Here's some thoughts on things I've finished and felt like I wanted to capture for my future reference.
⭐: actively disliked this
⭐⭐: meh
⭐⭐⭐: enjoyable but not notable
⭐⭐⭐⭐: really great; would recommend
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: utterly brilliant!
Books read this year
21
Games played this year
10
📖 Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O'Neil
Finished: 22nd Decemberr 2023
The first of my enormous end of year learning budget book pile. Something about the tone of this book meant I couldn't get into it, and despite being a subject matter that I actually really care about and agree with it left me cold. Don't get me wrong, the examples called out are definitely a societal cause for concern, and in that sense the book hit its goals. But it felt a bit like chapter after chapter complaining about bad (which could have done with a change of pace) without showcasing positive applications, or suggestions for good. It felt quite black and white in thinking, some of the phrasing was clearly judgy against things that didn't align with the author's stances, and actually a bit... luddite... in terms of some framing. It wasn't until the final few pages that there was any future thinking or solutions, and even then it was the author's opinion rather than evidence based or showing interesting examples of practical frameworks etc. It's also very American-centric, and one page refers to"the British city of Kent" 🤷🏻♀️. Not one I'd recommend to people wanting to learn more about data science, either within the industry or probably even from the general public.
📖 Revenant Gun (Machineries of Empire book 3) by Yoon Ha Lee
Finished: 12th Decemberr 2023
I need to reconcile it against my Expanse experince to be sure, but I think this may actually be my favourite thing I read this year... which was entirely unexpected. This nicely wrapped up the trilogy, and as with the previous book it both explained a lot and was much, much more accessible than the first. I enjoyed that we also got the perception of non-human entities (no spoilers) in a few chapters, and that the ending, whilst not entirely happy did tie everything up pretty well, especially given all the mess that things were in by then! This was a complex, really different universe with so much to learn about, but ultimately ended up being really quite memorable.
📖 Raven Strategem (Machineries of Empire book 2) by Yoon Ha Lee
Finished: 28th November 2023
I was genuinely surprised and delighted at just how much I enjoyed this book, and how weirdly accessible it suddenly felt compared to the first. I just went back and read my thoughts on Ninefox Gambit, and considering I read it almost exactly a year ago I was amazed at how easily I fell back into the universe. Things that felt vague and not-fully-graspable before were put into context very quickly and easily in this book. Characters were easy to follow, and the story, whilst pretty predictable, played out in an enjoyable way. On finishing this I actually went back and picked up Ninefox Gambit, reading through the first chapter and flicking through some key conversations (I'd remembered some elements and totally forgotten others, like the whole part of Mikodez and Kujen initially) and it all actually made sense. I'll probably re-read it properly at some point.
I'm still not entirely sure what the difference is between the two books to make them feel so vastly different accessibility-wise, but again I'm clearly not alone from reading other reviews. Very much looking forward to the third now though.
🎮 Jusant
Finished: 25th November 2023
I needed something short and gentle after the slog of Starfield, and decided to pick up Jusant after stumbling across a short review on Mastodon. It hit the brief perfectly. Meditatively climbing up beautiful scenery, cute (huggable) companion, collectables, and... space whales. Not spectacular, but a very relaxing and quaint exploration.
🎮 Starfield
Finished: 14th November 2023
Well, after a ridiculous number of not entirely fun hours, it's finally done. I have a lot of problems with this game. It started out pretty well in a "aww, nostalgia, I enjoyed Fallouts" way, then over time, with bugs, and dare I say even a level of boredom I reached a state of "I now remember why I never actually finished Fallout 4". It picked up again before the end with a bit more interest and variety, but ultimately this fell short in so many ways for me.
Completely unforgivable was that the game literally crashed at least once every single day I played it. It became a running joke in my house to see when in the play session it would happen. It's not an overstatement to say I've never played another game that's crashed so frequently and predictably, even Cyberpunk. Then there were the little disappointments – I saved up my trinkets until I got a house, intending to spend a bit of time customising it. Tons of succulents and plushies placed later, on returning everything had sunk into the environment. This was an exact replica of an issue that made me abandon base building in Fallout, and it again had the same effect on me here.
