Name Forthcoming: Early February Update

Hi. It's been a whole week, I know. I'm honestly not sure where the time went, as I have certainly not been doing anything productive. In fact looking back, it doesn't look like I've done much of anything.

Weaveworld's spine was already cracked when I bought in the Grim Bookshop.
Which I did a post on Here. Pretty good shop.

Also, reading and shelf copy of Time and the Gods,

in case you're wondering why there are two of 'em. Got the older one in a lot sale online.

Incidentally, this one has instead of the customary G, the M from when the Fantasy Masterworks were still under the Millenium imprint.

I have three of those, in case you're interested. I submit the picture here because I read something, somewhere, sometime, where someone wondered if there were any of these in actual existence, and there were pretty firm negatory responses to that question.

But eh. Yes. Yes, there are.

I've been reading Weaveworld on and off, but that's stalling, partially due to a lack of immersion. I'm actively letting it slide right now (though it will be done by the end of the week) because the read isn't going that great. I'm not sure why it hasn't been clicking, and it could be a response to an excess of imagination on Barker's part.
What, I hear you say?
Yes, I respond: Barker packs the novel with so much fantastical imagery it can be very hard to keep up with what's on display. There are rules, naturally, as to how this all works and fits together, but nothing settles for long enough to get comfortable. There also might not be enough build-up to do the story, setting, characters and imagery justice. That OR, I'm just extremely worn-out.
And I'm pretty sure it's actually this. I feel like I've been crashing for some time. Don't want to go too much into that right now. It's the mental stability thing and how it's gotten very wobbly. It's not depression though. It's just something that leaves me with an inability to deal with much right now. So to deal with that I'm easing off the throttle. It's resulted in me diminishing my working hours in order to try and find a balance somewhere.
For now, it's not doing much for me, but hey... here's a post right now, so it must be doing something, right?

The Time and the Gods Fantasy Masterwork short story collection is nearing its end, with practically only the Gods of Pegana being left. So far it's been a mixed bag, I have the feeling that both Books of Wonder have been mostly hit and miss. The best stories are in the earlier books in any case. And since Pegana was actually the earliest published short story in this collection I'm looking forward to this one, but for now I've still got about 5 of the Last book of Wonder short stories to go.

In the wake of the Next Testament post, I'm also continuing my Paradise Lost exploration, which got away from me after I blogged about book 2 last year. I'll be making a concerted effort to dedicate time to that this year, and so far it's been going good (I think). I've started reading and putting together my thoughts on book 3, which seems to contain the bulk of Milton's 'justifying the ways of God to men', and it's pretty much what I expected.
Putting together the reasoning here I'm very much reminded of the third Road of Faith post, where I tackled my expectations and conjectures on the finale to the Aspect Emperor cycle. It's actually quite surprising to see how close those are starting to align.
The 'Justifying' would always be the thing that I would be taking my time for, as it's something that I wanted to get absolutely right, but it's surprising to find that most of what I'm reading seems to correspond so closely with my once-held beliefs. But, as Milton was a protestant this maybe shouldn't have been so unexpected.

In gaming news, I finished Watch Dogs 2, which was stupid, silly, cringe-inducing and very good at the same time.

Here's a little outtake of about 70 percent into the game where the main characters just go somewhere and bond, have a time-out. Half the time the game is just over-the-top silliness, with the gadgets, guns and techno-conspiracy, but here, in the quiet, you get to notice just how good the dialogue can be and how cleverly and how, almost insidiously, Ubisoft starts to make you care about this thing they've built. On top of that, as you can hear, the music is quite pleasant, the Dedsec playlist especially.

I've also, on a whim, bought the complete edition for The Surge, and that's been pretty cool, albeit very confusing in its level layout. I've been pretty much playing only this today (and starting from today) and doing nothing else, because I knew I wasn't going to get anything done that I wanted to do. It's a very moody and brutal souls-like with a semi-open sci-fi world, which was what I was looking for. I've been having a hankering for sci-fi of late. Very unusual.

Here's a slice of gameplay, nothing much special and certainly no bosses (as the only one I killed was quite a tough bastard, and as a result that fight ended up not looking pretty... at all), but there's some cool moments nonetheless. No good ending though, as there's more of a focus on gameplay than storytelling here, the darkness and the occasional bloodcurdling scream do provide for a very good atmosphere though.

On my home trainer I've just passed the season 7 opening of the Walking Dead. You know, the one where Negan introduces himself properly.
I must say, for some reason, it didn't hit me that hard.And it really should have. I've known that this scene was coming since before I even watched episode 1 way back when but still, it should have done a little bit more to me. It's a shocking and painful episode, but it just didn't get me as much as I expected. I'll just ascribe it to the same thing that's negatively impacting my Weaveworld read. A worrying trend. I really need to bring myself back on a stable plane.

And to end on a pleasant note in background curiosities, while reading said novel, the world of the Weave, I perused some interviews with Clive Barker and it struck me how much he resembles Toby Stephens' depiction of captain Flint in Black Sails.