williamjm

I finished Adrian Tchaikovsky's The Lords of Uncreation, the third book in his Final Architecture space opera trilogy. I thought it was a really good conclusion to the story. While there are certainly elements of the premise that are quite familiar (such as the spaceship crewed by misfits who end up having to save the day), I thought that the series did have some interesting ideas that I hadn't seen in the other space operas I had read. I thought the conclusion of the story was very satisfying and I liked that it was about more than having a big space battle (although there are a couple of big space battles in the book). I thought some of the world-building was also very good, I particularly liked the Essiel, an alien race so different from humans (in appearance they look like giant clams) that it is a struggle to understand them or to even figure out whether they are trying to help or hinder. Some other bits of the world-building are a bit less detailed, we don't really get much of an impression about what life on ordinary human worlds is like in this future. I also enjoyed the characters and thought they all got some interesting things to do in the final book, although it did sometimes feel like there are only a couple of dozen important people in this interstellar civilisation who all seem to know each other. I think Tchaikovsky has perhaps written a few better books, but I still liked this one a lot.

I've now moved on to Leigh Bardugo's Rule of Wolves.

10 hours ago, IlyaP said:

Am I crazy or does that cover look like it's got AI bits to it? Particularly the needle-like spires on the right side of the cover. 

There is some discussion about this earlier in the thread for the UK cover (which has the same figure against a different background).

7 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

 

Getting into further trouble because he is too cheap to pay for his own lawyers to defend himself from the things we already knew about is Peak Boris.

1 hour ago, Pebble thats Stubby said:

Do we have Trus's honours list yet?  Is she gonna give Boris a knighthood so we are never rid of him.?

In retrospect, it's a bit surprising that Boris didn't try to give himself a knighthood.

8 hours ago, Ser Not Appearing said:

The Lightning Tree is nothing like Slow Regard, from what I recall.

Slow Regard was odd because it's from the perspective of an odd person. It's more fascinating than is it a fun read. It's basically just a character exploration of someone who's partly cracked. The Lightning Tree is also a character exploration but a vastly different character so a vastly different result. Bast is devious and not even human so his perspective betrays that. It was a more fun read but less interesting to me.

From what I remember The Lightning Tree was a good short story, but I'm not convinced that making it longer is going to make it better.

7 hours ago, ljkeane said:

There's another Rivers of London novella coming out next month. This time featuring the FBI agent from Whispers Underground.

When I first saw the title Winter's Gifts I had assumed that it would feature Tobias Winter, but apparently not.

11 hours ago, ljkeane said:

The England squad for the one off test against Ireland. The notable selection is Bairstow over Foakes. It felt like it was on the cards but it might be a bit of a trial run since Foakes has been playing well in County cricket and Bairstow is still on the road back to full fitness. Crawley and Duckett have also been going well which seems like a bit of a bonus.

On the IPL front it doesn't feel ideal that Smith and Labuschagne are playing County cricket in the run up to the Ashes while a number of key England batsmen are playing (or not playing as the case may be) in the IPL. Archer has broken down again too but, honestly, if he can't get through a few T20s it doesn't seem likely he was going to get through a test. You'd think his test career is done at this point.

I agree it does seem questionable whether Archer will ever play tests again, which is very unfortunate for such an exciting player. England often seem poor at looking after their faster bowlers.

It's a bit unlucky for Foakes who hasn't done anything wrong, but understandable that they are keen to bring Bairstow back as soon as possible.

1 hour ago, Ser Not Appearing said:

Still reading Foundryside, about 70% of the way through. I'm enjoying the world and different elements of the story but the characters come across as rather dumb / oblivious and I just haven't consistently enjoyed the writing and plotting itself. Not sure if that's the author or the targeted age group (I feel like it's targeted young-ish).

Sticking with it but ... it's not quite my jam. Not yet, at least.

I feel like if the author catches their stride in future books, I might enjoy them better. We'll see.

I enjoyed Foundryside, but I think his earlier trilogy, particularly City of Stairs, is Robert Jackson Bennett's best work out of those I've read by him. Foundryside does have some good ideas in it but felt a more straightforward story.

2 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Amsterdam

I don’t understand this movie at all. Stellar cast top to bottom; top notch production design; similarly great costumes and sets; great/good performances; Pretty good script and some great scenes. The cinematography isn’t remarkable but it’s competently shot and cut together. It’s subject matter is even something I’m interested in.

So why don’t I love this movie? It took me three sittings to get through it just because it was so uninteresting. 
 

Make this make sense.

I think there's just too much going on, it felt like multiple better movies all squashed together into one film.

On 5/5/2023 at 8:29 AM, Mentat said:

If you head south from Granada and then west towards Málaga there are lots of nice beaches there. Nerja is supposed to be nice, though I can't speak from experience (not really a beach person).

I have been to Nerja a couple of decades ago, I thought it was a nice place, I got the impression it's a lot quieter than some of the beach resorts closer to Malaga. Taking a trip to the Alhambra was definitely the highlight of the holiday.

Having missed the qualifying I was a bit surprised to see that Kevin Magnussen will be lining up in fourth.

7 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

Some of her leadership rivals perhaps wishing they'd been nicer to her now that she's carrying around a big sword.

I finished Shannon Chakraborty's The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi. I liked the unusual historical setting - following a crew of pirates in the 12th Century Indian Ocean. As well as the historical elements there is also the fantasy side of the story, which is taking inspiration from the same myths as Chakraborty's Daevabad trilogy, but taking a somewhat different interpretation of some of them. Amina was an entertaining protagonist to read about and I also liked the other members of her crew. The main villain is largely unseen for most of the book and therefore doesn't really make too much of an impression. The mixture of heist novel and nautical adventure was enjoyable, although there's not a huge amount of depth to any of it - it's perhaps missing the complexity provided by the various different factions in the Daevabad books while this is a much more straightforward tale.

