October 2024 Wrap-Up

Photo by Oxana Melis on Unsplash

I’ve had a disrupted month so I won’t break it down by the week. Instead, I’ll discuss some of the things I’ve been doing, reading, writing and watching when I’ve had the chance.

Reading

This month has been quite light as far as reading goes.

The Heroes

I have been listening to Joe Abercrombie’s books in publication order. I’m about a third of the way through The Heroes as I write this in late October.

The Heroes is his 5th book and the second of three standalone novels. There are some familiar characters from previous books that either feature heavily, get a passing mention, or somewhere in between.

The first four of his novels I have read or listened to before, but this one I’m going through for the first time. I’ve noticed it isn’t as funny as the previous four. However, it is just as grim and violent. Steven Pacey returns to narrate the novel and is at his best.

Neonomicon

I have started the graphic novel Neonomicon - the prequel to Alan Moore’s graphic novel, Providence.

We are following an FBI investigation into multiple connected murders, all with different perpetrators. It is quite short, and so far it is very good both in the story and in the artwork. It is also Lovecraftian horror with lots of callbacks to people and things from Uncle Howard’s stories.

On Writing Horror

I'm about a third of the way through this Horror Writers Association book of essays from horror authors. The essays are grouped into sections of the book with a particular theme.

It is quite interesting so far, though it feels dated at times when the writers refer to posting stories and receiving rejection letters.

I will mention it in the future if I feel it is valuable

Writing

Writing didn’t happen too much this month.

My post about people and places disappearing in Gaslamp horror dropped on October 7th.

And I posted another story from my collection, In Plain Sight, Unseen.

I have one of the longer stories from my collection coming for Halloween. I’ll probably post part 1 on the 30th, and post the final part on 31st.

I wrote it a few years ago and it’s one of my favourites that I’ve written.

Photo by Marques Kaspbrak on Unsplash

Watching

The Rings of Power Nap

The hilarity that was The Rings of Power series 2 mercifully ended at the start of the month. Incredibly, they managed to achieve something even worse than the first series. It is unimaginably bad.

From the marketing and promotional interviews with the cast of liberal activists to the nonsensical story, hateful characters and abandonment of The Professor’s lore, this has been a failure of the highest order.

The DEI cast and crew have done the old ‘attack the fans that are critical’ tactic. The audience must be a range of ‘ist’s’ and ‘phobes’ instead of having valid criticisms. From episode 1 of series 1, the show only retained 37% of viewers for the series finale, and more have undoubtedly left during series 2. It’s easy to see why so many people tapped out - and it’s not sexism or racism en masse!

House of the Dragon

In contrast to that disaster, House of the Dragon is a well-written and well-characterised show. Any criticism of fans referred to previously completely collapses when the largely same audience praises this show with its diverse cast and multiple female leads (one of which identifies as non-binary IRL).

Matt Smith crushes his role, as do most of the cast. Their performances are great. The world-building is well executed and the characters all get a chance to develop properly. The dragons look incredible.

Despite the way Game of Thrones ended, I would definitely recommend this show. Two series are already out and I hope there isn’t a two-year wait for series 3. I can wait much longer than that for Rings of Power series 3 though, trust me!

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

I read about 80 pages of this horrid thing a few years ago and tried to read it again this year. I put it down after a page.

It is patronising, man-hating nauseam. The author provides a satire of how men simply sit around talking about things. An interesting view of half the population.

Since it is an 1800s fantasy, I watched the TV adaptation this month. It was much more tolerable than the book, though not something I’m likely to remember for very long.

What was I talking about?

Ravenous

Guy Pierce features as a soldier stationed in a remote Californian camp for the winter in this frontier-era horror. It is about cannibalism and the idea that eating human flesh has supernatural healing powers.

I really enjoyed this number. I acknowledge it isn’t great, but it’s worth a watch at this time of year.

Penguin

An honourable mention goes to The Penguin. It is only part-way through series 1 as I write this, but it’s quite good. And this is coming from someone who isn’t a superhero fan and hasn’t read the comics.