Ben Stovall Blog

Tag: books

  • June 2025 Irregular Update

    June 2025 Irregular Update

    So, here we are again. Look, I won’t beat around the bush. It’s been a tough year, hasn’t it? With everything going on in the world, (especially right now) it’s been hard to get into a space for writing. There’s been a lot of times this year that the only thing that could still my mind at all was this hobby I returned to in December (more on that later).

    I’d love to be showing up with great news about a project, but the truth is I don’t have anything to report on. As mentioned before, the Tide rewrite totally stalled out, and I almost got started on something else before getting entirely derailed. And not by video games this time.

    So. Let’s dig in.

    Returning Hobby?

    When I was in my teens, just after I’d been working for a while and had this sudden surplus of disposable income, my friends and I got into the nerdiest hobby on the planet: Warhammer 40k. We assembled and painted overpriced plastic miniatures and played pretend-war on the tabletop and had a blast. Some of my fondest memories are of those days – of visiting a local game store and playing all day, getting everyone some food at McDonald’s or Cici’s Pizza for cheap.

    And, my first models for Warhammer 40k were a gift from my grandma. When we started, our friend had gotten the Assault on Black Reach starter set, and two people locked in with the Space Marines and Orks. The original owner of that set settled into Eldar, and I started with the T’au Empire. We played games (not to exact specification of the rules – we never ran objectives and had little in the way of terrain), painted, and enjoyed talking about the game and lore.

    I probably hadn’t painted any models in 8 years by the time December rolled around. But, after playing some Space Marine 2 with my friends and peeking at the minis, I finally caved at bought back in, starting with the Orks – the army I’d been leaning toward switching into near the end of our original time in the hobby.

    See, as teens, we all painted our share of orks. Our friend had more bodies than he could paint himself, and we were all happy for the practice. I got pretty good at painting orks, and, honestly? I think I’ve retained that skill.

    It’s been a much needed piece of serenity these last few months, and with the friends I’ve made in my guild on Warcraft, we’ve got our own little meta forming; one guy’s playing Death Guard and Custodes, another’s on Dark Angels and he’s brought in a friend playing Votann and Chaos Knights; we’ve got players on Tyranids, Imperial Guard, and Necrons. I’ve gotten a fair few games under my belt, and I’m looking forward to trying to find some time to play in person at a local store again. (We’re all across the continent, so we’ve been playing on Tabletop Sim.)

    So, that’s been my main focus the last little while. It hasn’t entirely stamped out writing, of course. I’m still running a D&D game weekly, and I’ve been running a once-to-twice a month game for my family. And, I’ve written little bits of lore about my army of Orks and the characters therein, written up some small narrative moments from some of the battles we’ve had.

    I mean to say I’m still exercising the muscle, even if I don’t have a book to report any progress on.

    … But You Will Write Another Book, Right?

    Yes. Yes, absolutely.

    Look, there’s been times when this has been disheartening. There’s been times when I’ve questioned whether it was worthwhile to keep paying the upkeep on the site and blog – especially since I have these long stretches where I do nothing with it. But, ultimately, writing means a lot to me. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care if no one read me – I want my stories to mean something to people.

    For that to happen, though, I have to write the damn things.

    So. I’d better do it then, huh?

    How’s About the Blog, then?

    Oh, yeah. So, you might’ve noticed the new digs. I’ve changed hosting services, and, after all the work I put in over the last week to set this all up, I’m going to hit myself if I keep letting this slip through my fingers.

    I get into my head about it, is the problem. I often feel like I have little to add or nothing of note to say. But this is my corner of the internet. If someone doesn’t want to hear what I have to say, they can good and damn well leave, can’t they?

    And if you’re one of the ones sticking around, thanks. Thank you for reading.

    I’ll see you again in the next one.

  • 2024: Year in Review

    2024: Year in Review

    For me, it feels like the theme of this year was that I wish I’d done more. I read fewer books than I’d planned to, I didn’t play very many new games, I scarcely watched movies or tv shows. And I certainly didn’t write as much as I’d wanted to. It’s like I stalled out after the first third of the year, but we talked about that plenty in the Irregular Update a couple weeks ago, didn’t we? Despite a relatively austere year, I had the privilege of experiencing some media that really stuck with me, grabbed me, or inspired me.

    Let’s get into it.

    Books

    I had a much easier time burning through books back when I wasn’t working from home, to be honest. Taking them in to read during my lunch break really worked out, and often left me on some interesting cliffhanger that made it easier to read some more once I got home. With my current schedule, I only have a 30 minute break for lunch, and often don’t read during that window. (Exceptions were made for Wind and Truth this month.)

    Over time, I was excited to play different video games and hopped right into them when I was done with my shift. I played a lot of Warcraft following the War Within’s launch, and other games kept drawing me back like a magnet over the year. So it goes.

    I think, when I brought a book in to the office and didn’t have something else I could be doing, it made it easier to stick with things that weren’t grabbing me in a vise-like grip. I could muddle through something I had a middling opinion of just to fill the time. Couple books this year I grit my teeth and plowed through, and it might’ve proved detrimental to my desire to keep reading through the rest of the year.

    (I just need to throw my smartphone in a box and take a book into another room to get around this.)

    Anyway.

    Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

    This was a book I read early on in the year and it ruled. I loved the intrigue, I loved Gideon and Harrow’s fraught relationship, I loved reading about space necromancers. I’m looking forward to reading more of the series in 2025, and I can’t recommend this book enough.

    The Sunlit Man by Brandon Sanderson

    I got around to the other two Secret Projects back at the start of the year. In the afterword of the Sunlit Man, Sanderson called the project a book he wrote for his fans – where Yumi and Tress had been more as gifts for his wife. I have to say, as a fan, Sunlit Man absolutely rules. It left so many questions in my head, waiting for Wind and Truth. It had a breakneck pace and excellent action. It is, without a doubt, the most cinematic cosmere novel so far. A movie could be made from this book practically one-to-one and it would rock.

    I also greatly enjoyed Yumi and the Nightmare Painter and Wind and Truth this year from Sanderson, but I wanted to specifically celebrate Sunlit Man for the ways it’s different from many cosmere novels here.

    The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman

    This book is a lot easier to recommend than Between Two Fires. It’s a fun classic quest from the perspective of our eponymous thief as he’s taken on a march across the continent with a host of interesting characters and fun action. It was fun to read despite some grim details in the setting, and books that are just fun to read will be a balm to many in the coming years.

