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[Books] February-April reviews

Last Updated on Wednesday, 22 May 2013 11:32 Written by Kadomi Wednesday, 22 May 2013 11:32

Yeah, so much for posting my reviews monthly. But I am back on track with blogging and hopefully back on track with reviewing.

Last year I did not reach my goal with reading 40 books so I scaled down for 2013. But I have been enjoying reading so much that I am more than on track for a higher goal, so up to 40 it went. I really hope I will reach this goal this year. My reviews will be a bit more compact, and I will include a link to each direct review written right after I finished the book.

February

Jackdaws by Ken Follet – This one came highly recommended by my SO who is a big Follet fan but for me it was just a 3 star book which on my scale means average, but nothing special whatsoever. It’s one of Follet’s WWII novels, about an unlikely group of British agents in 1944 trying to prepare the scene in France so that D Day will be a success. Too much build-up for the action, and flat characters failed to work the magic on me.
Cycle of Hatred by Keith R.A. DeCandido – You can barely call this a book, it’s so short. It’s on my to-read list to read all the Warcraft tie-in novels because with Cataclysm that was the only way to get all the lore. Thankfully that’s not been the case with MoP, but I still want to read. The book itself almost read like fan-fiction. Setting’s after WC3, about trouble between Theramore and Orgrimmar, and Jaina and Thrall trying to sort this mess out and to find out who the Burning Blade are. 2.5 stars, rounding up to .
The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan – Another goal of my list is to re-read all the Wheel of Time books and read the ones I haven’t read yet, now that the series is finished. I first read this book in the 90s, and my ‘re-read’ was to listen to the audiobook while commuting. World-building’s great, the female characters are still aggravating, and the whole Fellowship of the Dragon vibe I get from this book is too derivative of Tolkien for me to find it exciting.
Elizabeth I by Margaret George – Now and then I enjoy historical fiction, and I heard that the Tudor books of hers were good, so I went for this one. Incredibly slow-paced, this book is certainly not the full story of Elizabeth’s reign. It starts right before the Spanish Armada is supposed to invade and then covers the late years of her reign. Lovely prose, and I was moved by Elizabeth’s fear of death and aging. What else happened? I’d be hard-pressed to tell you. And yet, I enjoyed it well enough.

March

The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss – After a month of average books, I had high hopes on this one. They were only partially met. TLDR summary: I expected an excellent sequel, and only got a good one. I worry that Rothfuss will not be able to tie this series up in a way that will remotely satisfy me. And yet, the writing is fantastic, and the plot isn’t. tinged with bitterness, hah.
The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Countdown by Claire Ridgway – Free Kindle book at the time. There were so many references to her mother Anne Boleyn in Elizabeth I that I wanted to find out more than I remembered. This book is non-fiction and provides a timeline to Anne Boleyn’s execution. I enjoyed it.
Enclave by Ann Aguirre – Dystopian YA novels are all the rage, and Enclave is another one, the first book of the Razorland series. Our heroine this time is Deuce, a young huntress of the underground enclave underneath the former New York. I liked the underground moments best, but Deuce eventually moves to the surface. There are zombies. There are the standard tropes of YA fiction, like love triangles. Not anywhere as good as Hunger Games, not as good as Divergent, but still a decent read. 3.5 stars rounding up to
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell – I loved this book so much. For me it was outstanding historical fiction. It details the story of Jacob de Zoet, a Dutch clerk come to the colonies to make enough money to be able to marry his fiancee at home. In 1799 he is sent to Dejima on Nagasaki Island, the single place of trade between Japan and the outside world. Colorful, with fascinating insights into the Edo period of Japan, I truly felt for poor Jacob, stuck far far away from home, and his hopeless love for Orito, the Japanese translator, and her fate.
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon – Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, this book topped off an excellent month of reading. I loved it so much that I cannot recommend it enough. Historical fiction, love story, drama, horror, all mixed into one. Set in Barcelona after the end of WWII, the 10-year old Daniel is gifted a book by an author called Julian Carax. He falls in love with the book and tries to find out anything possible about the mysterious author. Over the course of the next 8 years, he learns the truth, which puts him and those he loves in danger. Go read this book now!

