Categories
Playlist

Playlist of the Month: March 2025

No links or annotations this time around; as with last month, I’ve spent the majority of March being too ill to really engage with music as much as I’d like. You can listen to the whole playlist here.

Sad Girls (feat. Rema) – Clean Bandit & French The Kid on Sad Girls (feat. Rema) – Single

Oklahoma Smokeshow – Zach Bryan on Summertime Blues – EP

Towers – Zach Bryan on The Great American Bar Scene

Hotel Bible – Max McNown on Night Diving

i Am A Mountain – Coldplay on Moon Music (Full Moon Edition)

Medusa – Cameron Whitcomb on Medusa – Single

Bears & Wolves – Lilith Max on Bears & Wolves – Single

Drunk Again – Aidan Canfield on Rivertown – EP

Old Neptune, He’s Roaring – Brian Sauvé on Hearth Songs

Wake Me up (Country Version) – Cooper Alan & Aloe Blacc on Wake Me up (Country Version) – Single

TRANS AM – Jeremiah Kane on TRANS AM – Single

Blue Jean Baby – Zach Bryan on Blue Jean Baby – Single

Heartbreaker – Hayden Blount on Heartbreaker – Single

ONANON – Killen. on ONANON – Single

Silver Spoon – Erin LeCount on Silver Spoon – Single

Clockwork – Masked Wolf on The Devil Wears Prada but God Wears Gucci

22s – KOKO, Nina Chuba & Dillistone on 22s – Single

Dear Me (From The Original Documentary “Diane Warren: Relentless”) – Kesha on Dear Me (From The Original Documentary “Diane Warren: Relentless”) – Single

Ordinary – Alex Warren on Ordinary – Single

Trauma Kid – Majik on Trauma Kid – Single

Opportunity – MÒZÂMBÎQÚE & Vertefeuille on When We Was

SOTTOMARINI – Mahmood on SOTTOMARINI – Single

In Your Eyes – Korine on In Your Eyes – Single

Too Young To Be Jaded – Tep No on Catharsis – EP

Street Level – Jon Bryant on Street Level – Single

Seraph – Lilith Max on Seraph – Single

Have to Know – Daniel Leggs on Have to Know – Single

Bittersweet (feat. Rosie Darling) – Audien & Shallou on Bittersweet (feat. Rosie Darling) – Single

Sagittarius – TROY on Sagittarius – Single

Love Is an Ocean – The Midnight on Love Is an Ocean – Single

Missyouso – Mascolo on Missyouso – Single

See How It Ends – Anderholm on See How It Ends – Single

Rattlesnake (feat. Zach Bryan) – Jack Van Cleaf & Zach Bryan on JVC

Summer of Love (Vip Edit) – James Carter, Leony & Sam Fischer on Summer of Love (Vip Edit) – Single

Domini Lost – IcoS on Domini Lost – Single

Alien Cowboy – Gordi on Like Plasticine

Anhedonia – Korine on Anhedonia – Single

To the wilder (from “DEATH STRANDING 2 : ON THE BEACH” Soundtrack) – Woodkid on To the wilder (from “DEATH STRANDING 2 : ON THE BEACH” Soundtrack) – Single

Categories
Review

“Champion of the Scarlet Wolf, Book 1”

Ginn Hale

I had so much more fun reading this than I expected to. A great deal of giving me exactly what I wanted in the most fun way possible. So much mysterious backstory to piece together! Two missing princes! Quests within quests. A character whose two intertwined emotional arcs are “working through internalized homophobia” and “dealing with PTSD that they’ve spent a lifetime ignoring.” And a truly wonderful “the audience knows but the character doesn’t” scene featuring a shapeshifter who’d been stuck in animal form, and a man in the midst of a severe fever waking up to a twink in his bed wearing nothing but the collar he’d hand-made for the dog he rescued a couple weeks ago. Exactly as hilarious a reveal as I wanted that to be. Absolutely perfect.

