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Books, Games Wrestling Vol. 12 – Henceforth, I Claim Them As My Own!

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

There is a strong possibility that I will skip writing one of these next week and be back with the next one with some of my favorite books, games, and wrestling matches of the year, but I have a lot of work to do in other parts of my life, so one week off will have to do. AEW’s Full Gear is tomorrow, and I wrote down my predictions for the show, which takes up the bulk of this week’s entry.

Books – Lessons in Magic and Disaster by Charlie Jane Anders

I don’t know how I feel about the current book I’m reading. Is it possible for sections of a book to both bore you and fascinate you at the same time? I’m forty percent in, and the intensity of the situation is just starting to rise. Jamie and Serena make a decision that feels like it’s going to have a ripple effect on the rest of the book, but I’ve grown used to seeking out fantasy books with more snappy beginnings. The best parts of the book so far is the backstory of Jamie’s parents, Serena and May, how they met, how they decided to have Jamie, the rough patch of their relationship, and how they came to a resolution to mend it. The parts that bore me and fascinate me at the same time are the parts too familiar to my own former academic life when I was writing a thesis.

The book Jamie’s paper is on has passages that appear in this one, where you can see, upon reading, what Jamie is seeing as it relates to her thesis. The academic life of Jamie made me think of working on my own thesis both the good and the bad but the problem for me is that style of the fictional book Jamie is writing her paper on is the kind that I was bored to tears of in College so while it is interesting to see what Jamie sees my eyes also glaze over imagining sitting in the library trying doing a close reading of this and finding other sources. I can sense a growing tension between Jamie and her wife, Ro, as Jamie and Serena grow closer as it relates to witchcraft and magic, but I need the book to begin pushing that snowball down the hill instead of packing it tightly at the top, trying to make the perfect snowball to keep me hooked on Lessons in Magic and Disaster.

Addendum: Ten minutes after writing this, I’ve reached an inflection point in the story that really has me turning pages, but I wish we had gotten here a bit sooner. Sometimes that is just how books roll.

Games – Chrono Trigger on Steam / Steam Deck

In 2018, when Chrono Trigger was announced, it was coming to Steam. I had no computer to play it on when it came out. I just would have to wait, but it was something I’d have to look forward to. Upon release, it was like looking into the window of people opening a Christmas present we all wanted and finding out their parents had bought a knock-off version instead. Of all the versions they chose to port to Steam, the publisher’s choice to port the mobile version with some weird upscaled resolution was one of the worst options they could have chosen. By the time I got to play it, though, Square had done everything they were going to do to fix the Steam version of Chrono Trigger to make fans happy, but the damage was done, and the fixes shouldn’t have been needed on the first play. They had an easy golden opportunity to not fuck up, and they royally fucked up. It’s still not the best way to play Chrono Trigger today. The fact that there haven’t been any ports of it since then is strange as well, when it could have easily been put on the Nintendo Switch like many past Square games before.

Now, years later, I am playing this version of the game with the classic resolution on my Steam Deck. I know I don’t have to play it this way. There are many other ways to play Chrono Trigger, even on Steam Deck, but I decided to see this version of Chrono Trigger to the end. It’s still Chrono Trigger, one of my favorite games and one of the greatest games of all time. Now, this may just be my perception, but Square Enix’s reputation for getting it right is much improved since February of 2018, even if some people didn’t like everything about Final Fantasy Rebirth or Final Fantasy 16. If, after the positive reception of Octopath Traveller 1 and 2, Live A Live remake, and the remakes of Dragon Quest I-III is a green flag at Square to release an HD-2D remake of Chrono Trigger, I hope they’ve learned their lessons from Chrono Trigger for Steam and pull off the once again golden opportunity for Chrono Trigger HD-2D on multiple platforms.

Wrestling – Full Gear Predictions

Full Gear is coming up, and I’m feeling more excited for the card than WrestleDream, though the Venn diagram of my brain has a larger circle for books and video games right now, and wrestling, plus the looming holidays just over my shoulder. Still, here are my predictions for the main card of the show. On the subject of the Death Riders, I think Pac is going to get a surprise upset over Darby Allin that’ll play into another surprise upset, which is Kyle O’Reilly defeating Jon Moxley in a No Holds Barred match. A stipulation is often used to soften the blow for a loss of one top talent while elevating another, but that’s not the main point. The main point is that Pac will have done something Jon was unable to do recently, and Kyle will have Moxley tapping out once again, ultimately leading to an angle with the Death Riders turning on Jon Moxley. I am unsure if this heel Jon Moxley has completely run its course, but turning him babyface once again isn’t a terrible idea. Who will lead the Death Riders in his absence? I am not 100% sold on Claudio leading the group, but the betrayal definitely feels like it’s coming.