    Movies

    I think I went to a movie theater once this year. Whatever time I might’ve spent watching movies, I think I watched longform video essays instead – like F. D. Signifier’s many drops throughout the year, Lindsey Ellis’s nebula-exclusives, Matt Colville’s video about the Elusive Shift, and videos about movies from Patrick H. Willems. And I thoroughly enjoyed them all!

    Point is, I saw like three movies this year total, and we all know which ones I’m going to be talking about here.

    Dune: Part Two

    A cinematic achievement. An excellent adaptation. Incredible effects, an excellent story translated near-perfectly to screen. I love Dune, and I loved these movies. The way they’ve infected culture, with people jokingly calling their friends Lisan al-Gaib or Maud’dib or permutations thereof is endlessly entertaining. What more is there to say, really?

    Furiosa: A Mad Max Story

    Fury Road is one of my favorite aesthetics in modern fiction. I love the wasteland, I love the motorized bikes and buggies, and I had a blast with this film. While many bemoaned it as an unnecessary addition to the canon, when every minute of this movie is as awesome as this was, it needs no further justification.

    TV Shows

    I didn’t watch much TV either, to be honest. I had Netflix for exactly two months this year; I watched a lot of Peaky Blinders when I was running Blades in the Dark near the start of the year for inspiration, and I returned for one month specifically for the first show below (but ended up watching the second show on this list too, on the recommendation of a friend). I never got around to temporarily using Hulu to watch Shogun despite meaning to, and as much as I love Invincible, I do think it was hurt a little by splitting up the season. House of the Dragon? Woof. I hope there were some external circumstances behind that season’s ending, because that was a fine episode in a vacuum, but not as a season finale.

    Anyway, onto the good.

    Arcane Season 2

    Arcane’s final season aired a little over a month ago, and I’m still thinking about it – mostly the small moments, like those which filled the seventh episode. I remember the end of the first batch, with Ambessa’s plan revealed as the music swelled with the punctuation of the crowd beating their chests – what a moment that was. This show is so far beyond the gold-standard for animation it isn’t fair. It’s so premium in its presentation, I loved every minute.

    Delicious in Dungeon

    So, I don’t really watch anime.

    Look, it’s a personal thing, okay? It’s nothing to do with animation – three of the shows I’m mentioning here are animated. It’s … more to do with the common themes that exist in anime not being those I’m particularly interested in. Delicious in Dungeon (or Dungeon Meshi) doesn’t avoid these things, but I liked everything else about the show enough to get over them. The aesthetic of a classic D&D party delving into a megadungeon rules. The show’s got some problems with an inconsistent tone – it doesn’t want you to take it too seriously, but things keep happening that feels like they should be taken seriously. Without spoiling anything beyond the show’s very first scene – our hero Laios is fighting a huge dragon with his party when he realizes he’s so hungry he can’t fight. And it’s pretty funny – except, people are getting mauled in the background and someone gets full-on eaten.

    If any of that’s a dealbreaker, probably safe to skip this one. Otherwise, you might have a fun, zany little show to enjoy.

    The Legend of Vox Machina Season 3

    Critical Role continues to make inspired adjustments to their live streamed D&D game to make for a compelling TV show. There were some fans disappointed by the changes made to this specific leg of the campaign – from people disliking the stakes becoming more personal for our heroes, to a couple of beloved moments from the campaign not occurring as the fans expected.

    I, however, think there’s something to be gleaned from these adjustments. If you don’t want any spoilers, skip to the next section.

    So, one major criticism was the change to Grog’s delivery of “Fix him!” in the show. In the livestreamed game, Travis yells the words, shouting for Scanlan to be resurrected following his death at the hands of Raishan. In the animated series, Scanlan is unconscious after escaping certain death at Thordak’s claws, and the delivery of the line is much more subdued. There is certainly a lot of power and pathos in the original delivery – but perhaps it always felt out of place? Immediately after that shouted line, Travis speaks his next few lines in a more mundane register. Perhaps, with how much closer he and Pike have remained (with her not being absent for so much of these adventures) has developed Grog into someone who’s much more reluctant to scream at her – especially when she’s trying her best.

    The next major problem many fans had stems from the Bard’s Lament moment being skipped – at least, that’s the way it appears. There’s still certainly enough in the show to bring the moment back in season 4, but given the show’s uncertain future, they decided not to leave the team on such a bitter, tragic note. If this had been the final season, Scanlan blowing up at his friends and entirely withdrawing from the team would’ve been a rather sour note, and all of the ingredients for the moment are still there. Perhaps Scanlan will be hesitant to return to the party come season 4 – let’s give the team some grace, eh?

    Fallout

    Ella Purnell makes the list twice! This show was a good, fun romp through our favorite wasteland, and I’m looking forward to seeing more. The moment toward the end of the first or second episode where our heroine’s chipper attitude holds despite her needing to decapitate someone just really sells the whole vibe of the show.

    Video Games

    Much of my year was spent enthralled to my old staples – Warcraft and Deep Rock Galactic. I played a few new games; things I saw on the odd stream, a few anticipated titles. And I got around to getting a Nintendo Switch, more on that later.

    Balatro

    Last year, I had this long paragraph about how much gameplay matters in a roguelike game – about how if the game isn’t fun, it won’t work? Balatro has the sauce. This indie game from a solo dev blew everyone’s minds this year for good reason. Hell, it had an honest chance to win Game of the Year at the VGAs, and while I haven’t had the chance to play Astro Bot myself, I’ve heard a wealth of good things about it. Whatever LocalThunk makes next is sure to be on everyone’s radar.

    Windblown

    From the developers behind Dead Cells comes this little isometric co-op roguelite I’ve been enjoying with a friend. It’s been a blast to play, and every time I launch the game I can’t bear to skip it’s little anime intro! It’s still in early access right now, but I’m willing to stake my flag and say this will be one worth checking out.

    My Game of the Year: Tears of the Kingdom

    See, this is the benefit of being behind on some games. I get to celebrate Baldur’s Gate 3 last year, and the Legend of Zelda this year! I get to have the cake and eat it after all.

    Jokes aside, yeah. Nothing this year grabbed me half as well as Tears of the Kingdom. It was an excellent evolution of everything Breath of the Wild did, and the new tools were so fun to play around with. With some truly stellar cinematic fights and small ways the game broke the expectations it gave you, I loved every minute. Never would I have guessed how powerful a handshake could be. (If you know, you know.)

    So. That’s the year as remembered by me. Here’s hoping for some good media in 2025!

  • Third Time’s the Charm

    Third Time’s the Charm

    I’m not a particularly spiritual person, but I can see the appeal of something like numerology. You can do a lot with numbers to fit them into a narrative. They’re malleable and also observable.

