Tag: blogging

Austin Archey on Drumeo’s YT channel

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

Lorna Shore is one of my most favorite currently active bands and probably the only one I’d still love to watch in person. Their songs are technical and extreme in a way that makes you hit repeat. The vocal performance is the obvious most insane part but I think all of the musicians are like that in their own way.

I found a video today about Lorna Shore’s drummer. Watching him play is like watching David Blaine doing street magic.

The following video is best consumed with headphones.

Reading in September

~ Veselin ~ 2 Comments

My blog is at least partially about books but last month the books category remained silent. I attended the Alley of Books, met Nicholas Eames and bought many books but didn’t read much. Everything I started reading was either sub-par or slow. I finished 4 books, one of my worst months over the last years.

Best books

  • Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh – an unusual mix between Ender’s Game and Infinity Gate. A young, genetically modified super soldier, tries to save humanity while battling with prejudices. I enjoyed it and rated the book 5/5.
  • Inside Man by John McMahon – a crime story with several intertwined cases and a main mystery I couldn’t guess. I’d love to keep reading his Head Cases series. However, I never wrote a post about it and the reason why is probably also the reason for giving it 4/5 rather than 5/5. I can’t quite put it into words.

Worst books

  • Walk me Home by Sebastian Fitzek – DNF. I tried reading this thing for 3 days, going through 20-25 pages/day. It made me feel miserable. It’s an awfully unpleasant book, focused on describing torture and suffering. I only read maybe 70 pages in total before throwing it away. It might be better after the shocking intro but I doubt it. I didn’t give a 1* it on Goodreads because I didn’t finish it but this book is so unpleasant that I’m done with Sebastian Fitsek for good.
  • The Jury Master by Robert Dugoni – 2/5, an action/thriller that’s constantly switching between characters, successfully confusing you who is doing what. A few weeks after I finished it, I remember none of it.
  • Damage Control by Robert Dugoni – 3/5. The author clearly improved a lot after The Jury Master. The book has some good writing but the plot and the characters are cartoonish, painted in black and white. Unlike the previous two books, this one is readable and a solid 3/5. Robert Dugoni is a good writer and I’m glad my journey through his earlier works is over. I read all of his translated books.

Nemesis with Lauren Hart

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Arch Enemy released the new version of Nemesis with Lauren Hart. It’s a completely different song, compared to the iconic 2008 version with Angela Gossow. I’d love to see the live performance. I think it would be quite nice because Lauren Hart radiates energy like a Tesla coil.

Of course, the bar is set very high.

I hope they come to Sofia.

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

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Valkyr is a young warrior, living on the Gaea space station. Gaea is a small rock, turned habitable by four battleships, embedded with it. It’s populated by the last surviving human soldiers, after Earth was destroyed by an invading alien force. Valkyr is a human tank, genetically modified breed that can crush the aliens with bare hands. However, she’s also a woman and the station is ruled by a patriarchal dictator who isn’t interested in letting women be warriors.

This is the surface-level promise, made by the book in the beginning. It sounds like Ender’s Game, sets the expectation that Valkyr will somehow prove herself and then tank the aliens. But the book isn’t that and is more like Cloud Atlas. The setting is good, the world building solid, except for one major plot hole. It doesn’t become clear if the aliens are strong or weak. Parts of the book indicate they’re extremely OP, so OP that they didn’t need to attack Earth at all. Parts of the book indicate that they’re weak and humans could easily overpower them.

Apart from this inconsistency between the different chapters, the book was enjoyable and I gave it 5/5 on Goodreads. It might be a bit illogical but it is interesting and the characters are complex and good.

PS. This is my first book review this month. Last three books didn’t meet the bar.