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I've seen a lot of people complain about 2014, and what do you expect? It's a fluke, statistically, that mine went as well as it did. The only way you can call my year good is in comparison to previous years. I went to grad school and took out a monsterous loan that's gonna hang over my head until I die, probably, but the money that came in was really good for me now. Kay went back to school - might broaden our prospects. Both of us had a job at the same time, which sounds like it should be easy but obviously circumstances vary wildly. But for most people, the noose cinches tighter while we all look for something to stick between the rope and our necks.
It's incredibly strange for me - disconcerting, really, to be 'off work' for so many days at a time. I am well-occupied, but the deep recesses of my brain don't understand the temporary lack of crushing obligations - generally assuming, probably, that a lull like this means I'm unemployed and potentially on the verge of bankruptcy. I'm waking up from stress dreams in a cold sweat, and I have to remind myself that this is normal for a lot of people in my position. I'm technically employed on seasonal, but I haven't gotten a call back. Turns out that even though the furniture store is dangerously understaffed, upper management is looking for ways to cut back hours even further. The team members in Operations are still angry and production's fallen dramatically, I'm told, but no word from management to my ears. For me, that's the clearest signal that it's time to move on.
I found time, when things slowed down, to finish Dragon Age: Inquisition and the books bought from an acquantance, Kay's friend, Brian Wood. I wanted to like Inquisition a lot more. I liked it enough to finish it, and it's an unusually long game - clocking in for me at a hair over 100 hours. (So, I was on the couch a lot playing this puppy.) Mechanically, it was acceptible. Graphically, it was very attractive. Its narrative was pretty weak, all told, sadly. It had the stamp of big-box Skyrim knock-off all over the gaming structure of it. I'll go into it in depth, because it's a supurb example of an okay game that could have been amazing if the developers had just gone all the way with some of their concepts. In a lot of ways, my frustration is amplified by how close Inquisition was to excellent. You'll get an earful, I promise.
Wood's books - The Analyst series. He's just finished his fourth, written as something you can come to by itself without the first three books required, which I think is a really good call. Book 4 is Land of Unbelief; I haven't read it yet, but it should be on its way. The first three books are a little rough. Books one and two are really rough and I had a hard time getting through book one's first few chapters. By the time he reaches book three, King of Men, he's developed his prose into something very readible, with good pacing, and solid descriptions. I feel like his work is improving.
He's been writing a supernatural horror series, usually described as Silent Hill meets Men in Black, but it's more compelling than the latter and not quiet as profoundly disquieting as the former - which would be really difficult to achieve, in any event. The protagonist, Thomas Bell, starts off as being an unlikeable prick whose bad attitude towards his friends makes him come across as pretty unsympathetic. He reads much better by book three, which I think is intentional and a natural character growth arc. The plots are sturdy, the worlds are believeable, and the characters are interesting. The elements of horror are often very good, though Wood leans very heavily on body horror (hence the Silent Hill descriptions).
There are sex scenes, and they're pretty graphic. I'm not opposed to them, but they often seem to come out of nowhere and are weirdly decontextualized. They end as quickly as they begin, and I feel like they're really unnecessary as they're written. I felt like the awkwardness of these scenes takes away from a generally well-paced and engaging narrative, and I kind of hope that he improves here. They appear enough in the books that it's worth bringing up. On the whole, I feel like there's promise. If I were making recommendations out of the blue, I'd say start on Land of Unbelief, though. I'm happy to have the first three books on my shelf, and they were quick reads, but I don't think they're representative of what will be Wood's best works.
It's incredibly strange for me - disconcerting, really, to be 'off work' for so many days at a time. I am well-occupied, but the deep recesses of my brain don't understand the temporary lack of crushing obligations - generally assuming, probably, that a lull like this means I'm unemployed and potentially on the verge of bankruptcy. I'm waking up from stress dreams in a cold sweat, and I have to remind myself that this is normal for a lot of people in my position. I'm technically employed on seasonal, but I haven't gotten a call back. Turns out that even though the furniture store is dangerously understaffed, upper management is looking for ways to cut back hours even further. The team members in Operations are still angry and production's fallen dramatically, I'm told, but no word from management to my ears. For me, that's the clearest signal that it's time to move on.
I found time, when things slowed down, to finish Dragon Age: Inquisition and the books bought from an acquantance, Kay's friend, Brian Wood. I wanted to like Inquisition a lot more. I liked it enough to finish it, and it's an unusually long game - clocking in for me at a hair over 100 hours. (So, I was on the couch a lot playing this puppy.) Mechanically, it was acceptible. Graphically, it was very attractive. Its narrative was pretty weak, all told, sadly. It had the stamp of big-box Skyrim knock-off all over the gaming structure of it. I'll go into it in depth, because it's a supurb example of an okay game that could have been amazing if the developers had just gone all the way with some of their concepts. In a lot of ways, my frustration is amplified by how close Inquisition was to excellent. You'll get an earful, I promise.
Wood's books - The Analyst series. He's just finished his fourth, written as something you can come to by itself without the first three books required, which I think is a really good call. Book 4 is Land of Unbelief; I haven't read it yet, but it should be on its way. The first three books are a little rough. Books one and two are really rough and I had a hard time getting through book one's first few chapters. By the time he reaches book three, King of Men, he's developed his prose into something very readible, with good pacing, and solid descriptions. I feel like his work is improving.
He's been writing a supernatural horror series, usually described as Silent Hill meets Men in Black, but it's more compelling than the latter and not quiet as profoundly disquieting as the former - which would be really difficult to achieve, in any event. The protagonist, Thomas Bell, starts off as being an unlikeable prick whose bad attitude towards his friends makes him come across as pretty unsympathetic. He reads much better by book three, which I think is intentional and a natural character growth arc. The plots are sturdy, the worlds are believeable, and the characters are interesting. The elements of horror are often very good, though Wood leans very heavily on body horror (hence the Silent Hill descriptions).
There are sex scenes, and they're pretty graphic. I'm not opposed to them, but they often seem to come out of nowhere and are weirdly decontextualized. They end as quickly as they begin, and I feel like they're really unnecessary as they're written. I felt like the awkwardness of these scenes takes away from a generally well-paced and engaging narrative, and I kind of hope that he improves here. They appear enough in the books that it's worth bringing up. On the whole, I feel like there's promise. If I were making recommendations out of the blue, I'd say start on Land of Unbelief, though. I'm happy to have the first three books on my shelf, and they were quick reads, but I don't think they're representative of what will be Wood's best works.