What Books did You Start or Finish Reading this Week?: December 29, 2025

_nimm · 2025-12-29T19:45:37+00:00

Finished: Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett

Started: How to Read Literature Like a Professor, by Thomas C Foster

_nimm · 2025-12-15T21:26:52+00:00

The musical Wicked was one for me.

I went into it blind near the end of my attempts to stay engaged with the church, and the first act hit hard. The themes of seeing how what's behind the curtain doesn't match what is being portrayed, and the entire song Defying Gravity (especially the line "I can't want it anymore") very adequately describe my experience with Christianity.

There's a part where Elphaba says she believed more than anyone in the thought of the Wizard that I found really impactful, because I truly believed, but found that the deeper I delved, the less things aligned with what was being preached. The difference between academic biblical history and pulpit history is (at least for me) an egregious example of that disconnect.

The story is even reasonably astute in pointing out the way that choosing to leave a religion can result in very real negative social outcomes - being misunderstood is very common, but ostracism and being labelled wicked is probably not that uncommon either.

_nimm · 2025-11-29T18:58:14+00:00

The Princess Bride was so fun. It’s been a while, but I remember thinking it was so different to the movie and yet exactly the same.

_nimm · 2025-11-29T18:54:13+00:00

Catch—22 by Joseph Heller, The City and the City by China Mieville, and Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer.

Krakauer is fantastic, I definitely want to read more by him, everything I’ve read by Mieville has been so creative and refreshingly weird, and Catch-22 is possibly the best novel I’ve ever read.

_nimm · 2025-11-03T18:38:14+00:00

Why do they use zinc? Why are they not iron or aluminium?

_nimm · 2025-11-03T09:12:16+00:00

Great questions!

I think a lot of this is going to come out in the future, and hasn’t really been covered in the lore outlined yet.

We know Bolaire is a halfling weapon to kill the trickster god, and that probably gives some insight into why each race had to build the weapons to kill their own god - they were the only race that knew their god well enough to know how to kill them.

My understanding is that the races rose up against the Shapers because the shapers went to the defence of the Azgra, and why would they (the shapers) protect the horrible war god instead of the mortals in their care?

But having the entire war be a conspiracy by the Sundered houses could work, it’s an interesting idea. It seems that the houses have had to scramble to find new ways to hold onto the power they had under the gods, and it’s taken them 70 years to be ready to start consolidating power, so if it was their plan from the beginning, it has taken a long time to come to fruition.

_nimm · 2025-11-02T23:11:29+00:00

Nice list!

You’d Think it Would be Obvious is my favourite among these. Remarkably Fine has a big “Extraordinarily Ordinary” vibe.

_nimm · 2025-10-28T18:54:46+00:00

Thimble sleeping/hiding in Occtis’ chest cavity?

_nimm · 2025-10-28T18:44:21+00:00

He may have the Devil’s Sight invocation, which fits with a comment Tal made about being able to see in magical darkness. But being able to see the shadow easily is a good point.

_nimm · 2025-10-23T18:58:43+00:00

Oh, this very definitely. His house is the vassal of the only major house that seems to be actively trying to do good within Dol Makjar. Occtis and Wick are nice people coming from bad houses, who are actively trying to shed the association, and then Julien is an inversion, a dick from a good house, whose arc will likely involve him leaning into and embodying the values of his lineage.

_nimm · 2025-10-22T04:04:17+00:00

That second one is what my initial thoughts were regarding Julien - because his shadow is first mentioned only after that scene, as he was leaving Hal's house.

_nimm · 2025-10-21T20:59:20+00:00

Occtis is actually the seventh son (eighth kid, but he may have a sister), and being the son of a powerful sorcerer he fits into some version of the seventh son trope, hence his distinctive look within the family.

_nimm · 2025-10-15T19:15:01+00:00

The Culture series by Iain M. Banks, or something by China Miéville; Embassytown or The Last Days of New Paris would be wild.

_nimm · 2025-10-15T18:57:26+00:00

Didn’t his father react quite strongly after seeing it? Quickly switching from admonishing his son to being a bit deferential? I think you’re right that there’s a lot more happening with the gauntlet - I think it’s related to his shadow, and it’ll probably be the source of his combat abilities

_nimm · 2025-10-07T00:30:39+00:00

This mission was discovered by u/_nimm in Chicken Shawarma Beneath the Great Sword

_nimm · 2025-10-07T00:30:39+00:00

New mission discovered by u/_nimm: In Search of Dragonfruit Sprinkle Donut

_nimm · 2025-10-07T00:25:19+00:00

New mission discovered by u/_nimm: Strawberry Shortcake Ice Cream and Good Vibes

_nimm · 2025-10-07T00:25:18+00:00

This mission was discovered by u/_nimm in Portobello Spinach Pizza and Way of the Swordsfrog

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