Speaking of both stipulations and Death Riders, I think the Sisters of Sin will get a surprise win in the four-way tag match against the Babes of Wrath, Time Love Bombs, and Megan Bayne/ Marina Shafir to determine their own stipulation in a match against Willlow and Harley that’ll lead to a Sisters of Sin vs. Timeless Love Bombs final. When Kyle Fletcher vs. Mark Briscoe was announced, I was so sure this was the moment Mark would get the win over Kyle and Kyle would enter the C2 to be part of the Takeshita vs. Okada drama, possibly leading to Takeshita vs. Fletcher semifinal. Since Kyle announced that beating Mark would beat the record for most TNT title defenses, I’m not so sure. I’m currently 55:45 on Mark winning, but if Kyle won, it would not surprise me, but it would seem strange to do all that work on the Conglomeration music and video package only to take out one of their core members a month or so later.

What I am sure of is that Mercedes is not winning the world title at Full Gear. She has touched that belt one too many times in the last couple of weeks to be winning it. I like the idea of not only Kris finally showing her growth after a year of uncertainty, after a weird face turn when she lost to Mercedes twice by beating Mercedes, but the women’s world championship being out of her reach from both Toni and the person who beat Toni. Hangman will have a great match against Samoa Joe in a steel cage match and ultimately defeat him. Will Samoa Joe learn his lesson from it? How violent will it get? Will Hangman delve into the darkness within from a year ago to avenge his family against Swerve Strickland? These are the questions I am asking myself leading up to this match. I imagine either MJF or Swerve will return at this match. I’m leaning more towards MJF, which I am not looking forward to. World’s End has been my last favorite AEW pay-per-view two years running, and MJF beating Hangman at it would really put the nail in the coffin for that show for me. I’m still not sure if that is the direction they’re going, but it is an anxiety I definitely have as someone who is not a fan of Maxwell.

You know what else gives me anxiety, and I am not a fan of, but I am more sure of? FTR beating Brodido for the AEW World Tag Team Championships. Two things can be true. I can say I am enjoying FTR as heels so much more than faces, but I also never wanted them to be tag team champions again. Their heel work with Stokely has been far more entertaining, but them at the top of the tag division fills me with dread after their last tag title run, which was one of the most boring tag title runs in AEW history, and don’t quote that match against Bullet Club Gold to me. I am one of the few who actively dislike that match, so them beating Brodido, who has given that tag belts life again after a terribly boring run on the Hurt Syndicate, is not something I’m looking forward to. Especially if it leads to a returning Christian and Copeland feud, which has those two winning the tag belts off FTR. It would be a nightmare for me personally to have them be tag team champions and MJF Men’s World Champion at the same time again.

The only thing I’d have to comfort me is whatever Elite drama is cooking in Kenny Omega and Jurassic Express versus the Young Bucks and Josh Alexander. After a humiliating summer and fall Don Callis has come calling to help Matt and Nick’s money troubles. All they have to do is join the Don Callis Family and beat their former friends Kenny Omega and Jack Perry with one million dollars on the line. Here’s the thing: the Bucks don’t seem thrilled about joining the DCF, nor do they find Don or Josh particularly entertaining, but with Okada trying to encourage them and Don Callis’s bolstering roster putting them in a situation where they might not have a choice, I am not so sure where this is going. Perhaps the Bucks choose to join but lose the match, but Kenny offers the money back to Don to get them out of the Don Callis Family contract. Maybe the Bucks decided Josh Alexcander and Don Callis have given them a bit too much of what the rest of the roster found annoying about the Bucks in their EVP phase, and just choose Kenny by superkicking their tag partner and walk away. I’m not sure where exactly this is going, but I am here for it.

Books, Games, Wrestling Vol. 10 – A Touching Reunion

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

It’s November, and to be honest, I’m terrible at doing end-of-the-year writing, but this year I’m determined to do some posts on here and GeeklyInc.com in the “…of the Year” variety. There are only eight weeks left of the year, but I’m not against talking about the best or favorites of 2025 into the first weeks of 2026. Wrestling is the easiest to talk about because most of my matches of the year have already happened, but with the Continental Classic, one Ring of Honor PPV, and two AEW PPVs I don’t want to write off the potential of those shows. I don’t think anything will top my number one book, game, or wrestling match of the year, but it’s everything underneath that is up for grabs.

