dog-days

Somehow missed this. Obsidian Entertainment released a talking-heads-based documentary in four five parts to mark their twentieth anniversary. Linked to on the OE forums. The part I saw of it (1) was good, though it did feel as if there was a Chris-Avellone-shaped absence. I understand that apart from the now dismissed allegations against him, he fell out quite badly with OE. But the result was that the talking heads were more focused on the technical/graphics/management side, and not so much on the writing. 

(eta: Josh Sawyer has popped up to talk about PoE!) 

4 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

One of my favourite Caine quotes:

It’s one thing to be a good guy because that’s who you are. It’s something else to be a good guy because you’re too much of a fucking pussy to break the rules

Sounds like horrendous misogynist crap to me, but different strokes for different folks I guess. 

23 hours ago, dog-days said:

I know that since Qui Gon Jinn and probably earlier (depending on the hairstyle you picked in KotOR), force users have been using their powers to control their flowing locks so that they never get in the way at a vital moment. 

Still. Seriously. WOULDN'T IT BE EASIER TO HAVE A SHORT HAIRCUT?? I mean, come on. 

Have just watched episode 2, and I can see that my own Force powers influenced Sabine to give herself a haircut. Also mindwiping everyone who'd seen the episode before me so that they imagined the knife and helmet scene had always been there. 

On the one hand, everything seems pretty lame and predictable. On the other hand, Chopper is still a death metal sandwich of delight.  

Chopper: <gruff beeping> 

Hera: I can't just shoot it down, Chop. It would fall on the city!

12 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Chekalov was reportedly also on that plane. He was the head of Wagner Security Service.

 

Bets on Prigozhin's last words being "you're fired!"?

I know that since Qui Gon Jinn and probably earlier (depending on the hairstyle you picked in KotOR), force users have been using their powers to control their flowing locks so that they never get in the way at a vital moment. 

Still. Seriously. WOULDN'T IT BE EASIER TO HAVE A SHORT HAIRCUT?? I mean, come on. 

Halfway through the first episode now. Too much CGI for me. Plus a lot of the design feels hyper-generic. eg. The blonde sith with contact lenses. 

I was okay with Hera. I could see her as a natural development of the character a few years on from the death of Kanan. 

It may grow on me as we get further into the series. 

Blast from the past. Russia's having a Purge. Sergei Surovikin removed as head of the aerospace forces. Still alive, for now. 

Wonder if this is the restored Soviet Union Putin longed for. 

Indeed. So so so stupid. 

16 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Holy shit they took down a jet to get the Wagner Chief guy didnt they?

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jet-crash-in-russia-kills-10-wagner-chief-was-on-passenger-list_n_64e64162e4b0a04c2ed7dfaf

Maybe this'll increase the value of Russian-made missiles on the international arms markets after a post-Ukraine trough. 

I'm assuming a missile was used rather than a bomb. 

That was slightly faster than expected. Putin must feel sure he's got Wagner under control.

I'll be watching just to see how they translate the animated Rebels characters into live action. And because I took out a Disney sub to watch OMitB. Not hugely hopeful since I often prefer animation to la, but it should still be interesting. 

2 hours ago, Gaston de Foix said:

Precisely because many (all?) of the doctors were immigrants. 

Haven't looked them up, but Dr Ravi Jayaram is British Asian. I saw him acting in the Chester Mystery Plays this summer. He's more integrated than me. Comes across as someone near the top of the list to put in the bunker in the case of nuclear war breaking out. 

This case keeps reminding me of the post office scandal, though in some ways it's the opposite.

With the post office, the top brass were determined to claim and keep absurdly claiming that hundreds of innocent post masters/mistresses were guilty of fiddling the figures, when in fact it was the hugely expensive tech system that was going wrong. People went to prison and lives were wrecked.  The bosses were trying to cover their own arses.

Here, the management kept believing in Letby's innocence despite whistleblowing from numerous experts. I hope that didn't happen because the experts were brown. It may have. TBH, with the way that area of the country tends to work, I wouldn't be surprised if Letby turned out to be related to someone important, though I suppose that story would have reached the press by now. 

Daniel Abraham has quite a following on this board. He sounds like he may be your cup-of-tea. He has two completed fantasy series and one two thirds of the way through. 

