My original plan was to read a few chapters of Raymond E. Feist’s Magician, then write about those chapters. Instead I got through nearly half the weighty tome in one sitting.
It’s a “ripping yarn,” indeed. And what else is one to do on a groggy New Year’s Day evening?
So last night I polished off the remaining chapters of that which was released originally as Magician: Apprentice, or as this part of the story is named in the Author’s Preferred Edition doorstopper volume, “Pug and Tomas”. There’s a lot to get into. This’ll take a while.
Happy New Year! As a bit of a project, adding a dollop of purpose to this website, I’m going to kick off some ruminations on books I loved in my teens and twenties that I haven’t dusted off in a while. We’re in a house with room for proper bookshelves now, after all, so my books are actually conveniently located. Happy days!
This does, of course, mean that I’ll need to actually re-read these books… which, given the changes in sensibilities over the years, might lead to some interesting thoughts.
Interesting to me, anyway.
Will I still love these books when read with mid-2020s, 50-plus-years-old eyes? Have these books aged more like wine or like milk? I guess there’s only one way to find out. I mean, other than asking The Internet. Let’s not do that.
I’m kicking things off with the inaugural installment of one of my most favorite fantasy novel series back in the day: Raymond E. Feist’s Magician.
Yes, the whole weighty tome, mainly because that’s what’s on my shelf, and really if you try to stop at the original break point (the end of what was originally released as Magician: Apprentice) you’re stuck with an absolute cliffhanger. There’s no point in evaluating half of a story.
I don’t yet know if I’m going to write about these books in discrete installments or just post a big wrap-up at the end. Locking myself into a set of requirements before I even know how this is going to play out seems like a bad idea. Hopefully this first go-around will help me sort out how I want to handle this project going forward.
And with that, it’s time to go curl up under a suitable lamp and indulge in some reading.
Normally I’d write a music round-up at this point in the year, but 2024 was kind of dreary for my music library. I bought a new album by PSB (the boys from the shop full of pets) and a new album by PSB (the broadcasting that is a service for the public) and neither of them really stuck in my mind very well. (Sorry, gentlemen.) So let’s talk about anime instead.
I don’t do that here very often. Which is odd because I used to have an entire secondary blog about it. And: Why didn’t I just fold that content into the main blog instead of deleting it? Dingbat.
Anyway.
So, 2024. What kind of year was it for watching Japanese animated TV shows?
Eh? Much like with the music of the year, “Not as good as 2023” is a valid answer. (Your mileage will, of course, vary. I am led to believe that for pop music at large, 2024 was bountiful. I’m happy for y’all enjoyers!) I mean, last year we had the start of both Frieren and Apothecary Diaries, each of which will probably feature on best-of lists for years to come yet.
Say you’re a high-school-aged boy, and for whatever reason you’ve turned out to be a kind of magnet for really weird stuff going on with various people around you. Like, pulling an example purely out of thin air, there’s a girl who wanders around in a bunny-girl outfit to prove that nobody can actually see her… except you, of course, or there’d be no plot to this story.
This is basically the core premise of the Rascal Does Not Dream light novel series that later became an anime series followed by a string of theatrical release movies. Most folks refer to it as the “bunny-girl senpai” show, since that’s the first novel installment from which the anime series takes its name.
Following on from the televised show that covers the events of the first handful of novel installments and an absolute tearjerker of a film dealing with the contents of the paired novel installments after that, Sister Venturing Out is… almost anticlimactic.
There I was, minding my own business, preparing a new site for a couple of electronics products (Remote Control Units and High Speed Connectors) when I saw something shiny.
With the 1.0 release of Satisfactory comes the first “true” version of the annual FICSMAS event. The inaugural rendition came in December of 2020, right at the time I’d just bought the game… which made for a slightly odd first impression, indeed. The developers tinkered with it a bit once or twice since then but mostly it was just a low-priority side-project amusement for the team.
This “northern lights” effect is a new addition for 1.0, and I love it. I want it all year ’round, now.
Now, though, it’s fully fleshed out and polished to a higher sheen. Let’s get into it.
