Eric Mesa > Recent Status Updates

Communications open up a bit more

A little more alien backstory.

I could be wrong but it sounds like Ellis was thinking of Chinese and similar languages when she came up with the alien language.

Right now I'm in the strange position where I am loving the heck out of this book. I am enjoying how it's jumping back and forth (I'm still in part 1). But at the same time I find myself wishing to be further along - I think because I want to know what happens next since we were teased so much in the introductory letter.

I like how Cora is now evolving

The pace picks up a bit

Monoids!

Interesting demon rules in this book

Curious when the next phase of action will arrive

A bit more about alien biology

By about 8% i think I figured out the upcoming reveal for Rook. Loving this book so much

Moving into part 3....

LOVE the lampshade hanging in the introduction (why the in-universe author is telling us things that his in-universe audience would know); Love the framing device of a report to the king; LOVE LOVE LOVE the footnotes - it's one of the things that endeared me to H2G2 and Discworld novels. So far really enjoying this book and I'm barely into the story.

Things seem to be picking up with Cora playing interpreter

Things move forward

- I/O is an interesting exception to the functional programming. Dealt with in an interesting way.
- solving problems shows how to take all we've learned so far to actually solve some problems.
- Applicative Functors mostly went over my head. Will need to revisit once I do some Haskell coding.

A change in the situation for Cora. Seems we're into the meat of the plot now.

I/O and the impurity of it all

incredible plot twist !!

Gaining a bit more context into what happened in the past.

When Weatherwax and Ridcully are on the bridge, perhaps a slight reference to the first witch book with the abandoned plot of the first female wizard and a partnership between Unseen University and Weatherwax.

Capitalism enters the situation vs the hacker ethic

So many directions for the narrative to potentially go.

Wow, bet Ellis didn't know how much more relevant this would seem a few years later!

finally got to my favorite set of lines from this book:

Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvelous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They get terror.

That was intense!

WHOA what a reveal!

Been reading through this in preparation for using Haskell to tackle the 2016 problem set in Advent of Code. Loving the style even though this language is a real tangle from the imperative languages I've been using since the 90s.

Just about at the midpoint. The jenga tower is getting really high - it's going to fall spectacularly

With every review I always wonder if this is a good starting point for a Discworld book - this one actually has a forward by Pratchett telling folks they're better off having read the previous witch books.

When I read this the first time I didn't realize Pratchett had been mentioning Morris Dancers the whole time. I also didn't know it was a real thing.

OH man, the implications of the last few chapters for the future of this series is awesome!