    Growing up playing Super Mario 64 and Zelda games, three’s always been a bit weighted in its appearances. Throw Bowser three times; collect three spiritual stones to unlock the Temple of Time; you’ve got three days before the moon crashes into Hyrule–good luck, kid.

    We like making three significant. We like to see Threes. Trilogies, acts, whatever.

    But this post isn’t about magic numbers or video games.

    Instead, it’s about my books.

    The Third Book

    That heading’s a bit ambiguous, isn’t it? I released Ebonskar as my third book, sure, but I was working on the third Red Watch book first. I finished Ebonskar before completing a draft of A Violent Peace, but the latter is the third book in its series. That’s the numerology coming back around.

    And, truth is, those two are only two-thirds of what I had in mind when writing that header.

    Let me explain.

    So, Ebonskar. That book really grabbed me when it did. There was no way for me to get around it. It was all I was thinking about at the time – my head didn’t have space enough for it and Red Watch 3 to linger in there. I had to get it out first.

    And I’m really proud of it. I’m not just being a salesman when I tell people I think it’s my best work yet. It’s a good book – it’s not perfect, but the people who’ve liked it loved it. (So far as I’ve heard, anyway.) With Ebonskar, I felt like I crossed a new threshold in my ability as a writer. I can see the difference in its quality and that of my earlier works.

    Which, has caused some turmoil. Namely, that I don’t feel right selling my first two books anymore.

    Flipping through the pages of A Tide of Bones or Legacy is more liable to make me cringe than not. There’s some good ideas and such in there, yes, but my inexperience really bogs them down and makes what good there is hard to appreciate, even as the author of the work. Truth is, I fumbled.

    It was a lot of work to write a book. I didn’t want it to be for nothing; I didn’t want it to be a fantasy. I’d wanted to write my whole life, and I had, so, why not sell it? Right? I got goaded and I goaded myself into releasing it.

    If I could go back, I’d tell myself to wait. I’d tell myself to keep writing and learning, and to come back to Tide someday. Which brings us to today.

    A Really Dumb and Necessary Plan

    I’m proud of A Violent Peace. I think the third Red Watch book has some good bones, and I’m excited to hear back from my beta readers. Problem is, I don’t know how I can sell it if I don’t feel right selling the two preceding books. I have to find some way to be happy with them again to sell the series at all.

    Good news, though: I’m this whole business. I can do something dumb, something semi-self-indulgent, something necessary for me and I’m only affecting myself.

    So, effective immediately, A Tide of Bones and Legacy are no longer available for sale. They’re off the market.

    Until I finish rewriting them.

    My plan is to redraft A Tide of Bones and its sequel and release them again this year. If all goes as I hope, there will only be a few months between each book, and A Violent Peace will still be available toward the end of the year.

    This is the announcement.

    Strap in, readers. It’s going to be one hell of a year.

  • January 2024 Irregular Update

    January 2024 Irregular Update

    Happy New Year, everyone! Been a while since the last one of these, so here we are again. Read on for updates on Red Watch 3, the blog, and more!

    Did you finish the draft of Red Watch 3?

    No. Not yet. I hit a bit of a wall that seemed bigger than it was. Coming into the new year, I picked up a new habit (more on that later) that helped me work through it. I’m making steady progress again, working on the penultimate or final chapters of each storyline in the book to be followed up by the epilogues. It’s the biggest ones left, but I’m optimistic about completing the draft by winter’s end.

    Still unsettled on a title. I have a short list of some ideas for one, but I haven’t been enamored with any of them yet. As a peek behind the curtain, the front-runners right now are A Violent Peace and A Merciless Union.

    One more thing for Red Watch: in the upcoming months I’ll share something big here on the blog. It’s something I’ve been considering for a long time and once the draft for book 3 is done, it’s my next project. You’ll know more about it in a few months.

    Latest on the Blog?

    So, middle of last year, I started missing dates for my goal of two posts per month. I still mostly got one out each month, but inconsistently. One month I’d drop one a few days in, the next one it was on the last week. A handful of factors played into that.

    The first: when I hit my wall on RW3, I ended up hardly writing anything. I was expecting I’d get disrupted by some of my hobbies in the back half of the last year (Baldur’s Gate 3), but I didn’t expect it to the degree to which it happened. And I’m not blaming BG3 – when it came out, it was all I was interested in spending my time on. That isn’t a fault in the game (probably a credit to it, really). It just coincided with a time when I also had few enticing ideas for blog posts.

    I had drafted a couple posts, even, but I wasn’t satisfied with them afterward. I had one cooking about Starfield – mostly outlining my disappointment and a growing frustration with customers who wanted to say that the jank was fine because Bethesda used to make good games. I had another about Warcraft, but I ended up disagreeing with my own thesis less than a week after drafting it. (It was written on the week 10.1 dropped, when we had the next zone available, but not the raid or mythic+ season. At the time, I was unenthused with the prospect of spending another patch pugging dungeons for all my progression, but my friends and I joined a guild and started having a lot more fun again. Playing an MMO with a community works, who would’ve guessed?)

    There’s a weird problem with the blog. I like to write on a topic when I feel like I have something to say about it, but oftentimes, it seems what I would say has been said already – in a reddit post, in a video essay, in an article. If I don’t feel like I’m adding to the conversation, I wonder what the point of the post even is. Sometimes it’s worthwhile – with the political posts, those are battles we keep having to fight.

    When it comes to Starfield? What’s one more nerd’s article about his disappointment good for? Do I really need to write a post about how weird it is that the fourth Indiana Jones movie got so much criticism when the movies all seem to be full of shlocky bullshit? Is that something I want to go to bat for?

    The final factor: I spent much of the year running a Pathfinder game. As I discussed in my blog post on the system, it’s really solidly built. (Awesome for some, didn’t work out for me.) One of D&D’s flaws is the holes in its system that I had to fill in over the years with homebrew solutions. The latter (while worse as far as a professionally designed product goes) (especially one released by one of the biggest companies in the world) provided more opportunities to find problems to solve, solutions to work out. Thoughts that might be worth sharing with others.

    Anyway. I’d like to get back to two posts per month. I just need to figure out what I want to write about – what kind of things you might want to read about. Hell, maybe you’ll see a post very much like those above-mentioned abandoned drafts.

    What else is going on?

    Earlier, I mentioned I picked up a new habit. At the suggestion of my younger brother and following the example of my older brother, I started journaling during the last week of December. (I believe all successful New Year’s Resolutions begin before the new year does.)