I finished the game with two permanent interface bugs – a finished mission that was permanently set as active, and a weather warning that similarly would not go. In two locations people would just walk around in underwear – amusing at first, grating beyond that. The ship builder was utterly impenetrable without online guides. I had real problems with unique items (audio slates) looking too generic (notepads, other tablets), but even I, a 'gotta catch em all' player gave up on picking up any items apart from ammo past a certain point. And... the majority of the game was unfortunately just a bit dull.
My favourite missions were the ones with personality. Space frog will probably stick with me the most just because it was cute. I did also enjoy the concept of wearing an alien suit to scare tourists, even if the implementation was a bit tedious. The "basically Titanfall 2 time travel" side mission was a more interesting mechanic, fights in zero G (e.g. the casino ship) were novel, and I thought the concept of the run-up-to and final boss fight (mild spoilers...... with revisiting past scenes and locations) was interesting if short – I killed the guy too quickly before I really got to enjoy the environments.
The ending itself (no real spoilers) also felt like a huge let down for a role-playing game. Here's a BIG DECISION to make, presented in a way where you either go forward to a new life, or turn back towards your old life. Except... you can't technically finish the mission unless you make the choice to go forward! Which wasn't what I wanted to do, story-wise. It was also a total waste, in that I'd just got a cool gun from the final boss, but on going forward all my possessions were stripped from me, so I never even got to try it 🤷🏻♀️
This is a lot of words for something I didn't like that much, but overall I'd say I'm mostly glad I didn't buy it and it was on Game Pass!
📖 Bone Silence (Revenger book 3) by Alastair Reynolds
Finished: 14th November 2023
All in all, this was a fun trilogy. I shouldn't have doubted the concept of space pirates, I guess. The mysteries helped it along, and this one ended with most things answered (if not everything, and still with some plot holes and gaps), and wrapped up the stories of the sisters. There was a lot of death (maybe a bit too much?), but it was still in the same fluffy vein as the others whilst also being quite memorable.
📖 Shadow Captain (Revenger book 2) by Alastair Reynolds
Finished: 27th October 2023
I "read" this book as... shock horror... an audiobook. I had a long solo drive to Yorkshire and back, so decided to put this on to accompany me, and then finished it off mostly when I was ill or awake in the night the following week. I mention that because I think it impacted a bit on my enjoyment. This is a fluffy, fun read which builds on some interesting concepts in the first book, and I enjoyed getting to hear from Adrana. However particularly when it was being read to me, I found some of the more descriptive passages unnecessarily long, and certain sequences dragged. Key plot points are also pretty predictable, but no less enjoyable for it. I've ordered the last book, and keen to see how it all plays out.
📖 Metronome by Tom Watson
Finished: 17th October 2023
I inherited this book from my husband without knowing anything about it, as I'd finished my previous one and he'd done with this. It's unsettling without being too creepy, detailed whilst still leaving a lot to your imagination, and paces some of the reveals just right. The characters were certainly memorable. The ending felt a bit unsatisfying, but also right I guess, and a lot of the mysteries are deliberately left unsolved. The book does touch on baby loss and sexual assault so be warned on that front, but otherwise I really enjoyed this.
📖 A Prayer for the Crown-Shy (Monk & Robot 2) by Becky Chambers
Finished: 10th October 2023
I read this back-to-back with the preceeding novella, and because they follow on directly I think it could have made more sense to combine them. This was again a perfectly lovely little book, with very likeable characters, and lots of warm and fuzzies. The interactions between Dex and Mosscap were very reminiscient of some of the cultural exchanges from Becky Chambers' previous books which I'd always really liked...but despite all of the positives I found myself again not loving this. It was fine, enjoyable, but not a must-read for me for some reason.