The magic system here feels cobbled together out of various other things—there’s hints of Tolkein-style “the magic is going out of the world,” but it feels more like a “… because we’ve deliberately forgotten how to do the really big stuff” in a way that makes the world feel like it has lots and lots of history to dig into. The magic users all at least a little bit know about the other types of magic, some kind of passing familiarity, but there are, indeed, at least three distinct styles that we see. And it feels like they all fit together, like they’re all expressions of the same fundamental thing—reminiscent of the Thirteenth Child series, in that way.1

An absolute delight of a read; I’m about to dive into the second book, because things aren’t neatly tied up at all here at the end, and I’m excited to find out where it goes. Check it out!2

  1. Having just gone to look for a link, it would seem that I’ve never written up a review of those books… so I suppose I now have an excuse to do a reread. ↩
  2. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“The Witch’s Lens”

Luanne G. Smith

This held up reasonably well as a story, and had some fun little twists to it. The hidden backstory got revealed at just the right pace, and really changed the tone of the latter half of the book, which I quite enjoyed. There was a bit more ‘monster movie’ to it prior to that, which doesn’t tend to be my favorite, but the action-adventure of it outweighed that long enough to carry me to the end.

The magic system was interesting; there were places where it felt like a hard magic system, but overall, I think it’s really a soft magic system, which contains the occasional regional hard magic system. The presence of a djinn with a wildly different set of powers, including “oh, I actually don’t care about the macguffin, that’s just, like, a normal thing for my people” felt a bit hilarious, honestly. The whole dramatic fight, a large part of World War I coming down to the negotiation about this rarity… and the representative from the middle east is like “oh, I thought you had something interesting to discuss after all this. Peace.” and just up and leaves. Excellent.

The only issue I had with the book was that it was trying to do the “normal people don’t know about magic” thing, but couldn’t actually decide on what level that was a thing. Like, everyone acknowledges superstition and the existence of hedgewitches… but the fact that the government is employing magic users for purposes of war is a deep secret that must be kept from the normals? It’s inconsistent with itself.

That said, since the book is almost entirely the magic users amongst other magic users, it’s not too much in your face, so it’s okay to read past it. Overall, a fun read; check it out.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“Managing Humans”

Michael Lopp

This was an interesting read — it absolutely feels like each of the many chapters is a blog post that got repurposed into being a book chapter, in large part because that’s what it is; this is Rands in Repose, The Book. A few bits of this I felt like I was skimming past—I don’t have any interest in writing a CV right now, thanks—but a lot of it I at least jotted a couple notes on. I may not be a manager, but having a better idea of how management works can’t be a bad thing.

Compared to my other forays into the ‘management book’ genre, I found this more approachable. Lopp does a better job of establishing his bona fides, both as Someone Who Works In Tech, and as someone who’s got the same sort of internet brain I do.1 He’s part of the old guard of bloggers. His writing is, in a word, approachable to my inarguably-a-nerd self.

So, overall, a good read; the book club discussion ought to be interesting, as well. I look forward to finding out how many other folks read the glossary all the way through—it was, in fact, worth it. Check it out.2

  1. He calls it NADD, which works well enough. ↩
  2. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“We’re Here”

edited by L.D. Lewis & Charles Payseur

Anthologies are always an interesting thing to read; they offer more variability than a single book by a single author, and tend to be a lot easier to read in bursts. This one made for some great vacation reading — get through one story, go for a dip in the pool, read another while drying off in the sun.1 That said, it’s not a guarantee it’ll be good; sometimes the focus area is too depressing, or the editors made a succession of bad choices.

This, delightfully, was not one of those. “Queer speculative fiction” is a fairly safe topic area to begin with, as it basically pins a single character trait of one or more characters in the story, and a delightfully diverse character trait it is. The title, as well, adds a certain amount of hopeful tinge to it, and the stories almost universally delivered on that.

Favorites include:

  • A rural Oregonian woman having a big fight with her ex-girlfriend, exclusively in the form of flower language.
  • A woman trapped in a three-day time loop before the space station she’s on explodes, using it to sample every restaurant the station has to offer.
  • A lesbian couple running a magic shop together. The story opens with them having a charcuterie board for dinner, and the vibes stay immaculate from there on out; I want to read an entire series of this one.
  • A POV story of the protagonist in a videogame, learning some things about themselves when the player installs a mod.