    I’ve journaled before – usually to vent or when I couldn’t sleep. Now, I’m doing it habitually. No matter how inane or uninteresting my day is, I write about it. (And I work from home, so my days can be really uninteresting.) I journal about my thoughts, my plans for the day, where I am with my writing. It’s helped; a lot. I’m fully bought in. I’ve got two more journals waiting in the wings.

    Otherwise, I’ve slammed through some books since Christmas. I read Murderbot #3-7 (Martha Wells) and the Sunlit Man (Brandon Sanderson) in these last three weeks. I’ve locked up one full, uninterrupted hour to read every day when I finish my shift at work.

    I’ve been looking at the Blades in the Dark TTRPG, and I’m planning to start running it with my table in a few weeks. Really excited about the system. It’s hard to like Hasbro / WOTC right now, so I kind of just don’t. Makes it even more enticing to give it a run.

    Think that’s about it! I’m taking the risk to say I’m pretty optimistic for this year. I think it’ll be a good one. As always, thank you for reading. Good luck this year, y’all.

  • 2023: Year In Review

    2023: Year In Review

    In 2022, it wasn’t until September that I’d decided to make a retrospective post about the media I’d enjoyed that year. This time, I had it in mind from the start, and I jotted down little notes throughout about what I wanted to include. I’ve had some of the below on the list as far back as February (and my friends and family will recognize them, since I’ve talked them up all year long). As before, I’ll avoid spoilers as much as I can. Let’s get to it!

    Books

    As last year, I didn’t read as much as I’d hoped. I’ve played maybe a few too many hours of video games, watched a few too many episodes of TV shows or movies. I’m still figuring out how I want to sketch out my daily routine with my new job, but I’ll get there. Regardless, there were still several books the absolutely ensnared me and that I want to maybe draw more eyes toward.

    The Fires of Vengeance by Evan Winter

    I don’t really have a whole lot to say here; I liked this book just as much as I did the first and I’m excited to see more from Evan Winter. I think this could be one of those series that becomes mainstream as it gets more and more entries. With how much I’ve enjoyed this series so far, I’d hate to be wrong.

    Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson

    It’s been an amazing year for Sanderson, there’s no doubt about that. Perhaps the only people coming out ahead of him are his fans, receiving five books of his this year – myself included. I was unemployed when the kickstarter for his Four Secret Projects launched and I still made an incredibly silly financial decision and backed him. I’ve only read the first two of those releases thus far, and between them and The Lost Metal, Tress is my certain favorite.

    I think something that really worked here was the perspective of the book – most Sanderson stories I’ve read are in third person, bouncing perspectives on chapter changes or on scene breaks when things are kicking off, and I think the consistent voice really enhanced this book.

    Between my love for this and Scott Lynch’s Red Seas Under Red Skies, maybe I’m just a big fan of fantasy pirate books.

    Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman

    This is probably the best book I read all year, but it’s one I hesitate to recommend. It is a hard read. Horrible things happen to these characters, but then, of course they do – it’s a dark fantasy story set in France during the Black Plague, and Buehlman really makes it easy to feel the suffering of our tiny band of characters. He does not shy away from the horror of our history, and it is made much worse by the supernatural.

    Children of Time & Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky

    I wonder if I’m going to end up having an “off-the-wall weird” sci-fi rec each year. In this book, a scientist, Avrana Kern, wants to make a garden world for humanity to eventually settle. A utopia with genetically-engineered servitors and an impeccable biosphere, an Eden amidst the stars. Unfortunately, a saboteur tries to utterly upend her goal, killing the monkeys she intended to see the planet with, but rather than admit defeat, she launches her nanovirus anyway and it infects a surprising host … we witness some of their development over the course of hundreds of years, then a wave of humans eventually comes to settle the garden world, discovering things are so much different than they expected.

    And – wouldn’t you know it, this duology won a best series Hugo award this year! I was ahead of the game this time.

    Movies

    I saw as many new movies at home as I did in theaters this year – which is to say, I didn’t see that many movies. It isn’t that I don’t like movies, I love film, but going to the theater has become unbearably expensive and when I’m home, I usually gravitate toward games or shorter-form media instead. Despite all that, I saw a few movies that really mattered to me this year.

    Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

    I had a lot of fun seeing this movie and I’d love to see this gang of adventurers again someday – another heist, a dungeon crawl, whatever. We’ll see if anything comes of that. Hasbro continues to prove itself a poor parent company with layoffs right before Christmas this year despite D&D having a banner year all around (more on that later).

    Oppenheimer

    This is the first biopic I’ve ever seen. I wanted to give it a shot because I’ve been enjoyed every Christopher Nolan film I’ve seen and I was interested in the subject. I loved it. I don’t know when on earth I’ll find time to watch it again, but I know that I want to. The use of color and black-and-white presentation really blew me away when I discovered the reason for it.

    Puss in Boots: the Last Wish

    This movie released last December and I kept hearing praise for it all over the place. On a whim, once it showed up on Amazon, I rented it and it still blew me away with how fantastic it was. It’s an animated movie that treats its audience, kids and adults both, with respect. It’s incredibly stylish with crisp and beautiful animation. It was the first thing to be thrown onto my list for this blog post this year – hell, I saw it about a week before I started really getting back into writing, so maybe it was just straight-up inspirational for me.

    Music

    I didn’t include music on my list last year because I am perpetually behind on music and my tastes haven’t changed much from my teenage years. Luckily, they didn’t need to.

    This is Why from Paramore dominated my listening for several weeks when it dropped back in February. I had the album on endless repeat, especially Running Out of Time and You First. I’ve also been obsessed with The Adults Are Talking from the Strokes’ The New Abnormal since I heard it this summer. (Which, yes, is from 2020. As I said, perpetually behind.)

    Video Games

    It’s probably because they dominate most of my time as my primary hobby, but this feels like the real meat-and-potatoes of the post to me. Maybe I just trust my opinions about video games more than I do anything else since I’ve been playing them as long as I can remember. Regardless, here’s some of the highlights of my year and anyone who knows me will already know what my game of the year is.

    Core Keeper

    Survival games are hit-or-miss for me. If it finds me in the right mood, or it’s got a good story or good RPG elements, I can get hooked. But it can also have both of those things and just still fail to grab me. Core Keeper was a hit, right on target. It’s got a full release planned for next year, and I played the hell out of it for a few weeks this summer. My friends and I enjoyed it immensely, getting all the way to the hard edge of the progression curve right before their big biome update a few months ago. I’m glad to know there’s new stuff waiting for me whenever I get back into it. (And I will!)

