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The Drowned World by J. G. Ballard. Solar flares cause the ice caps to melt and the world is flooded and reverts to Triassic-era climate and reptile supremacy. People go out to study and salvage what's left of the previous cities. This book has so many good building blocks and yet unfortunately I found it quite boring. I would almost never say this about a book but I think I'd have liked it better as a movie. There's a lot of psychological aspects happening which is cool, but could benefit from the visuals and soundtrack a movie provides. (Just looked up on Google and apparently WB was was working on a adaptation in 2013 but then radio silence so guess it never got made.)

The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle. Re-read this because The Drowned World made me crave the action-adventure of it. One of my favorite books but there is a lot of 'oof, product of its time' bits.

In TV, I finished:

Wheel of Time (season 3): This was a great season. The Rhuidean episode was extremely cool and all the Aes Sedai politics and upheaval was intense.

Slow Horses (seasons 1 - 4): NEW SPY SHOW! I mean, it has been on since 2022 but new to me. I love spy media and typically the appeal for me is extreme competence but these are like the reject fuck-up spies and I find them so endearing oh my God. I might just rewatch this series again while I wait for season 5 in September. Anyone getting Apple TV short term for Murderbot reasons, I recommend watching this show too!

And I did just go see The Accountant 2 and it had a lot of extremely funny sibling behavior between Chris and Braxton which is exactly what I wanted. Obsessed with Jon Bernthal in this. I'll probably go see it again.

The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy. What it says on the tin. Bleak, pointed contemplation of death after a life that was perhaps not as well-lived as originally thought. I love the combination of bluntness and reflection in Russian stuff. Need to add some more novels to my TBR list.

Flowers for Algernon by by Daniel Keyes. Heartbreaker of a novel about intellectual disability and personhood.

While reading these pretty heavy books, I was watching ridiculous but enjoyable television:

Cobra Kai (season 6): Another final season! I do think they stuck the landing because the last set of episodes that just got released were very fun although during the earlier parts of the season I was kind of like wow, this should have ended in season 5. It is a dumb show about teenagers and old men having karate wars but I love Johnny Lawrence and some of the comedy is gold. Watch a gateway vid: St. Elmo's Fire by lilly_the_kid.

And, speaking of vids, I got a new vid_bingo card and we'll see if I manage a premiere for vidukon_cardiff. April 6th deadline seems very close to me for any of my current ideas.( bingo card )

The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery. Woman is given one year to live and proceeds to make choices that horrify her stuffy society family! This was fun and cleverly written and I feel a strong need to write a Star Wars fic inspired by it which is maybe mildly insane of me--the vibes are very different--but also is just life in fandom. Will see if the muse holds.

Speaking of Star Wars, I watched Skeleton Crew and it was very cute! I feel like I heard almost nothing about it and I wasn't going to watch it but I'm glad I decided to. Space kids accidentally going off on space pirate adventures! I'd be interested to see a season 2 because they left several things half open but the season also worked as a good stand-alone.

Come Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie Mallowan. Travelogue of Agatha Christie's time on an archeological dig in Syria with her second husband. It was interesting to see her writing style in something other than a murder mystery and the kind of everyday travel and life disasters in this were amusing.

TV I've been watching: Great British Bake Off (season 15). The Dragon Prince/Mystery of Aaravos (season 7). Flashpoint (seasons 1 - 3 rewatch). Not much to say about any of these. They're pretty undemanding watches and I'm in end-of-year couch mode.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Continuing my reading of classics I missed out on. Thank God this had a family tree in the front matter because I could not keep track of the Jose Arcadios and Aurelianos of each generation, though the repetitive naming was a good literary show of the cyclical issues of this family. I enjoy magical realism and this delivered but it was a slow read for me.

In TV, I finished Only Murders in the Building (season 4). I think the murderer reveal was a bit weak but overall a fun season. I'm in it for the hilarity of the Charles/Oliver/Mabel squad.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. One of those classics I had never previously read and I fully see why it is a classic. A+ fantastically fucked up obsessed relationship. A lot of really good intense descriptions. Haunting the narrative! This is one of those love or hate books and I personally love it.

21: The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey by Patrick O'Brian. Three chapters of the latest Aubrey-Maturin book O'Brian was writing when he passed. This was set up to have the typed manuscript on the left pages and the handwritten draft on the right which was interesting but also I couldn't read O'Brian's handwriting for the most part so I could only catch a few bits where things were changed or what happened at the end (duel!) where he hadn't started typing any of it up yet. Will be ending my personal series collection with the final complete book 20.

In TV, I watched Shogun which I hear won many Emmys, good for them. Interesting historical setting, intricate politics, and exploration of cultural differences is a winning combination to me too.

Even more summer deck reading. I'm doing a summer reading challenge at my library and I have been reading every day. At some point, I will get a prize :)

The Witness for the Dead & The Grief of Stones by Katherine Addison. I didn't know Katherine Addison had written more in The Goblin Emperor universe! I saw these on the shelf next to it and I was like 'oh, what's this?' I honestly read Goblin Emperor so long ago that I don't remember much about it except that it was well-written and had interesting politics, but these books are a spin off of Celehar solving crimes. I enjoy the writing very much and Celehar is the kind of character with a completely warped self-perception that I love. Apparently it's a trilogy with one more book coming out next year.

Foundation by Isaac Asimov. I'm still rotating the Foundation TV show in my head and I decided I'd grab this off the shelf. A lot of the show did follow the book but the show made a great decision in genderswapping Gaal and Salvor in my opinion. The book literally has one named female character and it says her name all of once and then calls her the Commandr's wife the rest of the time. It was super noticable to me. Also when I started, I was like 'Is the writing bad? This is Isaac Asimov, the writing can't be bad, right??'. I'm not sure if it was meant for the character POV or just warming up or what but it got better.

I finally watched the zombie show In The Flesh and I enjoyed it. I accidentally watched episodes out of order but honestly it still worked for me. Also I watched Bridgerton season 3 and then caught up on the new season of Doctor Who. DW has the whole range of ridiculous fun to horror episodes, which I appreciate, and I love Ncuti Gatwa. And I caught up on The Acolyte and I don't love it but I think it's fine.