Wrestling – Random AEW Musings

I don’t have one particular topic in mind, but I do have some thoughts. Between All Out and now, AEW has been relatively good to very good. I’m enjoying myself even if I have some criticism of the booking here and there. For example, and keep in mind this is someone who relatively enjoys the C-show that is Tony Khan’s Ring of Honor TV, but there is no reason for Yuka Sakazaki to be wrestling on ROH and not be appearing in AEW, especially with her new presentation and music. As a big fan of hers, at first I was just happy to see her back from injury and wrestling regularly, but her team-ups with Alex Windsor have been good enough that I am left scratching my head as to why they’re not on AEW TV or having Yuka in singles matches on Dynamite or Collision. I am hoping they’re just spinning their wheels with them before having them on TV, since Women’s Tag Championships will need contenders.

I miss Will Ospreay and Swerve Strickland, but Bandido has been filling that void they have left for me. It’s between Hangman and him, for me personally, for wrestler of the year, but I must admit I have been watching far less of other companies this year than in previous years. It’s one of my goals for next year to watch more CMLL, Stardom, and TJPW. Perhaps some NJPW as well, but it has not been hitting for me much this year except for Goto’s tite reign and Konosuke Takeshita.

Games – From Xbox 360 to PlayStation 4

If you’ve read enough of these entries and came back with the thought “Josh might have undiagnosed ADHD,” I would probably agree with you because I went from a theme of Xbox 360 games to PlayStation 4 games as I was sucked into God of War (2018) full throttle to the point that I beat every Valkyrie and completed the game. That somehow transitioned to me diving deep into another of my personal PS4 mainstays, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, which I played to completion, but I find the having to choose different options in Chapter 9 to unlock different quests to complete every side quest in the game so tedious that I attempted it once, got annoyed, closed the game, and uninstalled. Completing both has left me excited to start God of War: Ragnarok and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth on my new, fancy PC, but I might play more Silksong first, as well as replay Metaphor ReFantazio on PC, which I previously played on PS5.

Lastly, I’ve been delving briefly here and there into some DS Pokémon games such as SoulSilver, Platinum, and Black, with the latter being the first time I’ve ever played that generation. I think the release of Z-A and every gaming podcast discussing it to different degrees led me to have Pokémon on my mind.

While I was editing this, and since I’ve been playing Platinum, I was reminded that Piplup might be top five favorite Pokémon ever, and the YouTube algorithm decided to remind me of this.

Books – In Between Books

I am at the moment in between books, having finished both Blood for the Undying Throne by Sung-il, Born of an Iron Storm by Anthony Ryan, and a rereading of The Incandescent by Emily Tesh. To be honest, I’m not exactly sure what I am going to read next, but I’ve definitely felt the pull of reading this autumn that I did not feel in the summer. It has been a while since I have reread The Lord of the Rings, which used to be an annual event before I started expanding my fantasy library, and there has been this illustrated edition that came out a few years ago that has been sitting on my shelf waiting to be read.

I also have some advanced reader copies for next year that maybe I should get the jump on, but I am unsure and would not be able to talk about them here, making this section very short and boring. We’ll see. The podcast will be reading Network Effect, the fifth Murderbot Diaries book, soon, which is the full-blown novel of the series rather than a novella. It is my favorite book in the series. Murderbot has to go off planet with Dr. Mensah’s teenage daughter, and hijinx ensue that force it to bond with a teenage girl on a deserted space station. It feels like a culmination of the first four novellas and the starting point of the rest of the series.

Books, Games, Wrestling Vol. 9 – Everything Old is New Again

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

I want to use my local library, specifically, I want to walk to my local library, which is only about a ten-minute walk away, and write these on my laptop at the library. I had planned to work on it Monday through Friday, but one thing after another kept happening, so I ended up skipping a week. The theme of this one is in the title, as I’m rereading The Incandescent by Emily Tesh, released last April, I’m playing games that I played in the Xbox 360 era on my PC, and in AEW, a lot of the men’s feuds seem to be continuing to mixed results.

Books – The Incandescent Reread and Blood for the Unyding Throne Release

The urge to re-read The Incandescent by Emily Tesh from earlier this year took over me about a week ago, and I just finished it again. That may be my favorite book of the year, even more so than The Devils by Joe Abercrombie, who is one of my favorite authors. I don’t often describe a book as beautiful, but to me, that is a beautiful book. Particularly this time around I find Dr. Walden’s meeting with Nikki Conway just heartbreaking. A teenager, barely an adult, is thinking of turning down a great opportunity to be the support system to her friend, who, like her, has no support system in a world where money can determine everything you have in life. Through this conversation, Dr. Walden has to kind of reassess the privilege she has had, which the character of Laura Kenning pointed out before she lost her job. It’s honestly such a great take on the British magical boarding school; it’s going to end up being one of my favorite books ever.

