Lathany

A good year, I think, although I would have given a different review back in September or October when we were down a bathroom as well as a kitchen! After all, the second half of the year was somewhat dominated by the building work, but we do now have a shiny new kitchen to show for it. I wouldn't want to do it again any time soon – but also don't have to.

Time-off this year for me went well: I had a couple of relaxing holidays in the South Downs and Long Melford. I also had a number of interesting and entertaining work events. Many of my friend-colleagues are either taking time out or moving on next year and I'm going to very much miss them.

We finished Heresy, She Wrote which I thoroughly enjoyed. There is now Heresy in Paradise scheduled for next year. My 2024 also involved, much Darktide, plenty of SteamWorld Heist II and a bit of Return to Moria as well.

In general terms – overall I enjoyed the year and ended in a good place.

In detail
As per usual, a month-by-month breakdown.

January – It was a chilly, uneventful month. I worked, played Darktide and watched some films.
February – The Hatted One joined the twins and I for the Infinity Mirror Rooms exhibition at the Tate Modern. I had dinner with Liz W at Tas.
March – Uneventful, with a quiet birthday celebration.
April – There was a Kew trip. There was also some gaming: both video and roleplaying.
May – We saw The Kills at the Troxy at the start of the month and Dom ran an awesome, mad game for Alistair's 50th. We spent a week in the South Downs on a family holiday enjoying a castle, Marwell Zoo and Jane Austen's house.
June – We attended Martin and Ebee's civil ceremony day. I had a work awayday in London and at the end of the month Dom and I went to Gymkhana for my birthday meal (organised in March).
July - I watched the General Election online with Alistair. I attended Lesley's retirement do, meeting up with many former colleagues.
August - Visited Kew and saw my first Banksy. This is also when the building work started on the new kitchen.
September – Bea and I got cat tattoos together, I had a work trip to Edinburgh and Bea and I had a long weekend in Long Melford.
October – We celebrated 32 years together at Trinity, we visited Krys and Chris, we completed Heresy, She Wrote after 18 months and... I'm not quite sure how many sessions. At the end of the month I had a hospital appointment, but was declared clear of issues.
November – There was a work AwayDay housed at the Tate Modern. Gem and Olivia came over for board games and Bea and I had a sunny Kew Trip.
December – The kitchen work finally ended, I survived two back-to-back work Xmas dos and my mother stayed a few days over Xmas.


The Lists of Things
As is my tradition, here are my lists of things of 2024.

Twenty-one books read for the first time.
The Midnight Mayor - Kate Griffin
Magpie Murders - Anthony Horowitz
The Martian - Andy Weir
Moonflower Murders - Anthony Horowitz
Spinning Silver - Naomi Novik
Airs Above the Ground - Mary Stewart
The Neon Court - Kate Griffin
The Minority Council - Kate Griffin
Stray Souls - Kate Griffin
The Husbands - Holly Gramazio
The Word Is Murder - Anthony Horowitz
The Sentence Is Death - Anthony Horowitz
A Line to Kill - Anthony Horowitz
The Twist of a Knife - Anthony Horowitz
The Bookseller's Tale - Martin Latham
Network Effect - Martha Wells
System Collapse - Martha Wells
Artemis - Andy Weir
The Glass God - Kate Griffin
Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir
The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller

Favourites
1. Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir: I got this because I enjoyed the Martian and this one is even better. Science-heavy, surprising and with an engaging central character.
=2. Network Effect - Martha Wells: Frankly, the whole Murderbot series has been great, but of the two full-length books, I preferred this one. Engaging, fast-moving and I love the central character. This is more at the space opera end of sci fi.
=2. The Husbands - Holly Gramazio: This is one of the most thought-provoking, yet entertaining books I have read. A magic attic that provides different married life alternatives for the protagonist Lauren and shows how the rest of her life changes. Definitely recommended (and I'm planning to make it my pick for my bookclub).
4. Stray Souls - Kate Griffin: I think the best of her Kate Griffin phase (I met her writing as Clare North). It's something like the fifth book, but the others before it are also well worth it. It's London-based fantasy set in the present day. And there's a supernatural support group in it.
5. Moonflower Murders - Anthony Horowitz: I've read a lot of Horowitz this year, but I like this the best, in part because I like Susan the best of his protagonists. Interesting double detective story switching from a book detective (Agatha Christie like) to a life one (Susan).

