I've always identified as a reader. Reading books isn't just something I do when I have to to learn something, or even as occasional recreation; it's a major element of who I am. I've taken some pride in the fact that I'm always reading; whenever I finish a book, I always have another to start on and I make a point of reading at least a few pages so I'm never in between books.
Recently I've not been reading as much and I've been a bit disappointed in myself because of it. Between work, gaming, family time and so on, I haven't been carving out time to read like I used to. Where I would normally be reading at least a book a week on average, I've only read two in the past month, and one of those was a reread of a book I had already read once.
I'm going to try to make an effort to change this, to take more time to read again. It's always been one of my favorite pastimes and there are so many books I want to read that I would hate to not get to. As such, I'm setting a short term goal for myself. For the remainder of Blaugust I'm going to read at least one new book each week, and I'll review each one here once I've finished it. If I get back up to speed and read more than one in a week, then I'll review multiple books that week.
First up is a science fiction classic that I've been wanting to read for years and finally got ahold of at a recent library sale; The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison. Hopefully I'll be reporting back next weekend with a glowing review.
On Fantasy
Blaugust Post #9
One of the experiences from my childhood that I remember strongly is during a neighborhood block party, my mom rented a projector and a whole bunch of people watched Star Wars in our basement. I was always fascinated with the planets, and space, and astronauts; I even went to Space Camp when I was 10. It might come as a bit of a surprise that at this point in my life, I vastly prefer Fantasy to Sci-fi.
Really, it’s the Dragons
I know Medieval Fantasy is standard and boring to a lot of people, but if it has swords and magic, I’m still interested. I just like the concept of doing things that don’t really need an explanation. Magic in most settings is internally consistent, but doesn’t work based on any real world principles, and I actually enjoy that. Likewise, fantasy opens up possibilities for things that can’t exist according to physics. Dragons are chief among these, but most of the monster manual qualifies. My initial qualifier, “has swords and magic”, doesn’t lock down medieval settings, as Shadowrun and The Dresden Files also qualify.
Like a Marshmallow
There are exceptions, of course. I’m a big fan of both Star Wars and Mass effect, but neither of those really fits into the realm of hard Sci-Fi. (In fact, both of these settings qualify as “has swords and magic”.) Things like 2001: A Space Odyssey or even Ghost in the Shell tend to lose me after a bit. Star Trek is somewhere in between, because it chooses to disregard odd parts of reality while still feeling like Sci-Fi.
What I’m Playing: August 9, 2015
Blaugust 2015, Day 9
I had hoped that talking about what I’m playing once a week would inspire me to play more games, or at least mess around in a few different games. No such luck this week.
These bears just get me
Alphabear: I’m stalled out at chapter 4, mostly because I have to wait for some of my better bears to wake up before I can beat the daily levels and unlock the boss. I still love this game and play it daily.
Diablo 3: Got my wizard up to level 50. Not really a huge change from last week. I really need to push if this is going to happen before the new stuff arrives.
Hatoful Boyfriend: OMGWTFBBQ. I’ve now played through every possible ending. This game. Just…wow. It does an amazing and very weird job of bringing absolutely everything together. Go play it right now.
FFXIV: My Monday night raid group finally killed Bahamut, thus finishing the content that existed prior to the expansion. My Wednesday night raid group killed Bismark Ex this week. We were missing a few people and had to pug, so I’m looking forward to killing more things with my friends and FC mates instead of strangers.
WildStar: I’ve been doing a lot of dailies and running tons of shiphands as I work on my guides. My experiment to see how much money I make casually in one month is going quite well. I’ve made over 38 plat already since August 1. I have a few ideas of what to spend it on at the end of the month, but if you have any suggestions let me know! Right now I have enough glory to upgrade at least one item to a raid-quality piece, but I’m holding off because I don’t want to dish out the money to upgrade and rune it during my experiment.
That’s pretty much it for this week! There’s a few games I probably should have been playing (FFV I’m looking at you). I also was almost tempted to play some WoW since they sent me a 7 day trial. Fortunately I stayed strong and stayed away, mostly because I didn’t feel like re-installing it and also because the free 7 days expired before the expansion announcement hype.
What I’m Playing: August 9, 2015
Blaugust 2015, Day 9
I had hoped that talking about what I’m playing once a week would inspire me to play more games, or at least mess around in a few different games. No such luck this week.
These bears just get me
Alphabear: I’m stalled out at chapter 4, mostly because I have to wait for some of my better bears to wake up before I can beat the daily levels and unlock the boss. I still love this game and play it daily.
Diablo 3: Got my wizard up to level 50. Not really a huge change from last week. I really need to push if this is going to happen before the new stuff arrives.
Hatoful Boyfriend: OMGWTFBBQ. I’ve now played through every possible ending. This game. Just…wow. It does an amazing and very weird job of bringing absolutely everything together. Go play it right now.
FFXIV: My Monday night raid group finally killed Bahamut, thus finishing the content that existed prior to the expansion. My Wednesday night raid group killed Bismark Ex this week. We were missing a few people and had to pug, so I’m looking forward to killing more things with my friends and FC mates instead of strangers.
WildStar: I’ve been doing a lot of dailies and running tons of shiphands as I work on my guides. My experiment to see how much money I make casually in one month is going quite well. I’ve made over 38 plat already since August 1. I have a few ideas of what to spend it on at the end of the month, but if you have any suggestions let me know! Right now I have enough glory to upgrade at least one item to a raid-quality piece, but I’m holding off because I don’t want to dish out the money to upgrade and rune it during my experiment.
That’s pretty much it for this week! There’s a few games I probably should have been playing (FFV I’m looking at you). I also was almost tempted to play some WoW since they sent me a 7 day trial. Fortunately I stayed strong and stayed away, mostly because I didn’t feel like re-installing it and also because the free 7 days expired before the expansion announcement hype.
Source: Moonshine Mansion