Christmas has come and gone, and Mrs. Gamer and I have been consuming some more pop culture lately. The kids are finally on a schedule, and the evenings are relatively free.
Television
The Good Place
The first show that I've been enjoying recently has been rewatching of The Good Place. The all-star cast, out-of-left-field plotlines, and just good fun has been and continues to be a joy to observe.
Welcome! Everything is fine.
But we paused the rewatch at Season 3 when The Expanse dropped.
The Expanse
The best science fiction show in a generation is The Expanse. Based on a series of novels from James S.A. Corey, it rivals Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, WestWorld, etc. The realistic portrayals of gravity and the distance of space, the political machinations of the characters, the emotional impact of what happens and how the crew deals with those events... This is good television.
The first season is really slow if you haven't read the books, but once season two hits, it really gets quite good. Season three was one of the best seasons of television I've ever seen. When SyFy canceled the show because of production costs compared with viewership amounts, I was initially despondent. Then Amazon stepped in. Season four dropped on December 13th to favorable reviews. I was finally able to watch last weekend and was incredibly thrilled.
The showrunners took some liberties with the novels, condensing and combining characters, accelerating the pace of some events and altering the order of some events. Season four used a number of elements from the fifth book, but it largely stayed true to the fourth novel in plot and impact. My only real complaint is that the show is fairly short with only ten episodes per season.
The Witcher
Our most recent series is the Netflix original series, The Witcher. Starring Henry Cavill (who continues to demonstrate how being good-looking can make up for a lack of talent), the dark fantasy series takes place in the world of Andrzej Sapkowski's series. Although Cavill is exceedingly mediocre, the rest of the cast is great and the story material is amazing. Sapkowski famously hated the video game adaptation of his stories, but he blessed the Netflix adaptation and its attempts to bring this series to the screen.
The show has received mixed reviews with an enormous disagreement between professionals and viewers. Critics decry it as dull and uninspired compared with Game of Thrones. Audiences claim it's a faithful adaptation of the source material, gorgeous, and enjoyable. Netflix already ordered a second season.
Books
This past summer, I read the entire series of The Expanse novels (through book eight). This fall, however, I've struggled to finish anything. I'm incredibly excited to start reading The Burning White by Brent Weeks. The Lightbringer series is one of the most enjoyable series I've read in a long time. It's an epic fantasy with an emphasis on the politics of the magicians who perform various feats through manipulating colors and light. I've really enjoyed the character development and the plot lines so far, and I'm looking forward to reading this fifth book in the series.
I have a number of nonfiction works I'm enjoying as well, having recently finished the political memoir, Yes We (Still) Can: Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump by Dan Pfieffer. Lately, I've been reading The World As It Is: Inside the Obama White House by Ben Rhodes. Next on my nonfiction list is So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo.
Movies (Briefly)
Vudu is both amazing and dangerous. I'm looking forward to watching some movies that I really wanted to see and was able to buy for less than the price of a movie ticket. Heck, they were less than the price of a movie ticket in my youth!
Video Games
I absolutely adore GOG Galaxy 2. If you're not in the beta, I highly suggest signing up. It solves one of the biggest problems in PC gaming: the splintering of the platform. It's beautiful and functional and just a blessing. It recently integrated multi-platform friends lists. I highly recommend it.
I finally got around to finishing Marvel's Spider-Man on PS4 the other night. I asked for a few PS4 games for Christmas, and I didn't want this one sitting around at 90% completion when I started something new. I'd give it a 94/100 score, and mark it as one of my favorite games of this console generation. It's not perfect, but it's as close as we're going to get on a superhero game in a long time.
I honestly enjoyed the characters and plot development of the game. The epilogue was a bit silly, but the post-credits scene was enjoyable. My daughter loved watching the game, but she was terrified of Tombstone and Doctor Octopus.
My latest PS4 adventures have been as the post-apocalyptic deliveryman Sam in the Hideo Kojima magnum opus, Death Stranding. The bizarre game is all about human connection and how in the age of the internet it is essential that we maintain relationships in order to succeed together. There's way more to it than that, but it's a really fascinating work. The music is also amazing.
Last but not least for today, I should mention that my older daughter has really gotten into Dragon Quest Builders 2. It was a whimsical purchase based on a student recommending it. She said she played it with her siblings and her mom, and I love Dragon Quest XI, so I decided to give it a shot and put it on my Christmas list. My own daughter really enjoys it! It's a non-stop exercise in patience to watch her play it, as I frequently want to step in and help her, but I try to only do so when she specifically asks for assistance.
That's enough for today. I'm hoping to write more, but I'm always hoping to write more.
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