Twelve novellas read for the first time.
Demon Daughter - Lois McMaster Bujold
When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain - Nghi Vo
On the Fox Roads - Nghi Vo
All Systems Red - Martha Wells
Vermeer to Eternity - Anthony Horowitz
What the Dead Know - Nghi Vo
Artificial Condition - Martha Wells
Rogue Protocol - Martha Wells
Exit Strategy - Martha Wells
Penric and the Bandit - Lois McMaster Bujold
Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory - Martha Wells
Compulsory - Martha Wells

Favourites
1. All Systems Red - Martha Wells: As above, the first Murderbot tale I read.
2. When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain - Nghi Vo: Like the Empress of Salt and Fortune this was well-written, engaging fantasy and not quite like anything else.
3. Penric and the Bandit - Lois McMaster Bujold: Solid Penric stuff, if not as good as some of them.

Nine computer games finished.
Home Safety Hotline
Ni No Kuni 2
The Case of the Golden Idol
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide
Firewatch
Tacoma
Steamworld Heist II
Incubus
Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria
Favourites
1. Warhammer 40,000: Darktide: This nailed the 40K atmosphere, the multiplayer was solid and fun. Also, not exactly beautiful, but excellent graphics.
2. Steamworld Heist II: Hatted bots saving the world in a turn-based strategy game that was fun, large and didn't require much computer space or power to run.
3. The Case of the Golden Idol: A rather good puzzle game that involves a lot of thinking and clues.

Twenty films I saw this year.
Marry Me
Ghostbusters: Afterlife
Orion and the Dark
The Lost City
Dune 2
Tales from Earthsea
The Lego Batman Movie
Paradise
Atlas
The Matrix Resurrections
Inside Out 2
Appleseed Alpha
Beverly Hills Cop Axel F
Glass
Bullet Train
The Adam Project
The Equalizer
Godzilla Minus One
Whisper of the Heart
Carry On
Favourites
1. Orion and the Dark: it had been described as Inside Out meets Being John Malkovich. The description was fitting and the film was great.
=2. Bullet Train: Thriller / comedy about a number of assassins who find themselves on the same Tokyo train. I would say it's not going to be on my best film ever list, but was unexpectedly watchable and entertaining (and apparently based on a book). Brad Pitt is a decent lead and has a good support cast. Also, cameos.
=2. Godzilla Minus One: This starts slowly, but turns into a very good film. Set in Japan around the end of the War and featuring the named massive monster.
4. Dune 2: Epic, cinematic. I didn't like it quite as much as I hoped, but still good.
=5. Inside Out 2: Not as good as the first, but worth a trip to the cinema.
=5. Carry On: Engaging, and I agree not as formulaic as some. Also a Christmas film. Die Hard isn't knocked off its pedestal, but at least this is something worth beating.

Eleven seasons of TV
Shadow and Bone - season 1
Altered Carbon - season 2
The Signal
Bodies
Yu Yu Hakusho
Fool Me Once
Cowboy Bebop
Supacell
1899
Travelers - season 1
Arcane: League of Legends

Favourites/ordering
1. Bodies: It involved multiple interesting characters, various mysteries and time travel. I wasn't too sure for the first two episodes (and there was a lot to follow), but got really hooked on the next two. Five and six were also great, then the penultimate episode was a bit poor but the ending was good. I particularly liked that the four main leads were all police officers in different time periods.
2. 1899: It's weird and has isolated seavoyage / ghost vibes. It was supposed to be three seasons, but was cancelled. It's from the creators of Dark and I would say is better and weirder. I think cautiously recommended - the questions in the first season are mainly answered - but you end up with a set of new questions at the end.
3. The Signal: A German science fiction mini series about an astronaut and her family. It was an interesting premise and good characters. I think it was also the right length for its story, so recommended.
4. Supacell: A British superhero television series set in modern-day South London. It is about a group of five ordinary black people, unified by family history of sickle cell disease. This was the “origins” equivalent of Heroes and quite good – but I found it hard to get into the story initially.
5. Cowboy Bebop: A live action series based on the 1998 Japanese anime television series. Interesting, sadly only ran to one season, but I liked the characters and the atmosphere.


So, 2025? Less kitchen work will be good and I already have several plans and arrangements lined up. I'm feeling cautiously hopeful.

Farewell 2024.

Over the last few weeks, we've been watching Fool Me Once. We found it disappointing as the plot was inconsistent and contradicted itself. Which was a shame as we wanted to know how they would make it all fit together (answer - they didn't).

