Read another Hugo “best novel”, The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow, which I could not complete. The story is a time loop scenario when one (academic) character repeatedly travels to the past to impact the destiny of his nation, but too many loops kill the fun! Plus clumsy borrow-ups from the Arthurian cycle and 1984 characters And a short story, Kaiju Agonistes by Scott Lynch. Given my deep admiration for the Gentlemen Bastards series, esp. the first volume (The Lies of Locke Lamora), I was expecting much better than a light-weight science fiction story where an alien finds turning a venture capitalist is the best way for humans to stop the nuclear armament race… And a few pages of [not an Hugo hopeful!] Angel Down by Daniel Kraus. Despite it being set in the trenches of WW I, which is a good premise given my childhood fascination for the “Great War” (and my sapper neighbour who had kept memorabilia from his war actions, including bits of grenade under his arm skin!). But the style of one sentence a paragraph was just too unbearable, while the action did not seem to move in the least.
Prepared almost exclusively cold salads to cope with the heat waves, except for the occasional pissaladière (despite its warmup impact). And even more bowls of rhubarb preserve both from my garden and from the local market. But recycled red lentils dahl into a quite decent humus, which may prove the future choice instead of chickpeas.
Watched few series, with again midstream abandons, like Straight to Hell, on a famous (real character) fortune-teller, despite an interesting rendering of post WW II Japan. And A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, which is set in an idyllic English countryside town but runs way too light to be convincing in any respect. Watched most of Mobius, a Chinese thriller with magical aspects since the main detective regularly finds himself caught in a time loop (coïncidence!). Rather addictive action series, with a criticism of big tech, if a wee bit too sleek (and dreadfully slow moving on the romantic aspects).
