2021-05-16 13:40
A whole week gone by... working... and working on my web project in the morning before work...
Read the new Trots and Bonnie collection by Shary Flenniken from NYRC and... it was fine. But for all the hype, it felt too much of it's time. The art was decent but unexciting, old comic strip style. The stories were amusing, but also felt very wrapped up in their moment.
After really enjoying The Gate I reread Soseki's The Three-Cornered World (known by it's untranslated title Kusamakura in the most recent translation). It's a quiet novel about a painter travelling in the country. He becomes fascinated by the daughter at the house he stays at. Very little happens as far as plot goes. I don't even know how to explain what the draw is. It's almost a pastoral... you expect some drama to happen, but nothing ever really does.
The new Mass Effect Legendary Edition remaster of the trilogy came out Friday so that has taken my attention this weekend. Despite it being, at it's heart, an over the shoulder shooting game, it's one of my absolute favorite series because the world building, the narrative, and especially the characters are so well done. It really does feel like a long interactive sci-fi novel. This is probably my fourth time playing through the series, and I'm still enthralled by it, despite the occasional parts that are a slog (mostly in the first one, driving the stupid vehicle around planets). What I find interesting though is I can't seem to play it... differently... The game tracks your actions on a scale of "paragon" and "renegade", and I always end up going heavily paragon. There are lots of npcs you can take with you as you run around, yet I always end up using the same 2 or 3 of them.
Not feeling great today, maybe just too much coffee this morning... or the heat in my office... or something I ate... making me feel like I can't accomplish anything. I should sit outside and read.