If you like Sazed there’s some interesting twists coming for him.

For Vin you come to realize she’s less of a hero and more a pawn in various groups using her winning the genetic lottery.

Now… if you like characters that struggle with trauma. Way of Kings has a very troubled protagonist.

But yeah. As for sci-fi (especially ones that can span years) you might like Alastair Reynolds Revelation Space series.

Any good sci-fi suggestions?

ba-da-ba-ba-bug. I’m loving it.

Part of what makes Klein’s Don’t Starve game so quirky and fun is the rampant use of creatures that are portmanteau’s of other creatures.

Beefalo

Deerclops

Koalephant

Catcoon

Personally I loved it but if you’ve finished 2 of them and it’s not resonating with you I won’t push you to read something you’re not enjoying.

I will say that I listened to them and maybe an audiobook will be more enjoyable.

But if you want to try something else in the Cosmere with a different flavor you could try one of these and not have any huge spoilers to the overall story (kind of like watching Ant-man or Black panther in the cinematic universe before any of the other films.)

Tress of the Emerald Sea (more adventure/fantasy, less magical heist and the consequences of that)

Warbreaker (more of a mystery/intrigue)

Yumi and the Nightmare painter (not sure how to describe it but people from 2 different worlds experiencing the other and learning to work with and support the others challenges, etc). This way you can see if it might just be the Mistborn era 1 books or maybe he’s not your cup of tea. I will say that Era 2 is (like I mentioned) very different in tone, etc. same world but centuries later.

If you don’t mind me asking what kind, if any, of fantasy books do you like?

The Cosmere

Different worlds with hard-ish magic systems that are different. Yet each is a manifestation of the same underlying forces/rules across the Cosmere.

Whether it’s Stormlight, Ferruchemy, Metallurgy, etc. they’re all aspects of investiture.

Which means you get unique stories and challenges in the worlds but you also get the occasional cross of characters with one set of magic in another world of the Cosmere that has another.

And my personal favorite in the Cosmere is the Wax and Wayne series of Mistborn (books 3-7) where you have metal based magic in a Wild West like setting. So people who can manipulate metal using bullets from pistols in unique ways. Imagine all those fantasy novels with wizards… but centuries later as technology advances to the age of steam engine and firearms.

An excerpt from one of those books

Smoke curled in the air over the bandit boss’s pistol.

“Oh . . .” Wayne said softly. “You just made a bad mistake, mate. A very bad mistake.”

The boss turned away from the body, holstering his gun. “Fine,” he yelled, walking toward the door. “You can have some fun, boys. Burn it out of your blood quickly and meet me outside. Let’s—”

Everything froze. People stopped in place. The curling smoke hung motionless. Voices quieted. Whimpering halted. In a circle around Waxillium’s table, the air rippled just faintly.

Wayne stood up, shouldering his dueling canes, inspecting the room. He was placing each and every one of the bandits, Waxillium knew. Judging distances, preparing himself.

“As soon as I drop the bubble,” Wayne said, “this place is going to erupt like an ammunition store in a volcano.”

Waxillium calmly reached into his jacket and slid a hidden pistol from beneath his arm. He set it on the table. His twitch had vanished.

“Well?” Wayne asked.

“That’s a terrible metaphor. How would an ammunition store get into a volcano?”

“I don’t know. Look, are you going to fight or not?”

“I’ve tried waiting,” Waxillium said. “I gave them a chance to leave. I tried giving this up.”

“You gave it a good show, Wax.” He grimaced. “Too good a show.”

Waxillium rested his hand on the pistol. Then he picked it up. “So be it.” With his other hand, he poured out his entire pouch of steel into his wine cup, then downed it.

Wayne grinned. “You owe me a pint for lying to me, by the way.”

“Lying?”

“You said you hadn’t brought a gun.”

“I didn’t bring a gun,” Waxillium said, reaching to the small of his back and sliding a second pistol out. “You know me better than that, Wayne. I never go anywhere with only one. How much bendalloy do you have?”

“Not as much as I’d like. The stuff’s damn expensive here in town. I’ve got maybe enough for five minutes’ extra time. My metalminds are pretty much full, though. Spent a good two weeks sick in bed after you left.” That would give Wayne some healing power, should he get shot.

