Mike Muir Puns

Thanks to all appropriate publishers for the ARCs

#Seven of Infinities by Aliette de Bodard

Another fun novella from someone who is rapidly shifting from “author I really like” to “one of my favorite authors.” De Bodard is just always so creative, distinct, and evocative, at this point I’d be excited to read the back of a shampoo bottle if it was written by her. And I’d assume there’s some interesting bits of Vietnamese culture sprinkled among the ingredients.

This is something between a murder mystery and a heist story. The main protagonist is a tutor, talented but from a lower-class family, helping a young wealthy woman prepare for the civil service examinations. The other main protagonist is someone she knows from her poetry club, the holographic (or something) avatar of a sentient starship. Both the tutor and the mindship have a secret, and both are so caught up in their own secret that it takes them a long time to consider that maybe the other is hiding something of her own.

The stakes rise early on, when the tutor’s student has an unknown visitor who promptly drops dead in their sitting room.

The mystery of what is going on is fine, but what really shines is the setting (de Bodard is absolutely brilliant at settings) and the relationship between the tutor and the mindship. Another gift of de Bodard’s is writing books about relationships between very, very unequal beings (check out In the Vanishers’ Palace for a great story featuring a relationship between a village girl and a dragon).

#Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower by Tamsyn Muir

Princess Floralinda has been imprisoned by a witch at the top of a 40-story tower, with a different monster on each of the 39 levels below her. The problem is that none of the princes who come to rescue her manage to make it past the dragon on level 1, and the once-steady stream of princes seems to have petered out, and winter is approaching… So it’s up to Floralinda to find her own way out of the tower. She has to fight, sneak, or trick her way past all 39 monsters, but that’s the sort of thing that princes are for, not princesses. Luckily she’s got the help of a somewhat unwilling bottom-of-the-garden fairy to advise her.

This novella is more or less what one would expect if a fairy tale were written by the author of Gideon the Ninth, because that’s literally exactly what it is. Go read it, it’s wonderful in every way.

#Take a Look at the Five and Ten by Connie Willis

A Christmas novella from

the battle royale of characters who just wanted a Pepsi/coffee/piece of cake

I made this same kind of post last year and while it's a bit premature. I don't think I'll be finishing anything else by the end of the year, though there's a chance I'll squeeze in the last Skyward Novella depending on how I spend the final hours of the year, in which case it will be added

This year I had a bit less opportunity to read (hence it's down by 10), but I think I still made good use of that time. Somehow my audiobook count went up by 6 on the other hand, Maybe because I spend more time gaming this year or maybe because some of them were shorter on average than last year. It's difficult to say without digging deep. As you can see my main re-read project this year was Harry Potter (last year it was the Dresden Files). I'm considering The First Law for next year and I'm surely going to do LotR. I try not to re-read novels too often, but sometimes I really need a confirmed-to-good book.

I mostly stick to fantasy, but I mix in a fair share of sci-fi, a little thriller and mystery (in this case a lot since I did all of Sherlock this year), historical, and I'm pleased to say I actually had one autobiography as well, which is very unlike me but who can resist Westley himself reading about the making of The Princess Bride along with other cast guests?

Anyways, just like last year I've rated everything out of 5. I wouldn't say they're definitive rankings unless I decide to go in with a fine-toothed comb and adjust them relative to my enjoyment of all of the other ones that year, but the general ratings should be somewhat close to my general opinion of the novels. I will note however that I'm probably a bit too generous with my ratings, as many wind up in the 3.5+ range, when with anime (of which I've seen 250 titles this year, which is up by quite a lot) I rate it far harsher. I'd say more deserve to get pulled down a bit rather than up, but that's likely not true in every case and I'd love it if everything I tried from any medium was good or better, but you never know until you try it. Without further ado here's my list.

Audiobooks:

1. The Crimson Queen by Alec Hutson 3.9/5

2. The Silver Sorceress by Alec Hutson 3.5/5

3. The Shadow King by Alec Hutson 3.6/5

4. The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy 2.1/5

5. American Gods by Neil Gaiman 3.7/5

6. Armor by John Steakly 3.85/5

7. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell by Susanna Clarke 4.45/5

8. John Uskglass and the Cumbrian Charcoal Burner by Susanna Clark (short story) 3.85/5

9. Free the Darkness

Comment below. Upvotes on first comments count as votes.

^(I'll tally the results. I'm looking to pad my reading list for 2022. Thanks.)

Stadium: The Rec

15 Tom de Glanville, 14 Anthony Watson, 13 Jonathan Joseph, 12 Max Ojomoh, 11 Will Muir, 10 Danny Cipriani, 9 Ollie Fox; 1 Beno Obano, 2 Tom Dunn, 3 Will Stuart, 4 Josh McNally, 5 Charlie Ewels (c), 6 Miles Reid, 7 Sam Underhill, 8 Josh Bayliss

Replacements: 16 Jacques du Toit, 17 Lewis Boyce, 18 D’Arcy Rae, 19 Mike Williams, 20 Tom Ellis, 21 Max Green, 22 Orlando Bailey, 23 Ruaridh McConnochie

15 Alex Goode, 14 Sean Maitland, 13 Alex Lozowski, 12 Nick Tompkins, 11 Max Malins, 10 Owen Farrell (c), 9 Aled Davies; 1 Mako Vunipola, 2 Jamie George, 3 Marco Riccioni, 4 Maro Itoje, 5 Tim Swinson, 6 Nick Isiekwe, 7 Ben Earl, 8 Billy Vunipola

Replacements: 16 Tom Woolstencroft, 17 Eroni Mawi, 18 Vincent Koch, 19 Andy Christie, 20 Sean Reffell, 21 Ivan van Zyle, 22 Dom Morris, 23 Rotimi Segun

Referee: Jack Makepeace (8th Premiership game).