Next up I'm going to read Adrian Tchaikovsky's The Lords of Uncreation, the finale to his space opera trilogy.

I watched Nobody, which I thought was a fun action film. It is perhaps even more John Wick-like than I expected, although he does apparently like cats more than dogs. Bob Odendirk was good in the lead role, and I also enjoyed Christopher Lloyd as his father.

15 hours ago, DMC said:

Anyway, more spoiler-y thoughts on the end of The Americans...

  Hide contents

I had pretty high expectations for the finale (and final season) after reading and hearing about it for years, and they were mostly met (other than the above complaint about too much 80s music montages).  The scene between Stan and the three in the parking garage is what makes television great.  I really liked how Paige decided to stay at the last minute.  Like how they left it open-ended on whether Laurie Holden was an illegal or not.  Also just the entire premise of the final season was perhaps intuitive, but expertly done in linking the characters to two internal factions in the lead-up to START.  Bringing Arkady back for that was industrious.

But poor Oleg, right?  I can't imagine in the real world he'd spend much time in prison just for picking up a dead drop.  Or at least I'd like to think so.  Really was hoping Margo Martindale would get her comeuppance.  Man did she do a great job making you hate that character in the last season.

 

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

Solid win for Perez though, and he can at least feel like a championship battle is alive after 4 races with 2 wins apiece, even if most people are sceptical he can maintain the challenge to Verstappen.

The weekend could hardly have gone any better for Perez. He did get lucky with the safety car, although it feels like Red Bull might have had enough time to react and tell Verstappen to abort coming into the pits. However, even with that advantage there was still a lot of time for Verstappen to catch him up, but he never quite managed it.

The pit-lane situation at the end was ridiculous, if the pit-lane reporters can see the problem developing then someone at race control should definitely be able to.

If anyone is still looking to buy a membership for this, a reminder that the prices will rise on the 1st of May.

1 minute ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

I think its meant to be a tineline where its supergirl and not superman, ie maybe Kara got sent to earth rather than clark. I’m guessing

It would be weird for Barry's actions in the past on Earth to make a difference to that.

12 hours ago, IlyaP said:

Finished Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn: The Stone of Farewell, last night, and started To Green Angel Tower Part 1 this morning.

Gods but I hope it's a pacier book than Stone of Farewell. It took me four months to get through that damn book. 

Still not sure why he didn't just officially declare it a quartet instead of a trilogy, given that the publisher has a note *explaining* to readers that they had to divide the book into two parts. If you're going to do that, call it a quartet! 

I think it was published in hardback as a single volume, apparently it's one of the longest novels ever published.

I watched Renfield, which I thought was a fun horror comedy. Nicolas Cage plays Dracula with all the subtlety and restraint that you would expect from him, and seems to be having a great time doing so. I think they perhaps tried to limit Cage's screentime a bit to avoid him overwhelming the film, so Nicolas Hoult has to carry most of the film and I thought he made a good Renfield. The action scenes were gleefully over-the-top in terms of the blood-letting, although the fight choreography wasn't great.

2 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

If he’d stayed, he’d have struggled to grt anything done

Lack of achievement has seemingly never bothered Dominic Raab before.

9 hours ago, Rhom said:

How did Baskin Robbins Scott get to the Quantum Realm in your head canon?

Clearly we need a six-part series on Disney+ to explore this.

12 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Will and Deanna no longer have a daughter now, right? Else she would have been fucking mentioned - or had shown up.

In the first episode of the season Riker says that Deanna and Kendra are both glad to have him away for a while.

I think the finale, and the rest of the season reminded me of many of the recent Doctor Who episodes where they want to have scenes that look cool, regardless of whether they make any sense. It was often fun to watch, and it was great to see the cast reunited again, but it did require too much suspension of disbelief. I think it is the best season of Picard, but still a bit of a missed opportunity.

Is this the first time Deanna has sensed something actually useful on an enemy starship?

Truly one of the highlights of George Clooney's career.

I read Max Gladstone's Dead Country, the start of a new trilogy following on from his Craft series. The previous book set in this world, Ruin of Angels, had finished with the discovery of a looming threat that could be potentially apocalyptic. As the book starts its lawyer/necromancer protagonist Tara is pre-occuppied by worrying about this threat but has to set it aside after she learns of a death in her family, leading her to return to her hometown. Since she had previously been chased out of that town by a mob wielding pitchforks and torches it's something of a tense homecoming. One of the defining features of the series has been its portrayal of a world-building that in many ways feels like a modern society but one whose economy is based on magic rather than technology. This book is a bit of a departure because there's little magic present in the frontier town it is set in, although it does face a threat from the supernatural Raiders. This means there is a bit less focus on the world-building than in previous books. The early parts of the book are often quite reflective as Tara tries to deal with the culture-clash of returning home, but things do get more tense in the latter stages as the Raiders threaten to obliterate the town. Tara also unexpectedly finds herself with an apprentice and I thought the interactions between Tara and Dawn had some of the best characterisation in the story. Although it mostly feels smaller in scope than earlier books in the setting I did think it was a compelling story and the ending is a good set-up for the rest of the trilogy.

I've now started Shannon Chakraborty's medieval Arabic pirate story The Adventures of Amina-Al-Sarafi, which I am enjoying so far.

9 hours ago, polishgenius said:

Yes I have titled an entire topic based on Aardman doing one short story, and what.

I wonder what the Star Wars universe equivalent of Wensleydale cheese is?