Thursday 15 February 2007

What's Cooking

What I'm doing at the moment:

Currently Reading: The Confusion
by Neal Stephenson
Currently Watching: The Lord of the Rings Trilogy on DVD, Life on Mars, Rome, Heroes, Battlestar Galactica and Lost on TV.
Currently Playing: Baldur's Gate on PC.

The Confusion is a worthy and surprisingly superior sequel to Stephenson's Quicksilver, displaying Stephenson's trademark humour and eye for detail. The apparently pointless sprawling morass of storylines in Quicksilver has been replaced by a much stronger and focused plot as well.

Watching The Lord of the Rings trilogy again on DVD is an interesting experience. Viewing just one disc a night, spreading it across six nights, is a good way not to get too overwhelmed. Despite some minor flaws, the trilogy is very much an impressive and enthralling viewing experience.

On TV Battlestar Galactica seems to have gotten stuck in the doldrums. I'm hoping it pulls itself together because watching this once-fantastic show fall apart in front of me is a distressing experience. Lost seems to slowly be getting back on track, although I'm not putting money on it getting as good as it was when it started. Heroes continues to impress and Rome gets better with every passing episode. Great stuff. And the new and final season of Life on Mars is also looking very good as well after two episodes (with six more to go).

I played Baldur's Gate when it was first released (a distressing nine years ago) and it's surprising how well it stands up on a re-play. Just a solid RPG experience. I'm hoping to go straight through Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate 2 and Throne of Bhaal, so we'll see how that goes. However, there's a fair few games coming out this year I hope to play along the way, such as Jade Empire, Crysis and Dragon Age, so I'm expecting interruptions to this schedule.

2 comments:

weenie said...

Interesting blog - came here via the sfx forum! I agree mostly with your SF&F TV shows of merit, although have yet to see 'Heroes' - I'm sure it's the kind of tv I'll like to watch! Bookswise, I'm currently rereading the George RR Martin's books (in between other books...) so would agree with you on the Storm Of Swords being ranked so high. Peter F Hamilton - I've only ever read the Commonwealth series which I really enjoyed so I'm glad that there will be those Void books to follow - great!

Adam Whitehead said...

Cheers for the support!