Cats, good books, AI, and religious walking in the city of Sofia
This is one of the most iconic places in Sofia, we used to call it “The Horse”. When I was a kid, I would frequently be asked which leg of the horse is up. When you think about it, there’s a horse and some dude on it, but are the legs up? Nobody knows.
Right there is where all the protests tend to go. The horse acts like a natural scene, and the symbolic parliament building is on the other side.
I’d like to see this parking turn into a walkable space, even if for the sake having better photos.
Kids play and act like everything is guaranteed to be alright. They hold onto items worth nothing and make it feel like they’re worth everything. Kids smile and cry. They make friends quickly. They fight, forgive, forget, and fight again. They are impatient.
I think most of these qualities are lost for a good reason. But we can smile more and live for the moment when appropriate. We can read books and relive the fun, ignoring the not-fun. We can play.
Have I shared that there will be a new HoMM game next year? I’ll block some time on my calendar to feel like a 15-year-old when it goes live 🙂
Offler is the Crocodile God from Discworld. He is known for his crocodilian features, mumbling speech, and pragmatic rules. He knows how to keeps his followers. One of the pillars of his faith is that he wouldn’t impose a ban on chocolate because people wouldn’t listen anyway.
Nuggan, the God of paperclips and unnecessary paperwork, forbids Chocolate. Chocolate, among other 100s of things, is an abomination, perhaps because it stains the unnecessary paper. Funnily, as a result of that, his country is a main exporter of chocolate.
The book, although I don’t quite remember which one, implies that a God who forbids chocolate will eventually be forgotten and replaced by another God who doesn’t forbid chocolate. Nuggan, as of the last Discworld novel, is still around. He outlived his creator, Sir Terry Pratchett, and the spiritual disconnect between him and Offler remained unresolved.
Why I’m writing all of that? Spent last 24 hours wtf-ing with Bulgarian election news. There’s no Offlers in our political scene.
Clay Cooper is a retired mercenary, part of a group of 5+1 named Saga. His band was once the best group, known for defeating countless monsters, even a dragon. The plus one is the bard, which Saga could not keep alive, so they had to replace him or her so many times that the band members don’t even remember the individuals. Until one day they met an undead bard.
This book shares a world with another 2 series I recently read – it has the similar swarm of different fantasy creatures from Orconomics and Legends & Lattes. It has bands and heroes, harvesting monsters for profit. But it also has the epic-ness of LOTR (and its overall general structure), and the drama of Ready Player One.
Most characters both positive and negative (who aren’t bards) are nearly immune to anything the author can throw at them. This makes the story more like a fairytale than an actual fantasy. But it’s cool and somewhat balanced. A reader should particularly like it if they’ve not read any of the books I mentioned earlier.
5/5, I like it and recommend it but you need to have zero expectations of realism. Realistic it is not.
Veselin.blog 