April

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood – Expected to love it, but was left completely cold by it. Interesting, but I wasn’t moved by it. A dystopian society of religious nuts in the Republic of Gilead that lead their lives by following the Old Testament. Our protagonist is a handmaid, which means she is a vessel to be impregnated by the male head of house instead of the barren wife. The glimpses at the society were interesting, but I think she’s done better writing since then.
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon – This book came highly recommended. I had seen it labeled as time travel story, which I had been looking forward to a lot. Unfortunately it’s more of a historical romance novel, and romance is just not my genre. It is 1945, and Claire is vacationing in Scotland with her husband. She stumbles through a circle of stones and ends up in 1743, just before the Scots rise up with Bonnie Prince Charlie. Meets a dude Jamie, falls in love, marries, has lots of sex. I did not like Jamie, and I could not connect with Claire. If you do not enjoy romance novels, stay away.
The Book of Cthulhu by Ross E. Lockhart – An antholoy of short stories based on the Cthulhu Mythos. Some stories were awful, some were quite good. None were outstanding. Some stories really made me uncomfortable, but I consider that a hallmark of good Lovecraftian stories.

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Just in before the patch

Last Updated on Tuesday, 21 May 2013 11:40 Written by Kadomi Tuesday, 21 May 2013 14:00

WoW Patch 5.3 is rolling out in the US today, and us Euros get it tomorrow. I for one enjoy the pace of the content rolling out, but I likely won’t say that when 5.4 comes out and we’re still not done with Throne of Thunder. But intermediary patch? I’ll take it! Mists of Pandaria is the expansion of the main, but my main didn’t really have anything to do, other than valor capping. Isle of Thunder got boring real fast, and I haven’t been back for a while. I just travel through on my way to Nalak or raid night. So what will I do in 5.3? Poke around the Barrens and see what Vol’jin is up to, for sure. I really am a big fan of lore delivery in MoP. I thought Dominance Offensive lore presentation was superior to Isle of Thunder, but that was pretty much because it was on a much grander scale. You traveled around Pandaria, infiltrated Darnassus, went to Dalaran. It was awesome. Isle of Thunder lore developments usually meant exploring yet another, dreary looking part of Isle of Thunder, kill many many trolls, left side, handle it. I greatly enjoyed the Taoshi scenario, but then I am a Taoshi fangirl. She’s very cool. Grey DeLisle is perfect for her, isn’t she? That said, Jennifer Hale should totally do some voice acting in WoW. How about the first non-atrocious sounding female orc? I’d dig it.

Do Pandaren get any cooler than Taoshi? I doubt it. Makes me want to roll a pandaren rogue everytime!

I am curious to see how the Kor’kron stuff in the Barrens will play out. When I first read about it at WoW Insider, I have to admit I thought ‘Oh wowza, they’re nabbing dynamic events from Guild Wars 2′. Which is nifty. There’s no denying for me that MoP got a lot of inspiration from the competition. More NPCs with voice acting, more story, more events. I’ll be curious to see how it plays out. As long-time horde player with a horde main since 2005, the Barrens are what I consider my horde homeland. I can still turn the music on, find a nice hill, and just gaze at the sunrise, misting up. I am that sentimental.

The Barrens. The oldest screenshot on my computer.

Of course with the events being placed in the Barrens, this means the ‘glorious’ return of the Barrens chat.

What am I looking forward to the most? Probably Heroic Scenarios. I hope they’re difficult but fun. The valor points reward is quite high, and I like the idea of bonus objectives for added challenge.

