What I've been reading and watching
Mar. 12th, 2013 04:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrOne day this will happen on a Wednesday by sheer coincidence.
What I'm reading:
Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters: Like David Copperfield with lesbians and sex. Every happy scene has massive "LITTLE DID I KNOW IT WAS ALL ABOUT TO GO WRONG" foreshadowing which gets wearying, and even ignoring that I just don't find Nan's stage adventures very interesting. Despite this first half being the part I didn't see on the telly I'm pondering skimming to when Everything Goes Wrong since the journey up will be hopefully be more fun than the journey down.
The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker: much more readable. Non fiction from a risk assessor about how to trust your gut instincts about dangerous strangers/partners etc. I was worried it would just add to my anxiety (fear disorders are not, on the whole, much of a gift) but so far it's not too bad. I am wondering if and when he's going to address stuff like racial stereotypes, though he has mentioned false assumptions in general. Despite being an old book by a man he concentrates a lot on how important it is for women to feel comfortable saying no, and how men should stop taking it personally.
What I read:
Unravelled by Courtney Milan: Man this hit my buttons so hard I don't know if I can review it. The hero is a magistrate in a Bristol who uses his PTSD from his horrific childhood to motivate his fight for Justice and the Rule of Law. The heroine is a working class girl who's tangled up with organised crime and loves poking his buttons. THEY FIGHT CRIME (a little bit. Mostly they have sex) Has actual sympathetic minor queer characters! In a historical romance! Rather rushed in parts, I wouldn't read this without at least one of the earlier Turner books to add some character context, but I still really enjoyed it.
What I played and watched:
The Sword and the Rose from Big Fish Games: a simple pretty, cheapish, point and click puzzle/hidden object game, like a knock off Myst. Has given me MASSIVE background artist inferiority issues (which I shall try to turn into inspiration) The plot is paper thin and the puzzles pretty arbitrary but they were easy and pretty and there were lots of them smoothly strung together. You can play the first hour for free as a demo, which was enough to hook me into paying $6 for the full version with my first time buyer discount, don't know if I'd have paid the full $20. I haven't finished the Collectors Edition extra content, but so far it's more of the same and I found myself preferring the default hint/skip option to the strategy guide. Wallpapers are nice though, useful for stealing design elements from :D
Am still steadily working through Mass Effect 2 with my renegade fShep Salma. Cam is going to try to edit me a Paragon fShep romancing Sam so I can do the ME3 DLCs without having to recreate my lost Gina saves (*sob*), but at some point I will play it with Salma which will be interesting.
Finished Upstairs Downstairs Season 2. Overall I really liked it, though it did warp some of the characters for reasons of Drama. Still, everything got tied up reasonably satisfyingly by the end.
Up Next?:
Watched Cam play the start of Tomb Raider, it looked pretty interesting, alas our PC is dying and the lag took all the fun out of it so he's waiting until we get replace the computer next month.
Have Un Lun Dun by China Mieville out from the library
Bought Santa Olivia by Jaqueline Carey
What I'm reading:
Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters: Like David Copperfield with lesbians and sex. Every happy scene has massive "LITTLE DID I KNOW IT WAS ALL ABOUT TO GO WRONG" foreshadowing which gets wearying, and even ignoring that I just don't find Nan's stage adventures very interesting. Despite this first half being the part I didn't see on the telly I'm pondering skimming to when Everything Goes Wrong since the journey up will be hopefully be more fun than the journey down.
The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker: much more readable. Non fiction from a risk assessor about how to trust your gut instincts about dangerous strangers/partners etc. I was worried it would just add to my anxiety (fear disorders are not, on the whole, much of a gift) but so far it's not too bad. I am wondering if and when he's going to address stuff like racial stereotypes, though he has mentioned false assumptions in general. Despite being an old book by a man he concentrates a lot on how important it is for women to feel comfortable saying no, and how men should stop taking it personally.
What I read:
Unravelled by Courtney Milan: Man this hit my buttons so hard I don't know if I can review it. The hero is a magistrate in a Bristol who uses his PTSD from his horrific childhood to motivate his fight for Justice and the Rule of Law. The heroine is a working class girl who's tangled up with organised crime and loves poking his buttons. THEY FIGHT CRIME (a little bit. Mostly they have sex) Has actual sympathetic minor queer characters! In a historical romance! Rather rushed in parts, I wouldn't read this without at least one of the earlier Turner books to add some character context, but I still really enjoyed it.
What I played and watched:
The Sword and the Rose from Big Fish Games: a simple pretty, cheapish, point and click puzzle/hidden object game, like a knock off Myst. Has given me MASSIVE background artist inferiority issues (which I shall try to turn into inspiration) The plot is paper thin and the puzzles pretty arbitrary but they were easy and pretty and there were lots of them smoothly strung together. You can play the first hour for free as a demo, which was enough to hook me into paying $6 for the full version with my first time buyer discount, don't know if I'd have paid the full $20. I haven't finished the Collectors Edition extra content, but so far it's more of the same and I found myself preferring the default hint/skip option to the strategy guide. Wallpapers are nice though, useful for stealing design elements from :D
Am still steadily working through Mass Effect 2 with my renegade fShep Salma. Cam is going to try to edit me a Paragon fShep romancing Sam so I can do the ME3 DLCs without having to recreate my lost Gina saves (*sob*), but at some point I will play it with Salma which will be interesting.
Finished Upstairs Downstairs Season 2. Overall I really liked it, though it did warp some of the characters for reasons of Drama. Still, everything got tied up reasonably satisfyingly by the end.
Up Next?:
Watched Cam play the start of Tomb Raider, it looked pretty interesting, alas our PC is dying and the lag took all the fun out of it so he's waiting until we get replace the computer next month.
Have Un Lun Dun by China Mieville out from the library
Bought Santa Olivia by Jaqueline Carey
