Hippoi Athanatoi

I’ve been slacking as a reader for quite a few years now. It used to be that I read a large stack of books each summer, a smaller one for my birthday and another good-sized stack for Christmas, plus quite a few books in-between too. But then something happened and months could pass without me reading a single book. Having more hobbies has certainly played a part, as has resorting to idly browsing social media instead of reading when I’ve had shorter stretches of free time. And, last but not least, I’ve had a harder time finding books that appeal to me. I attribute this both to some change in my tastes and, primarily, a shift in the genre.

There’s a lot of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance out there these days, genres that I am not very keen on. And while I like some romance in my fantasy, today there’s a lot of formulaic stuff that is more romance with a touch of fantasy (aka the cringingly named “Romantasy” genre). I feel like in the last decade or two, fantasy has drifted towards either more romantic or more grimdark, losing the middle ground that I used to enjoy.

Add to that an increasing number of books that appear designed to tick as many woke checkboxes as possible and be so sensitive and scared of possibly causing offense that they become utterly bland.

That said, the rereading spree that I started in 2021 with Robert Jordan and Stephen R. Donaldson did a lot to get me back on track with my reading, if not my reviewing. Maybe 2024 will be the year for that?

Gerald Tarrant, the Hunter, from the Coldfire trilogy.

In All the Seas of the World, Kay returns once more to his most frequently revisited alternate history setting, where the stories often touch upon the tensions between the followers of the three major religions: the Asharites, the Jaddites and the Kindath. I have not consciously reflected on this before, but when reading this book, I started thinking more about the choice of having these three religions be celestial, worshipping the stars, the sun and the two moons, respectively. To me, it heightens the tragedy and futility inherent in religious conflicts that their objects of worship are essentially the same things, seen in the same sky.

My discovery of The Wheel of Time preceded my introduction to the Internet with at most a year. As such, it was the first Fantasy series that I ended up experiencing in part through various on-line communities, something which paved the way for my later involvement in the A Song of Ice and Fire fandom. In fact, and this is something I have written about before, Westeros.org would not have existed if it was not for The Wheel of Time. In part because Elio and I would not have met and in part because we modelled some of our early contributions to the fandom on existing Wheel of Time-resources. And before we lost ourselves in Westeros, we spent countless hours on Wheel of Time roleplaying games, arguing lore minutiae.

As you might guess from this, and from my opinion of the later seasons of Game of Thrones, I am a nitpicky book purist. However, I will make an attempt to discuss the first three episodes of The Wheel of Time both as an adaptation and as “just” a TV show. But it is always an impossible task to completely separate an adaptation from its source material, because the very fact that it is an adaptation is an integral part of its existence.

I’ve had a bit of a pleasant problem of late. I’ve read some books that I have really wanted to write about…if it wasn’t for the fact that I had more things to read that I couldn’t stop myself from starting.

It began with an unintended reread of the first two of Stephen R. Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant chronicles. I was going to look something up in Lord Foul’s Bane and ended up reading it and the rest of the first chronicle in short order. And then I figured I might as well read the second chronicle too, since I had never read them all in close succession. It made for a great reading experience and gave me a much clearer understanding of the development of Covenants dilemma(s) and why he made different choices at the end of each chronicle. I had planned to continue to the last chronicle as well, but I needed a little breather and during that some other books snuck in and said “hey, read us!”. So, we’ll see when I get to it given the lost momentum.

I do want to heartily recommend giving the Covenant books a try. There may be a dark lord and various other well-known fantasy elements, but the writing is nothing like any other fantasy out there. And if you can’t stand Covenant because you think he’s a horrible person, then you have no empathy whatsoever. The mental agony that he is in is crushing. I do very much understand if someone can’t stand being in his head because of that, because you’re basically in the head of a drowning person that is utterly convinced that if he grabs the rope tossed to him things will actually get much, much worse.

But, if Donaldson is a little too dark and dreary for you, I’ve got some more cheerful recommendations too.

7 years ago, a dog was born that changed my life. All dogs do, one way or another, but not always this much. I wrote about this before, but I keep coming back to it. Breeze came into my life as I had begun taking anti-depressants in the wake of Ringo’s illness and started to become more able to do things with my life. That meant that the 6.5 years we shared were some of the most fulfilling of my life. We travelled to shows all over Sweden (and a few in Norway) with him and I became friends with some wonderful people thanks to him. At the same time, The World of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones gave us the opportunity to travel abroad more than I had ever done before. That was not because of Breeze, but in my mind he became deeply associated with this very happy time in my life.