This collection was a delight; for any one of the above stories, I’d call it worth it, and it includes all of them and more. Give it a go!2

  1. And getting a little sunburned, but oh well. ↩
  2. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Playlist

Playlist of the Month: February 2025

This is a bit of a weird one, to me. I spent most of the month very sick, and at least half of it, even listening to music was just… a lot. And while I still managed to put together something of a playlist for the month, it’s a bit misleading; a lot of the time, even when I felt up to listening to music, I was doing a lot of “hit shuffle on the playlist, then scrub through the queue and remove a bunch of stuff that still felt like Too Much.”

Still, though, there was a bit of music in the month. If you’d like the whole playlist in one go, here’s the link, or do the piecemeal-with-occasional-notes style below:

Machine Learning – J. Maya on Machine Learning – Single

Sad Girls (feat. Rema) – Clean Bandit & French The Kid on Sad Girls (feat. Rema) – Single

O Superman (For Massenet) – Laurie Anderson on Talk Normal: The Laurie Anderson Anthology (Remastered)

Oklahoma Smokeshow – Zach Bryan on Summertime Blues – EP

Dicked Down in Dallas – Trey Lewis on Dicked Down in Dallas – Single

Midnight Drive – HurricaneTurtle on Midnight Drive – EP

Towers – Zach Bryan on The Great American Bar Scene

Sorry 4 The Wait – Lil Wayne on Sorry 4 The Wait

Up, Out, and Leaving – Hayden Blount on Up, Out, and Leaving

The Emptiness Machine – LINKIN PARK on From Zero

Overflow – LINKIN PARK on From Zero

Great Mother (feat. Neco Novellas) – HAEVN on Wide Awake (Deluxe)

Hotel Bible – Max McNown on Night Diving

i Am A Mountain – Coldplay on Moon Music (Full Moon Edition)

Breathe – RÜFÜS DU SOL on Inhale / Exhale

How About a Drink? – Billy Raffoul on How About a Drink? – Single

Medusa – Cameron Whitcomb on Medusa – Single

Bears & Wolves – Lilith Max on Bears & Wolves – Single

Rust – Ben Böhmer on Bloom

need dat boy – Lil Nas X on need dat boy – Single

Sometimes We Come Back – THE RUNAWAY WILD on Sometimes We Come Back – Single

Drunk Again – Aidan Canfield on Rivertown – EP

Breathe, Be Happy – Tep No on Breathe, Be Happy – Single

Old Neptune, He’s Roaring – Brian Sauvé on Hearth Songs

Plead the Fifth – Cooper Alan on Plead the Fifth – Single

I’m Good (Blue) – David Guetta & Bebe Rexha on I’m Good (Blue) – Single

Crazy – Doechii on Crazy – Single

Crossfire – Waves_On_Waves, SHKHR & Waves On Waves Armada on Crossfire – Single

Falls Down – James Carter & Lucas Estrada on Falls Down – Single

Wake Me up (Country Version) – Cooper Alan & Aloe Blacc on Wake Me up (Country Version) – Single1

TRANS AM – Jeremiah Kane on TRANS AM – Single2

Living In The Sun (feat. okafuwa) – DALEXO on Living In The Sun (feat. okafuwa) – Single

The Abyss – The Weeknd & Lana Del Rey on Hurry Up Tomorrow

Fright Night – THE RUNAWAY WILD on Fright Night – Single

Open Hearts – The Weeknd on Hurry Up Tomorrow

Blue Jean Baby – Zach Bryan on Blue Jean Baby – Single

Heartbreaker – Hayden Blount on Heartbreaker – Single

Pantheon Passion – Harper Quinn, Michael FAY & Fuat Sunay on Pantheon Passion – Single

ONANON – Killen. on ONANON – Single

São Paulo – The Weeknd & Anitta on Hurry Up Tomorrow

Silver Spoon – Erin LeCount on Silver Spoon – Single3

Clockwork – Masked Wolf on The Devil Wears Prada but God Wears Gucci

22s – KOKO, Nina Chuba & Dillistone on 22s – Single

Revolú – Rauw Alejandro & Feid on Cosa Nuestra

Dear Me (From The Original Documentary “Diane Warren: Relentless”) – Kesha on Dear Me (From The Original Documentary “Diane Warren: Relentless”) – Single

