Category: Media

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packetcat reads 2022 Week 24 – Circe by Madeline Miller

Pages: 473
Purchased from: Kobo

Exactly twelve weeks after I read The Song of Achilles, I have come back to Madeline Miller for my Greek mythology fiction fix. And I am mildly disappointed. While this particular story is also very well written and there wasn’t anything I particularly disliked, it just wasn’t as fun to read as the The Song of Achilles. Circe being able to hold her own against the big leaguers of the Greek pantheon is wonderful, love me a nice underdog story.

All of that said, I am down to read more of Madeline Miller’s Greek mythology fiction work, she is quite good at it. Maybe some time next year though, I’ve had my fill for now.

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Boring Bethesda

a screenshot from the Starfield official reveal video showing the “digipick” lockpicking minigame

What is that saying? “There is nothing new under the sun.” Well, Bethesda is out here proving that a hundred times over. A hundred star systems, a thousand planets, all of them with the dreadfully boring lockpicking system in them. But hey, this time we called it “Digipick”, isn’t that cool and futuristic?

For fuck’s sake. I don’t think Bethesda is capable of making something that is not Skyrim with a different coat of paint anymore. This time they don’t even have the lore and world of The Elder Scrolls universe to finger-paint with. Maybe the modding community will yet again bail them out of their creative bankruptcy.

There never was any Bethesda “magic”, just the one trick that they keep doing on the back of crunching developers.

I don’t want to climb that damn mountain Todd.

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packetcat reads 2022 Week 23 – After Steve by Tripp Mickle

Pages: 540
Purchased from: Kobo

My second non-fiction of the year and I liked this one even more than the first one. A unique look at how Apple’s company culture slowly morphed after the death of Steve Jobs and what Jony Ive’s role was. It left me feeling a bit sad about the state of Apple now and since I was reading this during the same week as WWDC 2022 happened, I felt a lot of mixed feelings about the stuff that was announced there.

Especially the Continuity Camera which is quite possibly the least Jony Ive thing I’ve seen Apple announce in a while.

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packetcat reads 2022 Week 22 – The City of Brass by S. A Chakraborty

Pages: 650
Purchased from: Kobo

It was nice to return to some fantasy set in Middle Eastern mythology after last week’s sci-fi jaunt. I loved the characters in this one, especially the main character Nahri. The complicated dynamics amongst the djinn was also very interesting and I’m sure that plays a major role in the sequel which I have added to my wishlist for a later date.

This book is now the longest I’ve read this year at 650 pages, it mostly doesn’t overstay its welcome despite its length. There is a significant amount of it that is worldbuilding which I didn’t mind since this is the first book in the series. I hope the sequel focuses more on the character dynamics though.

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packetcat reads 2022 Week 21 – Stars and Bones by Gareth L. Powell

Pages: 319
Purchased from: Kobo

I really like the premise for this book’s sci-fi world but I found the quality of the writing to be uneven. The writing is at its best during the action scenes and at its worst when it comes to describing a character’s inner thoughts and emotions.

The best way to describe the bad writing here is: unsubtle. It is overly descriptive and dare say I bit cringeworthy especially when describing a situation involving romantic love. I don’t have a problem with romance in my sci-fi but this ain’t the way to do it. There is no tension, no buildup, none of the textual yearning that I associate with the best of fictional romances (see week 5’s The Beautiful Ones for a good example of this).