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Cake day: July 16th, 2023

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  • Don’t force it! I think if you read books solely because other people say it’s good then you’re doing it wrong! :)

    If you were interested in the Cosmere but wanted something light…much lighter. Then try Tress and the Emerald Sea. The narrator breaks the 4th wall a bit and speaks directly to you but if that isn’t an immediate deal breaker the story is light-hearted and adventurous. It follows a girl, Tress, as she leaves home to save her beau.


  • I dropped ASOIAF in the middle of the third book. It probably had something to do with knowing it’d never be finished, but I just felt bored. It was all so high stakes and meaningless, not for me.

    The writing in The Expanse is grating, it’s all he said, she said, he said, they said, he said, said said said said said said said said said said said. If I hadn’t been listening to it while at work I’d have bailed in the first book. If you can get past that the series has great world building and I love Avarsarsla.

    Rothfuss is indeed great but I can’t recommend it to anyone knowing we’re only getting two nights of the three promised.

    Silo is actually on my list.

    I’ve also been rereading the Honorverse by David Weber. I love it still but it gets to be a slog and the story is feels like it’s the same everytime. I want to get past book 6 or 7 but never have.

    I can’t say enough good things about the Stormlight Archive.

    But then again I also enjoyed the hell out of Brent Weeks’ Lightbringer series which seemed to be mostly disliked on the whole. I read it before the 4th and 5th books were released so I’m not sure where it goes and need to get back to it some day.

    Speaking of Weeks, the Night Angel Trilogy is bomb. It’s no literary masterpiece but it’s a dark and gritty world that sets your expectations and fulfills them over and over again. The story is cliche and I like it. The characters are fun to follow as they navigate the plot points I can see coming from books away.


  • I read Mistborn and loved it, my partner finished it a week or two later and then we both struggled to get into the second book. Vin, the main character treats a creature that is in her thrall with extreme prejudice. While it certainly fits the character it was such a change of tone that it threw both of us right out of the series. Mix in a whole new world of politics and coalition building and the story plods. I dropped the Mistborn series like 7 or 8 chapters into The Well of Ascension.

    I’ll come back to it in audiobook form.

    Speaking of audiobooks, I’ve listened to all of The Stormlight Archive. Audiobooks have one major advantage to actually reading the words, it is easier to multitask. If the story is boring I’m less likely to notice while preparing dinner. With Stormlight however I listened to the books 12 hours a day. The voice actors are Kate Reading and Michael Kramer, they only work on books they like. They also did all of Wheel of Time together.

    Anyway, what I’m trying to say here is that I frequently sat down and just listened to the story throughout the day because I am so engrossed in the world and the lives of Kaladin, Syl, Shalan, and others. It’s a storytelling medium that lends itself to multitasking and I frequently stopped to just listen.

    I think it’s hard to go wrong with a starting point in the Cosmere. The magic system in Mistborn is really interesting and the world is dark and gritty like chewing charcoal; Unpleasant not offensive. The Stormlight Archive is bold and wide ranging with concepts, ideas, and exploration of pain, trauma, and metal health. I recently read Tress and the Emerald Sea, a light-hearted romp about a girl who lives on a desolate rock in the middle of an ocean and wants to stay there.

    Just jump in, the worst thing that can happen is you find it’s not to your taste. When that happens it’s all good and I find some other masterpiece to chew on. It happens for me with videogames all the time. Elden Ring is not for me. :)


  • Just working my way through a reread of the expanse since it’s been a few years and the…final? book has been released. I definitely enjoyed the first 4 books more than 5 and 6. But book 7 is back up to snuff!

    It’s Fantasy but I need to mention that I’ve been devouring The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson! These books might just be my all time favorites for fantasy!






  • valek879to196@lemmy.blahaj.zoneLate Stage Private Healthcare Rule
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    2 months ago

    I feel the need to copy my comment from another post with a similar message:

    An insurance CEO was shot to death this morning, it’s a start.

    To be less callous, he looked like a cute man, and his family is obviously devastated. Police say they have no suspect and no motive yet… But it was an assassination not random violence, I think we know the motivation. It’s pretty sad overall, but surely it’s also sad that someone was driven to this point by the company he was an exec of.


  • An insurance CEO was shot to death this morning, it’s a start.

    To be less callous, he looked like a cute man, and his family is obviously devastated. Police say they have no suspect and no motive yet… But it was an assassination not random violence, I think we know the motivation. It’s pretty sad overall, but surely it’s also sad that someone was driven to this point by the company he was an exec of.


  • I would say, yes. However that is foreign policy. That doesn’t make it better in any regards just easier to stomach. Biden supporting Israel could be some bigger game that I’m not seeing, doubtful, or pull us into a war that we don’t want to be in defending a genocidal country… Much more likely. But it doesn’t affect my day to day.

    Trump and the Republicans supporting isolationist policies affect my day to day. It makes getting clothing and appliances more expensive. Cars become more expensive if we need to buy one again. Medicine produced overseas becomes more expensive.

    It also lets traditional adversaries of the beliefs I hold, such as self determination and governance, run rampant. To clarify, I’m thinking Ukraine war in particular there. But also the Republicans support Israel unfailingly and it’s fucked up there too. In both cases people who want to govern themselves are not being allowed to do so by the force of a larger neighbor.

    So both sides suck for foreign policy, but one sucks worse and the one that sucks worse is also throwing everything into chaos domestically. Our family is well off enough we can likely weather the storm, pay off or mortgage if we have to, etc. But even we are looking at the future with concern and trepidation. We just upgraded a computer we were going to wait another year or two to upgrade because who knows what it will cost to upgrade it in the future. We are looking at our clothes and making sure we’re good there and generally preparing to spend less. It’s a frightening position to be in because I moved into the middle class during Biden. And this upcoming economic uncertainty is really shaking me in a way I never could have expected. I’m the past I never would have been able to plan ahead for expenses… Now I can and suddenly I’m finding that we will need to be more careful in what we buy and spend on. It’s a wild feeling and I know I’m not alone in feeling it. The movement of money is going to slow under Trump. That is going to have ripple on effects long after his term is over.

    I got to rambling a bit but I hope this helps answer your question.




  • I broke my shoulder and couldn’t do shit for about 4 weeks. I spent that entire time playing Civ 6, freshly released at the time, with the steam controller. It was the best thing in the world for civ. I played that game with one hand 90% of the time since my shoulder would fight me after 5 minutes with 2 hands. And the steam controller made it possible in a way my Xbox controller never has and never will.

    I lost it in my move 2 years ago and hope I find it again some day because I still run into games about once a month where I think this needs a steam controller. Like playing point and click adventures on the TV with my partner.