Hit The Ground – Poul & Alberto Ciccarini on Hit The Ground – Single

Always Remember Us This Way – Poul, Alberto Ciccarini & Alexia Di Lorenzo on Always Remember Us This Way – Single

Ordinary – Alex Warren on Ordinary – Single4

Dreaming – Otrebor on Dreaming – Single

Mona Lisa (feat. Kendrick Lamar) – Lil Wayne on Tha Carter V

4X4 – Travis Scott on 4X4 – Single

Chasing Paradise – Kygo & OneRepublic on Chasing Paradise – Single

hey baby – Famestelenia on hey baby – Single

  1. This feels like the kind of thing that I should be a little ashamed that I love. ↩
  2. Something about sampling old ads just hits really well, I dunno. ↩
  3. Slowly picking up the lyrics to this one, “silver spoons and butter knives” just sticks right in my head. ↩
  4. Kept thinking to myself “shoutout to the music history classes for helping me understand all these Catholicism references.” ↩
Categories
Review

“Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea”

Sarah Pinsker

Absolutely a mixed bag in the way that only an anthology can be. There’s some stories in here that I really didn’t like—I hated “Our Lady of the Open Road,” it just felt crushingly depressing all the way through.

And then there’s some that I really liked. The final story, “And Then There Were (N-One),” was absolutely masterful: a murder mystery set at an interdimensional continuum for various iterations of one person. Now that is a concept!

Weirdly, the ones that I quite liked were the ones about grief. “In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind,” and “The Narwhal” were both really touching pieces about loss. “Remembery Day” was beautiful and aching and sad. And I loved it. Usually I don’t; usually I want upbeat things to read. But it worked.

The good outweighed the bad, here; the first couple pieces I didn’t at all enjoy, so stick with it past those, see how you feel about the later ones.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“The Time of the Dark”

Barbara Hambly

This was a fun little swords-and-sorcery isekai kind of thing, which mostly did a good job of taking those tropes and twisting them a little bit. The wizard feels like a less-self-serious Gandalf, and the fact that it takes them a few tries to actually wind up isekai’d, after the wizard himself pops over to our world for a bit, adds some fun variation.

It does, however, still feel like a book written in the 80s; the feminist qualities to it feel very Second Wave Feminism in a way that I don’t dislike, but does date it. The biggest failing, to my mind, was that despite being in a different world with a very different history, there’s still a recognizably Christian church running around. It was mostly okay, being a sort of vaguely monotheistic part of the pastiche of western European medieval tropes… right up until there were mentions of people crossing themselves. That’s what kicked me into “okay, wait, how did the same gesture wind up as the holy thing?”

That aside, it was a fun book. And the big bad being ancient lovecraftian horrors was a nice twist, too; made it bad bedtime reading, but an interesting bit of variety. Check it out.1

  1. This is an Amazon affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I prefer Bookshop affiliate links to Amazon when possible, but in this case, the book wasn’t available there, so it’ll have to do. ↩
Categories
Review

“House of Gold”

C.T. Rwizi

I quite liked this—the three arcs it’s split into each feel different in a fun way, and expand on the universe more.1 Bouncing back and forth between two viewpoint characters also worked very well, and the fact that both of them are the “Proxies”, supporting their “Primes”, the ones who are very clearly driving the action most of the way through, made it all the more interesting. It captures a little bit of that space opera “there’s a lot of big things happening in the background” feeling, whilst staying very close to the action.

Overall, I enjoyed the heck out of this one; it’s significantly longer than my last couple reads, but that didn’t stop me from plowing through it in a single day. Definitely a page-turner. Check it out.2

  1. I’m quite curious if this counts as taking place in the same universe as Scarlett Odyssey – it seems very possible, the magic system in that feels very “sufficiently advanced technology. ↩
  2. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Playlist

Playlist of the Month: January 2025

Sitting here in the depths of winter, keenly aware of the fact that my instinct in winter is to listen to depression music, and that’s really not what I need right now. Instead, this playlist is me making an active effort to have happy, or at least upbeat, music around.

