Moonshine Mansion – Page 50

What I’m Playing: August 28, 2016

August 28, 2016 by Grace

This week has been very strange due to my recent medical “stuff”. I had a bunch of down time, but wasn’t able to actually sit at a computer to play games. As a result my gaming activity for the week ended up being very different from what I had planned.

World of Warcraft: I had grand plans for WoW this week. With the Legion invasion event still going I was hoping to get at least one more character to 100. Since Tuesday I have barely touched the game sadly, so I think the event is effectively over for me. It was fun overall, and I got a lot of leveling done. Still, I’ll be glad for Legion’s launch this week and the copious amounts of new things to do. If this event is a good indication of how the expansion will feel, count me as excited.

Diablo 3: This is where I spent most of my computer time, which was still pretty small. I’ve been working toward upgrading my legendary gems to 65 for the conquest, and also slowly augmenting some of my ancient legendaries so I can tackle higher greater rifts. Rifting has been perfect since each one won’t last any longer than 15 minutes and I can get up from my desk afterward to take a break. It’s been just enough that it makes me want to grab the stash tab this season, but with Legion coming on Tuesday I doubt I’ll stay dedicated enough to finish the job.

Mobile Games: I don’t usually play a huge amount of mobile games but they got a lot more appealing to me this week. I still play Pokemon Go every day, but lately it consists of logging in, catching any pokemon nearby, and logging back out. Instead I’ve been relying on 3 old favorites to pass the time: Tiny Tower, Puzzle and Dragons, and Alphabear. They seem to have the right combination of mindless tapping and cute puzzles to keep me distracted, and I can rotate between the three as resources or my attention span become limiting. It’s not exactly a high caliber of gaming but it has been great to keep me occupied this week.

That’s pretty much it for me this week. Next week is going to be all about the Legion, assuming I can actually sit at a computer long enough to enjoy it. I hope your week was more productive than mine!

Complicated Past

August 26, 2016 by Grace

On the Aggrochat podcast this week we all talked a bit about our various histories with World of Warcraft and why it sometimes sounds like it physically pains us to speak about that game today. One of the things I didn’t go into on the show was a huge part of my relationship with WoW. Not too long after I started playing I was struggling with medical issues and in particular chronic pain. WoW was a source of comfort and companionship no matter what weird hour of the night I found myself needing it. I even found folks who were going through the same thing as me, and had a bit of a support group of blood elves with medical problems. When I was stuck home on medical leave and recovering from surgery, WoW helped me feel like I was still connected with the outside world. To this day it is still a comfortable refuge when life is crappy, even though the game itself has changed dramatically, and even though I lost touch with most of the people I was friends with in that painful past. It also means I can’t think or talk critically about WoW and its history without remembering what I was going through back then, and all the friends I gained and lost.

Not Missing Much

August 25, 2016 by Grace

Oh no! I’ve missed a couple of days worth of posts! Good thing this year is the super chill version of Blaugust, and there’s no repercussions of a few missed days. I’ve had some medical stuff come up (don’t worry, I’m fine!) that makes sitting at my desk for long stretches a problem. Thus I haven’t done much gaming to speak of the past few days and don’t have much to say here.

I have found that Diablo 3 is pretty great for squeezing a little gaming into small doses. I can pop in and run a rift in 15 minutes or so and then take a break. I’ve even managed to get myself through GR69 and do a T12 rift in under 6 minutes for the season journey, so I’m almost finished the Destroyer rank. D3 isn’t as fun solo, but playing solo means I can walk away and pause the game at any time so it has been working out for my needs this week. At this stage I believe the only things I have left to do for the stash tab are 2 conquests and a T13 rift in under 5 minutes. Maybe I will get it this season after all. It is definitely looking like there’s more D3 in my future than I had planned, anyway.

Book Challenge #100: C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy

August 22, 2016 by Grace

So when I thought about doing this challenge, I got all excited about the long list of amazing books I was going to read. Then I looked at the list and saw that the first thing I’d be reading was C.S. Lewis and I almost decided to quit before I’d even started. To say I have a negative opinion of this author is a huge understatement. However, I hadn’t read this series in particular, and it did make the list so I figured I would give it a shot. I did resent shelling out four bucks for the privilege.

The Space Trilogy is Lewis’ attempt to reach adult audiences with his The first book of this series is Out of the Silent Planet, published in 1938.

This series’ inclusion on this list smacks of “well we can’t include Narnia since it is technically children’s fiction, but we have to throw some C.S.Lewis on there somehow.”

In this story, the protagonist, Professor Ransom, walks through the countryside until he is drugged, beaten, and abducted by a childhood acquaintance and a famous scientist. They steal him away to another planet where he’s meant to be given to the natives for presumably nefarious purposes. Instead, after they land Ransom escapes and runs off, eventually meeting the planet’s inhabitants and learning about their world. By the end he is reunited with his captors, and they discover the reason why the aliens wanted a human in the first place.

The first 2/3 of this book is boring but passable. It sets up the story and gets the protagonist from Earth to Mars. Addition of alien language comes across as grammar lesson instead of compelling part of the world. Portrayals and reactions to women, “simple” people, and “savages” are awful and incredibly off-putting.

The last 1/3 of this book was a condescending, thinly-veiled religious allegory. I have no problems with allegory in general, but here there’s no subtlety or novelty about it whatsoever. A book about ending up on an alien planet and uncovering their social structure and religion could be interesting. A book about going to Mars to hear a retelling of the bible is incredibly boring.

My copy came with a free preview chapter of the 2nd book of the series. I declined to read it.

TL;DR:

Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis

Rating: 1/5 stars

Verdict: Would not recommend, unless you are interested in being bludgeoned about the head with christian allegory.