Back in the early days of the Internet, I remember following some SF/F newsgroups and being utterly baffled by how so many grown women—authors, no less!—would spend a lot of time discussing a show with a really silly name. Why are these adults fans of what sounds like a cheesy show for, at best, teenagers, I wondered. So did Elio, when I told him.

Then I happened to catch part of an episode of said show, being rerun during the day. Something caught my attention and I felt like maybe we should try watching it, but it took a while before I suggested it to Elio. After all, we’d laughed about how silly it must be. But eventually we swallowed our pride and gave it a go.

That show was Buffy the Vampire Slayer and ever since then we’ve been huge fans of Joss Whedon. So when we first heard of The Nevers we were thrilled that there’d be a new Whedon show.

A review of Rule of Wolves or of the Shadow and Bone adaptation? Why not both, and a bit more on the side?

I read Shadow and Bone and the rest of the initial Grisha trilogy from Leigh Bardugo fairly soon after it came out. I do have a weakness for entertaining YA fantasy and that’s exactly how I would describe it. It is definitely a bit tropey and formulaic at times, but the writing is solid and the world different enough to feel fresh. I also have a distinct weakness for a first-person narrative and Bardugo delivers that as well, with a heroine who is interesting and has a sense of humour without being the usual “strong” female character who is sassy and kick-ass all the time. My main complaint after finishing the series was that the one formula of the YA fantasy I can do without is the tease of the female character almost hooking up with the villain/bad boy. I think it could have been quite interesting if Alina had not learned of the Darkling’s evil intentions until they were getting ready to deal with the Fold. Or at the very least somewhat later; I realise that the plot still needs her to spare the stag. I liked the overall setup of Alina’s relationship with Mal, with the good friendship and the seemingly unrequited love, but as his own character he didn’t quite come to life for me which meant that the romantic relationship felt a bit flat. What I enjoyed most about the series as a whole was probably Alina’s relationship with her power, going from suppressing it to wanting more of it and ultimately losing it all.

Guess what? The site redo stalled again, go figure. But at least I got a lot further this time. Now I am stuck pondering whether Reviews should just be folded in under this blog or if it makes sense to have proper reviews of single books, single episodes, etc separated out. Or perhaps I should just simplify the structure of the reviews so they work for covering a whole book series, a season of a show, etc.

But for now, I’ve been itching to comment on a few things that I’ve read and watched lately; Mark Lawrence’s The Girl and the Mountain (or more accurately, almost everything by Mark Lawrence), Leigh Bardugo’s Rule of Wolves as well as the adaptation of Shadow and Bone and The Nevers. I had planned on just one post, but its already growing at an alarming rate so lets do it one thing at a time.

6 years ago today, Ringo passed away. It feels like a lifetime ago and in many ways it is because together Ringo and Breeze changed my life almost completely. And now they are both gone, which my brain on some level still refuses to take in.

We learned of Ringo’s cancer towards the end of 2013. That, together with my mother’s advancing illness, sent my stress and depression spiralling out of control. I went to a doctor for the first time in many years, thinking that my blood pressure was through the roof and/or that I was about to have a heart attack the way my heart was racing. It was “just” a panic attack and severe anxiety, but it did convince me to start taking anti-depressants, which I had resisted for…well, decades.

I didn’t know it then, but it was the beginning of a very different phase of my life. In 2014, our book was published and we welcomed home Breeze, and both these events would have far-reaching consequences. The book through its amazing success and the many interviews, trips abroad and other wild experiences that it led to. And Breeze…well, without Breeze I would not have made so many new friends or become so involved in the Boxer Club through dog shows, training for working dog trials and just living a life with a boxer at the heart of it. We may have had dogs since I was quite young, but my life had never be so completely arranged around a dog as it became with Breeze.

Almost two and a half months now since the beginning of the year and Breeze’s passing. I can think about him without that horribly sharp pang of pain, but often I flash back to that first seizure on our walk. The cold sweat that immediately gripped me as my brain assumed the worst. It always does, but this time it was right. Just like it was right when Ringo started limping for no obvious reason. Of course, I have no doubt been wrong several times as well. But with Breeze…its odd, I don’t know if it was because of the surgeries for his knees and the cancer scare last autumn (that one turned out to be nothing, though), but for the last year or two I felt this almost painfully strong attachment to him. I’d often hug him in that way you do when you’re scared of losing something, as if you could hold on by hugging. I’d also feel scared that I was too happy, that things were too perfect now that I had Elio, two wonderful dogs and a horse. I am sure everyone gets these feelings, but I often get stuck in them. Well, that’s depression and incurable pessimism for you, when you feel good you are always waiting for something to go wrong.