Maybe I should whine about raid difficulty more often

Just last week I used this blog to complain about Throne of Thunder’s odd difficulty ramp. This past week, we only had a raid on Sunday, so I didn’t have particularly high expectations. I am happy to say that I was completely wrong! For the first time ever we one-shot Jin’rokh. He’s nominally easy, and yet we’ve never been able to get him down without one, two or three wipes first. This time we actually got him down after two puddles, just bam! On to Horridon, who was a very smooth one-shot as well. Onwards to Council. On our firstkill, Sul Empowered and we got one Sandstorm, but this week he was dead before Empowering. Sul dying is like this huge weight lifted off the raid’s shoulders. Then we went to Tortos and two things happened:

ARC’s firstkill, May 19

I don’t usually pull DPS numbers like that.

So that was pretty awesome. It finally feels like our pace of progression is picking up. We managed to squeeze in one pull of Maegara and wiped at the 3rd rampage, but that made me cautiously optimistic that this won’t be so hard after all. Fantastic raid nights are such a lovely thing.

The DPS spec with 2 sub-specs

I am currently playing a dual-wielding frost deathknight. My mainhand is a 502 Worldbreaker’s Stormscythe off Jin’rokh in LFR, my main-hand is a 496 Kilrak, Jaw of Terror off Sha of Fear. Because I play dual-wield, my stat priority is that of the masterfrost playstyle: strength, expertise and hit til cap, mastery, haste, crit. According to Noxxic’s DPS Tools, no other spec scales as badly as DW frost. Ever since I saw that table, I have been depressed about my choice of weapons. In fact, I have blown many mogu runes on trying to acquire a 502 2H weapon, to maybe give Unholy a shot or be a 2H frost DK. But you know what? Noxxic’s DPS tables can go suck it, because I still manage to be top 5 on most fights in LFR. Sometimes even number 1. I am one of my guild’s top 3 DPSers, and our number 1 is another class that supposedly performs poorly, Windwalker monks. I have found that sometimes it is for the best to not look at rankings and similar and just play.

I will continue to be DW frost, because I am good at it. I know as 2H frost I could do higher single-target DPS. Yet the moment we have fights where I can cleave, and that’s still most of them, I get a chance to shine. My DPS on Tortos is only that high because there were bats, Whirling Turtles and Tortos himself to DPS.

I must admit I am not a fan of the two vastly different playstyles in one spec. Should Council drop their 2H weapon next raid, being a clear upgrade over my two 1H weapons, I still wouldn’t be able to use it straight away. 2H frost uses a completely different stat priority: strength, expertise and hit til cap, haste, crit, mastery. I have done the transition multiple times in T14, and it always requires extensive re-gemming and re-forging. It means replacing every single gem. I can’t just simply switch weapons. Is there any other WoW spec where choice of weapon basically dictates a different stat priority and a different rotation? Plus the use of a swing meter to actually play well? I can’t think of one. I myself would prefer if it was similar to fury warriors who can play either Titan’s Grip or Single-Minded Fury without different priorities. But alas, it is as it is.

Now excuse me while I go look into recommendations how to best make more gold with 5.3, because the blacksmithing PvP gear is finally slowing down dramatically.

Happy patch day, Americans!

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The Circus – PONIES

Last Updated on Thursday, 16 May 2013 11:55 Written by Kadomi Thursday, 16 May 2013 14:00

I think today is going to be an Erasure day. I loved that album, sure did. I am so 80s. As mentioned yesterday, we had free tickets to the Circus Roncalli, one of the contemporary circuses à la Cirque Du Soleil. They had a beautiful location right by the river in the park in Düsseldorf.

The entrance to the circus

The show lasted 2.5 hours, plus a 15 minute break, and despite my bum aching quite severely on the hard benches (free tickets didn’t get us plush velvet seats in the front, bugger), it was a fantastic show I would highly recommend to anyone who happens to be in Germany and in a town where they perform. Not that it’s very likely for most readers, but… My personal highlight was a group called Opening, trapeze artists from Kiev who all have giant mohawks. They were absolutely incredible.

Those were some power mohawks, I tell ya.

Roncalli doesn’t have any wild animals. It’s mostly artistic elements broken up by comedic moments. My SO, who is a giant pony-lover, had seen ponies in the flyer, so was all excited when after the break there was sawdust in the ring. And then we got this:

They were also incredible. I mean, really. I don’t get excited about ponies but…

Good times.