I've just had my review of this published on GameFAQs.

It's basically a fun, cheap, turn-based strategy game. The heroes are space-age steambots. They are referred to as pirates, but frankly don't ever do any pirating across the game. They wear hats (getting hats is a game feature) and generally work to save steambot kind from the bad guys.



You march them around spaceships basically shooting at (and occasionally punching) the bad guys. I've been playing it a lot recently as I've probably completed XCom 2 far too many times now.

Last night, GameFAQs published my Barrow Hill: The Dark Path review. It's labelled "Ten years after The Event - creepy moments and decent puzzles on a dark night in England".

The short version is: it's a creepy and atmospheric point-and-click sequel. You can play it without having played the first game, but it's better to have done so. It's more of a setting and a series of events than a story, but it's well thought out. Also, I liked the puzzles: fitting, varied and not too hard!

During my holiday in the US, I managed a fair amount of reading and re-reading. The things I read for the first time were three short stories and five books.

The short stories were all pieces by authors I knew and were little additions to series. They were Penric's Demon by Lois McMasters Bujold (a Chalion demon story), Lockwood & Co: The Dagger in the Desk by Jonathan Stroud and The Last Day of Christmas by Chris Brookmyre (Jack Parblane). All were good, but in my opinion less good than the full-length novels of the same series.

The full-length books were:

• The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. Technically three books rather than one, but I see no need to separate them. I've seen three of the four films, so only the last half of the third book was new. I quite enjoyed them, but felt I liked the Divergent trilogy better (which is a bit unfair as it came second, I think). This just gets much too dark and distressing, although I liked the ending slightly better than that for Divergent.
• Jaggy Splinters by Chris Brookmyre. This is actually a collection of short stories, two Parblane, one Simon and three others (one is not technically a story). I thought these were OK and they completed my Brookmyre collection, but that was about it.
• Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve. This is the first of a series, but works perfectly well as a standalone. I liked the concept and I thought it was quite good, but there was rather too much switching between characters and I found it difficult to care about some of the ones I was supposed to care about. That said, Reeve can write endings, which is something I feel many authors struggle with.

I saw two films this month, both animated, one in the States and one back at home.

• Zootopia - we saw this at Nina's. I thought it was enjoyable with a decent plot, nice voice acting and it was generally good to watch.
• Inside Out - this was Kermode's film of last year and I can see why. Lovely concept, it really felt that you were inside a child's head, and generally about the right length.

On Thursday, chrestomancy and I played Dear Esther. It's entirely a walk-through of scenes with voice-over and music. It is not really a game, but instead is somewhere between setting a mood and talking about the past (screenshot below). There isn't really a plot or even much of a story, but it was interesting to see. Although, sadly, it gave me terrible motion sickness.



Finally, I had something of a surprise when I returned home from holiday - I've lost weight. Not a great deal, but knowing that I put on weight last time I went to the States, it was a bit of a shock!

Last weekend I finished the computer game Technobabylon. It's set in about seventy years from now and involves AIs, genetics, the internet (now called Trance) and murders. I enjoyed it, I thought it had some decent puzzles and a good story. I've put a fuller review up on GameFAQs.

For the train, I have mostly been re-reading Cadfael. However, I also bought and read the newest Frances Hardinge - The Lie Tree. I always feel a little awkward about reviewing books of people I have met, but I'll give it a go. Trying not to give too many spoilers, it's set in the Victorian era (I think!) and the protangonist is a girl named Faith who wants to be a scientist, despite the expectations of society. The book opens with the family running away from some sort of scandal connected to her father's work and, as Faith learns, his obsession. It's a book about expectations, appearances, lies and murder. I really enjoyed it and it is on the longlist for this year's Guardian award.

There's been a certain amount of roleplaying in recent weeks:

• Warhammer 40K - The Atlanor party (chrisvenus, quisalan and Alistair) continued to try to track down the origins of heretical statues, whilst dealing with mutated hyenas, a dishonest port official and pirates. Now they've some scientists to track down who may or may not be related to the missing Tyranid organs.
• 100 Secrets - Season two and we're off to the East (starting with Sunset Market). The party has lost Rose and Loy and gained waif-thief Abigail (with Bat her rat) and shapechanger Erin. So far we've found some well-guarded towers, the movement of a prisoner in robes and set off on a long journey across land to find a city (seven towers?) that has chosen to remain hidden.
• Carriage 5 (bateleur's one-off set) - I played in the first of these with verlaine, chrisvenus, the_alchemist and borusa. It was surreal and very good. Unfortunately, I think that is all I can say.

bateleur and I have started watched Orphan Black. We're three episodes in - and so far, so good. No spoilers please!

