Solicitation for deserving diversions.

It’s been a day: I could use a recommendation or three.  Something simple, straightforward, preferably geeky, and not more than twenty bucks or so… actually, nah, never mind that bit.  If it’s good, yet slightly pricey, I’ll scrounge up the money somehow.

12 thoughts on “Solicitation for deserving diversions.”

  1. on iOS – Plague Inc., Strikefleet, 10000000. PC – Bastion, Torchlight, Dead Space 1 and 2 (these on super Steam sale right now)

  2. oh, also on Steam – Orcs Must Die (the sequel is just out and appears to be even better)

  4. I just finished re-reading Greg Bear’s Forge of God and Anvil of Stars…good stuff.

  5. Just finished reading “The War of the Flowers” by Tad Williams. 800 pages, and I finished it in three days. Definitely an addictive read; Williams does a great job at world-building, but the characters are the strongest part. Incredibly fun, well-written fantasy novel.

  6. On the downside of The War of the Flowers, Williams is downright anvilicious about his Leftist politics at times in it. The invocation of “Goodnight Moon” was pretty brilliant. I liked the goblins. But a lot of it seemed rather contrived to me, too many direct correlations for such a radically different culture(s).

    Glen Cook’s Garrett P.I. series is generally a lot of fun, and he released a new one pretty recently. (Which surprised the heck out of me. I was pretty certain that Angry Lead Skies was a farewell tour for the character.)

    Harry Harrison kicked the bucket today, rereading some of his stuff could be worthwhile.

  7. I hear good things about David Brin’s Existence, but I haven’t read it yet.

    (I was very disappointed with the two Greg Bear novels mentioned above. In some ways they’re the literary equivalent of, say, a Transformers movie: lots of explosions and some prett good special effects, but if you try to analyze the plot, technology, or character motivations, you end up muttering “Wait a minute … That makes no sense!”)

  8. Have to disagree, Murgatroyd…the special effects, as you say, do not take up a great deal of the novel; mostly, the novels deal with the character reactions to the overall situation. Particularly in Anvil of Stars, where interpersonal relationships aboard the Dawn Treader (it makes sense in context, for those of you who haven’t read the book) are the major conflict.

    As a side note, Forge of God was written in the late ’80’s and takes place in the mid-’90’s, and it’s a chuckle, at this remove, to see Bear referring to what we call CD-ROMs as “optical discs”…and the Soviet Union is still around…

  9. The John Ringo series Into The Looking Glass, Vorpal Blade, Manxome Foe and Claws that Catch. High quality military science fiction. If you’re into that sort of thing, of course.

  10. Nok-hockey: simple to play board style game, fun with kids, kinda like a turn based version of air hockey.

  11. Free for download:
    Tales of Maj’Eyal, a free roguelike roleplaying game with a lot of replay and fun potental.
    http://te4.org/

    Or you could download the free version of XCOM.

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