    God of War: Valhalla

    It feels like Santa Monica Studio made an excellent little bonus game mode they could’ve sold for like $20 and they handed it out for free. It’s an excellent epilogue for Ragnarok, and it is what I’m going to get back to playing the moment I finish drafting this post (hopefully I’ll be done with its story when this goes up).

    Roboquest

    Roguelites put their gameplay front-and-center – if that doesn’t work, the whole game fails. They must be fun to play. And Roboquest is a freakin’ blast. The gunplay here is so immaculate and satisfying (I really love the comic-book style sound effects that pop up right next to your guns) that it’s a blast to play through. And it’s got 2-player co-op! Grab your best brobot and run-and-gun to your mechanical heart’s content! You will not regret it.

    My Game of the Year: Baldur’s Gate 3

    If I still had the time on my hands like I did when I was a teenager slamming through Dragon Age: Origins runs, I’d probably have six completed playthroughs by now. I’ve yet to make good on my goal to get all of the achievements (a few of them are contingent on a co-op run I have in Act 3 that my friend and I haven’t gotten back to yet), but it’s still my plan to do it. Even that new one for an Honor Mode completion. I can’t wait to see what Larian does next (and I really appreciate the post-release support. That reunion party was exactly what I wanted when I finished the game the first time).

    Well, there we have it. Farewell, 2023. As always, thank you for reading. Here’s to many new stories and adventures in 2024. Happy New Year, everyone.

  • May 2023 Irregular Update

    May 2023 Irregular Update

    Yikes, it’s been a while since I did one of these. I did promise irregularity, but 13 months … woof.

    Okay. Well, here’s where we are.

    Employed Again

    I guess the big news is that I have a job again right now. It’s a multi-month contract position that’s work-from-home, so I’ve got money coming in. (And not a second too soon, since my website hosting dues are coming up.) While this means I’ve got less time available, I’ve actually been writing more consistently. Financial instability was hell for my stress; maintaining the blog and prepping for my D&D game was about all I was good for.

    Hopefully it remains that way. My position potentially includes some mandatory overtime. I’m not at all fond of that idea, but we’ll have to wait and see what specifically might be expected of me. Everything should work out as long as it isn’t too disruptive.

    So, what’s the news on Red Watch 3?

    Well, first up, I hit my outline again and streamlined it some more. I cut another ancillary plotline from the book, but unlike last time, this one had involved some characters of Red Watch that I can use elsewhere now. I’m not upset about the loss here, either. It was a subplot that kept two people in Souhal, and removing it has also helped several other characters find space to behave more as I’d imagine them to.

    There was also several additional Point-of-View characters I’ve cut from the remaining plotlines. These were mostly from brand new characters that had little-to-nothing to do with Red Watch as a group. I had specific roles in mind for them when I’d created them, but they were bloating the story. Sometimes less is more and now I can condense these ideas down into the familiar characters we’d want to see more of anyway.

    What’s all that mean for the book?

    It’s still early days on my productivity here, but I’m feeling really good about it all right now. I’m sorry this one has been taking me so long, but the good news is that I can truly see and feel the ways I’ve improved as a writer since that first go at Red Watch 3.

    The goal at present is for this draft to be done no later than the end of the year, with the release of the book no later than next summer. The earlier I finish the draft, the sooner it will release. If I can start editing and obtaining beta reader feedback by fall, we’ll shoot for a release in spring.

    Oh! One other thing! Since my father paid for me to have a year of Inkarnate’s pro subscription, I set some time aside and remade my map of Amera!

    I’ll be adding this to the Red Watch page here on the website and my social media soon – but until then, you blog readers get the exclusive hook-up.

    As always, thank you for reading! Here’s to many more adventures to come.

  • 2022: Year in Review

    2022: Year in Review

    As we come upon the end of 2022, I wanted to take a moment to look back at all of the media I’ve enjoyed this year and talk about what I loved. Consider this a graduation of a “Ben Recommends” post, one plus-sized entry to talk about several games, books, movies, and TV shows that I didn’t devote an entire post to earlier in the year. Not all of these projects were released this year, but they were things I experienced for the first time in 2022. As always, we’ll avoid spoilers as much as we can, so without further delay, let’s dive in.

    Books

    I didn’t read as much as I’d planned to this year, but there was certainly no shortage of quality books that completely ensnared me. The craft on display inspired me to keep honing my own writing, to pursue the best I can manage and always improve.

    A Memory Called Empire & A Desolation Called Peace

    Arkady Martine’s Hugo winning duology was instantly one of the best books I’d ever read. I remember a moment – the first “on-screen” interaction between Ambassador Mahit and her predecessor Yskandr – that I just felt floored. Every time I pick up a Hugo winner, I find something, an idea or an impeccable presentation, some way to present a thought in a way that I hadn’t been able to consider or articulate myself, that just reminds me why I was so drawn to writing in the first place. I read Desolation before 2022’s Hugos were awarded, but I had no doubt it my mind it would snag the win.

    The Rage of Dragons

    I first picked up Evan Winter’s novel to read while I was unable to engage in my more persistent distractions, but I found it so gripping that even when I’d finally returned home, it was still consuming my time. Reading it reminded me of the way Game of Thrones made me feel when the show had been at its best, even despite how different the two tales are. The book is so deliberate, so consistent, that even moments that might drag in a lesser novel remained just as enthralling here. I can’t wait to catch up with the Fires of Vengeance and join everyone else in waiting for the next novel.

    Elder Race

    Adrian Tchaikovsky is an author whose name I’d see pop up on the fantasy subreddit time and again, so I decided to give Elder Race a try to dip my toes into his work. I finished the entire novella in a day, moving only when my spot on the couch started to become uncomfortable. Only once I’d finished did I set the book down, adding more of his work to my wish list for the holidays.

    Movies

    I only found my way into a theater a handful of times this year, catching The Batman and the new Marvel movies, and when I did sit down with a movie at home it was often one I’d already seen. Still, there was a notable exception that deserves a spot of recognition here.

    Knives Out & Glass Onion

    Say what you will for Rian Johnson’s entry into Star Wars, but the man knows how to craft an exciting mystery. I finally got around to seeing Knives Out this year, and I immediately knew I had to share the movie with my mother. It’s a wonderful film with surprising twists and turns all throughout, and Glass Onion certainly serves as a great sequel to expand the canon on Benoit Blanc.

