Four days of things...

...makes a post.

Alas, Saturday’s snow turned out to be an utter bust, in that zero of the predicted 1-2 inches actually fell. Cloudless + cold is the absolute worst way for weather to do winter and I will never acclimate to it.

Sunday, combined session 0/1 with newest D&D group went really well! The campaign is a soft reboot for the DM, who’d lost most of her original players to scheduling conflicts. The GC and I came onboard because the DM’s good friend is one of the players in the TTOS campaign and extended the invite to us. This one looks like it will be incredible fun: the DM is new but has done her homework and ran a really excellent session 0 in terms of setting out group dynamics, expectations, redlines, and backstory. All of the five players (half of whom are new to the game) seem really cool and the group had good cohesion from the get-go. We’re tentatively scheduled to play every other week, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how this campaign develops.

Even cooler: I mentioned during introductions that I play Irish flute. TTOS Player did a literal double take and said “No way, I’m a fiddler!” We’ve both been playing since we were kids, she plays now with a local contra dance group, and is going to make introductions so that I can play with them too. As most of the local sessions here either died during covid or moved their communication and organizing to facebook (and sorry, nope, not even ITM can convince me to sign up to use that garbage) getting an in-person intro to a group is huge. Plus, someone I already considered very awesome shares not one but two niche interests with me, which is pretty great. 🥳

Longest D&D campaign had a session Monday, following a two-week hiatus. We got some major world and character backstory explanation in, which was a nice change following the previous two sessions of grueling combat.

AEW Collision this week was great fun, in no small part because the GC’s best and oldest friend had ringside seats, so we got to watch him watch the matches, in a mirror image of him watching us watch the matches at Dynamite last year.

Yesterday’s snow actually managed a respectable amount of accumulation. (Of course, opm bungled its response both yesterday and today, once more screwing employees who don't have telework authorization). I took a long walk in it after work, and was virtually the only person outside, so the atmosphere was lovely. I'm going to take at least one more hike today before the predicted rain melts it all away.

これで以上です。

What Am I Reading Wednesday - February 12

What I Finished Reading This Week

Fehu — Malene Sølvsten
Fehu suffers from “middle book in the trilogy” syndrome but is still a great deal of fun. It opens with protagonist Anna journeying to another world in an effort to stop both her own murder and the apocalypse, so, you know, the stakes are pretty low. 😝

The other world is intriguing and I wish Sølvsten had been able to flesh it out further; it often feels like she barely scratched the surface. Several interesting new characters are introduced, compensating for the fact that most of the original gang from Ansuz are stuck on Earth and don’t get much page time in the sequel. Anna’s genius for getting herself into hairy situations also continues unabated.

My main gripe with this book is that Sølvsten takes shortcuts to easily advance the plot. One of Anna’s most intriguing attributes—the martial prowess she spent much of the previous book training to acquire—is very much an informed attribute in Fehu: if Sølvsten needs one enemy to overwhelm Anna, then one enemy overwhelms Anna, never mind the fact that she's easily taken out five times as many foes at once in the first volume. And Sølvsten seems to speed through some pivotal scenes that are very suspenseful, but could have been even more so if she'd spent more time building them.

All that said, there's still plenty of the things I loved about the first book here--adolescent drama, cliffhangers, plot twists, action, mythology--and I'm really looking forward to the third.


What I Am Currently Reading

The Party and the People — Bruce Dickson
I’m still enjoying this read and should finish the book sometime next week.

Lucy Holland - Song of the Huntress
I’ve only read the author’s note and prologue so far, but I have very high hopes for this book.


What I’m Reading Next

I acquired no new books this week.


これで以上です。