, but it felt so much bigger and weirder than the first season that they didn’t quite fit together…

Overall? I still quite enjoyed Season 2. It is absolutely worth watching Season 1 and once you have… well, you have to go on, right? I’ll totally check out any spin-offs that we get.

Onward!

Taskmaster: Series 18

Mon, 20 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I … managed to miss [[todo:Taskmaster: Series 17]] somehow. Anyways!

Another delightful season. This was a fun cast. Baba was full of chaos, Rosie got away with so much crap (sometimes literally) and her team tasks with Jack were such chaos. Andy has serious mad professor vibes (mostly the hair I suppose). Emma… Emma was my favorite.

Rosie having cerebral palsy certainly started out with a different flavor to the season. But man she has a sense of humor about the whole thing. I think it took Greg and the other contestants a minute to feel out how far to go (“Is it too early in the series to mention I DON’T have cerebral palsy?” - Emma)… but once they did, that was a lot of fun.

As you can tell by the way I talk, I suffer from being Northern. – Rosie

Overall, what do you want? I love this show. Another great season. Time to go back to 17!

Flamefall

Sun, 12 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Revenge doesn’t need to begin with a knife. It can begin with a well-delivered speech.

The cracks were already showing in Fireborne. There may have been a Revolution, dealing away with the Dragonlords of old… but that doesn’t necessarily mean that whatever comes next is going to be any better. So much so that you start to see those with the feeling that ‘maybe things weren’t so bad under the Dragonlords after all’. And it just so happens that there’s more than one cousin in exile…

I really enjoy seeing Annie come into her own in this book, taking her place in charge of the dragon riders after Lee stepped down. And then dealing with all that comes from having to make all those hard decisions at the top. Dealing with Lee and the government and the other riders and her own past. It’s a lot.

And Lee, actually coming out into the open–while dealing with the trauma at the end of Fireborne. Complicated that. I kept expecting him to snap–and hoping that he won’t, that he will actually be better. I’m rooting for you!

And then we have newcomer Griff. Another peasant dragon rider from a very different set of circumstances. It’s hard to introduce a new main character in the second book, but I really do think it was done well. Man, the New Pythians are twisted, almost comically evil. But that doesn’t make them any less dangerous to those in teh story.

Oy there’s just so much in this book.

Tonight I’m full of confidence, like a dragon riding a gale. I am done letting these tendrils of shame tie me to the ground. No shadow is so great that it doesn’t shrink when viewed from the air.

I can’t wait to see how it ends from here.