Book 1 - The Last .... Leviathan ?

Don't worry, I'm not going to give a series of book reviews when I'm going over the books I'll be reading through the year. I'm too likely to give away spoilers with those.

And with a book like Leviathan Wakes (James S. A. Corey), it's better left to unfold without the spoilers.

Same as Last Jedi actually.

Book first, yesterday's day later.

Leviathan Wakes is the first book in The Expanse series by James S. A. Corey. It's been picked up by Netflix as well and turned into a series. I'd highly recommend checking out Netflix, just for The Expanse (in my case, I picked up the free 30 day trial for Star Trek Discovery, stayed for The Expanse).

The setting is our Solar System, in the not that distant future. Only a few hundred years hence. We don't have light speed travel, so we're still anchored to our home system. But there's a huge amount in our solar system, so that's not so bad. Instead, we have a space drive that opens up that solar system to the characters within the books. Nothing too dramatic, the ships are still limited by the people within them and their tolerance to acceleration.

It shares its focus between two characters in their different settings, with their stories intertwining through the book. There are subtle and not so subtle alterations between book and series .... but both make sense.

I enjoyed the book and I'm highly tempted to watch the series again (it would make it a third time through). The second book is likely to be the third book I'll include in my Book A Week aim for this year.

Yesterday had a lot going on and I was exhausted by the end of it.

First up - work, which had a fun session with my brain being picked up by two contractor ladies. I love to be able to pass on stuff I know and in this case, I'm in the possibly unique position of having seen through the previous case that they're looking to gather data on so that the next project can be planned out correctly.

I can't say too much more about that because of the line of work I'm in but it is nice to have the knowledge in demand.

Following that was a run into town, perhaps a little later than intended but I still had plenty of time to complete what I wanted to be doing.

Lunch - sausage-inna-bun ! I like these. I did grab a Facebook pic but I'm not going to copy it here. Apparently it was cold enough that either my hands were quivering the picture into blurriness or the phone camera couldn't cope. I think it was my hands. It was good to have some hot chocolate to warm them up.

Shoes - to their credit, Pavers offered no quibbles when I returned my last pair of shoes. They were very surprised that I'd managed to destroy the back of the shoes inside a month. I'll probably get more shoes from them because the pair I had were incredibly comfortable, just a shame they didn't last long.

Market ! Probably the last few days of the Christmas Market. To be honest, I was a little disappointed in it this year. No Happy Cookie Place to keep going back to and a few of the other munchie stalls made me steer clear in fear of having my tummy bitten to what they were offering. But one place has excellent cakes, one of which was my brunch today. :-D

Cinema - I ended up comfortably in time to watch another showing of The Last Jedi, this time without the effect of alcohol blurring the senses.

It's a great film. Films are best when everything is on the table, where you have no idea of what's going to happen to the characters as the film progresses. Who will live ? Who will die ? Will they win ... and to what degree ... And it has some amazing moments of pure drama with fun characters to watch as well. I do like the new Rose character, she's great.

I'd recommend watching it if you've already seen The Force Awakens, which introduces the latest era of Star Wars and it feels like The Last Jedi is setting up something incredible for the final film. Looking forward to it !

Oh and the last parts of the day were a shopping run followed by picking up pizza ...

Quite.

Too tired to stay up for the cricket and I think I got some sleep despite what the pizza does for causing me to make too much acid.

Busy day ! Chilling out for the rest of the weekend though and contemplating what washing machine I'll need to buy ... Mine has done me quite a few years (possibly 12) but I think the bearing or motor is starting to go. That's another day's problem though.

Back to the books and videos !