It has been a while since I wrote a post of reviews. So here are the things I have seen, read and played.

We watched the first season of The Wire after many good reviews of it. For anyone who doesn't know the story it's about how a cop (Jimmy McNulty) is responsible for the launch of an investigation into a major drug organisation (headed by characters Barksdale and Stringer Bell) and how that proceeds. I enjoyed it, particularly liking the characters Kima Greggs and Lester Freamon (two of the most competent cops) but, frankly, the whole cast were really good. It's slow moving, but reaches a conclusion at the end of the season. There are some wonderful character developments - such as Prez's move from liability to clue solver. We have season two lined up (but may then take a break before season three).

With The Wire taking up our Lovefilms discs, I have only seen a couple of films in the last two months.

• Veronica Mars - Funded by a Kickstarter campaign, this was very much a fan movie. It revisited a huge number of characters from the series including almost all the regulars whose characters didn't die (Duncan was the main exception). The plot was fine, what they did with Veronica was OK, although it felt more a response to the fans than anything else. Perhaps the most wobbly bit was the initial set up for her love life which seemed to be a long standing relationship that hadn't developed (what, eight years have passed and you still haven't met the parents?!) Overall, if you liked the series, it's worth seeing.
• Divergent - This was a rare cinema outing over Easter when the duo were at their grandparents. Like Twilight and Hunger Games this is "coming of age", sci-fi/fantasy based on a trilogy and will be four films. That said, I liked it, thought that the lead (Shailene Woodley as Beatrice "Tris" Prior) was excellent and liked Kate Winslet as a Bad.

My new books have all been by authors I'm already fond of and two of the three are sequels.

• Lady Friday by Garth Nix - As is clear from the name, it's the fifth book in Nix's series. It's the first one that felt rather short, although a glance at the shelf suggests it's as long as the previous four. It may feel short because of the time it gave to Leaf (instead of Arthur) although, again, this has happened before. However, interesting, nice resolution and I'm looking forward to the last two.
• Dead Beat by Jim Butcher - This was OK, but not a favourite. I was not pleased to see the demon surface, even if it's holding back on the "evil" bit. Also, I was sorry that Murphy wasn't around. However, the near-end sequence with "Sue" was just genius.
• Bedlam by Christopher Brookmyre - This is a book that had bad reviews from many of his fans. However, understanding that the plot involved computer games, I was still keen. Unfortunately, it doesn't rise above "OK" for me. Perhaps the main problem was that a large amount of the book is about a game I never met or played. I understand why, for plot reasons, it wasn't a more famous game. But I still would have preferred Doom, Manic Miner and a bunch of others (these were in there, but more briefly). That said, it also suffered from bringing in a key character that you couldn't realistically figure out. So, nice try, but no (plus I hoped it would be a sort of sequel to Pandaemonium and it wasn't).

My own computer gaming has been The Secret World, both multiplayer (with chrisvenus, ao_lai and Alistair) and solo. It continues to be addictive, frustrating and not quite brilliant. I'm toying with the idea of replaying The Lost Crown again post-holiday, but I may wait for the sequel to get an actual date.

Three of the four roleplaying games I'm in (ie. all but Mechs) have advanced by a session:

• 100 Secrets - We pottered around in the port, failed to check the ship in the harbour and later arrived at the Eye Stone council meeting for the big debate. Turns out that the ship probably houses the queen as a captive. We need her back so I think we'll be running off to get her.
• Folded Edge - We continued to bod around the spacestation we were on. Then we investigated an "abandoned" station nearby, which turned out to have four goons who shot at us and hospitalised Sen. However, we did leave once he had been treated by expensive doctors and celebrated Christmas in space. Next stop the frozen university planet (I think).
• Star Wars - Now a distant memory being the least recent game, but I think it involved Hutts. And backstabbing. And eventually leaving the planet.

Anything else? Ah yes, Eldritch Horror, my boardgame birthday present from bateleur. We played our first two-player last night. It's a co-operative game set in the Arkham universe and might be described as Arkham-light, but with a bit less random in it. It's probably shorter than Arkham, although not when you're trying to understand the rules for the first time. We won and want to play again. I may introduce it to other people at some point (if they haven't already met it).