    TV Shows

    There were a lot of new shows this year that I didn’t ever get around to watching. I’ve heard great things about dozens of shows, but never had the opportunity to check most of them out. Of what I did see, the two below really stick out as the best of the best.

    Better Call Saul

    I was a huge fan of Better Call Saul since the first season. Each time they finally got added to Netflix, I slammed through each episode, hungry for more. Peter Gould and Vince Gilligan worked a miracle, following up one of the best television dramas ever with a spinoff sequel, that, for me, surpassed the original. It’s a master class in pacing, in setup and payoff, in following through, even if it might become predictable. The final season stuck the landing, and I can’t wait to see what these guys do next.

    Andor

    If it hadn’t finished so close to the year, I think Andor would’ve had its own entire post. This show was something I’d always wanted from Star Wars: a gritty, grounded story about people rising against the tyranny of the empire. It isn’t afraid to take its time, to build clear stakes and show us who these characters are. Despite the darkness it is hopeful – things are bad, but there are those who are willing to fight, to build a tomorrow they will never see, so that things will be better one day.

    Video Games

    The video game industry continues to swing wildly between the best and the worst it can be. In the same year that we get Elden Ring and God of War: Ragnarok as examples of the pinnacle of what games can be, we get Diablo: Immortal, a blatant pay-to-win cash grab, and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet releases as a buggy mess with very little in the way of innovation despite being one of the highest grossing media franchises in the world. I’ve always been a bit of a patient gamer, only buying games on day one when they’re a highly anticipated release, but I still got around to a lot of games that were new this year.

    Vampire Survivors

    I was an early adopter of this tiny little game, picking it up at the start of February in early access. Very, very few games are as much of a value trade as this ended up being. For that $3 price point I got 54 hours of excellent gameplay, and they just released a $2 DLC that I’m excited to get around to diving into soon. For a while, I was keeping up with each patch and collecting the achievements as they came, but I hadn’t played since April until a couple weeks ago and I had a lot of new things to check out when I got back into it.

    Potionomics

    I was never someone who was interested in dating simulator games. I’d confidently skipped over them all, certain I wasn’t missing anything. Then, I saw someone playing Potionomics on a stream and decided to give it a shot. It had just enough of a game laid overtop that I bought in, and I enjoyed the game immensely. I stuck around for two full playthroughs to get all of the achievements on Steam and I have no regrets. I don’t think it’s completely changed my opinion on dating simulators, but if this team releases another one with another decent game on top, they’ve at a minimum earned my interest.

    Dicey Dungeons

    A friend of mine played this game on Game Pass and immediately knew I’d love it. That same day he sent me a gifted copy, and he was completely correct. This little roguelike battle game has been an absolute blast to play. The game gives you items to equip on each run that you use rolled six-sided dice to dismantle your foes with. There’s appropriately six characters to play as, each with their own unique dice interactions and mechanics: the warrior can reroll dice to get better results, the rogue wants lower dice values to unleash a flurry of attacks, the robot rolls each dice one-at-a-time with a hard cap on how much their CPU can handle each turn. With lots of comedy buried in the enemy profiles you unlock with each achievement, this game is overflowing with charm.

    My Game of the Year: God of War Ragnarok

    Ragnarok is a sequel in the most honest sense of the word. Everything about God of War (2018) is improved upon here: the gameplay is smoother, the systems are more developed with more options, things are expanded naturally, and the story and performances are top-notch. Elden Ring is absolutely one of the best games I’ve ever played, but Ragnarok appeals more to me as a person. It would be a lie to say Elden Ring lacks a narrative, but presentation between these two games couldn’t be more different, and I’m a sucker for a great story.

    There’s also something to be said for the difference in boss design in these two games. While you have so much more freedom in how you build your character in Elden Ring, there’s certainly a value in the way a God of War boss can have mechanics that require a specific answer to be dealt with. In Elden Ring and the Dark Souls games, what you’re capable of as a character can be so varied that I don’t believe there’s any mechanics in the game that the dodge roll can’t avoid. In Ragnarok, there was a boss that I needed to interrupt with a weapon throw, or a couple mechanics that I could use a specific arrow from my ally to interrupt, and it felt fantastic to go step-for-step in these dance-like encounters. Neither of these design philosophies is better than the other: what you gain in player choice and freedom in Elden Ring is incredibly valuable, while the limited choices you make in God of War can still adjust your playstyle, just not nearly as much as the decisions in Elden Ring.

    2022 delivered some truly incredible stories, and I couldn’t be more thankful to have the opportunity to experience them. I’m excited to see what new stories we can share with one another in 2023. As always, thank you for reading. I hope you have a happy New Year, and I’ll see you again soon.

  • The Witcher: The Lesser Evil

    The Witcher: The Lesser Evil

    Sapkowski’s The Last Wish is a favorite of mine. I don’t often reread books, but after the second season of The Witcher on Netflix released, I revisited this one. One of my favorite short stories in the collection is The Lesser Evil, and I doubt it’s a coincidence that it’s what Netflix chose to adapt for their first episode of the series.

    If you’re unfamiliar with it, I genuinely recommend picking up The Last Wish and giving it a read, or at least watching that episode of the show.

    I want to talk about something from that story that I’ve seen be … misunderstood by a few people. Something that’s taken out of context and bandied like it means exactly what it says. Major spoilers for The Lesser Evil below.

    The Context

    In the short story, Geralt arrives in Blaviken and reunites with an old acquaintance who invites him to stay in his home. On his way into town, Geralt came across a monster and slayed it. He hoped there might be a contract for it in the town, but there isn’t. He’s about to throw it’s carcass out, when some of the townspeople mention that a wizard in town might have a use for the thing. Geralt decides to try his luck.

    The wizard doesn’t want it. But he does want to hire Geralt for another monster that’s been chasing him. He talks about a Curse of the Black Sun, that women born during an eclipse are mutated, cursed, or possessed by demons. The wizard had encountered such a one, and tried to have the girl executed, but she escaped. He asks Geralt to kill her before she can try to hunt for him here, in Blaviken, and by her presence, lock him in his tower. Geralt doesn’t kill people for money, only monsters, and Stregobor pleads that he needs to compromise, as the wizards of old did when the curse first came around, and choose the lesser evil.

    “Evil is evil, Stregobor,” said the witcher seriously as he got up. “Lesser, greater, middling, it’s all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I’m not a pious hermit. I haven’t done only good in my life. But if I’m to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”

    Renfri, the girl allegedly cursed by the eclipse, speaks with him later. The legend behind the curse ruined her life, she was a princess, but Stregobor telling her family of the curse got her thrown out of the castle. She’s fought to survive, killed to avoid being killed, stolen to satiate starvation. She asks Geralt to kill Stregobor, as a lesser evil, and Geralt refuses again, saying he doesn’t believe in a lesser evil.