The terminology of academia may seem like an obstructing wall of jargon—and sometimes, perhaps, it is—but far more often than that, it is a set of keys. You cannot understand the forces you are dealing with, still less wield them meaningfully yourself, unless you have the words to set around them. The language of power is the handle on the knife.

The Incandescent by Emily Tesh

A certain podcast was quoted on the back. 👀

— No Page Unturned Podcast (@nopageunturned.bsky.social) 2025-10-29T21:31:39.628Z

The hardcover for Blood of the Undying Throne came out this Tuesday and I didn’t want to say anything about it when it was on my advance reader copy but the official copy has a quote from my podcast No Page Unturned on the GeeklyInc podcast network. If you don’t know, often praise for the previous book of a series will be quoted on the next one from various sources who talk about it. I didn’t know this was happening and was quite shocked in a good way to see this. It means a lot.

Games – Xbox 360 Games Come Back Around and God of War (2018)

It seems, without realizing it, I’ve wandered back to my Xbox 360 era with the games I’m playing recently. I already mentioned Mass Effect: Legendary Edition in the last volume. Still, I’ve been crafting a private list on my Backlogged of my personal best 100 games of all time, and I came about to a discussion with my friend Hiro about how Batman: Arkham Asylum is essentially a Metroidvania. So that discussion has me playing it, to see where in 2025 it falls on my list, and it holds up amazingly well, especially the combat system, considering how many games have taken it and evolved it since then. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work on my Steam Deck, but its sequel, Arkham City, does, so I’m also playing that on there bit by bit when I am lounging on the couch, taking a break from reading, or lying in bed in the morning. It’s also October, so I installed the Dead Space remake from last year onto my desktop. That’s another Xbox 360 era game I played a lot. Now that I think about it, weirdly, the last year has been filled with throwbacks to the 360 days.

  • Almost a year ago the first Red Dead Redemption came out on PC.
  • Sega put out that remake/remaster of Sonic Generations that added Shadow content.
  • Valve updated Half-Life 2 last November for the 20th Anniversary and put it out for free.
  • Dead Rising came out with that Deluxe Remaster last September.
  • Castle Crashers put out new DLC and updated all the art for that game.
  • Oblivion received a remaster earlier this year.
  • Gears of War Reloaded was released for the Playstation and PC.
  • A new version of Ninja Gaiden II was released called Ninja Gaiden II Black

All of this brings me to say, where the fuck is a new Peggle?! Also Capcom, make vanilla Street Fighter 4 on Steam playable again, thanks. Back to the subject of my 100 greatest games list, I don’t know where they fell on the list, but Batman: Arkham Asylum and God of War (2018) were, I believe, close together, so somehow playing Arkham Asylum led me to installing God of War and sinking my teeth into it once again, and deep.

Oh, wait, I remember now. I was listening to a gaming podcast where one cast membner said they haven’t replayed the new God of War games because they’re only fun when Kratos is fully kitted out, which I fundamentally disagree with. After playing twenty-two hours of the PC version, I vehemently disagree with this. It’s still amazing how good that axe feels in it, when you swing, when you throw, when you bring it back to your hand. The incredible feeling of it never goes away, even after seven years, three if you’re talking Ragnarok. When our family received money for our possessions in our house that were lost in the fire in 2017, I, on a whim, bought a PlayStation 4 Pro and God of War (2018). In a weird way, those two purchases for a time represented all the systems and games I lost in the fire, which was not a small amount, going back to my childhood.

Wrestling – AEW Forbidden Door to Full Gear.

AEW Wrestledream was great, but I think I missed my moment, personally, to write about it when I skipped writing about it last week. The only comment I will make is that I didn’t love the main event so much that Samoa Joe versus Hangman Page shouldn’t have been a main event, but I also am not Darby’s biggest fan. I’m sure what is coming out of it will be great, but I’m going to be perfectly honest, Samoa Joe v. Hangman and Darby Allin v. Jon Moxley really didn’t need to continue.

I said the other day I kind of miss when AEW only had four pay-per-views, and that’s not completely true. The truth is, the spacing for Forbidden Door to All Out (or vice versa with All In mixed in) to WrestleDream to Full Gear to World’s End is kind of a mess as there are so few weeks in between those to build feuds. It doesn’t help that sometimes a Dynamite after a PPV can be the real end of the feud, with Dynamite acting as a sort of fallout for the final match of the feud on PPV. Neither do the specials like Blood & Guts, Ring of Honor PPVs, Grand Slam, Anniversary episodes thrown in the bunch there. It’s all kinda messy. I say this, when in fact I’m not unhappy, really, with AEW at all right now, but it does feel like the late summer to fall to winter lineup needs some sprucing up especially when you compare it to Revolution to All In.