Don’t tell anyone, but I had to come back and add this after initially scheduling this post, because I absolutely did forget this time: the link to the full playlist.

Machine Learning – J. Maya on Machine Learning – Single

Pink Pony Club – Chappell Roan on Pink Pony Club – Single

Sad Girls (feat. Rema) – Clean Bandit & French The Kid on Sad Girls (feat. Rema) – Single

O Superman (For Massenet) – Laurie Anderson on Talk Normal: The Laurie Anderson Anthology (Remastered)

Oklahoma Smokeshow – Zach Bryan on Summertime Blues – EP

Dicked Down in Dallas – Trey Lewis on Dicked Down in Dallas – Single

Cruel Unusual – Otherwish on iii, Empty Spaces

Midnight Drive – HurricaneTurtle on Midnight Drive – EP

Heaven On Earth – Hayden Blount on Heaven On Earth – Single

Towers – Zach Bryan on The Great American Bar Scene

Sorry 4 The Wait – Lil Wayne on Sorry 4 The Wait

East Side of Sorrow – Zach Bryan on Zach Bryan

Bitter Coffee – Make Night on Bitter Coffee – Single

Desilusão (MTG) [feat. Loirin prod] – Bruno & Marrone, Zé Felipe & Mc Jacaré on Desilusão (MTG) [feat. Loirin prod] – Single

Happy Trails – Orville Peck on Happy Trails – Single

Up, Out, and Leaving – Hayden Blount on Up, Out, and Leaving

Astronaut In The Ocean – Masked Wolf on Astronaut In The Ocean – Single

Carom – Fyfe & Iskra Strings on Carom – Single

LIGHT AGAIN! – Lil Nas X on LIGHT AGAIN! – Single

Born Slippy (Nuxx) – Underworld on 1992 – 2012

I think about it all the time featuring bon iver – Charli xcx & Bon Iver on Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat

THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS – Bon Iver on SABLE, – EP

Man In Finance (G6 Trust Fund) – Girl On Couch & Billen Ted on Man In Finance (G6 Trust Fund) – Single

Something’s in the Wind – Masked Wolf on The Devil Wears Prada but God Wears Gucci

Stained – LINKIN PARK on From Zero

Flirting with a Burnout – Vokon on Flirting with a Burnout – Single

The Emptiness Machine – LINKIN PARK on From Zero

Auld Lang Syne – Sleeping At Last on Auld Lang Syne – Single

Qué Pasaría… – Rauw Alejandro & Bad Bunny on Cosa Nuestra

Big Girls Don’t Cry (Personal) – Fergie on The Dutchess

Tarot – Bad Bunny & JHAYCO on Un Verano Sin Ti

Everything is romantic featuring caroline polachek – Charli xcx & Caroline Polachek on Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat

Overflow – LINKIN PARK on From Zero

Hungover in a Deer Stand – Dylan Marlowe on Mid-Twenties Crisis

Memories – Babbage on Memories – Single

light dark light – Fred again.. & Angie McMahon on two more days – Single

Great Mother (feat. Neco Novellas) – HAEVN on Wide Awake (Deluxe)

Hotel Bible – Max McNown on Hotel Bible – Single

i Am A Mountain – Coldplay on Moon Music (Full Moon Edition)1

Breathe – RÜFÜS DU SOL on Inhale / Exhale

Rise Up Again – Nathan Ball on Lost Track of Time – EP

How About a Drink? – Billy Raffoul on How About a Drink? – Single

That’s So True – Gracie Abrams on The Secret of Us (Deluxe)

Medusa – Cameron Whitcomb on Medusa – Single

Tell Me Why – Masked Wolf & Kota the Friend on The Devil Wears Prada but God Wears Gucci

