a journal of the conquest, war, famine, death, and chaos year

Had to find a fifth horseman of the Apocalypse for 2024, and figured out that Terry Pratchett was the ultimate expert on these characters, witness

“The Four Horsemen whose Ride presages the end of the world are known to be Death, War, Famine, and Pestilence. But even less significant events have their own Horsemen. For example, the Four Horsemen of the Common Cold are Sniffles, Chesty, Nostril, and Lack of Tissues; the Four Horsemen whose appearance foreshadows any public holiday are Storm, Gales, Sleet, and Contra-flow.” Terry Pratchet, Interesting Times

Hence followed suit when he signaled Chaos as the fifth (part-time) horseman. In Thief of Time. (Incidentally, I do not remember ever finishing a single book from his Discworld series, despite several attempts and encouragements from fellow readers.) With the precision of “not [being] the chaos which can be used to draw pretty Mandelbrot patterns”.

Read The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon. While I did not like much the author’s later The Priory of the Orange Tree, bought in one of the many Montréal bookstores and read by Lac Saint-Jean, which I found very shallow and predictable [the book, not the lake!], with most of the tropes of the genre (e.g., ninja-like fighters, heroes uncovering long-lost magical artefacts, super-evil entity about to return to life/power, a few predestined characters saving the Universe), unrealistic events, all-too-convenient coincidences, with little efforts put in the construction of the world, of the magical rules, or of the political structure, I still picked this rather heavy volume in a St Kilda bookstore, in [misguided] prevision for the flight back to Paris and read it later over the Winter solstice break. It is actually much better and enjoyable, in terms of world building for certain, involving a modified history of our World, mostly Britain and Ireland, with a non-human dominant species in the background, a no-man’s land gothic Oxford surrounded by zombies (?), and a part of humanity endowed with paranormal powers. The characters have some depth as well, even when remaining somehow predictable and often repetitive, and the scenario is mostly solid, apart from the unraveling finale. (The Guardian pointed out a direct filiation to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, which I certainly did not see coming.) I am unsure I am ready for the next six volumes in the series, though!

Watched Gyeongseong, a Korean TV series that is a mix of horror, period, WW II, sadistic, mad scientists, nationalist, colonialist, family, survival, love, comical, soapy, teary stories all at once! Gyeongseong [경성, capital city] being the name of Seoul during the Japanese occupation and the entire series takes place in a recreated city that resembles the one in other period series I watched. Still enjoyable with a complete suspension of belief (as the scenario accumulates convenient coincidences, clueless Japanese occupiers, and bullet proof main characters) and the acceptance of the cartoonesque nature of fights and innumerable deaths.