Posts Tagged → Jim Butcher

Level 19 in darkshore wow

Up incredibly early this morning. Not feeling great.

Yesterday, after work, I came home and played World of Warcraft Classic for an hour at my standing desk. I walked on a little treadmill while I did so, hoping that a little more exercise would help out with my sleep.

It didn’t.

Well — I know that I’ve got to make doing that sort of stuff more habitual in order to see benefits. As it is, I only walk like that once or twice a week, which simply isn’t enough. I’m going to try to pick up the pace as much as I can, but work has been rough recently and I am stressed out the the bejeezus belt.

All the more reason to exercise more, I suppose.

Anywho. I finished Twelve Months last night, which was great, but then, when I suddenly snapped awake at like 3:30 in the morning, I didn’t have my next audiobook queued up. In a daze, I downloaded the full-cast edition of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on Audible. Sarah and I listened to The Sorcerer’s Stone a few months ago, so I figured the next book would do in a pinch.

These new full-cast editions from Audible seem like a great idea, although I’m sure they’ll suffer from the same thing that will hit the HBO series when it comes out: Comparisons.

With an IP as omnipresent as Harry Potter, it’s difficult to get away from them. When the original movies came out, everyone compared them to the books. (“DiD yOU pUt YoUr NaME iN tHe GobLet OF fIrE!?!?!?”) Any new version that comes out now will be compared to both the books and the movies.

And can anything stand up to that kind of comparison? The movies are great. The books are even greater.

I want to give these full-cast editions a fair shake, but it’s hard to get away from thinking, “Ron doesn’t sound like that!”

Night mayonnaise

Had a slow morning. Up at 5:00 AM to drink tea, watch the news, and read a bit. That’s my general morning routine but, as I’ve posted about before, I don’t often sleep well. Sometimes I snooze until around 6:00, sometimes I randomly wake up at 4:00.

This morning, Good Morning America actually had a brief report stating that the Melania documentary was doing well based on ticket sales, which is an astounding thing to hear on the news. (First, that is an absolute lie. Nobody cares and nobody went to see it, probably including the first lady herself. Second, even reporting on this visual diarrhea is the result of coercion.)

The struggle continues to find a news station that isn’t complete garbage. Or, at this point, I suppose I should say that the struggle continues to find something to do with my time in a post-news landscape, because I doubt I’ll find any news channels that are worth a damn.

I mean. Were these news shows always trash but I just never noticed? I feel like the news used to have integrity. Or, at least, some broadcasters did. Now, though, I feel like I’d be better off hanging around a public toilet, jumping into stalls right after people flush and demanding of the swirling water, “TELL ME HOW THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION IS DOING!”

It shouldn’t be this tough to find reliable news to watch.

Last night I stayed up late (again) to try and finish Twelve Months, but I only made it to Chapter 53 (of 55). As frequently happens in Dresden books, there are several climaxes all lined up right near the end. Each of the sub-plots has its own little ending that all fire off right in a row, which makes it really hard to put the book down. I’d say the only reason I didn’t finish was because I literally fell asleep in the midst of it.

I’m anticipating some kind of twist at the end. Not an M. Night Shyguyamalan type of twist, but some unexpected thing right in the last chapter that comes into play in the next book. It happens all the time in the Dresdenverse — It’s like waiting for post-credit scenes in Marvel movies at this point. You’re sure it’s going to happen, but you aren’t sure how much you’ll care.

Every hose has its corn

A Court of Thorns and Roses is almost finished. I suspect that the “Rose” is the main character, Feyre, and the “Thorns” are the boundaries she’s had to put up that prevent her from forming long-term relationships until being whisked away to a magical world allows her find the courage to open up and experience true love, which, so far, seems to consist of people doing tonsil inspections and ripping off each other’s underwear.

Perhaps I’m wrong, though.

(There is a literal court and there are some literal thorns and literal roses in the book, so maybe the title is referring to them instead of being metaphorical.)

I’m also soooooo close to finishing Twelve Months that I stayed in bed this morning just a little longer so I could listen to more of it. The plot lacks the urgency of previous books in The Dresden Files. Whereas the Hero, Harry, used to pretty consistently work against a ticking clock, a lot of chapters in this book start with transitions like, “Three weeks later I was at the gym again when X happened,” or, “My next date with the succubus wasn’t until February…”

It gives the book not quite a cozy vibe, but something like it. Plus, I think it is doing a fantastic job of representing trauma. It’s not easy to capture a such a laborious recovery process in a book that still holds your attention, but it all goes with the slower-paced plot.