    “You don’t believe in it, you say. Well you’re right, in a way. Only Evil and Greater Evil exist and beyond them, in the shadows, lurks True Evil. … And sometimes, True Evil seizes you by the throat and demands that you choose between it and another, slightly lesser, Evil.”

    So Renfri employs the Tridam Ultimatum. Her and her crew are going to kill people at the market until the wizard vacates his tower. Geralt, panicked, rushes to the market before it opens to stop them. It ends in slaughter, Geralt forced to kill Renfri and her crew. Stregobor would have let them eradicate the whole town before he left his tower, and Renfri would not leave until she at last had her revenge.

    The Evil of Inaction

    Geralt, in his obstinance, didn’t act. Despite his sympathy for Renfri. Despite his existing disdain for Stregobor. It sticks with him forever. By not acting, he allowed a greater evil. By choosing to refrain, he chose a greater evil.

    It’s crazy how often I’ve seen the quote thrown around without irony. The story very clearly shows how that philosophy just doesn’t work. Refusing to choose doesn’t mean you are absolved – after all, you haven’t refused to choose, you’ve just chosen to do nothing.

    We can’t always see what all the consequences of our actions might be. We can only try and make our decisions with empathy and love in mind. Strive always toward good. Even if it means the most you can do is choose the lesser of two evils.

  • April 2022 Irregular Update

    April 2022 Irregular Update

    It’s been about seven months since my last update post. I do believe these posts will continue to pop up irregularly, but getting at least two major updates out in a year seems like a fair minimum to reach for. So, here’s how it’s been going.

    Where are you on Red Watch 3?

    Some mixed news here. Shortly after revisiting the project, reading through what I’ve written and my outline, I ended up making some major revisions. I caught on to some glaring pacing issues, restructured how I was planning to present the chapters, and ended up with an entire storyline that proved to be too much for the book. I hope not to leave that hook hanging, though. When I’m getting my completed draft into the hands of beta readers, I might work on that plotline as a companion novella – something similar in scale to Thuna, but it likely won’t be included in the book for Red Watch 3 as a collection. I’m still adjusting some stuff, finding out what I need to rewrite in the new draft, and more challenges could end up coming down the pipeline, but I’m making progress.

    It’s undoubtedly the most ambitious thing on my plate. I’m needing to be more considerate of how to keep the plates spinning with all that I set up in the first two Red Watch books and bringing everything forward in a satisfying way. I’m hoping to get a draft in the hands of my beta readers this year. I’m sorry that the wait for this book is proving so long, but I haven’t surrendered. Thank you for your patience, everyone.

    How’s the blog going?

    I’m enjoying it more than I thought I would. Being upfront about just writing about anything I wanted helped me open myself up to it, for sure. I’ve always been a quiet person socially, just felt like I didn’t have much of value to add to most conversations. But, building my own little soapbox on my website worked, since anyone who doesn’t want to hear from me can just … not be here? Easy enough.

    When I was starting the blog, though, my hosting service had a system for comments to be left on each entry and I was sad to see that disappear. I’m interested in some entries serving as a conversation starter, but I’m not trying to cross-post every entry here on every social media site. I never cared for them much – getting me to log onto my Facebook is like pulling teeth, and I use it specifically for book promotion.

    All to say that it’s good. I’m like the pace of getting out two entries a month, and I think I’ll at a minimum manage at least one. I will say most of my ideas right now revolve around D&D, and despite my passion for the hobby I don’t want that to be the blog. I’ve been working to ensure I don’t do too many posts like that back-to-back.

    Anything else?

    I’m planning to run a sale on all three of my books in May. I’ll, naturally, be mostly promoting Ebonskar as my newest book, hoping to get it into more people’s hands. So, if you were waiting for a sale to pick them up for yourself or as a gift, it’s right around the corner. Tell your friends! (If you want to.)

    As a more sore subject however, I decided to make another revision to A Tide of Bones earlier this week. Smaller in scope than what occurred before the release of Legacy, but something I’d been unhappy with for a long time. I’ve changed a lot as a writer and person since I worked on Tide and an early scene in the book wasn’t sitting right with me.

    I’m speaking, of course, about the scene with Lytha and the thieves. In the original version of the scene, there’s an implication of intent that I have now removed. The exchange is explicitly only about the money, now. The story ultimately was not improved by including that implication and in fact, likely worse for it. It’s something I have expressly forbidden from occurring in my tabletop games, and it didn’t sit well with me that it existed as an introductory moment for this character.

    As I understand, the change applies retroactively to the kindle version (unless you have the downloaded version and are offline on the device, perhaps?) but, naturally, old print copies of the text will retain the original scene. I include the mention here as almost a bit of future proofing – for if someone discovers the discrepancy of the scenes and wonders what happened.

    That’s about it.

    Thank you for reading.

  • Adaptation and the Witcher

    Adaptation and the Witcher

    Spoiler Warning: this post contains major spoilers for Sapkowski’s The Last Wish, The Sword of Destiny, and Blood of Elves, with potentially minor spoilers for the rest of the series, and major spoilers for Netflix’s The Witcher seasons 1 and 2.

    Here at the beginning, I want to make it clear that I am in no way an authority on this subject. I am not a professional critic, I am an independent author with three works. I have, however, spent my entire life absorbing stories. From early on in my childhood, my favorite types of videos games were RPGs. I spent more time on the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Dragon Age: Origins than anyone else I knew in my teenage years. To this day, I find most of my enjoyment in media in the stories that are being told. As much as I love a game like Deep Rock Galactic, it’ll never satiate my need for experiencing a narrative as something like Divinity: Original Sin 2, which I’ve played through about two and a half times since I picked it up last year (and it’s a long game).

    It was through video games I first encountered the world of the witcher. I’d seen praise for the second witcher game online and picked it up to play it myself. I slammed through it twice to see both sides of the major branching storyline and immediately told my brother he should give it a try. I received the third witcher game as a gift one year and it coincided with a week of vacation time I’d taken from work around the holidays. I played it every day for an obscene amount of hours, so entirely did it capture me (and so empty was my schedule at the time). I enjoyed it so much, I ordered the written works and devoured them. At the time, the series’ conclusion The Lady of the Lake wasn’t officially translated, so I waited for its release with excitement.