C/P'd from Wikipedia: 

The Long Price Quartet
A Shadow in Summer (March 7, 2006)
A Betrayal in Winter (August 21, 2007)
An Autumn War (July 22, 2008)
The Price of Spring (July 21, 2009)

The Dagger and the Coin 
The Dragon's Path (April 7, 2011)
The King's Blood (May 22, 2012)
The Tyrant's Law (May 14, 2013)
The Widow's House (August 5, 2014)
The Spider's War (March 8, 2016)

The Kithamar Trilogy
Age of Ash (February 15, 2022)
Blade of Dream (July 23, 2023)

Another possibility is City of Last Chances (2022) by Adrian Tchaikovsky which is a stand-alone, though with a possible sequel due out this December. 

For something bit lower key (not about revolution and civil conflict) and shorter, The Left-Handed Booksellers of London and Newt's Emerald by Garth Nix are fun, easy reads. The former looks back to earlier YA fantasy series like Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising while the latter plays with regency romance tropes (though not in a romance-heavy way). 

Happy reading. :  ) 

13 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Finished season 5 of The dragon prince.

Still good, though only 9 episodes a year makes me feel like the story is stagnating a bit - even though it isn't. I find myself eager to see the conclusion. Perhaps because this season in particular felt like a transition to something else - setting things up for the final confrontations.
On the plus side, they've done a great job of muddying the waters. Whenever the show becomes a bit too predictable, they sidestep and move in a slightly different direction. Imho they did that several times in this season, to the point where they have me guessing a bit for the ending. The one thing I'm relatively certain of is

  Reveal hidden contents

We now have Rayla's perfect antagonist. I would expect them to cross paths in season 6, with Kim'dael defeating Rayla, in order to have Rayla come back on top at the end of season 7.

 

Yes, I did find the season quite slow-paced. Plus, the characters still seemed to be treading water in terms of development, except maybe for Callum edging more towards dark magic and Soren becoming more competent. Hoping things pick up with the next one. I'll keep watching even if they don't since the show is likeable enough that even when it's boring, at least it's boring in a nicely animated way. 

21 August 1689. The small-scale but vicious Battle of Dunkeld took place, fought from the cathedral and in the narrow streets of a small Scottish town on the banks of the Tay. Jacobites fresh from victory but having lost their leader at the more famous Battle of Killiecrankie descended on a regiment of Williamite soldiers garrisoned at Dunkeld. Full account. Would make a good film. 

House of Open Wounds is due on 7th December. 608 pages in hardback according to Amazon. I'd like to know what Tchaikovsky adds to his porridge in the morning...

3 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Imagine it. Accountability. There's a thing. 

 

 

I'm sure the police could much more usefully be harassing protestors. 

56 minutes ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

The reviews are positive becsuse trioadvisor locked them when the story broke (perhaps at owners request), there’s a note at the top.

The owners have also apologised. Story is also in the Express, insuspect it may spread further.

Yeah, I know, but what I mean is that reviews prior to the story breaking would have shown some indication of the owners' prejudices. I'm a bit sceptical, tbh. 

2 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

The father of Elle Edwards who was  murdered at Christmas in a botched hit in a pub was on a charity walk from Liverpool to Land’s End, with a friend. This was a very high profile case in thr UK, the killer was recently sentenced to jail.
 

The B&B in Devon wouldn’t let them stay, apparently on hearing their Scouse accents. The owners no doubt regret this as its getting increasing attention on social and mainstream media. I suspect their tripadvisor reviews may tumble; the North remembers.

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/dad-murdered-elle-edwards-claims-27549594

I do wonder if there's a bit more to this story than we're getting from the Echo. I've had a look at online reviews of the guesthouse and they're all positive except for one which said that they were asked to leave after objecting to the resident dachshunds. (They left with a full refund). If the owners tended to be prejudiced, I'd expect there to be more signs of it. Liverpudlians are as fond of holidaying in Devon as everyone else. 

Fucking hell, what a mess. 

I didn't realise until a few minutes ago that this happened at the hospital where I was born (many years before Letby and murderously incompetent/cowardly managers set foot there). 

Finished Blade of Dream on the train back from a family visit. 

It felt like a more enjoyable read than Age of Ash, and also like a more conventional fantasy story. In Age of Ash we were mostly following low-life. Winter seemed to swallow up the whole book, and although our middle and upper class Blade of Dream characters go through the same season, they have warm baths and fires tended by servants to keep the cold at bay. Alys and Sammish don't get any of that. Our BoD characters came across as rather nicer, softer people, having not spent large parts of their childhoods struggling on the edge of existence. 

