Weeknotes 333

It’s too warm for me, sorry, and the planet hasn’t even become uninhabitable yet.

Every day in the office this week, which has been good for mind and body; come for the air conditioning, stay for the vibes. I’m busy but in a relatively peaceful way.

Three gyms. Another kilo down.

I got to the end of Children of Strife, which didn’t so much finish as simply stop happening. Disappointing and dull with no payoff to justify the buildup.

It hasn’t put me off Tchaikovsky entirely — Dogs of War feels like it still has more to give, for example — but this series’ setting has clearly run out of steam so I don’t think I’ll be reading any more of it if he does keep going.

It’s a shame cos Children of Time is great. Maybe there’s an underlying reason why many writers stop at a trilogy, even if it leaves the audience wanting more, instead of trying to wring a fourth or fifth book out of an increasingly knackered idea.

Admittedly I’m only an hour into it, but There Is No Antimemetics Division is like a cool glass of ice water after the narrative desert of Strife. So far it’s pacy and intriguing, clearly set in the SCP Foundation without calling it that (presumably for Creative Commons reasons?), and pressing all the right sci-fi & horror buttons to keep me interested.

Last week’s For All Mankind was a quite good, quite for all mankindy episode with some fun space bits. I hope they lean into it for the last two episodes of the season.

I’m four episodes away from finishing season two of The Pitt. The AI angle has thankfully died out, and aside from one unnecessarily long & weepy plot thread it’s keeping things rattling along nicely. Some of the characters are now interesting enough that I’m almost disappointed we don’t get any time with them outside of the permanent panic of the emergency department, but I suppose that negative space is what keeps it interesting.

I replayed more Uncharted 4, mostly the driving bit, which reminded me that the game has too much driving in it — it’d be a fun diversion for five minutes or so, but after an hour I was completely sick of it.

Well, this early review of Inferno is not encouraging.

Another three-day weekend, which I love, but 33 °C forecast for Tuesday, which I don’t. Turns out you can have too many threes.