Well, that's an improvement

[davidgillon]

Given ongoing computer shenanigans I finally dug out my old laptop and powered it up earlier, and it's actually working better than it was when I stopped using it in early pandemic. It still needs a new keyboard, but it has at least stopped sending out spurious characters at random and a plug in keyboard works fine. As my plan if it was still imitating an infinite number of monkeys was to unscrew everything in sight and physically disconnect the keyboard, this is a bit of a relief (of course sod's law says that I happen to have the version with the most complicated disassembly in the whole range).

I've also relocated it to my computer desk as sitting cross-legged on my bed all afternoon has not done my hips any favours. Ow.

So hopefully I'm now safe (I'll give this one a day or two just to confirm it's working reliably) to sort out the profile issue on the other laptop, and then use one or the other to get back to the disc recovery for the desktop I was trying to do way back in October.

In other news, I finished Katherine Addison's Witness for the Dead last nigtht (which I picked up for a ridiculous £0.99 during Black Friday), and OMG, so good! Celehar, the Witness Vel Ama who had a minor but vital role in The Goblin Emperor is now back out among the people and doing the job he trained for as a priest and witness for the dead, but has two thorny problems, a burial a family member thinks might have been a murder, but he where can't find the grave, and the second a body pulled from the river, which his ability to witness tells him was definitely a murder. The two cases intertwine through the book, as does a messy case of 'but papa said I was to inherit' among one of the wealthier families of the city. I was a bit worried the story was flying off at a tangent mid-book, but Addison wove that thread neatly back into the main story.

I just ordered a book for my mother she wants as a present for my sister. I wasn't sure what it was about, some piece of local history and my mother apparently knows the author, but having now seen the tag line I'd definitely have given it a second look "Shabby Wedding : the true story of Mary Jane Dodds, married twice, buried twice, and both her husbands hung". That's definitely an interesting opening!

Comments

[sovay]

In other news, I finished Katherine Addison's Witness for the Dead last nigtht (which I picked up for a ridiculous £0.99 during Black Friday), and OMG, so good!

It wraps up so quickly that my mother, rushthatspeaks, and I all wondered if there was a scene missing in the last chapter, but otherwise I loved it. I loved Thara in The Goblin Emperor and was not expecting any kind of spin-off, especially when Monette said so firmly that there would not be sequels.

[davidgillon]

It wraps up so quickly that my mother, [personal profile] rushthatspeaks, and I all wondered if there was a scene missing in the last chapter

I had the same reaction, but, on reflection, decided it didn't actually need one. It fits Thara to leave things with him drinking tea in a teashop, with possibilities raised, but nothing decided.

[sovay]

It fits Thara to leave things with him drinking tea in a teashop, with possibilities raised, but nothing decided.

It isn't a last beat that's missing for me, it's a beat on the way to getting there.