Reading etc.
Listening
Not much music, since the CD player in the kitchen still refuses to play CDs. I've listened to the Galavant soundtrack a few times while walking, though, especially when getting weary, since it cheers me up, and a lot of the songs are at a tempo that really lends itself to a happy, brisk walk.
I still don't like audiobooks, and have no desire to listen to fiction that way, but non-fiction can just about work. Unfortunately, non-fiction e-audio doesn't go out as well as fiction, so there aren't many titles available from the library, and most of them don't appeal. But I did listen to Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods last weekend, since I like Bill Bryson, and it felt rather appropriate to listen to his account of a Long Walk while doing my own, admittedly much shorter walk. At least I don't have to worry about bears.
Watching
I've been watching The Good Place on Netflix: a comedy about a selfish woman who finds herself in an afterlife intended for the truly saintly. I'm finding it amusing and watchable, and especially like the surprise twists that appear along the way, that keep the story fresh without the episodes getting samey.
Since the weather's dreadful today, I thought I might start rewatching Game of Thrones, but I'm not sure if I can access the DVDs. We're having a garden shed built at the moment, so the contents of our old, makeshift, snail-infested one are currently piled up on plastic sheeting in our converted garage aka library, along with the garden chairs. I don't want to move them further into the house, since they're dirty, and they can't be shifted outside, either, since we're also getting a patio area relaid just outside the garage/library's door (hence the chairs being inside, too), and have strict instructions not to stand on it at the moment. Oh well. I might be able to wriggle under the lawnmower, or something.
Playing
After finishing Gloomhaven, we felt like something much shorter and less thinky, so played a few quick games of Defenders of the Realm. Although fantasy based, this is similar to Pandemic in quite a lot of ways, but with a lot more chance in it, and without the Pandemic mechanism by which Bad Things are much more likely to appear in places that already have them. Untweaked, we find it easy to the point of near dullness. With an easy competitive game, one person at least wins, but with an easy co-op game, when you're collectively beating the system every time, it can be rather dull. Fortunately, the rulebook suggests some tweaks you can make to create a harder game, so we've come up with combination that makes us feel that victory is not assured. Still, it's one to play a couple of time, experimenting with different characters, then put away for a year or two, to play again when you've half forgotten it. As we did.
Then, yesterday, we returned to Divinity Original Sin 2 on the computer. Or, rather, restarted. We both REALLY liked Divinity Original Sin as a co-operative RPG, and played it twice, maybe even three times. Neither of us were as quite as impressed by the sequel, which was broadly similar, but somehow lacked some of the charm of the original. It took us months to progress through it, and we still hadn't finished with Gloomhaven came out and distracted us.
But it's still a good game, and we wanted to return to it one day. However, while we were playing Gloomhaven, they brought out a new "definitive" edition of DOS2, with a lot of changes. So rather than returning to where we'd got a year ago, we've loaded up the new edition and started again from scratch. I'm enjoying it thus far. Last time, I think I was seeing the changes from DOS1 and feeling a bit disappointed, but now I'm going into it with my eyes open, and am remembering that DOS really is a very good RPG.
Reading
The Wicked King by Holly Black
Sequel to The Cruel Prince, a YA novel about a mortal girl brought up in Fairy, surrounded by the compassionless, often cruel immortal inhabitants of that place. I liked the first book quite a bit, I remember, although, as usual, I found I had little memory of it when reading the sequel. I can't say anything much because of spoilers, but I was enjoying the sequel somewhat less, partly due to this lack of memory, and partly because the heroine, for Reasons, had become quite cold and almost unpleasant herself. But then developments in the last few chapters suddenly got me all caught up in things again, and eager to find out what comes next. Shame I'll have forgotten all about it again once book 3 comes out.
Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey
I can't remember why I picked this up in a library. Somebody said something, I know, but I can't remember who, or what. But there it sat on my To Read shelf at home for a few months, until I picked it up last weekend. Written in the late 1940s, this is set in the world of the land-owning middle classes. Simon, the oldest of the orphaned Ashby children, is shortly to turn 21 and inherit the estate. But then up pops someone who claims to be Simon's older twin brother Patrick, who apparently committed suicide as a child. We, the reader, know all along that "Patrick" is a fraud - a young man known as Brat Farrar, who was recruited by the no-good brother of a close family friend who saw him by chance and was struck by his family resemblance. Although Brat Farrar is committing fraud and deception, we see things through his eyes and come to sympathise with him - especially when it becomes clear that someone wants him dead.
I enjoyed this and found it very quick and easy to read. But I was increasingly distracted by the absence of the war. It was written in 1949 and apparently set at the same time, but where was the war? For a while, I wondered if this was set in some AU where no war happened, but there were a few references that showed that it did indeed happen some years before. But 8 years before "now," (1941?) the children's parents died when returning from a holiday in Europe! At much the same time, teenaged Brat Farrar took a day trip pleasure excursion to Dieppe. HOW? HOW DID THIS HAPPEN IN THE WAR?
I was also increasingly bothered by the stiff upper-lip emotions. Yes, I know this is a book of its time, and I can accept that the writing reflects the class and gender attitudes of their time. So it shouldn't bother me that these middle class 1940s characters were acting with the sort of stiff upper lip restraint that was, presumably, the ideal of their age and class. But...! But...! A 13 year old boy had killed himself, and there was no mention, no recognition at all, that this was something quite dreadful and that his siblings might have been bothered by this. And when he "appeared" again, having (or so the pretence went) let them go 8 years thinking he was dead and never once having written, nobody showed any apparent concern about the state of mind that had caused him to "run away," or about his well-being thereafter, or reproaching him AT ALL for not having written. They just let him slot into their lives again, with very little emotion. I tried not to be bothered, and I didn't need histrionics, but I felt that there should have been SOMETHING.
Children of the Star trilogy by Sylvia Engdahl
This Star Shall Abide (aka Heritage of the Star (UK title)
Beyond the Tomorrow Mountains
The Doors of the Universe
Sience fiction trilogy, which I read this because it was mentioned in Among Others. The first book was published as YA, but the omnibus edition of the trilogy is published as adult. Like almost everyone in his world, Noren lives in a village that scrapes a living from the fields using stone tools. All knowledge is controlled by Scholars in the distant City, who send out Technicians to bless the land and make it fruitful, and to operate Machines such as aircars and radiographs. Prophecy speaks of Founders who came from the stars, and of a longed-for day when Mother Star will reappear in the sky and knowledge will be shared with all. Most people accept this as gospel, and react furiously when anyone questions the prophecy, or the prohibitions/taboo of High Law, but Noren doesn't believe. Knowledge should be shared, he believes, the rules and prophecy are a sham, designed to keep people in their place. Speaking out, he is condemned as a heretic... but that is only the very beginning of a long journey of discovery.
It's hard to say anything about this series because of spoilers. Knowing that I was reading a science fiction book, I put together certain clues and guessed some of the "surprise" revelations right from the start, but there were many more to come, and it was interesting watching them unfold.
This is absolutely NOT a series for people who want non-stop action. Very little happens in terms of action. There's a lot of world-building exposition, and an awful lot of introspection - whole chapters which consist of internal dilemmas about the nature of truth. Sometimes even when conversations or drama happen, it's told in a way that somehow makes it feel like exposition. There were times, especially in the second book - essentially one long existential crisis - when I found this rather wearing and difficult to persist with. But in the end, I found it all quite good - thought-provoking, and quite moving in the end.
Now rereading The Just City by Jo Walton, because the Engdahl series, with its capitalised City and its long passages of soul-searching about the nature of truth, put it in mind. I do so love this book! Who would have thought that 300 pages of assorted people (plus robots, gods and Socrates) sitting around on an island discussing philosophy could be so riveting?