    When I heard news of Netlfix adapting the books, I had some cautious excitement. When Henry Cavill was announced as Geralt and it became apparent how much of a fan he was of the series, I was elated. And, for me, that first season didn’t disappoint. I was excited to see what they’d do going forward.

    Well. We have a second season now, and it’s … polarizing. That seems like the kindest word. Let’s talk about why.

    Adaptation: Changes Necessary

    When taking a piece of media and translating it to another medium, there has to be some changes. Things that are interesting to read aren’t as grabbing when watched. Tension that exists in a visual medium can be lost when read without expansion or alteration. It’s simple fact.

    But while change can enhance the experience, it can also be destructive.

    In season 1 of the show, there are many minor and major changes to the source material, some of which I find make the stories stronger. For example, the Question of Price short story and its corresponding episode Of Banquets, Bastards, and Burials. In Sapkowski’s short story, Geralt is at the ball at the behest of Queen Calanthe, who wants to procure his services for a task she will provide almost no details of. Geralt is reluctant, to say the least, as he has his own scruples about what he will and won’t do for coin. In the show, Jaskier invites Geralt to the ball, and when his reputation as a witcher becomes known, that’s when Calanthe tries to purchase his services.

    I like this change for a number of reasons. In the short story, it’s clear that Geralt has a reputation, but Calanthe thinks that with enough coin she can buy Geralt out of his morals. In the short story, she’s invited someone to the banquet she cannot be sure of, on a night that will determine the future of her kingdom and her daughter’s life. Geralt being present by coincidence and her attempt to gain his allegiance before Duny arrives, to me, seems like a smarter move for a queen as shrewd and calculating as Calanthe.

    And the end of the episode even has stronger characterization for Geralt. In the show, they maintain the consistency that Geralt has in the short story collections as to his disregard for the concept of destiny. He off-handedly asks for payment in the Law of Surprise at Duny’s insistence and immediately doesn’t want anything to do with it. In the short story, Geralt says that Child-Surprises are required to make witchers and he’s hopeful he’ll get one. I think this moment is monumentally better in the show than the short story.

    Other changes exist in the show I can at least make sense of. There’s a reason behind them I can understand after some thought. Another example from the first season, the timeline shenanigans. The short stories have no clue as to their chronology either, but there is a present-day framing device behind them all. In the show, I can understand their mixed timelines as a vehicle for having the series’ principal actors in nearly every episode. Yen’s backstory is just hints and speculation in the books, and expanding that for the show certainly is a sensible decision, as she’s going to be one of the most important characters. However, I do think the show didn’t need to be so secretive about the timelines. Having the background knowledge I did going into the show I knew immediately what was happening, but I think the confusion for unfamiliar audiences was unnecessary. But, again, I can at least understand why the show made that decision.

    Then there was the changes in the second season.

    Destructive Deviation

    While there are still changes in season two I can fit under the umbrella of “necessary for television,” there are plenty of others I cannot fathom. Most of my complaints stem from a complete departure from a character’s established personality into something entirely different, something so extreme I can’t imagine how they’ll reconcile the changes with the story going forward.

    The biggest offender is, obviously, Yennefer. Yen from the books would never begin to consider the idea of trading Ciri for her magic. Within days of training her at the Temple of Melitele she straight up starts calling her “my daughter.” She loves her unconditionally. In season 1, the show even set this up. Yen regrets trading her ability to have children for magic. She wants to enslave a djinn to undo that loss. Even consistent to the show, Yen considering sacrificing Ciri for magic doesn’t follow, at least not for me.

    This problem extends to someone like Vesemir. In the books, our old grandpa witcher has no desire whatsoever to put any children through the Trial of Grasses to make another witcher. Him considering in the show, however, isn’t entirely without reason. The show’s set up a new kind of monster entering the world through their monoliths, and needing more witchers to fight these new monsters, I could see Vesemir reluctantly trying to make more. But I don’t think he’d do it with Ciri. And, even worse, if Ciri’s blood is the key to making more, why would he let her be the first attempt when it’s very unlikely she will survive because of how deadly the Trial of Grasses is.

    How on earth can Ciri reasonably reconcile with these two? Yen in the books becomes a surrogate mother to her, but how can anyone trust someone who was trying to sacrifice them to an ancient evil for their own gain? I don’t think helping reverse the situation she caused is enough. And once she truly appreciates the danger of the Trial of Grasses, will she accept that Vesemir was so easily swayed by a child’s argument to let her try it?

    Even characters as minor as Eskel or Lambert weren’t spared the brunt of these changes. Eskel’s not a large presence in the books – he helps train Ciri in Blood of Elves, and I don’t think he shows up again. He’s in the games and he’s well-liked. They killed him in the show to elicit a reaction, but they did nothing to actually cultivate any attachment to this character. By all intents and purposes, he’s just another guy with the same name as the character the fans of the games know. He has an entirely different personality. It could’ve been a witcher with no name or a name invented for the show, and nothing would’ve changed. Lambert, in the books and games, is more of a playful prick. In the show, he’s just been a bully to Ciri.

    I feel the need to clarify that I do not fault any of the actors for these occurrences at all. I think they’ve done the best they could with what they’ve received. I don’t like that Yennefer is cursing every seventh word in the second season and using such inspired epithets as “Fire-fucker,” but that’s not the fault of the actors.

    I could go on and on about other changes to characters and plots (just ask my brothers and friends), but it’s more of the same as above. I just want to briefly mention a worry I have for the show going forward.

    Mistaking the Stars Reflected in a Pond for those in the Heavens

    These characters, after this season, are simply not the same as the ones in the books. That’s the full stop. They’ve been changed. It’s not impossible there’s a road to get them back to their book characterization, but that’s not who they are right now.

    The problem I am worried will plague this show’s future is an inability to accept this.

    The future seasons of this show will suffer horrendously if all the resolution for Yennefer’s actions with Voleth Meir and Ciri is a single meaningful conversation and some emotional music. And then they’re as thick as they are in the books? It will feel unearned. It will add negative value to the audience investment. Actions have to have consequences.

    The creators of the show have deviated from the blueprint. If they try to bludgeon their way back on track ignoring what they’ve done, no one will be able to trust the storytelling of this show.

    To borrow a line from Vilgefortz (from the books, as he’s yet to say so in the show), the show’s creative team is mistaking the stars reflected in a pond at night for those in the heavens. I hope only they’ll have the wherewithal to look skyward before the potential of this adaption is rotted out from underneath it.

    Thank you for reading. At the very least, it’s helped me to write this all out. I hope you’ve all had wonderful holidays and a Happy New Year to you.