Niall Teasdale's Blog, page 3

The Man Who Was Never There

Available now!

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TMWWNT Cover Reveal

So, this is the cover. The book will be out tomorrow (Monday, Feb 5th). That may turn out to be Tuesday if you’re on the other side of the world from me. I’ll try to get it out as early as possible, but there’s no accounting for Amazon’s submission system.

I made this one brighter. Quite a lot brighter. Hope it works.

This is awesome: Apothecary Diaries hits the Real World

The Apothecary Diaries is something of a surprise hit. It’s been going for a few months now; they did a double-season run to kick it off with a short break over Christmas. It’s not a fantasy, it’s basically a fictional historic setting based on imperial China rather than Japan. The unconventional protagonist (pictured above) is Maomao, the daughter of an apothecary who works in the red light district outside the imperial palace. She gets sold as a slave (basically), ends up making herself far too useful in the palace, and gets embroiled in all sorts of mysteries. I’m doing a terrible job of selling it, but if you’re into anime and you skipped it, it’s brilliant.

Now, Maomao has something of an addictive personality. It’s addictive in that it sneaks in and makes you want to watch her adventures, but she’s also the kind of person who gets addicted to things. She has a thing for sampling rare poisons. Luckily, she usually knows how to mitigate them. She also tests curatives and lotions meant for wound treatment by cutting herself to try them out. So, when the Ministry of health, Labour, and Welfare (you may remember them as the bad guys in the last Tatsu book; yes, they are real; and that’s the link to my books to make this sound relevant) were looking to do a campaign about women and addiction, Maomao became the poster girl. Literally. She’s on the cover of the ministry’s monthly health magazine.

There’s an article on Crunchyroll’s site giving more details. If you’re into anime, want something different, and haven’t tried The Apothecary Diaries, I can highly recommend it. It’s available dubbed if you’re not into subtitles, though it’s still airing, so not all of the episodes have been dubbed yet (over half have). I slept on it for about six weeks, and then ended up binging all the episodes I could when I tried it.

Mostly though, I’m posting this because I think it’s awesome to see a character like this promoting women’s health. It’s apparently the first time the ministry has done anything like this. Maybe they won’t end up trying to enforce a totalitarian legal system in the future.

Bad Science

It’s a snow day and my eyes are stinging for some reason, so work is taking a back seat. So, I wanted to write this…

As you may or may not be aware, I’m writing the next Elementary book. Calista has been busy winding herself up over certain people conducting bad science. In this case, it’s the classic kind: I know what my conclusion is, let me find evidence to prove it. It’s amusing in fiction and, of course, those who do it will get their just desserts because it’s fiction. But I’ve also spent the day seeing it happening in real life.

The totally harmless version of this is from Genshin Impact lore. I’ve been playing a lot of Genshin Impact for the past year and, me being me, I’m interested in the lore of the game which is, quite frankly, huge and complex. Seriously, they dragged in elements from just about every major philosophy, mythology, and religion to create the background for a gacha video game! Awesome. You can find lore videos all over YouTube. I recommend Ashikai’s channel, if you feel the need to see what I’m talking about, because she seems to do her research, admits when a theory is probably just guesswork, and has a really soothing voice.

Many theories revolve around Paimon. For those unaware, Paimon is both our in-game companion and mouthpiece, and the ‘face’ of the user interface. One can click a button and enter the Paimon menu which gives access to various user interface features such as the shop, the wishing mechanism, the exit button, and more or less everything else. (This bit’s important) When you enter this menu, your character freezes and Paimon pops out to fly around in front of you. (And, on a PS5, if you blow on the microphone in your controller, it blows Paimon about, which is just the stupidest cool thing ever.) Various people have used this freezing to ‘prove’ that Paimon is a degraded version of the Goddess of Time. There’s other evidence, but here it is: when Paimon appears on-screen in the menu, time stops. Paimon has control over time. Ergo, Paimon is the Goddess of Time.

Except… Now, pointed out in many of these videos is the fact that the wind still blows. You can see it moving grass and leaves, etc. So, Paimon doesn’t stop the wind. Ah, but you see, the wind is associated with Time for various reasons I won’t explain (but they make a little sense), so she wouldn’t stop the wind. And water keeps flowing. But she wouldn’t stop the water for, um, reasons. And butterflies still fly… When I noticed the butterflies, I went looking. Turns out, there’s no discernible pattern to what stops and what remains animated. Named NPCs freeze. Unnamed NPCs remain animated. Cats (probably dogs, maybe other animals) freeze. The robot police officers in the new area (Fontaine) freeze. It’s not consistent. One thing is for certain, it’s nothing to do with Paimon’s true nature. It’s probably some feature of the game engine.

