Cats, good books, AI, and religious walking in the city of Sofia
Viv is a lady orc, giant and strong. She wants to retire from the bounty-hunting business and open a coffee shop. There will be challenges, mainly from doors to the past that are not closed.
This book is written with the intent of being sweet. The author got tired of Epic Fantasy and wrote an un-epic Fantasy. There’s nothing dramatic in opening a coffee shop. It’s like the first Thraxas, just that the city of Thule is far more ordered than Turai. It feels like an American suburban area.
5*/5
I’m reluctant to wish for changes in society given the history. Communism and other utopias were supposed to be improving the society and yet they brought tyranny and genocide.
I wish society to be better, more tolerant, and more sustainable. I want it to have better education and better conditions for children. I know what we currently have comes from thousands of years of human development. Any quick “improvement” may turn out to make things worse. As a result, the things I’d change are mostly small:
The problems with cars are vast. Traffic jams, lack of parking space, air pollution, CO2 emissions, and car accidents. Thousands of people get injured, disabled, or die every year in Bulgaria only because of cars. For years, I believed electric and self-driving cars were the solution to the problem but then I saw the electric scooters and realized something. The solution to the horse cars problem was not replacing horses with internal combustion (ICE) horses – it was cars. The solution to the ICE cars is not electric cars, it’s walking, cycling, and scooters.
I would like most recreational drugs to be legalized to reduce their criminal distribution. I see no reason to put people carrying small amounts of weed in jail and would gradually extend that to other stronger substances. Also, vulnerable people consume these, and there’s no quality control, resulting in unnecessary life loss.
I’d also force search engines and generative AI services to link to the source of each individual bit of information they generate. More regulation is needed in that area. It’s some kind of society-altering Wild West.
And of course, we talk about modern society. Most of the planet is anything but modern and may need more basic improvements, like access to education or clean water.
I find it funny writing about Utopias just a few days after completing a book about the person who invented the word. Sir Thomas More wrote about an island called Utopia (from Greek, no-place), and gave it features that were very far from his radical Catholic beliefs. Ironically, he was executed for sticking to one set of his beliefs. The word stayed but the author didn’t.
The Bulgarian writer Lubomir Nikolov, also known as Kolin Wolumbury (Колин Уолъмбъри), passed away yesterday. He translated The Lord of the Rings into Bulgarian and wrote the first local gamebook – “Fire Desert”, leaving a mark on many who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s. He also read one of my books when I tried writing, provided feedback, and encouraged me to continue writing.
Rest in Peace, Kolin.
Wolf Hall is the first book from Hilary Mantel’s trilogy about Thomas Cromwell.
Henry VIII doesn’t like the idea of a Queen inheriting England’s throne. His only child is a girl and he’s given up on his wife to produce another heir. He’ll change the world to have a legitimate prince from another woman. Wolf Hall is a book describing how poorly he treated some of his closest people and how evil he was towards his queens. The point of view is Cromwell’s, a smart and ambitious guy with goals and incredible street wisdom. However, the main character is Henry’s ego which twists the world around it like a black hole. I disliked Henry VIII so much that it almost ruined the book for me, and the book is great. It’s well written, with a pace that makes it like a song.
This first part of the trilogy covers the period from Thomas Cromwell’s childhood to Thomas More’s demise.
5*/5
I play Chess. I’ve even attended some OTB tournaments (in person, phones off, real chess pieces). Chess is a game in which you primarily play against yourself. You get better by studying it rather than playing it. This makes it low-stress. You can move the pieces without thinking, relying solely on instincts and preparation.
Unlike most phone games, an online chess game lasts minutes and is over. No need to check your armies, buy battle passes, or collect items. No dopamine releases, game loops, p2w upgrades, megaboxes. You can miss a month without chess and you won’t even notice it.
I also play Uno because I have a 5-year-old UNO master at home who insists on beating me.
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