📖 A Psalm for the Wild-built by Becky Chambers
Finished: 3rd October 2023
I was looking forward to this book, as I'd seen it's about a "tea monk" and a robot, and things that have tea in are great. It was a perfectly pleasant short little read, and I ordered the second because it's very easy-reading, calming, and the two characters were both cute in their own ways. But also it's mostly unremarkable, there isn't much of a plot (it's a novella though), and some promising world-building didn't really go anywhere. But I'm hoping that's what the second book is for!
📖 The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin
Finished: 19th September 2023
Ooof, this was a slog. I finally finished this at 4am and it helped me get back to sleep, which pretty much summed up how I felt about the book. One of my biggest issues was the structure. The book's divided into very few sections, each of which are a particular slice of time. But apart from that it's just a wall of text, which for me made pacing feel really dreary. I never felt "ooh just one more chapter", and it also didn't help pace as I could give up whenever I wanted rather than pushing through to a break. Aside from that I didn't care about any of the characters, and found them forgettable. The plot picked up as it moved forward in time, but I found myself generally disappointed in the Wallfacer reveals, and other than that it all felt like it lacked a bit of cohesion.
Based on this and the last book I decided I couldn't face reading the third (even though it's already in the house!), so read the wikipedia summary instead. And yep, glad I made that call. Overall this series really wasn't for me.
🎮 Return to Monkey Island
Finished: 31st August 2023
Another short little gentle time-passer. You can tell I'm both waiting for a big game (hello Starfield) and not enjoying my current book by the way I'm procrastinating with these!
Blasphemy to some, but I've never actually played a Monkey Island game before, or if I did, I don't remember it. Despite that I didn't feel like there was too much to miss, but also it wasn't that good, so maybe I am missing something key. The puzzles of the last two games I've played were much more satisfying (although I was only on Casual), and I found some of the traipsing back and forward a bit tedious. But it was... fine. Solid three stars for me.
🎮 A Short Hike
Finished: 20th August 2023
Very cute little gentle game, which is basically Animal Crossing plus loot and mountain climbing. It's very short, although I enjoyed doing all the side quests and mopping up all the collectibles. I don't have much to say about it apart from the (minimal) story and dialogue were sweet, the view from the top was pretty, and it was a nice thing to dip into on a few baby breaks.
🎮 Tunic
Finished: 11th August 2023
I completely stumbled across this game. I was in the Rewards screen, it offered me some meagre points to play this, and because isometric foxes are up my street I gave it a shot on cloud gaming. I knew nothing about it and was intrigued. There's no tutorial, you pick up pages of an instruction manual as you go along, but most of it is written in the game's made-up language so you're basically left to work out what to do and how to do it.
I played it for a little bit as intended, but the exploration and puzzle solving was by far the most interesting part, and the clunky combat just felt like it was getting in the way and slowing me down too much. After that I used the accessibility settings (hooray!) to turn on invincibility and endless stamina, which allowed me to focus on the many, many mysteries rather than getting annoyed at having to get past hard enemies when I just wanted to retraverse the map. Despite invincibility, I still managed to die twice from hitting kill spots in the environment 🤷🏻♀️
For a game that's all about working things out yourself, it can be surprisingly unforgiving. For example, you pick up things from chests that you have no idea what they are, including how rare. I ended up speculatively trying a few, but then hoarded most things because I had no idea if or when I could get more. I wasted items like bombs and potions from trying them out, and I smashed a money box in battle when I was thinking it could be a more helpful item. I had invincibility turned on later on, but after falling into an arena and not knowing what it was, I accidentally triggered the only health reset before summoning enemies. I won't say anything about the ending, but I accidentally triggered it when searching for something else, leading to a whoooole lot of confusion and some grumpiness before I went back again armed with internet knowledge. Approach your explorations the wrong way, and this can be a HARD game.