Personally, I think World’s End is a cursed pay-per-view. The first one was not only boring but represented a lot of what was wrong with MJF’s first title reign and his vision for AEW. The second one, even with the Continental Classic finals, was tarnished by Jon Moxley’s terrible idea for a four-way with AEW top guys at the time, where the Death Riders just made them look like idiots, and then Adam Copeland returned to make them look even more like idiots. Throw it in the bin, put WrestleDream in that spot on the calendar, have the C2 finals there, and move Full Gear up by maybe a week or two to give space between it and WrestleDream. You can have whatever special TV episodes you want, like Blood & Guts, Grand Slam in NY, etc, between All Out and Full Gear when WrestleDream would originally take place. Forbidden Door would maybe benefit and be seen as more special if it were biennial. That’s one solution to the too-tight schedule that is AEW’s late August to December, but I’m sure Tony could come up with a different or better plan if he tried, perhaps.

Books, Games, Wrestling Vol.5 – SAVE the World Championship

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

My first late edition. Most of this was written enough to release it on Wednesday, but I was struggling to find the words to express my feelings about Undertale‘s 10th Anniversary without sharing too much or getting wordy, but still making it feel personal. I don’t think I nailed exactly how I feel, but I did the best I could.

Games – Undertale 10th Anniversary

This year is Undertale’s 10th Anniversary, Toby Fox has been celebrating it with Fangamer in their first of a couple of streams with some unique things inserted into the game that have the fandom going wild and putting every detail under a microscope. I haven’t had time to watch the whole stream, but I have taken in a lot of what Toby Fox has had to say about it. I usually write most of these on the weekend or at least have a lot written in my head before I login to my WordPress account, but I’ve been struggling to articulate what this game means to me without going insane with the word count here. 2018 was a rough year for my family and me after a house fire destroyed our home and nearly all our personal possessions, but my community of friends, both online and offline, had my back and were kind enough to raise money so I could get back some of what I lost, including a Nintendo Switch. The kindness of people and that Nintendo Switch, which I still own, got me through what was one of the lowest points of my life. The games that I bought and played that year mean a lot to me, and Undertale was one of those games.

The only information I knew about the game was not to kill the monsters if I wanted to see the full story, and I didn’t listen. I can still picture myself sitting on the floor because I didn’t own a chair, my back against my mattress, and the rented bed frame the homeowner’s insurance got for us in the rental home we were going to be in for a year while the house had to be rebuilt. I had killed Toriel because I didn’t realize I could spare the bosses, too, and I felt so awful about it when Flowey the Flower reminded me I could actually reset the game, so I did, and then didn’t play the game for another three months. I don’t remember which song, but it was hearing a song from near the endgame that got me back into it, and then it blew my mind when Flowey called me out for resetting the game after killing Toriel so much. I stayed up all night in bed, doing the entire pacifist run to ungodly hours. Something about the situation I was in, the friends and family that supported me, and that finale of the pacifist run that just opened the floodgates when I played it. I’ve never teared up at really sad moments in stories. It’s those moments of triumph, overcoming overwhelming odds, when hope returns, that really gets me emotional, like when Gandalf arrives with the Rohirrim at the Battle of Helm’s Deep. That moment at the end of the game still gets to me. Just hearing “Hopes and Dreams” to “SAVE the World” to “His Theme” brings me back to the moments lying in bed thinking of everything I’ve been through from November 2017 to November 2018. The game will always be very special to me for that. It is a game about our connections to other people, and connections were very important to me in that year. Happy 10th Anniversary, Undertale.

Wrestling – Post- AEW All Out ‘25

Here is the thing about AEW pay-per-views, I haven’t watched one without my friends since Revolution 2020 and since then there have been maybe four of them that have been bad vibes, AEW All Out 2020 due to Matt Hardy getting concussed and them continuing the match, Double or Nothing 2022 because CM Punk winning the world title felt like the worst call you could make, World’s End 2023 because it might have been the only AEW PPV I would call boring, and World’s End 2024 because Adam Copeland was the least exciting return to take on the Death Riders after a weird fourway main event that made everyone in it look dumb as hell. All Out 2025 started out weird with Christian and Copeland vs. FTR in what I would describe as a main event of WWE Raw in 2019. In other words, this match fucking sucked, and I am so ready for Copeland to retire. I’ll sacrifice Christian retiring to not get more of this bullshit. I don’t care if he’s retiring or their history, I don’t want to see references to John Cena, Defender, and Best Friend to Sex Trafficking Vince McMahon on an AEW show, get the fuck outta here. The entire layout of this match screamed WWE-produced, and I was not here for it. It was not a great start for the show, but luckily, it was the worst match on the show. Even the Hurt Syndicate, which I do not give a fuck about, nor do I want to see MVP wrestle, gave us something better by at least losing to Ricochet’s new faction, The Demand.

