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A post that was not short
Jul. 21st, 2020 02:39 pmThanks so much for the comments on the last, short post. I’ll get round to replying to them soon.
So this post is mostly going to be about books (I know the sunshine challenge has been posted but I need to think on it). I notice that a lot of people have read, or at least made posts about reading during the pandemic. So I figure now I‘ve finished another book I’ll make a post on it.
But that’s to come later in this post.
Usually my book reading is confined to Star Wars books. I’ve got all the new canon books (bar the battlefront books which I still need) and I’ve been working my way through them. My pace hasn’t been terribly fast and it... varies. The last one I finished, Black Spire, I started late last year and only finished weeks ago.
Yeah, I’m not fast.
I think I’ve become kind of fatigued with them though. Mostly because, well, the tendency to be grim. I’m tired of things that focus on the Empire and the First Order and the atrocities associated with them. I was gonna get a comic book series last year, in the run up to Episode IX, but was instantly put off when the preview of the opening was the first order destroying a city. (It wasn’t as if it was a known city either.)
I was going to read Spark Of Resistance or Resistance Reborn after finishing Black Spire. Indeed I wanted to read Reborn when it came out, before Episode IX. But now I’m not sure if I will. I think my next book should be something else, set away from either conflict. Thankfully there’s a few of those I can read, so I’ll just consider which I will when I next consider what to read. (I don’t plan on book reading anything else this week. I want to read some of my Who magazine tomorrow before the next one or SFX arrives).
But I digress.
As established I’m not a fast reader, not usually. I’ve only read two books fast, both legs y Star Wars books. Death Troopers and Red Harvest both dealt with zombies and I read the latter in a day (the fastest I’ve ever read a book). So it’s a surprise that I’ve just read a book in under two weeks.
The book is the latest Night Vale novel, The Faceless Old Woman That Secretly Lives In Your Home. The book is about the titular old woman, a character who has been in the podcast for a long time. Not much was known about her (her name pretty much sums her up) although at one point she did run for mayor of Night Vale. This book promised to reveal a bit more about her and in some ways it did.
I’ll say it now, not once does it give her a name, nor does it describe what she looked like. The book I essentially five short stories, at different points in her life, starting with her childhood and ending with her arrival in a Night Vale. (So yeah, she wasn’t born there which was a surprise)
The story is indeed unexpected in many ways. It’s full of twists and includes a heist as well as a section at sea. But at its heart it’s about vengeance and betrayal and what it can do to a person. The desire for revenge becomes such a strong motivator for the faceless old woman that that becomes her sole one. Even when she gives it up, almost having a peaceful life, it comes back to her (in one of those twists) and it sends her barrelling back down that path. Down a path that would destroy her.
It’s sad really, seeing how much vengeance could consume and utterly destroy a person, so that years and decades of her life are wasted by it (and then her... un life). And yet it was just so... compelling. To a point where I’d want to keep reading. There were tines when I would sit and read whole sections in a day.
(It makes me glad I don’t have a real taste for vengeance because if Idid it’d certainly put me off. Certain people need to read it and get that message, though I suspect they’d miss it)
Even though Night Vale itself hardly appears in the book (only at the interlinking sections and end of the last section) it still builds upon the world. The ‘countries’ that Cecil mentions in the episode about his visit to Europe are all seen and mentioned, as is Night Vale’s sister city Nulogorsk. The supporting cast are pretty well rounded too especially her crew (and I love André, the charismatic ace character). It’s a shame that most wont be seen again, though I hope the order of the labyrinth gets touched upon again in the future at some point.
But yeah, now I’m gonna have a snuggle and do some daily stuff on Animal Crossing and then it’s magazine reading tomorrow (and, hopefully, watching more TUA tonight).
So this post is mostly going to be about books (I know the sunshine challenge has been posted but I need to think on it). I notice that a lot of people have read, or at least made posts about reading during the pandemic. So I figure now I‘ve finished another book I’ll make a post on it.
But that’s to come later in this post.
Usually my book reading is confined to Star Wars books. I’ve got all the new canon books (bar the battlefront books which I still need) and I’ve been working my way through them. My pace hasn’t been terribly fast and it... varies. The last one I finished, Black Spire, I started late last year and only finished weeks ago.
Yeah, I’m not fast.
I think I’ve become kind of fatigued with them though. Mostly because, well, the tendency to be grim. I’m tired of things that focus on the Empire and the First Order and the atrocities associated with them. I was gonna get a comic book series last year, in the run up to Episode IX, but was instantly put off when the preview of the opening was the first order destroying a city. (It wasn’t as if it was a known city either.)
I was going to read Spark Of Resistance or Resistance Reborn after finishing Black Spire. Indeed I wanted to read Reborn when it came out, before Episode IX. But now I’m not sure if I will. I think my next book should be something else, set away from either conflict. Thankfully there’s a few of those I can read, so I’ll just consider which I will when I next consider what to read. (I don’t plan on book reading anything else this week. I want to read some of my Who magazine tomorrow before the next one or SFX arrives).
But I digress.
As established I’m not a fast reader, not usually. I’ve only read two books fast, both legs y Star Wars books. Death Troopers and Red Harvest both dealt with zombies and I read the latter in a day (the fastest I’ve ever read a book). So it’s a surprise that I’ve just read a book in under two weeks.
The book is the latest Night Vale novel, The Faceless Old Woman That Secretly Lives In Your Home. The book is about the titular old woman, a character who has been in the podcast for a long time. Not much was known about her (her name pretty much sums her up) although at one point she did run for mayor of Night Vale. This book promised to reveal a bit more about her and in some ways it did.
I’ll say it now, not once does it give her a name, nor does it describe what she looked like. The book I essentially five short stories, at different points in her life, starting with her childhood and ending with her arrival in a Night Vale. (So yeah, she wasn’t born there which was a surprise)
The story is indeed unexpected in many ways. It’s full of twists and includes a heist as well as a section at sea. But at its heart it’s about vengeance and betrayal and what it can do to a person. The desire for revenge becomes such a strong motivator for the faceless old woman that that becomes her sole one. Even when she gives it up, almost having a peaceful life, it comes back to her (in one of those twists) and it sends her barrelling back down that path. Down a path that would destroy her.
It’s sad really, seeing how much vengeance could consume and utterly destroy a person, so that years and decades of her life are wasted by it (and then her... un life). And yet it was just so... compelling. To a point where I’d want to keep reading. There were tines when I would sit and read whole sections in a day.
(It makes me glad I don’t have a real taste for vengeance because if Idid it’d certainly put me off. Certain people need to read it and get that message, though I suspect they’d miss it)
Even though Night Vale itself hardly appears in the book (only at the interlinking sections and end of the last section) it still builds upon the world. The ‘countries’ that Cecil mentions in the episode about his visit to Europe are all seen and mentioned, as is Night Vale’s sister city Nulogorsk. The supporting cast are pretty well rounded too especially her crew (and I love André, the charismatic ace character). It’s a shame that most wont be seen again, though I hope the order of the labyrinth gets touched upon again in the future at some point.
But yeah, now I’m gonna have a snuggle and do some daily stuff on Animal Crossing and then it’s magazine reading tomorrow (and, hopefully, watching more TUA tonight).
