Some of My Favourite Media:
PETER
Welcome to my curator page!
While I spend most of my waking hours slaving away as an attorney for a large commercial law firm, I like to spend my free time escaping from reality in all sorts of stories and games – fantasy, sci-fi, horror, you name it. When I’m not reading, writing, or painting miniatures, I like to hit people (or more likely, get hit) with a sword.
In my speculative fiction, I like plot-heavy stories that still make you connect with the characters, and world building that is not just interesting and exotic, but that actually works on a historical, geographic, economic or scientific level. I like stories that put your brain to work. I’m a sucker for the classics and love to read older stuff to get an idea of how genres and tastes evolved over time. I like games that have a strong narrative element – even in board games, I like the ones that give you the feeling you’re setting up a colony on a distant planet over ones that may be more balanced but feel less alive.
Nowadays, what with my job and life in general getting in the way, I don’t spend nearly as much time gaming or reading as I used to, but I still listen to as many audiobooks as I can and I try to make time for everything else. But sometimes, everything that is out there that I would still like to see or read or play is overwhelming. If you feel the same, please look around! Your time is precious, and we all want to spend it on the very best the genre has to offer!
Realistic or grimdark settings
Characters getting punished for their mistakes
Tightly written plots and well-foreshadowed plot twists
When magic is a mystery (and you sometimes wonder whether it is magic at all)
When the story structure itself wows you
Realistic economic and geographical worldbuilding
Writers that trust their readers to figure it out by themselves and do not feel to need to explain every detail
When the stakes in a story grow beyond the point where it is relatable
Love triangles and sappy romance
Superheroes
When stories or games take way more time than they have any right to
Whiney main characters
Really competitive games
Poorly executed politics
Pet PeeveS
Historical inaccuracies in medieval fantasy settings (especially in combat)
Humanoid aliens in sci-fi
Characters inexplicably having really modern mindsets/sensibilities in settings where that makes no sense
Needlessly edgy characters in order to make things ‘dark’
The thing where the dainty woman always has to be the archer even though shooting a 100+ pound warbow takes far more strength than properly wielding a sword
Characters that do dumb stuff but get away with it
Writers coming up with a new name for their orc-race despite the fact that they are clearly just reskinned orcs
Fantasy names with a bunch of open vowels and unexplained ‘ä’s or ‘â’s
Recent Contributions
Review: Moon – Duncan Jones
Sam Bell is nearing the end of his three-year contract as the single crew member of a mining base on the dark side of the moon. Due to an outage in the communications equipment, he has been unable to contact either his family or his employers live. With only an AI assistant for company, he feels like he is slowly going insane from loneliness. When his lunar rover crashes, however, things take a turn for the worse.
Review: Master of the Revels – Nicole Galland
After their falling out with the powers that be at D.O.D.O., our protagonists set up an independent diachronic operation with the help of the mysterious Fugger banking family – and soon find themselves embroiled in a deadly conflict with the witch Gráinne to save the world’s technology from being retconned out of existence.
Review: Castle in the Air – Diana Wynne Jones
Abdullah lives a simple life selling carpets from his stand in the bazaar in Zanzib. His main worry is the unwanted attention from his father’s first wife’s relations. Abdullah spends his days daydreaming he were a kidnapped prince from a far-away land, destined to marry a princess. All that is nought but a dream, until one day a strange man comes to the bazaar and sells Abdullah a magic flying carpet. When Abdullah falls asleep on top of the carpet one day, he dreams the strangest, most real dream he has ever dreamed…
Review: Network Effect – Martha Wells
Part 5 in the Murderbot Diaries – The Murderbot is hired as security for a Preservation survey. When their ship comes under attack from mysterious raiders that appear infected with alien remnants, the Murderbot is shocked to find that the raiders’ transport appears familiar.
Review: The Song of Achilles – Madeline Miller
Patroclos, exiled as a boy to the court of King Peleus, meets Peleus’ son Achilles. Half god and half man, Achilles is so far above his peers that a gulf seems to exist between him and the other boys his age. When Patroclos crosses that gulf, his fate becomes intertwined with that of the god’s son, and the tragedy all readers will know becomes inevitable.