reading Wednesday has been trying to catch up on work

[ursula]

comments on endings

Martha Wells, Exit Strategy. Very complicated action sequence! Humans are nice and all, but I still miss ART.

fiction in progress

R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War. I read the first battle, essentially. I thought the stuff about the students' lack of training in formation was interesting, and I enjoyed learning about the Gatekeeper. Some day I will read a book where somebody doesn't do the thing they are warned not to do, but this is not that book. (I had to return my physical copy of the book to the library; sooner or later, Overdrive will give me an ebook again.)

serialized fiction

Critical Role, Campaign 1, Episode 1. I'd been curious about this due to general internet chatter. I usually prefer text to audio for fiction, because I read quickly and get impatient, but I suspect that here the audio is necessary for the complete experience. The transcript is formatted for closed-captioning, which has the weird effect of making it look like poetry. I did like the house rule where the person who makes the killing blow gets to describe its effect; maybe I'll borrow that for our Fate campaign, if we ever end up fighting anything.

Comments

Overdrive

[brainwane]

Remind me, which library systems do you have patron privileges with, and do any of them participate in Library Simplified? And in case you find Overdrive obnoxious, you may enjoy this talk about libraries banding together for leverage over it.

Re: Overdrive

[ursula]

I have a library card for both the university and the (excellent!) public library where I actually live, but for Overdrive I still use my Seattle public library account, because that system tends to have more Overdrive copies than anywhere else I've lived, and gives you a 21-day borrowing period. I am actually fine with it, though I haven't tried the new app they're pushing (if it syncs across devices, that would definitely speed up my library reading!)

I don't mind reading different books in different formats, for what that's worth. I know a lot of people try to organize their ebook collections and read only from their preferred reading app. I am more or less the opposite of that.

[schneefink]

I'm curious what you'll think about Critical Role. Most people agree that it takes several episodes to really get going, and the episodes are pretty long so it's a time investment. But when it's good it's really good, and the high element of risk involved in everything hinging on dice rolls adds extra excitement.