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.

Phone cords

You know how you go into someone else's house or office or whatever, and for whatever reason they have a landline phone, and it's got one of those coily cables for the handset (which are great, by the way, a fantastic design). But somehow, through some horrible misuse, they've tangled it. Maybe it's just a single twist halfway along the cable, maybe it's wrapped around itself and twisted, or maybe they've just fucked it up completely.

A Battle For the Ages

My opponent was fast and cunning, and all through the evening he goaded me ceaselessly. Twice I got up to confront him, only to find him vanished, nowhere to be found. I let him escape for the time being.

This Book Is Full of Spiders (John Dies at the End, #2)

If you read John Dies at the End (or watched the film) and liked it, read this one as well. Once again David and John blunder around like idiots and end up saving the world by accident. It's creepy and funny and brilliant.

Veins

I normally like Drew's stuff (Toothpaste for Dinner, Married to the Sea, Superpoop, The Worst Things For Sale), but I don't even know what's supposed to be likeable about this. Is it meant to be funny? Are we supposed to be laughing at MR? That just seems cruel. Is it not supposed to be funny? I don't know, I didn't get it at all.

Death in the Clouds (Hercule Poirot, #12)

Not one of the better Poirot books. A little annoying how long it takes him to start investigating some pretty obvious leads, and the solution suffers for that, because it makes it feel a lot less clever than some of the other ones, but still enjoyable.

One Deadly Sister

This is a terrible book.