Hold On Me – Kygo & Sandro Cavazza on Hold On Me – Single

Circuits – Fyfe & Iskra Strings on Carom – Single

Callback – HurricaneTurtle on Tunes of Now – EP

Bears & Wolves – Lilith Max on Bears & Wolves – Single2

Rust – Ben Böhmer on Bloom3

need dat boy – Lil Nas X on need dat boy – Single4

Una Velita – Bad Bunny on Una Velita – Single

Sometimes We Come Back – THE RUNAWAY WILD on Sometimes We Come Back – Single5

Much Ado About Nothing – Waxahatchee on Tigers Blood

Drunk Again – Aidan Canfield on Rivertown – EP

Breathe, Be Happy – Tep No on Breathe, Be Happy – Single6

Smoke – Deepend, Peachy Pete & Outliers on Smoke – Single

Old Neptune, He’s Roaring – Brian Sauvé on Hearth Songs

little mystery – Fred again.. & John Martyn on two more days – Single

Way Back Home – Ed Prosek, Portair & Driftwood Choir on Way Back Home – Single

King – Deepend, LAST CALL & Horxata on King – Single

Strangers – Kenya Grace on Strangers – Single

Dancing Like We Do – Poul, Alberto Ciccarini & Josh Reflex on Dancing Like We Do – Single

Plead the Fifth – Cooper Alan on Plead the Fifth – Single7

Khé? – Rauw Alejandro & Romeo Santos on Cosa Nuestra

I’m Good (Blue) – David Guetta & Bebe Rexha on I’m Good (Blue) – Single8

Crazy – Doechii on Crazy – Single9

  1. Remembering how much of early Coldplay was definitely Depression Music, and then listening to this happy tune, I love that for them. ↩
  2. Good one to listen to the words; it’s not happy, it’s angry, and she’s really telling a story well. ↩
  3. Possibly my favorite addition this month? I dunno why this one clicked for me as much as it did. ↩
  4. Just when I was starting to think “I haven’t listened to Lil Nas X for a while…” he drops some new music, and it’s great. ↩
  5. I’ve listened to about half the lyrics of this one, I just tune in for bits and pieces, and while it’s not happy, it sure is upbeat in that 80s funky synth-wavey way. Who doesn’t want a horror movie in the form of a bop? ↩
  6. Tep No always feels sorta like it should be played during a guided meditation or a yoga class, and the name fit the vibe I was going for this month. ↩
  7. Gloriously chaotic. ↩
  8. I honestly love pivoting “Blue” into being a party anthem like this. ↩
  9. I did specify, “happy, or least upbeat”, and this is… one of those things. ↩
Categories
Review

“Through the Doors of Oblivion”

Michael G. Williams

This was a fun little novella. Emperor Norton is such a character that he feels like he should be completely fictional, but is, in fact, an actual historical figure. And Williams did a good job of working around my issue with historical fiction—the rule to time travel appears to be “you can’t change what’s in the historical record,” but thanks to, y’know, there not being cameras around all the time in 1910, it’s easy to fudge things. Steal an artifact from the past? No worries, the building burned down shortly afterwards, destroying all the evidence.

It’s a fun and hopeful little story, I quite liked it. Give it a go.1

  1. This is an Amazon affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I prefer Bookshop affiliate links to Amazon when possible, but in this case, the book wasn’t available there, so it’ll have to do. ↩
Categories
Review

“Spellbreaker”

Charlie N. Holmberg

This book caught my attention so much more thoroughly than I expected it to. The magic system is fascinating: we start off with the titular character, a spellbreaker—one of a small group of people born with the natural ability to break spells cast by others. And, as it turns out, to sense their presence in a way that the actual spellcasters (or, as they’re called, aspectors) cannot. It goes into more detail: there’s four types of spells, and the way the casting system works feels… honestly a great deal like it was originally designed to be the setting for a videogame. Learn a spell by consuming Magic Points, and then after that you can cast it at will until you’re tired out and need to rest? That’s a writer, explaining a game mechanic.

So, we have a fascinating setting. And then we have two fascinating characters: Bacchus Kelsey, a wealthy scion, up for his mastery examinations in magic… and running face-first into a wall of “it is the 1800s and Britain is very racist”. And then there’s Elsie Camden, the (illegally) unregistered spellbreaker, who lives a double life. Mild-mannered—or rather, well-raised and -behaved—administrative assistant by day, vigilante spellbreaker by night, going on secretive missions to help the downtrodden masses. Magic, after all, may be magic, but it’s also a form of power… and power corrupts.

