Girls, gifts, games, gigs and... bears?
Nov. 20th, 2017 04:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearOne of the books in my reading retreat prescription was The Girl With All The Gifts by M R Carey, which wouldn’t have been on my list otherwise, but which I found compelling and extremely well written. It’s a zombie novel, but that shouldn’t be off-putting, as it has some interesting new takes on a familiar story, not least because it has a great range of POV characters, all of whom are portrayed with tons of depth. Even those who appear (and in some cases remain) completely reprehensible are given enough motivation that you can fully understand how their actions seem like the right thing to do from their point of view. There are many shades of grey to explore here.
I particularly liked the fact that the zombie pathogen is based on something real - the fungus that hijacks ants, forces them to climb trees and then explodes spores out of their heads. The book actually references the David Attenborough documentary where I found out about this fungus - and I remember it vividly for being incredibly horrific.
The writing is very good, and I love the fact that it employs a high-level vocabulary, which isn’t often the case in thrillers. The long sentences and multi-syllable words do rather dilute the tension of the action scenes in places, but I appreciated the style overall.
Parts of the book are very grim - I definitely wouldn’t want to watch the film - but the ending is both shocking and satisfying. And I didn’t realise until I read the bit about the author at the back, that it’s by Mike Carey, who wrote the Lucifer comics (one of my all-time favourite things in any media). The use of initials in the author’s name, along with the three excellent central female characters, made me assume the author was female, so it just goes to show what I know!
This weekend just gone was Midcon, a games convention held in Derby. I played four games that were entirely new to me and enjoyed all of them.
Cauldron Master is a card game where you deploy the witches in your coven to collect spell ingredients that fit the recipe card you are dealt at the beginning of the game. It’s quick and relatively simple, but you do have to decide which cards to play and which cards to collect, based on what other players are likely to do, so there is a dimension of strategy involved. A good one to fill time between longer games.
Sagrada is a beautifully designed game in terms of how it looks and how all the components fit together. It’s also a lot of fun and very satisfying. Each player has a stained glass window to create by placing coloured dice on their game board. There are restrictions as to which dice you can place where, and you have a limited supply to choose from each round. There are particular patterns to aim for, in order to get bonus points, so there’s a lot to work out as the game progresses. It’s really lovely, and great fun to play.
The Oracle of Delphi is a game where you have to move your ship around the board to complete tasks, including fighting monsters, collecting and delivering things, and building shrines. Your actions are determined by dice rolls each turn, restricting where you can travel and which tasks you can complete. There are lots of options to choose from and it’s tricky to optimise your achievements, but there are always useful things to do, and enough complexity in the game to make it really interesting and definitely replayable. I really enjoyed this one, and we played it twice.
Dice Forge is a fun variant on the type of game where you build up resources to buy cards that give you points and powers to further your progress. As well as purchasing cards, you can also purchase better faces for your dice, and you actually replace the ones you already have, so you gradually make your dice more powerful as the game goes on. It’s fun, but also frustrating when you keep rolling the rubbish sides, even after you’ve upgraded most of them! Another well designed and very attractive game, which I’d be very happy to play again.
Last night, went to a gig by The Rasmus, my favourite band, who were fortuitously in town close to my birthday, so I bought a ticket as a present to myself. I’m used to being one of the oldest fans at their gigs, but the fans of fifteen years ago are now all grown up, and some of them still brought their mums, who seemed in a lot of cases to be enjoying the show more than the youngsters! There were lots of women in their fifties at the gig, some accompanied by younger people, but others on their own or with other women their age - and they were very enthusiastic. The gig was awesome - Lauri looked a lot better than last time I saw them - he’s filled out a bit and looked all the better for it. He was very energetic, and the sound balance was really good, for a change, so it was a great show. Old favourites were intermixed with several songs from their new album, which were better live than when I’d listened to them previously. I jumped up and down a lot and thoroughly enjoyed myself.
