Put this in your brain by Stu Norvath

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As usual, a collection of my status updates. Overall a good set of essays. Some deeper than others.

Intro - Neat intro by a member of MCR about the role that games play in our lives

“Backward Flow” - About Dune the game and book that I wouldn’t have understood a couple years ago. “As an upper-class white man,

Warbreaker, Part 2 of 3 by Brandon Sanderson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sanderson continues to weave together 3 narratives in a way that makes me really invested in each one. Well, to be fair, for most of this part of the book I viewed Vivena’s sections with resignation. Interestingly, both sisters are naive in their own ways. Vivena is naive through an overly focused education and a position of privilege. Siri is naive from always blowing off her education and those around her having a vested interest in keeping her in the dark. The difference is that Vivena comes off as a stuck up snob for most of her character arc in this part, although things rally near the end when she finally starts to accept her status as a blasphemer and tries to use it for good.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts 1 & 2 by John Tiffany

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’d like to start off by addressing the big thing I’ve noticed with this story - while it has 3.5ish stars on Goodreads, a quick scroll through the reviews reveals that’s mostly the average of 1 star reviews and 5 star reviews. There are very few people who “meh” this story. They either love or hate it. My current theory, mentioned in one of my status updates, is that this is because a huge swath of the world (or at least the Anglophile world) grew up with Harry and Co as their buddies. It was both their intro into magical fantasy and a friend who was going through the same age-related issues (until the civil war at the end which would only be relevant for a certain chunk of the world). This didn’t happen for me. I think I was in high school when they started coming out - I was certainly done with college by the time the last books and movies were coming out. So the Boy Who Lived was a well-conceived and well-fleshed out story to me, nothing more. Never waited to get the books at midnight. Shoot, by the time I wanted to read the books, I waited a few more years for Ms Rowling to offer them DRM-free on Pottermore before I’d buy them. So I read them last year or maybe 2015.

Pay Me, Bug! by Christopher B. Wright

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I said it in a few status updates, but after I finished the book last night I was even surer in my convictions, this should be animated. Why not live action? Well, as we’ve seen in all the super hero movies, actors hate having their faces obscured - it’s their biggest asset. So they keep it visible even if it doesn’t make sense in the context of the plot. In this book, the characters spend 1/3 to 1/2 of the book sporting completely different faces. That wouldn’t fly in Hollywood. Also, Hollywood tends to think you’re dumb so they’d resist it thinking the audience would get confused. The success of the Adult Swim shows and Archer have shown that there’s an audience for animation that falls outside the realm of an animated sitcom. With the tone of the book, it could succeed in an Archer animation style - perfect by that team when they worked on Sealab 2021 for adult swim. It could also beautifully work with Watanabe’s Cowboy Bebop style. (Although that would perhaps be too expensive for American TV? Maybe Netflix would do it?)

Warbreaker, Part 1 of 3 by Brandon Sanderson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I am pretty sure I’ve never read Sanderson before. I’ve just not historically been that much of fantasy guy. I’ve read more fantasy in the past few years than I have in the preceeding decades. However, I do know the name and I know he’s supposed to be very good. So when they had a Sanderson Humble Bundle a month or so ago, I jumped on it. The bundle contained a bunch of audiobooks and a couple days ago I finally had listened to all my podcasts. So I loaded up the first Warbreaker audiobook by GraphicAudio.

The Trinity Paradox by Kevin J. Anderson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Got this in the Time Travel Storybundle

This book was a good read. That said, I was disappointed, given the title of the story - The Trinity PARADOX. I thought it was going to be like Back to the Future 2 where our main character ended up in the alternate timeline and then had to somehow stop herself from creating the alternate timeline. Or multiple people would try to change it or something like that.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I wanted to read this book before talk of the TV show caused the plot to enter the wider zeitgeist and ruin it for me. I’m going to put any big spoilers in the spoiler tag, but this is a book from the 80s and there’s a TV show now that everyone is talking about. (At least 2 podcasts I listen to have spoken abou it) So if you want a pristine read - stop reading this review or anything else online and go read it! Amazon said it’d take 5 hours to read and I think that’s more or less on point. You can finish it over a couple of afternoons if it’s that important to you. OK, now that we have those preliminaries out of the way we can begin with the review proper.

Lightspeed Magazine, March 2013 by John Joseph Adams

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Got this as part of a Humble Bundle in 2015, I think. Finally got around to it. There were some really great and moving stories in here. As usual with anthologies, a collection of my status updates:

“Things Undone” (Novella) - That was a crazy emotional ride. We often read time travel stories concerned with what might change.

You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You’re Deluding Yourself by David McRaney

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a great book that I think would have blown my mind if I hadn’t already been listening to Mr McRaney’s podcast for the past few years. However, if you’re in to amateur psychology and understanding all the ways that your brain is getting in the way of your life, this is a great book. It’s also great for understanding the world. There’s a chapter that explains why people end up with Realistic looking Sex Dolls (those creepy Japanese ones you’ve probably seen) or super old men. Another chapter explains why we always have issues telling if someone is flirting with us or just being nice. Overall it’s a fun read - David used to be a journalist so he has a conversational style that works well.

Whiskey and Water by Elizabeth Bear

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was hard to read. I enjoyed it, but it was definitely hard. Goodreads says it’s the second book of this series and it probably is (the info is populated by GR people who volunteer to be librarians and is sometimes wrong). So I’m sure part of my difficulties come from jumping in past the initial narrative. Ms Bear has created a semi-alternative world that is complex and full of complex characters. This realism to the characters is what drew me in despite how much I had to work. Ms Bear also did a great job at making this an acceptable entry point into the series as she explained characters’ relationships to each other whenever they were introduced.