Assistant Referees: Anthony Woodthorpe & Paul Dix.

TMO: Andrew Jackson.

#Background

Baseball has always been a connective tissue between my father and I. I was raised as a Cubs fan and Wrigley Field became the ballpark I visited most often. Wrigley Field felt special to me because, as I would learn, it largely looked the same as when my father went to games when he was younger...save for some flood lights on the roof. At some point, after visiting Wrigley Field and then seeing the Cubs play away games in ballparks that were each unique in various ways, I began a dream about seeing a game at every MLB park. While it may have taken me a long time, I am proud to say that I finally fulfilled that dream and saw a home game for every MLB team.

Some administrative notes: For the duration of this project, I was either working full time or going to school full time, plus I had to pay for everything out of pocket. I was sidelined by life events, rain postponements, and a global pandemic. Consequently, I had to chip away at this goal little by little over time. For those keeping score at home, I decided that my goal would be to see a home game for every MLB team as opposed to making the goal seeing every ballpark and forever be chasing an uncompleted list as stadiums come and go. The only current MLB stadium I have not visited is Globe Life Field in Texas because I visited its predecessor. While I have been to a handful of minor league ballparks, my stadium journey remained strictly a major league pursuit and I do not intend to reopen the project until the oft-mentioned expansion occurs and there are new MLB teams. Finally, I did work in two separate visits to Cooperstown to see the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Now having been to a home game for all 30 MLB teams, I could not resist the urge to rank them against one another. Below is the list - no scientific scoring method, just straight from my ever-growing gut. Arbitrary ranking aside, I believe my list retains a consistency with the type of characteristics I appreciated in ballparks. Like any rankings list, I know everyone has different perspectives and life experiences, so I am sure there will be some disagreements and discussions to be had.

tl;dr: I like ballparks. I have a hokey explanation for why I like ballparks. I have now seen a home game for each MLB team and, in efforts to provide some off-season content, I have ranked the ballparks for your ridicule below.

#Rankings

1. Oracle Park (San Francisco Giants)

The setting is what gives this ballpark

A bit of context for what I’m doing here in case you haven’t seen the earlier threads. Over the course of 2021, I read the entire Best Horror of the Year series and made a series of posts where I posted some brief, informal thoughts and reviews on the various short stories of the series that I really loved. I had fun doing it, and between the Best Horror threads and a similar thread I made covering a couple of Thomas Ligotti short story collections, I realized that I found it to be a pretty fun exercise. I also realized I had a bunch of short story collections and anthologies I had made plans to read over my holiday break, so I figured that I would try doing it some more. So, here we are. I’m going to read some collections and anthologies over the break, and every week or two I’m going to make a post about the ones I read and what I thought about the stories (in order to avoid cluttering up horrorlit with an excessive amount of posts). I hope you enjoy my ramblings, or at least that you come away with some new additions to your TBR pile. Here goes.

EDIT: I updated this post to include links to places you can purchase each book I discussed here. The links I included are directly to the publishers' websites since I prefer to support indie publishers when possible. Amazon is much more easily searchable if you want/prefer/need to use it, so links there are not included.

Cinema Viscera (edited by Sam Richard)

So, we’re starting off with something of a last-minute addition. I was planning to read something else from the library in my hometown, remembered that it’s also available in the library near my college, and decided “eh, fuckit, it can wait.” While browsing Hoopla, I stumbled upon a bunch of books published by Weirdpunk Books (the folks who published Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and The New Flesh: A Literary Tribute to David Cronenberg), and this was among them. I think I might have seen one or two posts about Cinema Viscera on Twitter, and I like movie stuff, so I figured I’d give it a shot.

Cinema Viscera is an anthology of five short stories, each one focused on a movie theater (or some other place where movies are shown) as the centerpiece of the horror. The introduction by Sam Richard says that he was expecting himself and the other authors to go for a sort of fun 80s horror vibe, but that instead the five of them went to some dark, gruesome, personal places instead, with horror stories dealing with topics like te

Thanks for all that contributed, it wasn't the most precise method, but here are the results.

Original Post

Bath visit Bristol at Ashton Gate

Referee: Ian Tempest

Bristol Team:

15. Charles Piutau, 14. Ioan Lloyd, 13. Piers O’Conor, 12. Sam Bedlow, 11. Henry Purdy; 10. Callum Sheedy, 9. Harry Randall; 1. Yann Thomas, 2. Will Capon, 3. Kyle Sinckler, 4. Ed Holmes, 5. Joe Joyce, 6. Chris Vui, 7. Jake Heenan, 8. Steven Luatua (c).

Replacements: 16. Jake Kerr, 17. Jake Woolmore, 18. Max Lahiff, 19. Fitz Harding, 20. Dan Thomas, 21. Andy Uren, 22. Antoine Frisch, 23. Alapati Leiua.

Bath Team: 15 Tom de Glanville, 14 Semesa Rokoduguni, 13 Jonathan Joseph, 12 Max Ojomoh, 11 Will Muir, 10 Orlando Bailey, 9 Ollie Fox; 1 Beno Obano, 2 Jacques du Toit, 3 Will Stuart, 4 Josh McNally, 5 Charlie Ewels (c), 6 Tom Ellis, 7 Sam Underhill, 8 Josh Bayliss

Replacements: 16 Tom Dunn, 17 Lewis Boyce, 18 D’Arcy Rae, 19 Mike Williams, 20 Miles Reid, 21 Max Green, 22 Max Clark, 23 Anthony Watson