briantw

Sanderson would be a terrible choice. They write nothing alike.

Not only does he bang the children of the forest but he’s apparently incredible at it.

Just finished series five. The transition from Mark and Nish’s song in the finale to “Rosalind is a fucking nightmare” was amazing. Loved the entire cast in this one. All insane in different ways.

I finished Sea of Rust by C Robert Cargill yesterday. It's what I suppose you'd call a posthuman western. Humanity was wiped out by AI decades before the story is set, but after the fall of man, the AIs turned on each other. Various OWIs (One World Intelligences) fight for control of the bots that still have their independence who are largely confined to what is known as the Sea of Rust, located in the Midwest of the former US. Many of these bots are on the verge of shutting down, as parts are scarce, especially for certain models, and in shutdown they begin to lose their minds as their internal parts overheat and decay. The book started out a bit slow, but once a few other characters than the POV, Brittle, are introduced, it really shines. Mercer in particular is a fantastic character, one of those bots on the verge of shutting down and who might be able to save himself by killing Brittle, who is the same model as him. The book sort of morphs into robot Mad Max about midway through and had a surprisingly large amount of action at the end. There was also quite a bit more humor than I was expecting from a book where every character is a robot. Overall, it was great fun. This setting also seems like it would make for an amazing open world video game.

My biggest takeaway from that trailer is that it looks like an honest to god movie with practical effects and no terrible CGI like so many modern blockbusters.

With regards to the comedy in the Kingdom Come games, there's an ambush scene in the second game that is laugh out loud funny. I just got through playing it. Goddamn that was great.

Team clearly had shit leadership.

I enjoy Henry's dialogue with the sheep Ignatius in the second game, and also his conversation with the talking dog in the quest when you get shithammered with the Cumans.

It’s funny because I played a quest in the second game earlier today that references that sermon. You actually play as that priest briefly during an interlude in the story.

I definitely appreciate that even shit tier enemies can hurt me if I'm careless, although I also like that I can clearly see the progress I have made in how easily I dispatch them. I just did the wedding quest in KCD2 and found that I was hilariously overpowered in the practice duels you can do during the various wedding phases to the point where I won all three in one hit. I did all the side content I could find outside of the horse races prior to starting the wedding, so I'd been in dozens of fights, stolen half of Troskowitz and Semine to amass a small fortune, met with every skill trainer I could find, and had put together a suit of good bordering on great armor. Lord Semine was not prepared.

I think it’s more unforgiving than actually difficult, especially without the save mod. It’s very easy to lose large amounts of progress, especially early on when you don’t have the money or resources that you’ll gain after a dozen hours. Thankfully, the save mod mitigates the issue. Once you get a good set of armor, the game is substantially easier too. Poorly armored opponents go from being deadly to only difficult in numbers, and even then I can usually hack one or two down pretty quickly to help even the odds against me.

I'm like fifty hours into the second game and most fights are still nail biters if I have more than one opponent unless they're all poorly armored. Finding the dog has definitely helped in that regard, as I can use him to distract an opponent, although he usually bolts pretty quickly. Armor quality is so much more important in these games than most as well. Getting better armor goes a long way toward keeping you alive. Even wolves could be a hassle to deal with in the early game, but they can't do damage to a fully armored Henry.

I turned off the online for my entire Elden Ring run. The game is hard enough without assholes coming into my game to try to fuck me over.

I also bounced off of the first Kingdom Come but goddamn the sequel is good. I did download a mod to let me save whenever, because the system in the game is obnoxious for a game with such clunky combat and where you’re often left to the mercy of RNG in your travels across the countryside.

As far as I can recall from The Devils, there is one gay relationship and one other character who reveals himself as gay. It’s not even close to Baru Cormorant levels of gay representation.

I watched the first two hours on YouTube when it released because I’ve learned not to buy BioWare games on day one and it legitimately had some of the most godawful writing I’ve ever seen in a modern western AAA game. Maybe it’s because I read a ton of fantasy but it was just awful.

I assume this series is Joe taking a break from The First Law sort of how he wrote Shattered Sea between the Great Leveler books and Age of Madness. And also The Devils was clearly written to get him a payday from some studio optioning the rights. It’s Andy Weir Project Hail Mary levels of written to be a movie.

I’d imagine the poor dialogue and constant quipping (where the humor, unlike with Abercrombie, almost never lands) make for a rough audiobook listen. I’ve only ever read his stuff but to me his weaknesses are dialogue, relationships, and basic bitch prose, whereas his strengths are plotting out his stories and world building. It’s essentially the opposite with Abercrombie. He writes such sharp dialogue and utilizes pretty sparse world building so that his books are perfect for the audio format.

I felt that way until the last act of the book, which I burnt through, even if one of the big twists was exceedingly predictable.

Finally finished this one a few days ago. I started out reading it but then transitioned to the Pacey-narrated audiobook, because he really brings the text to life just as he did with Abercrombie's First Law books. It's a bit too quippy but never boring and I liked all of the characters. One of the two big twists at the end is a bit too obvious, and the other is so heavily foreshadowed right before the revelation that I don't know how anyone could miss it. On the whole, it feels a bit like Abercrombie going through the motions, but I also don't necessarily hate that? It's an enjoyable, breezy read that is clearly designed to be adapted for TV or cinema. Abercrombie plays to his strengths here and it mostly works. I look forward to seeing where he goes with this world.

Mantzoukas elevates everything he's in, assuming he's more or less playing a version of himself (or, in this case, just being himself).

Honestly if I had to pick one active filmmaker to adapt Bakker, it’d probably be Eggers.

Someone needs to show this motherfucker The Prince of Nothing.