It’s February now and I am tired of this weather. It’s not even bad where we are — the southeastern U.S. is apparently getting hit by some hefty winter storms while we’re just sort of vaguely chilly.

Sarah and I went to Costco today and discovered that the world needs another plague. Either that or a better system than crowding people into aisles to wrestle with big boxes and huge shopping carts and telling them, “Have at it!”

There are only a handful of times that we are able to get to Costco during off-peak hours, but it makes a huge difference. If you go, say, early Tuesday morning, it’s easier to get around and you can get out of there a lot faster.

It’s one of the up-sides of summer vacation when you’re a teacher — the ability to go to stores whenever you want. (The down-side, in case you were wondering, is the slow, inescapable descent into madness.)

Jolene, our cat, just got spooked by the sound of my PC turning on, tried to run, bumped into my cup of tea, and then fell off the desk. Poor blind kitty!

Are there volleyballs in Spicetown

Yesterday was a long one and my social battery, if there is such a thing, is completely drained.

We had some car trouble, which is always a pain. I hate cars to begin with and wish I didn’t need to own one, so having to go to a mechanic seems to me to be like getting kicked while you’re already down.

After we got the car fixed, Sarah and I went to a professional volleyball game with some friends of ours who have season tickets to the Omaha Supernovas. The game was swanky and lasted long into the fifth set, which is essentially volleyball’s version of overtime. We didn’t get home and in bed until well after 10 PM (gasp!) and, let me tell you, we are feeling it today.

I’ve decided to spend most of the day reading, napping and watching PBS documentaries on YouTube.

I’m almost finished with Twelve Months by Jim Butcher. It’s good to be back in a world of characters that I’ve known for so long, and the audio version is tremendous. It’s hard to believe, but the last book in the Dresden Files series, Battle Ground, came out in 2020, about five years ago.

Wacky!

At that rate, the series should finish up sometime around … 2050?

Twelve Months seems to be mostly about characters getting over the events of previous books and Jim Butcher getting things set for next books. Twelve Months is introducing a lot of new concepts and characters who will likely come into importance sometime in the … seven remaining books?

I think there are seven left, at any rate. Four more “regular” books and then three books in a Big Apocalyptic Trilogy that will be the end of the series.

I’m also plugging away at A Court of Thrones and Roses, which has only grown on me only a little since I’ve started it. There just isn’t anything … special about it so far. None of the characters really jump out at me, the setting and tropes are all common fare, and there isn’t anywhere near as much romance (“spice“) as I was expecting.

I haven’t ever been a tremendous reader of romances, but going into a book expecting some romance only to find hardly any at all has been a let down. I mean. It’s a story about a human girl brought into the realm of a High Lord of the Fae. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to assume they’d be taking a carriage to Spicetown, if you catch my drift.

But all the horses are still in the stable!

Side quests & butchering wizards

One benefit of having trouble sleeping is that I’ve got a lot more time for audio books. They help me drift off, and when I’m spending a few hours doing, well, not much, having a book to put on is helpful.

A few years ago, Sarah turned me on to Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files, the most recent entry of which (Twelve Months) came out about a week ago. The series, which follows a “wizard for hire” named Harry Dresden in and around the city of Chicago, started out as a cross between fantasy and hard-boiled detective fiction. Now, though, it’s a lot more involved. (Jim Butcher is leaving the “detective” part behind in favor of more fantasy and action. In the last book, Dresden fought a god.)

We listened to the audio book versions of the series (narrated by John Marsters of Buffy fame; delightful) as we’ve travelled around — mostly in tents at campgrounds west of the Great Plains. Since then, it’s become a bit of a comfort series that we put on when we’re going to bed or whatever. Or, as has been the case recently, when we’re in bed but can’t sleep.

While I haven’t made much progress with A Court of Thorns and Roses, I’ve gotten through a lot more Twelve Months. It’s a fantastic book so far, but a lot more … listless than previous entries.

It’s to be expected, I suppose, since the last book in the series, Battlegrounds, was fairly climactic and left the main character with some trauma he’s had to work through. However, the plot seems driven by “this is what happened over the course of a year” rather than “Harry has a problem to solve.”

My side quest at work today is going to be to go back and finish the header drawing for yesterday’s post. It’s important to have side quests to focus on throughout your day.

I create all the “art” on this website by doodling on my Kindle Scribe, which is a fantastic e-reader with a quirkly stylus that is sow low-tech it is wonderful.

Because I left my Kindle on my desk at school yesterday, I wasn’t able to get the art done before posting last night. #scatterbrain