Despite all that, and playing it toned down... I really enjoyed it. There is a ton of depth if you're after it, and some of the fights would be big challenges if you want them to be. I never ever would have finished a load of the puzzles without guides, and I have serious respect for people who have gone deep into this game. However I really enjoyed the gorgeous visuals, slow reveal of the instruction booklet, the exploration, puzzle solving, and general having to work out what my goals were. And as always, big props for accessibility settings that let everyone customise their own experience.
📖 Leviathan Falls (The Expanse book 9) by James S. A. Corey
Finished: 8th August 2023
I got as far as the first page of another book before realising I just really wanted to read the end of this, and switched. And... now I don't know how to write this without spoilers, so there will be mild ones.
After the events of the last book I was a bit worried as it didn't feel like there was going to be a happy ending, but I'm actually quite gutted about how some of it played out. Maybe I'd just got used to our heroes stumbling though disaster after disaster and everything ending up ok, but I certainly wasn't left with the warm and fuzzies. If anything I feel like it'll stick in my mind with a bit of a sense of unease, which is maybe what they were going for, I don't know. I think I'll cling on to the TV show end and write my own head canon.
With all of the shades of grey with characters, it was almost surprising to meet one here who was just an utter dick to the end, with zero nuance. Even Singh had a bit of that. Her narrative felt a bit unnecessary, and didn't add a lot for me. I was also disappointed that whilst one character from waaaaay back made a reappearance, we never found out what happened to Filip, or even Kit past a point in this book (did he even go to the system Alex thought he was in??). Again, I guess this is by design, and it's a challenge to wrap up when you have such a big cast, but there were definitely some gaps that I was hoping could have been filled with little references.
That said, I enjoyed this as I'd enjoyed all the others. Holden's mental health and the reaction to the trauma he went through was a big kick in the feels but felt well-written, the parallels between the, er, connectivity and the way that the Roci's crew all understand each other was powerful, and generally there was lots to enjoy. It's been a fantastic series, and I utterly love the characters which is why I'm I think I'm just a bit down on this one.
🎮 Escape Academy
Finished: 1st August 2023
This was a fun (if short) little distraction with some decent puzzles, some of which felt really quite satisfying to figure out. The graphics are very clunky and budget-feeling, and that carries through into the controls at points, giving some frustration when I lost time to messing about with the interface or not being able to find where the item I was clearly searching for could be. The story was basic but with a semi-amusing and weird twist, and I enjoyed the variety between the different styles of levels. I played this on Game Pass and probably wouldn't have ever bought it otherwise, but if I could pick up the DLC for cheap in future I'd definitely enjoy playing a few more levels.
📖 Tiamat's Wrath (The Expanse book 8) by James S. A. Corey
Finished: 22nd July 2023
Oooof this book! It started slow and melancholy, but after a certain point it was all go. I can't actually say too much because there's so many spoilers, but it kicks up a gear so much with various important things happening that it kind of felt like a finale in its own right. You find out a lot, and it's nicely set up for the last act. I nearly had to put it down at one point as I was so taken aback by something, and had some genuine emotional reactions. I've become so attached to the characters now, and I'm both really looking forward to and dreading the end of the series.
📖 The Three-body Problem by Liu Cixin
Finished: 14th July 2023
Another book my husband never finished and I eventually nicked. He'd bought three in the series and there was enough in this to move on to them at some point, but it wasn't a classic for me. It felt a bit clunky to read at points, in the way that translated things often do, but I appreciated the translator's postscript saying that 'the reader sees a glimpse of another culture's pattern of thinking, hears an echo of another language's rhythms and cadences, and feels a tremor of another people's gestures and movements'. The strange in-game scenes reminded me of something else but I can't remember what, and I enjoyed flicking between that and the real world with everything explained by the end, but I did find some of the science a bit hard to wrap my tired brain around at points. Still, some interesting concepts and I'll read on.