I was locked in to the book fairly early on, but by the end I couldn’t put it down. An absolutely delightful read, I highly encourage you to check it out.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“The Bruising of Qilwa”

Naseem Jamnia

A quick read, but a very enjoyable one. It’s a bit of a medical mystery, but mostly what it’s about is the experience of being… well, going into the author’s note at the end, of being Persian. Of being an oppressed minority… whilst also being aware that your people were once the oppressors.

The linguistics and magic were both very interesting, and I found all the characters to be well-developed. Definitely worth the read.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“The Dragon Eater”

J. Scott Coatsworth

The ‘jumping the shark’ moment for this book was in the appearance of one of the Pern books in-universe. A bit on the nose to have your “fantasy setting, but it’s actually another planet that got colonized by humans before the big civilization collapsed” book feature, as one of the Ancient Artifacts… a book about the exact same concept. In this case, the threat is still unknown, but we do get to see it, and it’s a bit more… active than thread.

That said, I did really enjoy the setting; I’m a firm believer in the whole “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” thing, and dropping the general level of technology available to people lowers the threshold on “sufficiently advanced” enough to make it more recognizable.

It also helps that the love arc here was just… hilarious. I quite liked all the characters, and seeing them interact, but the fact that there’s at least one love triangle, one member of whom keeps thinking about jumping ship to a different love triangle, makes it fun.

Overall, I quite enjoyed the book; my main complaint is that it’s an entire book’s worth of setup, and the payoff is going to happen in, presumably, the third book of the trilogy. I’d rather one long book to three medium-short ones. Still, a fun little fantasy/science fiction thing, worth a try.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Playlist

Playlist of the Month: December 2024

Spent almost the entire month various kinds of ill, so this is a short one – didn’t particularly feel like scrubbing through new music, most of the time. But hey, it’s got a healthy dose of Christmas music in with my usual nonsense.

And, lest I forget, here’s a link to the entire playlist.

Machine Learning – J. Maya on Machine Learning – Single

Carson – Harry Strange on Carson – Single

Louder – Kygo, Julia Michaels & Chance Peña on Louder – Single

Pink Pony Club – Chappell Roan on Pink Pony Club – Single

Sad Girls (feat. Rema) – Clean Bandit & French The Kid on Sad Girls (feat. Rema) – Single

O Superman (For Massenet) – Laurie Anderson on Talk Normal: The Laurie Anderson Anthology (Remastered)

Oklahoma Smokeshow – Zach Bryan on Summertime Blues – EP

Chariot – The Midnight on Chariot – Single

Dicked Down in Dallas – Trey Lewis on Dicked Down in Dallas – Single

Cruel Unusual – Otherwish on iii, Empty Spaces

Watch Me Trying – Harry Strange on Watch Me Trying – EP

Manifest – Russ on Manifest – Single

Desperate Guy – Isak Danielson on Desperate Guy – Single

Midnight Drive – HurricaneTurtle on Midnight Drive – EP

Oh My Love – ConKi on Oh My Love – Single

Heaven On Earth – Hayden Blount on Heaven On Earth – Single

Either Way – Thorin Loeks on Either Way – Single

the warmth – Paris Paloma on Cacophony

Towers – Zach Bryan on The Great American Bar Scene

Sorry 4 The Wait – Lil Wayne on Sorry 4 The Wait

East Side of Sorrow – Zach Bryan on Zach Bryan

Totoro – Yoste on All’s Well and I’m Worse Than Ever

Royal We – Janani K. Jha on Royal We – Single

Way Down We Go – Deepend & Stephen Puth on Way Down We Go – Single

Bitter Coffee – Make Night on Bitter Coffee – Single

For a Long Time – Star Pitchee on For a Long Time – Single

Codeine – LYOD & Alexis Troy on Codeine – Single

Dancing On My Own – Calum Scott on Only Human (Deluxe)

Desilusão (MTG) [feat. Loirin prod] – Bruno & Marrone, Zé Felipe & Mc Jacaré on Desilusão (MTG) [feat. Loirin prod] – Single

