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Witchmark and Absurd Person Singular
Sep. 25th, 2022 09:29 amI listened the audiobook version of Witchmark by CL Polk, which follows the story of Miles Singer, a psychiatrist in a veterans' hospital after the end of a war, in a fantasy world called Aeland. He comes from a family of mages, but ran away to be a doctor in the war because otherwise his fate was to serve as purely a power source for his sister.
The first person narrative was strong, the worldbuilding and magic system were interesting and the romance aspect worked really well. The book combines both personal and global stakes at a high level, there are lots of really well-portrayed and multi-layered inter-personal relationships, and I was fully invested in the protagonist's journey.
I'll definitely listen to the rest of the trilogy at some point.
Last night, we also went to see a production of Absurd Person Singular at the Abbey Theatre in St Alban's. It's a dark comedy with a lot of 1970s social commentary, following the rising and falling fortunes of three couples across three consecutive Christmas Eves. None of the characters are very likeable, the humour is quite dark in place and very mean-spirited in others, as you'd expect from Alan Ayckbourn. But the cast did a really good job and I though the costumes in particular were very well used to demonstrate their gradual change in circumstances over the course of the play.
The first person narrative was strong, the worldbuilding and magic system were interesting and the romance aspect worked really well. The book combines both personal and global stakes at a high level, there are lots of really well-portrayed and multi-layered inter-personal relationships, and I was fully invested in the protagonist's journey.
I'll definitely listen to the rest of the trilogy at some point.
Last night, we also went to see a production of Absurd Person Singular at the Abbey Theatre in St Alban's. It's a dark comedy with a lot of 1970s social commentary, following the rising and falling fortunes of three couples across three consecutive Christmas Eves. None of the characters are very likeable, the humour is quite dark in place and very mean-spirited in others, as you'd expect from Alan Ayckbourn. But the cast did a really good job and I though the costumes in particular were very well used to demonstrate their gradual change in circumstances over the course of the play.