🎮 Hi-fi Rush
Finished: 13th July 2023
Another game that's finished-but-not-finished as there's a zillion achievements and I may mop some more up, but my enthusiasm is waning a bit now as there's just too many to get through. This was a fun little game which was very up my street in terms of puns, silly references, and 4th wall breaking. I laughed when Left Shark made an appearance, but it was even better to get to add that as my costume. Gameplay and story-wise it was very enjoyable if a bit repetitive, and the main things that let it down for me were mostly technical niggles: not having a way to calibrate the audio, the music being really monotonous and samey at times, wishing I could replay just individual fights rather than 1h+ entire levels, achievements not stacking, general collectables being locked behind some bloody hard SPECTRA doors, and needing at least 5 full play throughs just to be able to get everything is silly. But it's a silly game, and I forgive it purely on the basis of the 'kenkyuu very much' pun in the Japanese audio.
📖 Persepolis Rising (The Expanse book 7) by James S. A. Corey
Finished: 25th June 2023
This was the first book where I didn't know what was going to happen, and it was somewhat strange and exciting because of it. The time leap threw me off – everyone's suddenly got older and I felt a bit of a sense of disconnection, but I guess that's what all the novellas are for (I haven't read any yet as I don't really like e/audiobooks). Despite that, this was a meaty story with lots going on on different fronts, and it feels like it put a lot of time into setting up the last couple of books. It's definitely left everything on a bit of a cliffhanger. Lots of action, lots of political wranglings and lessons, and lots of "oh just one more chapter then"s.
🎮 Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
Finished: 10th June 2023
I haven't been able to finish finish this as I'm a victim of the bounty hunting never triggering properly, and am eagerly awaiting Patch 6 so I can clean that and the last two achievements up. But I loved this. I was recently asked why I only gave the previous game 3 stars, which made me look back. And they've basically fixed all of the things that annoyed me before. Ok, so the first time I had to fly a birdthing I found it incredibly unintuitive, some of the platforming was still janky, but there was so much to love that I could put that aside this time. The big, open worlds were a joy. The huge amount of collectables were right up my street, coupled with being marked on the map to mop up at just the right pacing. The map is actually useful! There is fast travel! Riding things! The story was great, and I actually spoiled it for myself because I now really like Merrin and I was getting worried she may not be ok. Some of the force tears were wickedly hard, but I managed them with some persistence. Really great game, can't wait for more.
📖 Sea of tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
Finished: 14th May 2023
I liked this more as it went on and all the strands came together, and it was a decent time travel read that wrapped up all the mysteries nicely... but overall something still left me a little bit cold. I think it may have been that I just didn't care about the characters very much. I actually felt a bit like Gaspery at the point where he still felt able to be detached about knowing how and when the people would die. They never really properly came alive for me. However I also definitely find pandemic-related content a bit less fun to read nowadays, and I think this probably suffered a bit in the same way as how I felt about 'How high we go in the dark' in terms of the setting.
📖 Redshirts by John Scalzi
Finished: 11th May 2023
This was a holiday read, and was perfect fluff for that kind of situation. It's lighthearted and silly, and leaves you with good feels on various fronts. However it didn't feel massively memorable or like I'll look back on it as a highlight, but that's ok because it completely served its purpose!
📖 Babylon's Ashes (The Expanse book 6) by James S. A. Corey
Finished: 25th April 2023
I think I'm getting a bit Expansed out now. I still enjoyed this one, but felt like I was running out of steam a bit. The sheer range of characters who took point on chapters made this almost feel like a collection of short stories, as some of them were real nobodies who never got another chance to narrate, just popping up in other characters' goes. That said, I did actually enjoy that we got to see a bit from the Free Navy on Medina's perspective of how it all went down. Seeing Filip develop was also interesting to read, and I enjoyed how him and Marco read slightly differently to the other characters.
📖 Nemesis Games (The Expanse book 5) by James S. A. Corey
Finished: 28th March 2023
After the previous one, I flicked through this before I started and was excited to see all the chapters were from the perspective of the core group... hooray! It delivered too, I actually felt like this was probably more effective than the TV show in describing how everyone split up and went on their own journeys. Naomi's journey in particular was really great to revisit in written form.
