Mind Storm by Andrew Greene

~ Veselin ~ 1 Comment

The prettiest cover from the first 6 books I purchased during the book fair is already on the “read” bookshelf. It’s the second book I read this year that doesn’t have a Goodreads entry. If any of my readers here is a Goodreads Librarian, please add it – I posted two requests on Goodreads for book additions.

From what I see, the gamebook writers in some countries that aren’t Bulgaria, seem to prefer publishing their works on Google Drive as a PDF and just let them be available to anyone for free. This one is published in English here.

The photo of the cover is from an angle on purpose – to see all the shiny letters. Then each page has decoration, and the illustrations are stunning. I’m not sure why and how that happened but this is a first edition and a translation at the same time.

The story is Gibson-style cyberpunk, with some references to Gibson and other gamebooks. The gameplay felt linear – you must go through most episodes for a successful read. I’d consider it easy. The writing is good, and the story is engaging.

4/5 for the book, 5+/5 for the editing/illustration/publishing. It’s a piece of art.

International Spring Book Fair Sofia – 2024

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

I love the International Book Fair in Sofia. I have a system where I visit the fair multiple times before buying books to get the full experience.

This time I violated the system. Here’s my harvest from Day 1.

Rebecca Yaros, 2x Brandon Sanderson, and 3x game books. 5 out of these 6 books are likely to be 5/5s.

And here’s a photo from the book fair with no books:

The book fair will be open for 10 days until June 2nd.

Central Sofia Market Hall – Halite

~ Veselin ~ 6 Comments

Halite is open again, after years of on-and-off. It will be a supermarket again, the purpose I remember as a child. During the communism, we would go there shopping, walk around the empty shelves, and maybe find something useful. Communism wasn’t known for full stores.

The view from the outside hasn’t changed. Perhaps the roof has but otherwise, they pursued authenticity, I think.

It has 2 floors inside – the supermarket and some food-court-museum basement. I liked how it’s made, I think this is the best version of Halite I’ve seen and I hope it stays open.

During my childhood, the building had 2 floors but both were above the ground.