Another month has passed, so another opportunity for some reviews.
Books
I read Kameron Hurley’s God’s War this past month. The story is about a woman called Nyx. The story starts with her being kicked out of the ‘Bel Dame’ order, a group of government bounty hunters, and going into business for herself with a turncoat magician called Rhys and a small team of mercenaries. They get tangled up in a bounty hunt for an alien trader who has gone missing.
Did that sound a bit confusing? Well, it was a bit confusing at times; it took me a while to get into this book. It’s a good read, and it avoids the cliché of the white male anti-hero, but the story is somewhat confusing. The plot is a bit overcomplicated in my opinion, given the already complicated science fiction setting.
I did not really like Nyx at the beginning of the story, but I was routing for her in the end, which is a plus in my book. So, go read it.
Television series
I recently finished season one of the new Constantine series, which was a lot better than I’d initially thought. The pilot is very badly paced, but the rest of the episodes were cool. We kept score of how many lives Chas the sidekick lost, as opposed to Henry Morgan from Forever, and Chas was in the lead most of the time. Interesting, considering Forever’s gimmick is that Henry Morgan returns to life when dying, and Chas is just a side character in Constantine.
Anyway, great performance by Matt Ryan, and I’m not just saying that because he also voices the main character in Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag.
Video Games
I spent exactly 100 hours on Dragon Age: Inquisition. That makes it the game I’ve played the most in the past two years. All my problems with part 1 and 2 were not present in this one. My wife measures my enjoyment of a game by how much I swear at it, and I hardly did so during those 100 hours.
What appeals to me in these games is usually not the main character, because they’re a blank slate, but the companions. There are nine of them in Inquisition, and they all have an interesting back story, which you learn as you move through the game.
The main story is also okay, and at the very least not broken like in Dragon Age 2. And after three games, the world has taken on a life and history of its own, which I always find exciting – and is which partially why I loved Mass Effect as well.