Wednesday is for LFR

I recently recruited my friend Fi and her husband to my guild. I am totally to blame for them playing WoW in the first place, as I gave them WoW as a wedding present in…2005, I think. Time flies. The two of them have never raided and I lured them to the dark side. Fi is now finally ready for raids, and so yesterday was the big moment. But I wasn’t there to hold her hand through it, so I did LFR with her to explain the differences between LFR and normal, Heart of Fear being the target raid. From all I heard she did fine, but sounded like a bundle of anxious nerves after the raid when I came home. I feel slightly guilty now because I feel responsible for her. Have you ever recruited someone to try raiding and then they hated it or did not like it as much as you expected?

I only did the first part of ToT on Yata, so today I have to do parts 2 and 4 for another shot at shoulders. Grrr, shoulders. I will be halfway through Revered with Shado-Pan Assault, so I know there will be shoulders in my future, but I want shoulders now! I hope queue times will be okay today. They’re terrific on Wednesdays, EU reset day, 5-10 minutes even as DPS.

Today shall also be the push to get the priest to Outland, but I need to get my pet battle team ready for Outland as well!

Thoughts on raiding difficulty

Earlier this week I linked to Zellviren’s post about how normal raiding is too punitive. I am now reading the summary of an interview that the Convert to Raid podcast did with Ion Hazzikostas, the Lead Encounter Designer. I am heartened that Blizzard is recognizing that the current raid model is not quite fitting the bill for more casual guilds. My quote of choice: ‘There is a group of players that wants to do group raiding, but they aren’t well served by the current difficulty choices. This would include the friends and family type guilds that don’t remove players because they aren’t performing at their best. In Wrath of the Lich King, 10 player normal difficulty raiding served these players well, but there is now a gap between Raid Finder and Normal difficulty.’ Unfortunately he then went on that they need to keep 25-man and 10-man difficulty similar, which is not so heartening. At least he admitted that the tuning going from Jin’rokh to Horridon ~~is a disaster~~ is not as smooth as it could have been.

I am not unhappy with our raids, because despite the multitude of wipes, we’re having a good time in fun company, much like Spinks describes in her latest blog post. I just wish the difficulty progression was more like going through ICC or Ulduar, with a ramp-up, without running smack into a mountain-side.

Board game updates

I got a ton of recommendations here and on Twitter yesterday, so now I have a bucket list of games for us to try. For anyone that’s also interested, here are the recommendations I received:

That should keep us busy for a while! I might try to go to the Spieliothek for some of those. It’s basically a library for board games where you can rent them for a very small monthly fee. As some of the more opulent board games can be quite pricey, it’s definitely worth a trip. I’ll keep you guys posted how boardgame progress is going.

Steam game of the week

I finally settled down on a choice what to play and went with The Longest Journey. An oldschool point-and-click adventure by Ragnar Tornquist, the mind behind The Secret World. So far I can say that the story and the characters are fantastic. Honestly, wonderful characters. You control April Ryan who lives in the 24th century, in a metropolis called Newport. She’s an art student jobbing in a cafe, plagued by particularly vivid nightmares. Around her, strange things happen, and there’s the mysterious Cortez, who seems to know more about what is troubling her. There are many conversations, and the characters are all very interesting. I have a fondness for the lesbian landlord of April’s, unsurprisingly.

It is however a game from the year 2000, and runs in a small resolution which on my screen means I get a tiny window in the corner of my screen. I will have to look into fixing that, because that’s no way to play. I mean, I don’t want fullscreen, the pixels would be an eyesore. Also, it’s a point-and-click adventure game. I suck at those. I am not ashamed mentioning I frequently have to use a walkthrough. I am currently in chapter 2 and have to get into a movie theatre. I got stuck and went to a walkthrough, figuring out I need items from April’s job and from the subway tracks. I didn’t spot anything in the subway station earlier, and it never occurred to me that I would have to go to other non-related locations to pick up items. Sigh. I hope I am not the only person in the world who enjoys adventure games and yet sucks at them.

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