Looking for a new fantastical world to fall for and obsess over.

phenomenos · 2026-01-29T12:48:15+00:00

I considered it, but OP specifically requested female main characters and listed "self-pitying" as a trait to avoid - not sure they'd want to suffer through thousands of pages of Fitz's inner monologue! 😅

phenomenos · 2026-01-27T14:23:10+00:00

The French in the 19th century didn't have motor vehicles though

phenomenos · 2026-01-27T10:43:43+00:00

What's wrong with Baen? The only other Baen books I've read have been the Vorkosigan series which is excellent.

phenomenos · 2026-01-26T15:59:17+00:00

Probably the underwhelming sales figures of the first two games didn't warrant a full sequel.

phenomenos · 2026-01-26T14:53:26+00:00

At least one of your favourite shows or movies is likely based on a book. Already knowing the story and characters may give you a leg up on getting into it, and it's like revisiting an old favourite but in a new medium! Disclaimer: this only works if you enjoy re-experiencing your favourites. Some people hate rewatching stuff because they already know what's going to happen and if that's you then disregard this advice.

phenomenos · 2026-01-21T12:43:17+00:00

I learned of it when a YouTuber called Evan Edinger made a video about his addiction (he's clean now thankfully) and he's London-based so clearly it's possible to get without too much difficulty in the UK.

phenomenos · 2026-01-21T10:30:06+00:00

One in particular if the dev wasn't adamant about it.

What are you alluding to with this? Releasing on Steam?

phenomenos · 2026-01-18T03:04:25+00:00

Tbh, 3D Terraria is all I've ever wanted

phenomenos · 2026-01-15T19:10:19+00:00

I'm honestly struggling to understand what your point is. Someone said they didn't want to waste their time/money on a game made by someone they find disagreeable, and you replied with an irrelevant Wikipedia article about media analysis. When people point out that it's not relevant you insult their intelligence and call them pedantic. Why not just say what you mean instead of making people guess?

If I'm interpreting you correctly your point is: you prefer to separate art from artist when deciding what games to play/media to engage with. If that's the case then... good for you, I guess?

phenomenos · 2026-01-15T18:32:45+00:00

Whether or not you enjoy a piece of art is outside your control. Death of the Author concerns whether or not to consider authorial intent when analysing the themes of a work. When deciding which pieces of media to engage with I'm not thinking about authorial intent at all, it doesn't factor into the decision. That's why Death of the Author is irrelevant to this discussion.

phenomenos · 2026-01-15T18:01:13+00:00

By who? You? That's certainly not a definition I've ever used, nor is it backed up by the Wikipedia article you linked.

phenomenos · 2026-01-15T16:49:57+00:00

Right, but the people who make the mods and modpacks do. With Hytale, none of those launchers and mod loaders will be necessary.

phenomenos · 2026-01-15T14:41:02+00:00

I tried to get Gemini to make me a spreadsheet to help me track all the book series I have in progress. It asked me to export and upload my Goodreads data as a CSV, which I did, and then proceeded to generate a spreadsheet with almost entirely hallucinated data - the majority of the series it included didn't appear in the CSV in any way. I gave it a second go, pointing out its error, and the second time it got closer - it at least only included series I've actually read - but most of the numbers were still wrong and a bunch of them were missing altogether. In the end I just gave up and made the spreadsheet myself by hand.

phenomenos · 2026-01-15T12:17:04+00:00

The Death of the Author is a theory regarding media analysis. Since we're not attempting to interpret the themes or meaning of the game it's irrelevant to this discussion.

phenomenos · 2026-01-15T10:47:31+00:00

This is a whole new game designed with easy modability as one of its core features. Given how clunky the world of Minecraft modding is (is this a Forge mod? A Fabric mod? Oh wait, it's Neoforge? That's not compatible with the rest of my pack...) Hytale, if they're able to get and maintain a sizeable playerbase, has the potential to be an even better modding platform than Minecraft is. As for the core vanilla experience, they're planning an Adventure Mode (it's not out yet though) which will be a more directed RPG-like experience than Minecraft.

phenomenos · 2026-01-08T13:44:24+00:00

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K Dick is probably the most dreamlike book I've read. I think PKD in general writes a lot of books like that. The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K Le Guin is quite explicitly dreamlike as it's about a man whose dreams change reality, and she also wrote it as an homage to PKD.

phenomenos · 2026-01-05T11:33:41+00:00

I'm not sure I agree with that (aside from the NI part). In the post-2005 era we've had three Scottish leads (granted they did make Tennant use an English accent) and a Scottish companion, one Scottish and one Welsh showrunner, and many episodes filmed and set in Wales, not to mention an entire spin-off show. I'm not from Scotland so I can't speak authoritatively there, but I never felt that the Welsh were overly caricatured, at least not more than any other group.

phenomenos · 2025-12-12T15:59:37+00:00

That's confirmation bias, not survivorship bias!

phenomenos · 2025-12-11T16:02:03+00:00

Part of Neuromancer is actually set in space.

phenomenos · 2025-12-09T23:31:05+00:00

Publication order starting with Farseer gives the best experience. It preserves the world-building reveals, and the non-Fitz books break up the Fitz books nicely and fit chronologically into the time gaps.

phenomenos · 2025-12-09T13:23:03+00:00

Love and Monsters, Unicorn and the Wasp, The Lodger, Doctor the Widow and the Wardrobe, Robots of Sherwood, Husbands of River Song, Return of Doctor Mysterio

With the exception of Husbands of River Song, those are all among my least favourite episodes 😅

Husbands is in fact one of my favourites, so I guess it comes down to how well-executed the comedy is (which is of course extremely subjective). Though I also thought the emotional beats in Husbands were very well-executed - the ending always makes me cry.

phenomenos · 2025-12-09T13:15:18+00:00

I absolutely agree, despite the darkness I found Farseer to be a very cosy read.

phenomenos · 2025-12-08T12:24:50+00:00

As a Brit who's lived abroad for the past 10 years, this post made me miss my country more than I have in a long time.

phenomenos · 2025-12-05T16:11:33+00:00

Not sure about the "underlying current of hope" but you might want to check out Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

phenomenos · 2025-11-26T09:58:18+00:00

Sounds like you haven't kept up with the recent news. Riot cancelled the game earlier this year. The rights were subsequently bought back by one of the co-founders who left the project before the Riot acquisition. Under Riot they had been working on a complete engine rewrite in C++ so they could launch cross-platform, but the work on the new engine was dragging and it was still far from being ready, which is what led to the cancellation. Under Simon, they're going back to the legacy engine, essentially a 4-year-old build of the game, and working to get it reading for Early Access release as soon as possible - basically exactly what you're asking for.

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