My Review of "The Court of Broken Knives"

The Court of Broken Knives by Anna Smith Spark
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

First, I want to say that I definitely enjoyed this book. It felt a little bit like Black Company, but more modern and the first half of the book really captivated me with its world building. Of the grim dark series I have read, this is definitely up there for grim... which I appreciate when done well.

The political maneuvering of both the mercenary company which is the open focus of the book as well as court intrigue definitely hooked me right from the beginning and I am already in the second book excited to see more.

My only issues with the series so far are that the battles/fights are described almost as fever dreams and its difficult to know what else is going on other than killing (sometimes enemy, sometimes own people), which can be done for certain things, but I think starts to feel a bit repetitive and removes a sense of urgency when you repeat "killing...death...death..death"

If you are a fan of the First Law series, broken company, or the broken empire series, you will want to read this!

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Baldurs Gate 3 is a Masterpiece and I am only 6 hours in

I have been looking forward to Baldurs gate 3 since it was announced. A combination of Dungeons and Dragons and Divinity Original Sins 2 seemed like a winning combination and it is. Four of us have been playing a new campaign and two sessions in, we have already come to the understanding that there is so much customizability in narrative where different characters can opt to resolve an issue in a wide multitude of ways.

The most interesting story so far is we came upon a spider boss, a giant spider with underlings. It looked like we were going to lose and that we would end up as lunch for the beast. All of a sudden the monky in my party pushed the thing off a precipace on the cliff into what seemed like an unending cavern. While it appeared we had won, we didn't get any experience for killing the thing. The rogue in the party asked if I could pause it because he wanted to try something. He then jumped off the precipace also and fell to his death. However, when landing on the ground, he noticed he fell next to the spider. I then suggested we should use feather fall so that we could gently land next to the body and after a quick restart we did just that. After looting the body, we were set upon by giant scary minotaurs who killed us all. Thats how we ended the last session of the game and I am beyond excited to see what is in store for our party next!!!

Playing Dominions 5 Again

First of all I have to say that I have loved this game ever since I started playing. There is an indepth god design, magic system, character progression, monsters, research, and item system. You also have a number of different nations with unique units and mechanics. I am playing a 5 player multiplayer game (with 12 AI factions) currently with some of my brother's friends on a discrete server. Because the game is turn based, people can take their turns whenever they have time and then all the actions happen simultaneously after the turns are made. In this particular game, I am playing as EA Niefelheim, who are Frost Giants. My design gives the giants regeneration and though this normally would have meant I had a pretty solid start against independents and other factions, I accidentally had my main army stuck in a cave, frozen, and unable to move out of it. Haha, I will post any fun updates as they happen.

A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, #5) Review

A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As someone who saw the show first, this book is exquisite. It goes deeply into the plotting of Dorne, the many other characters around Daenerys. It is deliciously complex, and includes the many sell sword bands. I dont want to spoil anything, but some of it ends differently than the show and does a much better job at conveying that with nuance.

For a long time I have heard people talk about how the show goes off the rails and you can definitely see that in many ways where it differed from this book it lost a lot of the complexity.

I will say that Ramsey Bolton is far worse in the books than in the show, that its a shame how little Greyjoy characters made it to the screen, and that some characters did completely disappear after a while and never made it back in the Books, and now I want to know what happened to them!

All in all a brilliant read and I want to have faith to read the finale.

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Dune Spice Wars: Review

After spending several hours playing this game, I have to say that I was presently suprised. I thought it would be a game of massing and sending forces at the enemy like Warcraft or Dawn of War, but the game is much more of a combination of Stelaris and the Dune boardgame. There is politics (though basic when playing CPs) trade, technology, a balancing act between resources and trying to reach one of the many objectives, and a unique combat system. Early on, I found myself invading numerous neutral villages to utilize their resources toward my economic goals. Later, despite progressing well into the game, I never found myself with a huge army. I always had to balance where to send my troops at any given point with the conditions and many places I would get raided. In the deep desert, you lose supply, sandworms swollow units whole, and neutral raiders ambush you. Manpower or water supplies dwindle and you feel a need to keep expanding to prevent your enemies from one-upping you.

On top of everything, the setting is very cool for me because I got to role play as the Fremen and do suprise raids on the colonizing powers of the plan. While, I have yet to finish a game yet, I would love to end up in a 4 player game with freinds as I think the potential is really there (and this is only an early access game). Definitely recommend it for new players, though the first 30-40 mins will throw you right in as there is no real tutorial yet.

Larping as a Communist in Disco Elysium

Disco Elysium is a strange psychological thriller game where you wake up in a drunken stupor in the fake island nation of Martinique and cant remember who you are. Even stranger, there is a dead body hanging from the back of the hostel you are staying at. After playing for over 30 hours, I discovered I could be many things, a detective, a union supporter, and interestingly enough, a communist police officer. I know these things dont seem like they would jive very well, but thats the uniqueness of the game. You can engineer your psychology to match how you want to solve the mysteries inside as you travel through the rough streets of the urban decay of a post revolutionary nation.

You have to stake out positions like whether you should scab or even be a racist or fascist. Solving issues of whether a mercenary death squad member was a rapist or just an assassin, and throw your lot in with one faction or another to survive as well as to discover who you are. Meanwhile you are fed some of the most hilarious and dark dialogue of any game I have ever played. Facing off with snot nosed Scouse (Liverpool) hooligans, racists, tech enthusiasts, insect lovers, and karaoke fiends, there was definitely an eclectic bunch of characters. I would definetly recommend if you are looking for something very different from the action oriented games out there.

Review of A Game of Thrones (book 1)

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I finally began to read the book series after watching the show multiple times. To be honest, I was surprised at how much of the first book's dialogue and story made it into the show without changing, truncating, or shortening events. Books are always better than the film versions, but I am actually quite impressed at how minute was changed to adapt it to screen.


Some Spoilers:


Some of the interesting tidbits that were ignored or minimized in the show: the previous existence of a Clegane sister, the fact that Walder Frey is substantially older than in the show, the much more complicated Battle of the Whispering Wood, Robert Arryn (vs robin in the show), etc.

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