I enjoyed Theddan and Elaine's friendship. Even if it did come across to my jaded pov as being rather idealised, it was well-written and the way they bounced off each other was a delight. 

Just in case anyone Daniel-Abraham-shaped is listening, I can spot a comma splice at ten miles and have plenty of free time in my schedule that I could spend proofreading book 3. : )

ETA: From going back and reading the last page of this thread, I can see others have been picking up on Bryn a Sal and Halev Karsen. 

1 hour ago, IlyaP said:

We need to know what happened to Ezra. 

That's my reasoning. The final episode of Rebels was a doozy of a cliffhanger. 

Yes! I'm going to subscribe to Disney just to find out where Ezra ended up. I seem to remember he had Thrawn with him too. 

Watched Good Omens 2 last week. 

Pros:

• Warm and broadly optimistic 
• Some of my favourite credits ever
• Great costuming and some very good performances (Jon Hamm and Michael Sheen)
• Often mildly amusing; sometimes really funny
• Enjoyed the commentary on Job. 
  Spoiler

  Aziraphale: Are we sure that Sitis wants to give birth four more times?
  Michael: Seven more times.
  Aziraphale: But she’s already got three children.
  Michael: Yeah, but, those ones will be dead. Keep up.
  Aziraphale: We’re not bringing the old ones back?
  Gabriel: Well, of course not. But we’re giving them new ones.

• When I watch TV from the USA, I often get unnerved by how intensely slim and beautiful anyone is if they're a lead character. Or a supporting character. Or a minor character. Or an extra in one scene. It was nice seeing a load of fairly 'normal' looking people in most of the roles

Cons: 

• Didn't have enough plot. I've read on a fan's blog that the original idea for a sequel would have started with the end of Good Omens 2 
  Spoiler

  Aziraphale going back to heaven and leaving Crowley

  and that does explain rather a lot
• Could have done with a well-developed b-plot to run parallel to Crowley and Aziraphale (instead there were lots of threads that mostly related very closely to C&A; I like the characters but there was just too much of them) 
• I thought John Finnemore was trying too hard to channel Terry Pratchett (e.g. the writing in the zombie plot seemed quite close to Reaper Man). It might have been better for the show if he'd decided to write more as himself. I read a lot of fanfiction in my very misspent teenage years, and the better examples tended to happen when the writer had their own voice and was interested in the source text, but was also confident about doing their own thing. 
• Seemed to be edging a bit too close to pure fan-service at times for my tastes. 

I was about to complain that they recast Beelzebub with a younger actress in view of plot developments. But then I looked it up, and Shelley Conn is actually slightly older than Anna Maxwell Martin.

Also saw Oppenheimer. It was okay, but biopics aren't my genre. I prefer more of the Copenhagen (Michael Frayn) approach. Was impressed by Robert Downey jr. as Strauss since I had no idea it was him till I looked up the cast online afterwards. And slightly embarrassed. I'm not normally that bad – I spotted Hughie from The Boys and Kenneth Branagh. That said, I couldn't tell Oppenheimer's dark-haired love interests apart. 

This story has already been posted here, but it makes me so happy that I'm posting it again.  When the 1700s come to the rescue. The article quotes in full the description of the skipper of an eight-metre sailing boat which broke its rudder and was rescued by the three-masted Götheborg of Sweden. 

Quote

 

We repeatedly emphasized that we were aboard a small 8-meter sailboat, but the response was the same each time: “We are a 50-meter three-masted sailboat, and we offer our assistance in towing you to Paimpol.” We were perplexed by the size difference between our two boats, as we feared being towed by a boat that was too large and at too fast a speed that could damage our boat.

The arrival of the Götheborg on the scene was rapid and surprising, as we did not expect to see a merchant ship from the East India Company of the XVIII century. This moment was very strange, and we wondered if we were dreaming. Where were we? What time period was it?

 

Also: the Götheborg's Instagram. Plus, like any self-respecting eighteenth-century sailing ship, it has a LinkedIn account.  

One of the surprise pluses about growing older is that even if I stumble across spoilers for a game/book/show, by the time I get around to it, I won't remember what the spoilers were.