It's the TIGJam weekend, so bateleur is in Cambridge. This means that, because I'm a bit of a wuse about sleeping on my own, Reeve was invited into the bedroom. Despite my concerns that I'd be woken up at some unearthly hour (like 6:30 - the weekday get-up time), Reeve was very well-behaved. He settled down on the other side of the bed and didn't once wake me (he might be ruder about me - I got up several times in the night). The absence of bateleur has also meant I'm on my own with problems - my black necklace has broken (but might be fixable), the downstairs boiler has broken and Ryan is ill.

Another consequence is that I've spent the last couple of evenings re-watching Heroes season 4 (my first rewatch - I've just seen Hysterical Blindness).

( Cut for spoilers, including comments on deleted scenes )

What else?

• Uncharted 2: Among Thieves - I'm not sure whether to describe this as a computer game or an interactive movie. A mix of First Person Shooter and some very easy Tomb Raider puzzle sequences. It's very pretty (awesome water effects), hard work for us non-FPS people, but mostly worth it for Claudia Black (Aeryn Sun of Farscape) and Steve Valentine (Alistair of Dragon Age Origins) playing the voices of Chloe Frazer and Harry Flynn. Oh, and maybe for a bit of the game play as well.
• Salt - Probably best described as a female Bourne/Bond. The story's not bad and Jolie is good in the title role, but ultimately not likely to be my film of the year because the plot isn't brilliant (and, despite some better reasoning, the bad guys still hit that "because we're evil" button).
• Woking Festival of Dance - My experiences of Woking are that it's easy to find and horrific to navigate around either by car or on foot. We got there in the end; Bea danced and was disappointed not to make the top three (actually top four - they told the boy he got fourth). However, there were seven dancers and she's the youngest in that category. She scored a respectable 81 (we got the score sheet on Friday). And I might take her again, given enough time to get over the panic of this one.
• Meteor - The two parties have finally gone off in different directions, so this may be the end of bateleur's two characters visiting the same places. The parties are also carving rather different roles for themselves with very different attitudes to the gods - although I think the most hated god is the same in both parties.

I’m also continuing with Recettear (I’m in the Obsidian Tower and have more heroes) and I may have a crack at continuing with Crisis Core later on today; I've already had the whole Nibelheim Reactor sequence so I reckon I'm near the end.

I've always loved October; I tend to have lots of fun stuff on and, ever since University, I've seen it as the start of the year. This year, it's been a pretty good month so far:

• Food - a couple of weeks ago, glittertigger, zandev, quisalan and ao_lai came for dinner. We ate risotto (ham and pea this time), duck tortillas with tomatoes stuffed with meatballs and then chocolates and bakalava with liqueurs. Conversation veered from books to saunas to computer games and I remember presenting glittertigger with my copy of Art of Murder after enthusing at length about it. Our guests had generously brought yummy chocolates, wine and irises and it was a great evening.
• Magic - I was rather apprehensive about playing Magic last weekend as I haven't opened a deck of Magic cards for a long time now (and was more of a Yu-Gi-Oh! player). However, I opened decent packs and enjoyed the day of play. Also it was nice to meet several_bees, kevandotorg and pm215 (not quite for the first time I'd met any of the three, but the first time properly). Plus to see a huggyrei. And there were home-made cookies from several_bees which I scoffed more than my fair share of. bateleur has hinted that he might do the same with the new set next year and I'm pretty keen now to do it again.
• The Amulet of Samarkand - The was recommended to me on LJ some months ago (by undyingking, I think) and I finally read it on the train from Leeds yesterday. It was great and I finished it in one long go. It made me laugh, whilst having a pretty decent plot, good pace and appearing completely consistent. It's "alternative England" stuff (magical realism?) and very nicely done. Additionally, both the main characters were somewhat flawed and yet still had me rooting for them. I can't wait to get hold of the rest of the trilogy.
• The Illusionist - This was our second film of the month and the title had made me expect another version of The Prestige. But it wasn't; if anything it was the negative of it. Set, very roughly, around the same sort of time, this was a much lighter story although, again, with plenty of twists. I really liked it, particularly as it didn't give me nightmares in the same way.
• Pension power - Every couple of years, the civil service send out the details of pensions and, as I'd moved departments, they'd got mine wrong. I was down for about a decade and a half less of service than I really had. Plus, more disturbingly, they'd also widowed me.
• Dinosaur - I travelled back on the train today with a dinosaur in the seat next to me. sadly, it wasn't my dinosaur. But it was furry to stroke.