Back to an old favourite today, a lesson blog. Writing something every time I ride became a chore even before I bought Barka (yes, that happened while blog was on hiatus, in early 2019), but it is still a good idea to occasionally write down my thoughts after a lesson. 2021 has started both well and not so well in terms of my riding. On the plus side is a happy, healthy horse (fingers crossed and all that) and the fact that I’ve had a chance to ride for Sten Åstedt every 14 days. Normally, I get a lesson for him once a month but twice now I have filled in for other regulars. Today was one such instance, we’ve had a mass of snow over night and those who needed to transport their horses to the arena couldn’t make it.

Less good is that I have been plagued by nerves. The cold weather is beautiful and lovely, but it can make the horses just a little frisky. To be honest, Barka is just a little more forward than usual and a little more alert, but when something gets on my mind, it stays there. I’ve found riding in the arena particularly difficult and that’s a bit curious because it used to be I felt much safer there than in the outdoor paddock. But what I have realised is that my fears have changed over the years. With Barka, I am much less worried about losing control over her (that was always my big fear before), but I am still worried about things happening that might scare her. Outside, I can keep an eye on my surroundings. Inside the arena, I never know when there will be a sudden sound outside the door. So its about control, but control of the environment around me rather than the horse.

It has been a while since I wrote anything here. Over 3.5 years, in fact. I’ve posted plenty to Otherworldly, but nothing about dogs, horses, books, mu*ing or life in general. For some of it, I’ve used Facebook instead. For the rest, I’ve had the occasional urge to post but found myself frustrated by the need to redesign and restructure the site. The site just ended up being an awkward reminder of the fact that I wasn’t able to muster the energy to work on it properly. I keep having things get only partially finished because of my depression and then I get even more depressed because I have half-finished things lying around.

But sometimes things happen that make me care less about my little obsessions and hang-ups. On January 1st this year, our beloved Breeze passed away at only 6.5 years of age. Out of the blue he started suffering seizures on the 31st of December and the next day we learned that he had a large brain tumour and that nothing could be done for him.

My heart is still in pieces and I miss his beautiful face and his large, comforting presence every moment of every day. He was not an easy dog but he was a wonderful dog.

I posted this on Facebook already, but this blog needs some love too, so I thought I might as well include both the post and the video of the event in question.

I haven’t blogged about MUSHing in ages, but a discussion at MU Soapbox was brought up as we were talking about potential CG changes on Blood of Dragons. It concerned whether games should ask for backgrounds or not before letting a character go IC, and the general consensus seemed to be that this is a horrible thing to do (much like anything else that keeps you from logging onto a game and being IC within 5 minutes).

Now, no one can deny that MUSHing is very much a niche hobby today and that it competes with an otherwise rather fast-paced gaming world that offers a lot of near-instant gratification. So, yes, there needs to be quick routes onto a game, such as pre-generated characters. But doing away with any form of background altogether seems like something that would only work for a very limited range of settings where it is enough to say that if you don’t mention any extraordinary events in your background, you’re assumed to have had a normal life up until the start of play. If the setting in question is one where it can be assumed that most players will have a somewhat similar understanding of what a “normal life” would entail, then yes, it works.

That rules out most non-modern day settings (and probably quite a few modern day settings too, depending on location, supernatural elements, etc). After 10 years of running Blood of Dragons, with a background as a mandatory part of CG, we’ve seen that at least 50% of players would come out of CG with some very odd notions about what a “normal life” would have been like for their characters, had we not been able to give them feedback on their write-ups. So, yes, the background is a little bit of a “test”, to see if the player has a concept in mind that will work on our particular game.

I know that some players prefer to “discover” their characters through roleplay and find it hard to settle on too many details before they start playing. While I am the total opposite myself, I know that creativity works differently for everyone. Some plan, some go with the flow. But the approach of seeing where the story takes you is also something that only works in particular settings/genres. Is your game set in a modern-day city where players can arrive IC as they start play, with no ties to anyone? Then that approach can be perfect. There are other scenarios that work too, but they tend to have in common that characters are unconnected to each other and that they can be fresh arrivals from distant places. As soon as your character needs to be worked into a network of other characters, you need to have at least some sense of the character’s past.

When it comes to Blood of Dragons, the setup of the game is such that I would say backgrounds of some kind are indispensable. The setting is not one where we can assume that all or even most players know what “normal” would be for their characters, so they do need some guidance from staff on their concepts (even if they don’t think they do). The kind of characters available (members of noble houses) also rule out concepts such as the mysterious loner with no ties to anyone else. Additionally, CGed characters become part of the stable of pre-gens once abandoned by their initial player, which means that any background or concept needs to be written so that another player—not just the person creating the character—can understand and work with it.