Waxillium took a deep breath; the coldness inside him melted away and became a flame as he burned steel that pinpointed each and every source of metal in the room.

For anybody interested in starting with a book that is in the Cosmere “Mistborn: The Final Empire” is a great starting point.

Fair point. Hmmm…. The Atari version of pac man.

That thing was just… bad.

I can’t recall a lot of just plain bad games except the ones cited. But looking forward to anybody else coming up with something they maybe jogs my memory

Zelda wand of Gamelon ET for the Atari

You’re basically dropped into a huge set of mysteries.

You get to explore, at your leisure, anything you want.

There’s places and dialog and written records that contain clues and references to different threads of those interconnected mysteries.

As you play, read, explore you uncover more and more and what happened, is happening, and will happen start to make sense and you build a picture in your mind of what’s going on.

There’s no unlocks or progress except for these moments of discovery. And as you learn and discover more you can get access to new places to dig into the mystery because you have acquired the knowledge that lets you do it.

I got the game because of a video review that struck me with how little it gave away. Because it bent over backwards to avoid spoiling it.

I played it for 5 minutes and thought, standard tutorial level design and the models could use some work.

10 minutes after that I was on my way with a code and just headed to explore. A few minutes later something crazy happened, and I was struck thinking “what just happened”

A few hours later I was pulling on a thread of exploration when I saw some celestial event that reminded me about another thread of another mystery and made me go “ohhhh, so I need to go here and check this out at a certain point in the orbit”

One crazy weekend was over and I had felt wonder, sadness, frustration, melancholy and hope in such amazingly timed waves of intrigue and discovery that I wish I could do it again.

It may not be to everyone’s taste and I get looking at the initial style and thinking there’s cut corners but there aren’t.

I will spoil one technical detail. The entire solar system is emulated in real time. Things and events are inter connected in ways that I’m personally shocked they ever got the game to run on the Nintendo Switch. It’s a technical masterpiece even if it doesn’t look it at first glance.

I saw the question, came to post this only to see yours.

It truly is a unique experience. I jokingly say to my family that if I ever have some kind of temporary amnesia prompt me to play that.

I also occasionally watch let’s plays of streamers to vicariously experience some of those moments of realization as the story unfolds.

Seriously play it if you haven’t and avoid streams, videos, etc like the plague. The game progression is 100% knowledge based. So spoilers really do take away part of the experience.

No, but good guess

V0, Trident, V2, Switchwire, Phoenix

Similar answer to a different question.

Something that I liked at first but now dislike.

Decades ago (stone cold sober no less) I really liked Pink Floyd.

Now I just find it difficult to sit through. I want something a bit faster pace.

I used to be an avid reader but as I got older and busier I just couldn’t find the time.

Then when I did have time there was always distractions, or other things I could be doing.

So now I read primarily via audiobooks through Libby and my library.

I read 130 books or so last year that way.

Mowing the yard? Audiobook.

Long drive? Audiobook.

Waiting at the doctors? Audiobook.

Dishes? Audiobook.

And then when I’m really invested I’ll relax by playing some mindless game while I listen. Think match 3 or bejeweled.

Just engaging enough to keep me from getting bored while listening but not so much that I can’t do both.

Balatro, BABA is you? Bad candidates for playing and listening.

The last couple of years I burned through the wheel of time series, all of Brandon Sanderson’s books (except skyward which I haven’t gotten to), a lot of Adrian Tchaikovsky, and others.

Yeah… I’m an idiot

Cool. Now do quantum bits so that they’re all simultaneously calculated. Wait… don’t

Or the router, in another state, and the person with access to the closet/server room knows how to push a few buttons at best.

That happens once… and you get misconfigophobia for life.

It may be easier to supply DC power directly to the soldering joints (at the right values after the converter) or even replacing that one component as using the jack itself.

A bunch of tiny lightbulbs that use twisted light and quantum mechanics to turn on or off.

And if you want to tank it without overtly tanking it.

“We will need to establish a review and governance board to establish standard data structures and reporting that can be used to drive the initiative.

It will need to be cross team and cross specialty so we should start by establishing a group to identify those people so we can proceed”

A year later and you’ll be lucky if they’ve even picked out who can be part of the review process let alone agree on some convention and adjusting their tooling and processes to make that work.