The show felt all uphill from there for me. The return of Eddie Kingston, Mark Briscoe getting a victory over MJF, and Riho having a great showing against Mercedes, showing some ego against the TBS Champion, that I greatly enjoyed so much that I’d love for them to run it back. The three-way match between Okada, Takeshita, and Mascara Dorada, if not for the main event, might have been my match of the night. I hope we get Takeshita vs. Dorada, Okada vs. Dorada, and of course, Takeshita vs. Okada sooner than later. Jon Moxley vs. Darby Allin’s Coffin Match was the kind of violence I desired after the high-octane match for the Unified Title, but I was pretty surprised to see Darby lose his first coffin match in AEW. I’ve been championing how great Kris Statlander is since she joined AEW in late 2019, and I was hooting and hollering when she did Chuck Taylor’s seatbelt pin to win the AEW Women’s World Championship against Toni Storm, Jamie Hayter, and Thekla. I recalled at that moment when Wheeler Yuta pinned Chuck Taylor with that same pin while Orange Cassidy was on commentary and Orange just saying, with sadness in his voice, “Chuck taught him that pin.” Speaking of Orange Cassidy, it was greatly hinted at that his return would be this Wednesday in a segment during the show, which added to the hype for me. Finally, the ladder match for the tag titles was insane, terrifying, and awesome. AEW could have pulled the trigger on giving Jetspeed the belts, or return them to the Young Bucks, but I was glad we’re continuing with Brodido, who were equally insane, terrifying, and awesome in this match.

Finally, the main event. I’ll never get tired of seeing Hangman Adam Page being the top babyface, the guy, the man, the world champ, and backing it up in one of my favorite matches of the year against TNT Champion Kyle Fletcher. I had no doubt going into it that Hangman was going to win, but the match gave me just that small amount of doubt that made this even more exciting. Kyle Fletcher is definitely going to be World Champion sooner than later, probably via beating Will Ospreay two years from now, but the chemistry between Fletcher and Hangman was top-notch. The poetry of Fletcher not getting the Tiger Driver ‘98 off, but Hangman Page being able to do Swerve’s Big Pressure was chef’s kiss. This is on my list of matches I am going to rewatch from this year, the first chance I get.

Books – Summer Reading Slump

It’s officially autumn here in the Northern Hemisphere, and I’m hoping my summer reading slump isn’t turning into a Fall one. Something about this year has been making it difficult to sit down and lose myself in reading like usual. I’m not reading any slower,r but carving out less time to read than I usually do. It honestly feels like a reflection of current events. I want to read more. I’m not enjoying reading any less. Hopefully, now that summer is over, I will get back into the reading swing.

I realized in the writing of this that I’m not taking my own advice. People who find out I read a lot of books often ask me how, and I often give the advice I first read in Stephen King’s book On Writing, you have to choose to. If you want to read a lot of books, you have to make the time in whatever part of the day you can, waiting in line, on the toilet, right before bed, right when you wake up, while eating breakfast, etc. Writing is this way, too. You can’t just wait for the perfect time or wait to be inspired you have to take the time by force and use it.

Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere Beyond The Well of Ascension.

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / 1 Comment

If one shouldn’t judge a book by a cover, even though that’s basically what book covers are for then one might also try to never judge an author by one book.

Where Brandon Sanderson was concerned I did exactly that. While the first two books I read by the fantasy author, Elantris, and Mistborn: The Final Empire belong with some of my favorite fantasy novels the second Mistborn novel, The Well of Ascension, left a bad taste in my mouth that has kept me away from  all Sanderson novels since 2012.

We find Vin after having defeated the Lord Ruler, who has acted as their god for a thousand years, and being reunited with the man she loves has become an angsty teenage brat in her early twenties. Elend and the remaining members of Kelsier’s crew from the first novel don’t act any better. Then there’s Zane. Oh, Zane, you are a shitstain of a villain.

This isn’t about shitting on The Well of Ascension, and believe me, I could for at least a thousand more words. The point is, the second Mistborn book left a bad taste in my mouth that stopped me from reading anymore Brandon Sanderson novels from 2012 to late 2015.

Fellow frequents readers and bibliophiles will empathize with this. Your “To Read” pile increases much faster than your “Read” pile. Therefore, you may own a book but not necessarily have read it yet. Then one of your friends starts reading one of those books you own and it awakens a fire in you. “I have a competition in me,” you might say, “I want no one else to succeed.” They can’t finish that book before you, you’ve owned that book for years! You have the first edition!

