Thanks to the multiple trips the past weeks, esp. the AC issue on my flight to Tokyo!, I reada few more books from my virtual pile, incl. Swordheart by T. Kingfisher. Taking place in the same universe as the Saint of Steel series, it features an ingénue in distress inheriting a magic sword from her dying ward that comes with an immortal warrior. Very light if enjoyable as the previous books, especially well-suited for a long flight. I then tried a supposedly classic, Night’s Master by Tanith Lee, which first chapters are awfully complacent to grooming and which I could not continue reading… Followed by Girl with All the Gifts, by Mike Carey, advertised as the most original thriller, but in fact a zombie story. As I rarely enjoy zombie stories, I suffered through it, but acknowledge a well-composed gallery of characters and some attempt at rationalising the rise of these zombies. The girl with said gifts is however too flawless to be plausible (even within a zombie referential!). I first thought it was partly inspired by the Covid crisis but the novel predates the pandemic. I also tried The Gone World but found the style puzzling and myself unable to engage into the story, mixing NCIS detective work with time travel into a weird sauce that does not catch…
Cooked a sticky rice flour cake with black sesame (paste), following a suggestion from the NYT, which tasted great, and fish cakes made with chickpeas that lasted the entire week. And a rather radical rice pudding with (low grade) matcha instead of sugar and whey instead of milk.
Watched Enola Holmes 3 on a lazy Saturday evening, which I found terribly boring and grotesque. And a few episodes of the Japanese TV series, Gate 24, which features an elite immigration team at a fictious Japanese airport. Some parts are funny but the scenarii are rather weak, with often caricaturesque depictions of foreign nationals.
