Andrew Benesh > Recent Status Updates

This is some seriously heavy handed parody. The critique of the war on terrorism as theater is nice.

This is some weirdness. I appreciate the criticisms of the drone programs, but I'm not sure where exactly this is going.

Done! All in all a good ending. The Abi-Book thing at the end was weird. OI eel like the letter at the end was a clever nod to Anne Rice's work. I'm going we'll see most of these characters again.

Pearl's story is pretty great.

Done! The ending was a bit anticlimactic. I would have liked a more hopeful end, or perhaps one granting Citi more agency. Yenn comes off as unnecessarily needy in this.

Yenn's meddling feels about right. I appreciate the efforts to highlight Ciri's Independence and desire to challenge Geralt on his misogyny. The bath house scene was pretty great.

This lady is way too casual avoid Geralt's essentially killing her husband and her son sometimes being a crow. This isn't going to end well.

An interesting way to tell the striga story. I'm supposed the Doppler story ended so quickly. That troll could have his own series.

That duplicitous squid face! Overall this issue felt a little low content - there seemed to be a preference for buff quarren over plot development. I'll have to see when I can get the rest of this plot line.

I feel like Rey would still be more impressed about being at the bottom of an ocean.

This does setup the Rey-Poe issue in TRIS pretty well. The implications of Rose-Finn are pretty strong.

I love that we're taking a moment to honor AKbar's loss.

Done! I enjoyed the commentary pages at the end - we do need more Fiin-Poe time and this does better setup a Rose-Leia connection (even if it was botched in the movie). The symbolism of Anoat could use more work, as readers might not know it as a trash planet.

This bar fight feels straight out of episode 1 of Resistance. The Rey lack of focus tracks well with the movie.

The nods to Black Spire and Resistance Reborn are nice. I feel bad that the caterpillar people were killed! RIP you freaky neutral bugs.

Done! I liked this story a lot more - it really emphasized the sense of moral responsibility that covers through in the games and novels. I wish we saw more elf-vulpess interaction; in fact Is been hoping they were one and the same. The ending overall is much more satisfactory.

I appreciate Geralt's sensibility about this situation. These are some horrible people.

Done! I feel like the reveal should have been a little earlier, so that they could explore tension in finding a solution, but this worked pretty well. I feel like the story isn't fully resolved. I do wish the story wasn't so grounded in sexual violence, and that we could have gotten more of Marta from her perspective. I'm still not sure I fully understand what the grave hag bit was about.

This reminds me a lot of one of the short stories in the book, but with different critters being responsible for the magic. I appreciate that they both capture the physically of the succubus without being sexually explicit.

The art is darker than I'd like, and the characters could use more detail, but it fits a Gothic mood. I appreciate the time given to BSing and just being people, rather than constant monster hunting.

Done! I like the way they're building the dynamic with Jeela and Redo, but it Burgers me a lot that she looked like Adora from She-Ra. All in all a nice 5 episode series. I look forward to more!

Ganem's grandmother is the best. In light of TROS her comments about the emperor having no kids are interesting. Zin's betrayal feels like someone she'd have taken Ganem on.

It's always nice to dip into conics again. It's interesting seeing the Imperial pilots as people, rather than faceless baddies. The losses so far have been pretty telegraphed, but they feel significant. The art is pretty good on the Kindle, though the hands are a bit clawlike.

The examples in Chapter 1 are clear and fun, but I wish they were a teeny bit more technical. It's going to be hard not to steal some of this next time I write about algorithms.

Done! I like the practical suggestions in part 5. It reminds me a lot of trying to convince my students to make time for self care.

Part 4 revisits interesting ideas about the process of growth and stagnation, and the idea that these are not necessarily antithetical.

Part III had interesting reflections on the differing effects of sound and silence as punctuation and meaning making, but I felt some parts assigned more power than is due. The weeklong retreat was interesting, and I wish it had been given more space in the book.

The latter half of section 2 was a bit preachy. I don't like when the author just name drops or pulls quotes. It's great to include relevant stories (see: Reza), but the decontextualized snippets feel like filler.

I appreciate the nuanced attention to the difference between choosing silence and being silenced. The recognition of how mindlessness contributes to conflicts is insightful. I appreciate her honesty about progress being circular - you don't see that in most books of this sort.