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I've rediscovered audiobooks

2022-10-28

1 minute read

I ran distracted all day yesterday, I hope today is a little more clear. The weather is pretty rotten, I don't want to go out for test prints in the rain but may have to.

I went to a a industry showcase evening last night, my friend was presenting a game of theirs. Had a brilliant time, it was really inspiring to see everyone's work. There's a whole community of people interested in the same kind of pursuits I'm interested in, and they're not that far away. I wish I would seek this out more than I do, I don't know why I wallow in isolation, needlessly. I talked to Hugo, a web and game developer, about the mechanics of one of the games he was developing and general web development experience. I felt understood, and also very interested to hear more about his work - he reinforces my long held ideas about game developers and their next-level programming acumen.

I went home early and tried to do some more zine work, to small avail. What I did really enjoy was, while I tidied my room, I started listening to The Left Hand of Darkness. The synopsis of fantasy/scifi novels often read as so fantastical as to be nonsense or to silly to take seriously, but I've yet to find that true in the stories themselves which are always built with nuanced and complex characters, subtle ideas about the world, and extensively thought out, rich and detailed worlds. From wikipedia

The novel follows the story of Genly Ai, a human native of Terra, who is sent to the planet of Gethen as an envoy of the Ekumen, a loose confederation of planets. Ai's mission is to persuade the nations of Gethen to join the Ekumen, but he is stymied by a lack of understanding of their culture. Individuals on Gethen are ambisexual, with no fixed sex; this has a strong influence on the culture of the planet, and creates a barrier of understanding for Ai.

listening to

you guessed it, The Left Hand of Darkness.

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