Someone had a theory about something. They went looking for evidence to prove it. They did not do the research, stopping when they found evidence to back their claim and not checking to see whether it really did. Bad science. But it’s hardly going to break the world.

In other news, Trump won Iowa. Early this morning, I watched something about this saying, ‘Look, barely 50% of Republicans actually voted for him. How terrible.’ At lunchtime, I watched another video which pointed out that no one has ever got 50% of the vote in Iowa. Trump won by 10% more than anyone has ever managed before. Bad science. Someone has been huffing so much copium that they didn’t bother looking at the actual statistics (probably at all; it’s propaganda; both sides can put out propaganda, and do). This could break the world, and it made me kind of nauseous.

It feels like this kind of thing is getting worse. When it comes to the lore of a video game, who cares? When it’s becoming the most common mode of operation regarding politics and even science, we have a real problem.

Sorry for the rant. Had to get it off my chest. And my eyes are feeling a little better now, so maybe I’ll get some work done. Big heroic seen coming up for an unexpected character. And now you’ll have to wait until April to find out who! Bwahaha!

No Other Reason

I’m just posting this render. Sometimes, I get something I really want to render, and I’ve got no reason to do it other than that it’s there. Stonemason sets often result in this. So, here’s Nava standing under an opening in a roof and stuff. It’s a UHD image suitable as wallpaper, if you feel like downloading it. Feel free.

Oh, and zoom in on her thighs. Man, girl could crack walnuts with those. I guess I’ve never really looked at the back of her thighs before.

Best Medical Treatment Ever

Progress report: Yesterday, I wrote the first scene of Disruptive Elements, the sequel to Elementary. It would’ve been more, but yesterday was kind of busy…

So, I’ve been having trouble with my eyes recently. It’s all to do with my skin, and the drug I’m on to try to help that, but basically, I was having a bit of trouble seeing at the end of last year. I had Word wound up to 170% normal size so I could see the words properly. It’s back to something like normal now thanks to wonders of modern pharmacology. Steroids are great (except for your blood sugar levels and liver).

Yesterday was my bi-annual trip to the optician. I know I need knew glasses, even without the other problems, but I figured it was going to be bad. It was bad. At least my expectations were met! The optician said that my eyes are so screwed up at the moment that she didn’t feel comfortable providing a prescription for the lenses! So, I’m going back in two weeks after a bit of work.

This is where it gets good. Warm compresses and some eye drops. That’s the treatment. I was in my local pharmacy finding the right eye drops when I also found this bean bag thing you put in the microwave to do the compresses. I know have a legitimate, medical reason to lie down in the middle of the day with a warm eye mask on. Of all the medical treatments I’m having to put up with at the moment, this has to be the absolute best. Bless you, Boots Opticians.

Mind of the Martinet Available Now

The third Tatsu yamada book, Mind of the Martinet, is now available.

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PSYCHO-PASS (in cinemas)

One of the inspirations for Tatsu’s world is PSYCHO-PASS. If you haven’t seen this (and you’re into anime, or even just cyberpunk), PSYCHO-PASS is a cyberpunk-ish anime based around a world where Japan is the only stable political system left in the world thanks to the Sybil system. Sybil is able to determine the psychological state of every citizen ensuring that everyone has the right job and crime is basically a thing of the past. And, of course, things can go wrong with this utopia… Basically, it’s bloody good. The first season in particular is a brilliant example of animated cyberpunk fiction. I recommend it.

And for those who have already been through two seasons, and a film, and another season… PSYCHO-PASS: Providence is coming to a cinema near you. I think this is sort of a conclusion to the whole plot, but I’m not quite sure it’s going to resolve everything. It’s coming out soon in various cinemas across the US. It’s turning up in the UK in August (2nd and 3rd). The image above links to the Crunchyroll announcement (I am not getting paid to promote this, I just really like PSYCHO-PASS). Go see it if you think you’d like it. I am.

Existential Crisis!

I just found myself agreeing with Nigel Farage. I… I don’t think I can go on.

If you aren’t aware of who Nigel Farage is… you lucky, lucky utter bastard. Let’s just say that his politics are pretty much exactly the opposite of mine and I think he’s possibly the biggest douche to ever exist. The thought that he an I can have any thought in common is, um, horrifying.

SALE!! A Probably Useless Post

Starting tomorrow and through all of July, my books will be on sale at Smashwords. Now, most of the people reading this probably already have all of my books, but if you never bought something for whatever reason, or you haven’t read the older stuff because, here’s your chance to get it cheap or possibly free. The first book in each series is on there for free (the first three of Thaumatology and Aneka). Everything else is reduced.

Just remember, it doesn’t start until July 1st, so you’ll have to be a bit patient. Enjoy, if this is at all useful to you.