Maybe it’s more like, you want to be part of something, a story, a world, or an experience along with your friend at the same time he’s going through it. Simultaneously, this happened me to with Sanderson’s
series and the 2nd Era of Mistborn. I had one friend who long since read The Alloy of Law and was breezing through The Shadows of Self. Another had started The Way of Kings with praise all around for it.

So, despite my apprehension, I dived in. The Alloy of Law immediatly grabbed me. I had missed with the world of Scadrial. The powers of Alomancy and Feruchemy greeted me like an old friend. The book was sprinkled with hints of a history I was familiar with.

The Way of Kings beginning was a slog through muddy swamp water. The beginning is mind-bogglingly slow but when you reach the other side it’s like walking into an oncoming storm. Everything is happening, everything is connected, and nothing will be the same. I was hooked.

I ate up books from the Cosmere like I was starving. Shadows of Self, Words of Radiance, and The Bands of Mourning were all read before March 2016 even hit. I reread the first two Mistborn books and while I still hated The Well of Ascension I knew it was one bad book out of many amazing ones.

Finally, after refusing to read it back in 2012 I picked up the third Mistborn book, The Hero of Ages. You have to remember I had already read three of the books from the second Mistborn series. I knew the fates of Vin, Elend, Sazed and the rest of Kelsier’s former crew. You’d think already knowing what happen it wouldn’t hit as hard but that third book’s ending is still devastating.

All this in mind, when I finally read Sanderson’s new novella, Mistborn: Secret History I wasn’t prepared for what happened. I wasn’t prepared for the reunion with some of my favorite characters. I wasn’t prepared for this interwoven plot that is Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere. I was blown away.

Finally, I ended my journey where I began with Elantris. That was the book that made me fall in love with Sanderson’s writing that I had somehow lost struggling to hate-read through The Well of Ascension.

Maybe, though, that break from his book is what I needed. I washed the bad taste of the second Mistborn book out of my mouth and returned to his Cosmere older and with a new perspective on stories and writing. I am highly anticipating my next chance to go exploring through the Cosmere when Oathbringer, the third Stormlight Archive book comes out.

Appreciating A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

Most people, when talking about the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin, rank A Feast for Crows as the least interesting followed by A Dance with Dragons.

The first time through though. the second book in the series, A Clash of Kings, bored me in every chapter that wasn’t a Tyrion or Davos chapter. It’s not the book’s fault but a fault of my own.

You see, I have this problem when it comes to reading. Every time I try to read a series in succession I grow bored, no, restless during the second book. It becomes hard for me to concentrate and I always end up putting the book down, especially since I’ve figured out this flaw, and picking up a different one. I think it might stem from my A.D.D. (which I was diagnosed for, not just the many people claiming to have it) but I can’t be sure.

Besides A Clash of Kings other victims of this dilemma include the second Mistborn book, The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and even The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien. It’s just when Sam and Frodo are climbing down the elven rope that I put it down though unlike the others listed I picked it back up shortly after. Spoilers ahead. 

Continue reading →

Resisting Reading.

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

I haven’t always been an avid reader. I have always had great reading skills but reading books for leisure was something I resisted up until I went to college.

I was often bullied, made fun of and nicknamed from elementary school until the end of junior high school. Nerd & Geek culture wasn’t like it is now. If you were different, you were bullied and you couldn’t be more different if you did anything that fell into that kind of nerdy category like reading for fun. That was something losers did, losers who tried to be smart and being smart meant you were an outsider. It wasn’t cool and it wasn’t what being a man meant. This is, of course, the opinion of the 6 to 12-year-olds who bullied me and even amongst some of my peers. I honestly don’t remember people who were good at math getting the same chagin and those who read books for fun. It was either sports, video games, professional wrestling or cool action movies. Never books.

It’s not as if my parents didn’t try. They read to me as a smaller child and every time they went to the library they would ask me if I wanted anything. “No,” I would say and play through Super Mario World for the 50th time. When a Border opened up for the first time near our house, I believe around when I was 12ish, is when my parents got me to read some books. It wasn’t many though. In fact, it was a series by Bruce Coville that started with Aliens Ate My Homework. 

I can think of so many times I was bored in the library, walking up and down the aisles. I wonder how many times I passed J.R.R. Tolkien, Stephen King, or Douglas Adams walking those aisles. Instead of reading it I would wait for the library to get the latest copy of Nintendo Power. That’s how I discovered the Nintendo 64, through the library’s copies of that magazine.