What I have been considering for a while, however, is trying to find a middle ground between a more detailed background (which doesn’t work so well on some types of characters, especially younger ones) and a concept sketch that presents the type of character the player has in mind and includes any key background events, while avoiding a traditional linear writeup. Given that we’ve also introduced an “Events” system that allows players to record significant events by date, any such details can already be migrated out of the background. It might be that moving to more of a concept sketch would both allow more flexibility in how characters are setup and actually prove more useful in helping inexperienced players come up with a playable concept without spending time on padding out a background needlessly.

This is starting to become routine. I stop blogging for a while, I change around the website and I never get things fully finished so that I feel comfortable with starting up. But whether or not I am ready to get back to regular posts, I do feel an urge right now to write about the latest developments with my riding. There may also follow posts about dog training, because I’ve been bitten by that bug too.

But to start with the riding, I am still riding Barka as part of a project at the riding school to give a few students a chance for more intense training as well as some low-level competitions. I ride my regular lesson on Mondays and then I ride Barka on my own on Fridays. In addition to that, we get a chance to ride for external trainers. Last year it was mainly jumping for Gunilla Fredriksson, which definitely highlighted just how basic the jumping we’ve done before has been. This year I’ve had the opportunity to ride twice for Sten Åstedt and that has been a real revelation when it comes to dressage. He has been training the instructors at the riding school for some years, so some of what he said wasn’t exactly new, but being taught one-on-one and really focusing on what he does differently was a whole new experience. Basically, its a matter of retraining a lot of the things I’ve been taught over the years. For example, my seat needs changing from the ground up, since my body is still too used to the old “push your heel down” school of riding. He wants my legs further back, my feet horizontal to the ground and the toes pointing forward. If the horse were to disappear from underneath me, I should land on the whole foot, not the heel which would mean I’d tip over backwards. And then there’s the fact that whether I am doing a circle to the left or a circle to the right, I sit for the wrong direction. One way would be natural (which way depends on whether you’re right- or left-handed), but both being an issue means its a learned behaviour. The fault? Having been taught to look far ahead, which on a circle means your pelvis is going to be going in a different direction than the horse’s body.

He illustrated this very clearly by having me ride Barka on a circle to the right while keeping her flexed at the poll for a circle to the left. As long as I did that, I sat correctly. The first few times that I changed the flex at the poll, my seat changed as well. That is going to be a lot of muscle memory to retrain. He also asks his students to ride from the outside in (outside leg to inside rein) instead of inside out (inside leg to outside rein), in part because he wants us to tell the horses what we want them to do instead of what we don’t want them to do. Show them the way with the inside rein instead of hindering them with the outside rein. A lot of it is definitely the opposite of what I’ve been taught before, but it certainly felt very good once I got it to work. Is it the one true way? I don’t know, I am not experienced enough, but I like the way he presents his ideas. He talks a lot about how it is easy to communicate something other than what you think you are communicating and this is something I’ve had ample proof of when training Breeze as well. Trying to get across exactly what you mean to another species is not easy, especially not when you’re using ways to communicate other than talking or writing such as balance or body language.

The last lesson for Sten (this past Wednesday) also involved a lot of focus on my rising trot. During the first lesson, he’d told me I kept going a little too fast. Now, he also wanted me to sit down much more lightly, as if my horse had a bad back. I definitely need to get my balance down into my feet for that to work and I need to rid myself of my urge to create momentum by using my seat to push the horse forward (in part learned over years of riding the laziest horses I could find), both when trotting and cantering. He had me give canter aids without sitting down in the saddle and at first I couldn’t quite visualize how I could lift the horse’s ribcage by just using my heel, but then suddenly it worked. Quite an amazing feeling, given how much I have struggled with giving soft canter aids and not trying to rock the horse into motion with my whole body.

The final thing for my new checklist was to keep my inner hand steadier (and lower) by imagining that I am holding one finger on a neck ring. He noted that generally he’d place the virtual neck ring further down on the horse’s neck, but my arms were too short. ;P Well, at least I have an expert agreeing with me there, I’ve always said I struggle to ride larger horses because of my short arms. Fortunately, Barka fits me pretty well. No modern dressage horses for me, which suits me just fine. I like the more baroque models. Fingers crossed that she will stay fit so that I can keep taking these extra lessons this semester, because its really motivating.