It was cold and dark outside this morning, with a chance of rain. My legs and body were sore from a combination of an intense gym session and standing/walking around at a conference yesterday. I didn’t feel like running. I went on a run anyway.

This was my reward:

I’ve never regretted a run yet, and today was no different.

Health

I started getting my post chemo treatment tests done, and while my lungs still aren’t 100% (but hopefully will someday get there), my heart and SVC got a clean bill of health. As both the tumour and the chemo slammed it, I’m very relieved that my ticker survived. Can I chalk it up to years of running? Maybe. It surely didn’t hurt.

Reading

I just finished reading “The Golden Enclaves” by Naomi Novik, the final book in the Scholomance trilogy.

It’s rare that I see an author really working out a new concept, a new kind of world building out of a tired trope, and doing it so well. It’s even rarer that the author in question is able to pull it off while still creating a readable and enjoyable story, and one so cohesive that it is clear at every point that this was constructed as a trilogy on purpose, from the start, with every piece of the narrative falling exactly into place in the end with elegance, and without calling attention to itself. This is a mechanically excellent piece of writing that doesn’t call attention to its mechanics.

Instead it calls attention to its characters, their relationships with each other, and in particular their relationship to the deep, inherent, and seemingly justified inequalities in their world. Inequalities and injustices that aren’t very hard to map onto many of those that exist in our world today.

Is the Scholomance trilogy perfect? Of course not. The characters don’t attain true depth because the cast is too large, the world needs building and that needs room, plus, these are teenagers after all. Many of them are still working out their personality. But despite its imperfections this is a very enjoyable trilogy that is worth reading, and won’t leave you feeling like you just consumed several hours of empty air. There’s substance here.

Other stuff

I’ve been creeping back to writing, albeit only adventure writing for D&D. I’m creating a new campaign, in a new world, something that I haven’t done for years.

I’m also looking into planning for next year. I have been really struggling with this mostly because of my cancer related PTSD. More on that maybe in later posts.

If you have Disney+, I recommend watching “The Magic of Animal Kingdom”. It made me smile.