WWW Wednesday | 4th September 2019

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words! All you have to do is answers the following three questions:

What are you currently reading/playing?
What did you recently finish reading/playing?
What do you think you’ll read/play next?

I’m having quite a bad day today and have been having a run of pretty rough days over the past week. I’ve been feeling really stressed out about my dissertation as I’m not having a good time with it which has had a knock-on effect to my depression & anxiety which has then had a knock-on effect to my sleep hygiene and everything has kind of collapsed. I’m hoping to be able to submit my dissertation for the deadline next Monday so then I can have a couple of weeks break before starting my PhD at the end of September and be able to catch up with some reading and gaming!

Currently Reading/Playing

I’m 2/3 of the way through Waste Tide which is Chen Qiufan’s debut Chinese SF novel about e-waste, wealth inequality, and technology which has been dubbed as an “eco-techno-thriller“. Waste Tide was one of my most anticipated releases of 2019 and I am thoroughly enjoying it so far although there are aspects of it which are outside of my normal reading comfort zone (thriller) as well as content which I’ve found to be quite triggering (graphic sexual assault). It’s definitely one to go in fully informed about the content as well as knowing it’s not a strictly SF book!

 

Clearly, I’m on a bit of a gritty kick at the moment. Me and my partner started playing Shadowrun Dragonfall last week after finished Shadowrun Returns a few months back. The video games are tactical turn-based RPG games set in cyberpunk cities (this one is in Berlin). If you like cyberpunk settings which involve cool biohacking, taking down corporations, and technology-based magic then you should def check out the Shadowrun games

Recently Finished

I finally read After Atlas, the second book in the Planetfall series, whilst I was at World Con! Like Waste Tide, After Atlas wasn’t as straight-up SF as I had expected when going into it and was definitely more of an SF/Crime/Mystery hybrid so there were moments when it was a little more outside of my comfort zone and a few rare occasions when I found it harder to keep going. It was a solid 4 star read though and offered some very pertinent and thought-provoking content on human-tech relations & technological impact on human societies

Next Read/Play

Mooncakes is one of the ARCs on my September TBR and I figured it would be the perfect read as I am in desperate need of something soft and squishy right now! Once I finish with that I’ll see what kind of mood I’m in as that will determine whether I want to read something hopeful (To be taught, if fortunate), YA zombie SF (Wranglestone), horror/SF (The Migration) or more eco-techno-corporation type stuff (An Oath of Dogs).

 

 

As always, let me know what you’ve been reading/playing this week!

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