Happy Monday, all! We’re back to summer weather here, which has been great for hiking and kayaking but doesn’t bode well for the actual summer months. And to the joy of all you tennis enthusiasts (*crickets chirping*), Roland Garros has started! Now, half the fun of watching grand slams is making fun of the outfits that sports brands design for their players, and I just want to highlight the ones for Nike, which includes skeletons playing tennis and a goth roses-and-tulips pattern. For both the shirt and the shorts. I just…

Anywho, onto the books!

Last Week – Books

Gather the Fortunes (A Crescent City Novel 2) by Bryan Camp:
An urban fantasy set in New Orleans starring Renaissance Raines who collects and escorts souls to the Underworld. I compared Camp’s style to Neil Gaiman’s and I don’t regret it one bit; his interpretation of afterlife and all the different mythologies is just so intelligent. [Review here]

The City of Lost Fortunes (A Crescent City Novel 1) by Bryan Camp:
I liked this better than the second book and I’m chalking that up to the pacing, which was a lot tighter, but it also might have something to do with the fact that I read this after Book 2, so I was more familiar with the characters.

Hazel and Holly by Sara C. Snider (DNF):
I loved the premise (and the cover) for this–a New Adult book featuring two sisters in a fairy tale setting is a dream come true–but everything about the execution was a disaster. The plot is chaotic nonsense (things happened and I had no idea why they were happening) and the main characters are unbearably immature. I don’t know about you, but there’s just something not right about using “mewled/mewling” to describe a 17 year-old girl.

This Week – Books

Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey:
Twin sisters. A magical boarding school. A noir-esque murder investigation. I’m SOOOO excited!

Walking to Aldebaran by Adrian Tchaikovsky:
A novella about an astronaut stranded out on an alien rock! I’ve had trouble connecting with Tchaikovksy’s characters in the past, so maybe a story with first-person PoV would help.

The Chain by Adrian McKinty:
I’ve never heard of this author before and I mostly picked it up because Don Winslow and Stephen King blurbed it. And also this synopsis:

YOUR PHONE RINGS.

A STRANGER HAS KIDNAPPED YOUR CHILD.

TO FREE THEM YOU MUST ABDUCT SOMEONE ELSE’S CHILD.

YOUR CHILD WILL BE RELEASED WHEN YOUR VICTIM’S PARENTS KIDNAP ANOTHER CHILD.

IF ANY OF THESE THINGS DON’T HAPPEN:
YOUR CHILD WILL BE KILLED.

YOU ARE NOW PART OF THE CHAIN

I’m 20% into it and it’s uh…quite the thing.

Last Week – Games

Observation (developed by No Code) is a sci-fi thriller/mystery that has you playing as S.A.M, the artificial intelligence of a space station. Your job is to assist Dr. Emma Fisher in figuring out what the hell has happened to the ship, where the rest of the crew is, and where they go from here.

Two things I learned from playing this:

1) Being an A.I. is HARD. Constant busywork and humans complaining when you don’t complete something on time.

2) There should be more scifi games that are set from the PoV of an A.I. It adds the extra dilemma of “Am I the villain in this story?” that I find really compelling.

There are some wonderfully tense, hair-raising moments in the story and I loved mostly everything about it until the ending which was…open-ended, to say the least. I’m crossing my fingers for a sequel.

And mad kudos to Emma’s voice actor who conveys everything from “Fire! Fire! There’s fire!” panic to weary resignation to absolute perfection.

(Available on Epic Games (PC) & PS4)