📖 Cibola Burn (The Expanse book 4) by James S. A. Corey
Finished: 5th March 2023
This one was definitely a bit more of a slog. It continued to have fewer of the core team narrating chapters, the on-planet bits really dragged, and for large chunks of the book both Elvi and Basia were pretty annoying. However, I did enjoy both Basia and Havelock being a continuation of previous appearances, unlike in the TV show. Still very enjoyable, but I'm hoping for a bit more excitement and a bit less moping and mud in the next book.
📖 Abaddon's Gate (The Expanse book 3) by James S. A. Corey
Finished: 16th February 2023
Ok so I'm fully invested now, and just continuing the binge. This one I felt like I enjoyed slightly less, but the thought of giving it anything less than a 4 felt daft, so 4 it is. I think it was because so much of this one focuses on non-core characters, although Melba/Clarissa was my favourite. On finishing I went and read all the TV summaries to compare, and a lot differs in this, especially with the weird smushing of Pa/Ashford/Drummer/Sam/Bull. Lots of action, lots of pace, and heading straight into book 4 to keep it up.
📖 Caliban's War (The Expanse book 2) by James S. A. Corey
Finished: 9th February 2023
Unlike book 1, I just kept wanting to read this and frequently found myself slipping into the next chapter despite meaning to stop. Which I guess was kind of like the TV show when it reached this point. My memory is a bit hazy, but there are definitely some divergences from the adaptation in here, which did keep it more fresh for my brain than book 1. But also, the writing and characters are just so rich, and I loved spending more time with them. Avasarala and Bobbie were my faves in this book (obviously), but I'm also enjoying reclaiming being able to like Alex. Just great writing, and I couldn't resist ordering book 3 to jump into next.
🎮 Townscaper
Finished: 30th January 2023
This had been in my backlog for ages, and I finally downloaded it when looking for something throwaway that I could pick up and put down quickly whilst the baby napped. This was perfect, it was very cute and surprisingly fun. You're chucked straight in, no guide to the controls, and no explanation. Initially I found some frustration with things like not realising the grid wasn't straight... but soon that changed into "oh cool, it did that!". What you build, and how that relates to the structures and grid around it means you get little delighters, like buildings changing into a lighthouse, or washing being hung out between two towers. I loved that birds settled on my wooden struts and roof of another large building. I played longer than I expected, and really enjoyed the gentle exploration it encouraged.
📖 To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini
Finished: 28th January 2023
On starting this (unexpectedly thick!) book, I wasn't sure if I'd be able to stomach it for so many pages. The early pages are sickly sweet cheese, focusing on two characters who "babe" each other and generally seemed extremely annoying. Thankfully (mild spoiler) one gets killed off shortly after (hooray!), and the clumsy writing only reared its head a couple more times (the description of period pains was classic). It felt like a bit of a slog to get through, as whilst there's several acts and stuff happens, none of it felt super captivating to me. The story is interesting enough though, and it's very well thought out in terms of all of the hard details, for me it just could have done with being a bit more punchy and a bit less clumsy when it comes to a man writing about a woman.
🎮 Deathloop
Finished: 16th January 2023
I thought this was a bloody great game. It was tons of fun. The sense of play and exploration it gave me when the world opened up properly and I could start to experiment with cause and effect was brilliant, and I'm still enjoying mopping up the last few bits I'd missed. The story was fun, the combat was fun, the powers were fun. I found it hard without being annoying, although at one point (ClassPass/Juliana issues) I was sorely tempted to up my number of Reprises but thankfully couldn't figure out why it was locked so didn't (I later realised it unlocks in between levels...). Now the game's over I feel horrendously overpowered, and I've been enjoying trying to get missing achievements in ways which make me use non-standard loadouts and play styles to get them done. More than once I fell asleep at night thinking about how to run part of a level, and I think this game will be genuinely memorable for me.