365 – Charli xcx on BRAT

Happy Trails – Orville Peck on Happy Trails – Single

Up, Out, and Leaving – Hayden Blount on Up, Out, and Leaving

Afloat – Isak Danielson on Truly Yours, Isak

Astronaut In The Ocean – Masked Wolf on Astronaut In The Ocean – Single

After Dark x Sweater Weather – mikeeysmind on After Dark x Sweater Weather – Single

Heartbeat – Childish Gambino on Camp

Spring breakers featuring kesha – Charli xcx & Kesha on Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat

Apollo – SYML on Infinity – EP

Infinity – Jaymes Young on Feel Something

Something Like This – Thorin Loeks on Something Like This – Single

Carom – Fyfe & Iskra Strings on Carom – Single

BABYDOLL (Speed) – Ari Abdul on BABYDOLL (Speed) – Single

The Places We’ll Go – Ross Copperman on The Places We’ll Go – Single

LIGHT AGAIN! – Lil Nas X on LIGHT AGAIN! – Single

Born Slippy (Nuxx) – Underworld on 1992 – 2012

I think about it all the time featuring bon iver – Charli xcx & Bon Iver on Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat

Mid-Twenties Crisis – Dylan Marlowe on Mid-Twenties Crisis

My World – Calum Scott on My World – Single

Disease (The Antidote Live) – Lady Gaga on Disease – Single

THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS – Bon Iver on SABLE, – EP

Neverita – Bad Bunny on Un Verano Sin Ti

Goodbye (feat. Lyse) [Slow Version] – Feder on Goodbye (feat. Lyse) [Slow Version] – Single

Man In Finance (G6 Trust Fund) – Girl On Couch & Billen Ted on Man In Finance (G6 Trust Fund) – Single

O Come, O Come Emmanuel – Sleeping At Last on Christmas Collection 2016

Silent Night – Sleeping At Last on Christmas Collection 2016

Mary, Did You Know? – Straight No Chaser on I’ll Have Another…Christmas Album

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas – Straight No Chaser on I’ll Have Another…Christmas Album

Lully Lullay (Coventry Carol) – Straight No Chaser on I’ll Have Another…Christmas Album1

O Holy Night (Live) – Tracy Chapman on A Very Special Christmas Live From Washington D.C.2

O Come, All Ye Faithful – Pentatonix on A Pentatonix Christmas

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen – Pentatonix on A Pentatonix Christmas

Mary, Did You Know? – Pentatonix on That’s Christmas To Me3

White Winter Hymnal – Pentatonix on That’s Christmas To Me

Silence (feat. Khalid) – Marshmello on Silence (feat. Khalid) – Single

Thinkin Bout You (Frank Ocean Cover) – Midnight Pool Party on NOON // 199

Carol of the Bells – Lindsey Stirling on Warmer in the Winter

Losers (feat. Jelly Roll) – Post Malone on F-1 Trillion (Long Bed)

Something’s in the Wind – Masked Wolf on The Devil Wears Prada but God Wears Gucci

Stained – LINKIN PARK on From Zero

Village Wedding – Chanticleer on Colors of Love

Christmas Eve / Sarajevo (Instrumental) [Remastered] – Trans-Siberian Orchestra on The Ghosts of Christmas Eve

Belong – RÜFÜS DU SOL on Inhale / Exhale

Body On Me – SAINt JHN on Body On Me – Single

Flirting with a Burnout – Vokon on Flirting with a Burnout – Single

The Emptiness Machine – LINKIN PARK on From Zero

Flying at Night – Laurie Anderson on Amelia

That’s Christmas To Me – Pentatonix on That’s Christmas To Me

Auld Lang Syne – Sleeping At Last on Auld Lang Syne – Single4

  1. I don’t actually like this cover very much – I want this song to be a slower and… sadder, almost? This is too upbeat. ↩
  2. Tracy Chapman is a treasure. ↩
  3. Two different versions of this in here, and I keep being wrong about which one is which, somehow. ↩
  4. Added New Year’s Eve, because what am I gonna do, not sing this a bunch on New Year’s Eve? ↩