This morning, I watched Brigsby Bear, a film about a man who re-enters the world after many years in seclusion throughout his childhood. He is obsessed with a TV show about a space-faring bear, and uses it to help him acclimatise to being out in the world again. It’s quite a slight film, but very affecting in places, and explores the impact of the character’s re-introduction to the world on those around him, as well as his own journey. It’s quirky, but fun.
I particularly liked the fact that the zombie pathogen is based on something real - the fungus that hijacks ants, forces them to climb trees and then explodes spores out of their heads. The book actually references the David Attenborough documentary where I found out about this fungus - and I remember it vividly for being incredibly horrific.
The writing is very good, and I love the fact that it employs a high-level vocabulary, which isn’t often the case in thrillers. The long sentences and multi-syllable words do rather dilute the tension of the action scenes in places, but I appreciated the style overall.
Parts of the book are very grim - I definitely wouldn’t want to watch the film - but the ending is both shocking and satisfying. And I didn’t realise until I read the bit about the author at the back, that it’s by Mike Carey, who wrote the Lucifer comics (one of my all-time favourite things in any media). The use of initials in the author’s name, along with the three excellent central female characters, made me assume the author was female, so it just goes to show what I know!
This weekend just gone was Midcon, a games convention held in Derby. I played four games that were entirely new to me and enjoyed all of them.
Cauldron Master is a card game where you deploy the witches in your coven to collect spell ingredients that fit the recipe card you are dealt at the beginning of the game. It’s quick and relatively simple, but you do have to decide which cards to play and which cards to collect, based on what other players are likely to do, so there is a dimension of strategy involved. A good one to fill time between longer games.
Sagrada is a beautifully designed game in terms of how it looks and how all the components fit together. It’s also a lot of fun and very satisfying. Each player has a stained glass window to create by placing coloured dice on their game board. There are restrictions as to which dice you can place where, and you have a limited supply to choose from each round. There are particular patterns to aim for, in order to get bonus points, so there’s a lot to work out as the game progresses. It’s really lovely, and great fun to play.
The Oracle of Delphi is a game where you have to move your ship around the board to complete tasks, including fighting monsters, collecting and delivering things, and building shrines. Your actions are determined by dice rolls each turn, restricting where you can travel and which tasks you can complete. There are lots of options to choose from and it’s tricky to optimise your achievements, but there are always useful things to do, and enough complexity in the game to make it really interesting and definitely replayable. I really enjoyed this one, and we played it twice.
Dice Forge is a fun variant on the type of game where you build up resources to buy cards that give you points and powers to further your progress. As well as purchasing cards, you can also purchase better faces for your dice, and you actually replace the ones you already have, so you gradually make your dice more powerful as the game goes on. It’s fun, but also frustrating when you keep rolling the rubbish sides, even after you’ve upgraded most of them! Another well designed and very attractive game, which I’d be very happy to play again.
Last night, went to a gig by The Rasmus, my favourite band, who were fortuitously in town close to my birthday, so I bought a ticket as a present to myself. I’m used to being one of the oldest fans at their gigs, but the fans of fifteen years ago are now all grown up, and some of them still brought their mums, who seemed in a lot of cases to be enjoying the show more than the youngsters! There were lots of women in their fifties at the gig, some accompanied by younger people, but others on their own or with other women their age - and they were very enthusiastic. The gig was awesome - Lauri looked a lot better than last time I saw them - he’s filled out a bit and looked all the better for it. He was very energetic, and the sound balance was really good, for a change, so it was a great show. Old favourites were intermixed with several songs from their new album, which were better live than when I’d listened to them previously. I jumped up and down a lot and thoroughly enjoyed myself.
This morning, I watched Brigsby Bear, a film about a man who re-enters the world after many years in seclusion throughout his childhood. He is obsessed with a TV show about a space-faring bear, and uses it to help him acclimatise to being out in the world again. It’s quite a slight film, but very affecting in places, and explores the impact of the character’s re-introduction to the world on those around him, as well as his own journey. It’s quirky, but fun.