The dilemma I faced though was that I wanted to be a writer. It’s hard to be a writer if you’re so resistant to liking books. If you look at my 6th grade yearbook, when they ask what you wanted to do when you grow up I wrote movie script writer instead of writer or novelist because writing wasn’t cool but movies were.

Then when I met who would become my best friend from 8th grade to 12th and he introduced me to hip-hop I suddenly had a new world to explore that I never had before. In my mind, writing other genres of music was about playing instruments first and lyrics second. With hip-hop, it was mostly about the words and the rhythm of words. When he would ask me to join his rap group, I suddenly had an outlet for my writing. I wasn’t very good at the performing part but I love writing lyrics. So many marble notebooks just filled with lyrics and song ideas.

I was always good at reading though. When Shakespeare was taught in class I had no struggle with the language. Spelling and vocabulary tests were what I lived for. When my 10th grade English teacher showed us Finding Forrester I immediately connected with it.

Then we had a major falling out and I was left without my main group of friends. Suddenly I hated writing, very resistant of it. I associated writing with that friendship and I had no desire to do it anymore. Without music or writing I had to think of what I was like before I met my highschool group of friends. Besides video games I would read comic books. My dad would bring home bundles of Spider-Man, Green Lantern and The Simpsons comic books for me to read. I remember this shop my mom used to hate bringing me to because the parking lot was so bad and immediately looked it up. There, I saw Green Lantern Rebirth #3 and asked the clerk about it. He found me copies of the first and second issue and that’s where my comic book habit started and my love for reading began to grow strong again.

It was when I went to a Barnes & Noble for the first time that I started transitioning from comic books to books. It all began with this beautiful leather bound copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy then at Christmas I got an equally beautiful copy of The Lord of the Rings. It’s been all about books since then.

Late to the Party: Joe Abercrombie’s The Blade Itself.

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / 1 Comment

As far as book go, it isn’t often that I have the forethought or the word on the street to get in on the ground floor of an author or series of novels. Joe Abercrombie is no exception.

I bought the first book in his The First Law trilogy after pre-ordering his new book Half A King. Once I start reading The Blade Itself my first thought was that I have should have read this years ago. Eight years later I’ve finished the first book and I want to read the second book right away. This is highly irregular for me.

I don’t know what it is but I can’t read the second book of a series immediately after reading the first. I get distracted, I get bored, I lose focus, my eyes start to trail off and by the end I can’t remember what really happened. I’m going to be clear: this is a not a slight of the quality of the novels but a flaw that I have. Just look at this list of second books I’ve tried to read immediately after the first and either didn’t enjoy it as much or since discovering this flaw about myself, stopped reading to pick up another time.

  • A Clash of King by George R.R. Martin
  • The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
  • Red Seas under Red Skies by Scott Lynch
  • The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson
  • Kill the Dead by Richard Kadrey
  • The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams

I can recall my experiences with all these books. You know when you read the words but don’t really take in what they’re saying? That happened to me with A Clash of Kings and The Restaurant at the End of the Universes? One, I missed hints to major plot points that would come in future books and the other I was too bored to enjoy Adam’s delightful sense of humor.

I think with The Wise Man’s Fear I got the furthest before putting it down, maybe a hundred pages? This was around the time that I was discovering this flaw about myself and I loved The Name of the Wind so much that I didn’t want the experience of the second book to suffer. With Kill the Dead, the second book in Kadrey’s Sandman Slim series I read the first page, could feel my restlessness settle in and immediately put it down.

Now, Red Seas under Red Skies I remember putting down for maybe a month or two before I had to pick it up again in order to keep up with a friend who was reading, a much faster read than I am. Same thing happened with The Well of Ascension the year before and my opinion of the Mistborn series as a whole suffered for it. That book was torture for me to read through, I found it slow, I found the main character Vin to be a whiny idiot who made the worst decisions and by the end I didn’t care about anything that was happening. I just wanted to finish and when I did I didn’t bother picking up the third book even though my friend had already gotten halfway through it. That was December of 2012 into January 2013 and only now have I even started the third Mistborn book, The Hero of Ages. Guess what? I actually am enjoying despite the sour taste the second book left in my mouth. 

There are of course exceptions. If I read The Lord of the Rings I can read all three front to back with no qualms. Sometimes I’ll just read one only because I have read them so many times and want to read something new but the point is I can read all of them front to back without getting that restless feeling. Same thing happened with most of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series. It wasn’t until the fourth book that I got restless and even then I only read one book in between before reading book five, six and seven.

The point of all this is that I want to read Before They Are Hanged, the second The First Law book right now. I need to know what happens to the characters now rather than later. I want to know more about the world, about it’s past and what is going to happen next. If an author can get me to do that then the books must be damn good.