Catch-22

It's like a George Orwell book but played for laughs. I don't get it.

Transition (Iain M. Banks)

Odd and a little hard to follow at times, but I liked the characters. I didn't find the resolution very satisfying though.

Bossypants

Pretty funny.

The Player of Games (Culture, #2)

Not one of my favourite Culture novels, but still pretty enjoyable. I didn't much care for any of the characters, but the central concept and story were good.

The Journey Down

Today I played a relatively new adventure game called The Journey Down. I bought it based mostly on the screenshots, because it looks pretty amazing, and as far as visuals, dialogue, voice acting and music goes, it's absolutely brilliant. So it's just a pity it's not much good as a game.

I Guess That's Why They Call it the Blues

Elton John has no idea what words mean. I've listend to this song many times and I still have no idea why they call it the blues. Or what Mr John thinks "it" is that they call "the blues".

Murder in Mesopotamia (Hercule Poirot #14)

Everything occurs in a single location with a good cast of diverse suspects gathered together, and there's a classic locked room mystery and a satisfyingly surprising ending that fits all the facts neatly. I prefer the ones with no narrator, the third-person perspective, because then their personality doesn't stand between you and the story, which I feel is particularly important in a mystery, but other than that it was pretty great.

The A.B.C. Murders (Hercule Poirot, #13)

I feel that this was one of the weakest of the Poirot stories. There doesn't really seem to be much for him to do at all until nearly the end, the whole thing being very much devoid of substance. The problem with serial killers is that they don't know their victims, so you don't get the group of suspects with their various motives and secrets to analyse. In this case there isn't even much in the way of a trail of clues, so Poirot spends a lot of the book just sitting around. Waiting for the police to do the legwork, waiting for the killer to strike again and provide more clues. The case is really not suited to his methods at all, although he does of course figure it out in the end.

Speaking of the end, I found it fairly unsatisfying. The twist worked in a technical sense, but I didn't care about it at all. I guess I was just never really invested in the story or the characters, so when it turned out differently than expected it lacked impact. It could have worked much better, I feel, if Poirot had investigate each of the killings in his usual style, despite their being committed by a single person. It would have tied the ending together better and given more meat to the story.

Saints Row 4

The first trailer for Saints Row Four just came out the other day, so I discussed it with some friends.

The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare

I don't understand the point of this book. It seems like the "twist" is going to be really obvious for most of it, but then at the end it just goes completely off the rails and makes no sense at all. Weird.