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Day 557: Higher or lower?

One Among the Dead

Sometimes you need a project that’s just for, y’know, goofing around. This is the ongoing saga of my Minecraft character. For lack of a better title, we’re going with “One Among the Dead”. 

Day 557:

I’m essentially tiering this mountain (well, there’s no snow at the top, so “very tall hill”) the same way someone would if they were growing plants in terraces… I don’t remember what it was called, but the hill looks much nicer… on the other hand, I think I’m shortening it.

I’m not sure how I feel about that except that it’s a lot safer now. And as I still appear to be the only inhabitant of this rock of the humanoid variety other than the undead monsters trying to kill me, I think I’m going to worry less about the environmental impacts of one extremely tired miner and more about the safety impacts.

But I do think I should replant some trees because the very tall hill is going to be a very empty hill by the time I’m done if I don’t. And I’m not sure how I feel about that. The trees look nice, and they may be critical to the oxygen supply if this place was terraformed. On the other hand, exploding giraffe-corgis jumped out from behind trees twice on me today and I wasn’t very fond of that part.

Maybe I only reforest the places I never go in the first place?

But then why smooth them in the first place?

(Because I might be chased into them by a zombie.)

Ugh, ethics are hard.

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Catfish Lullaby by AC Wise

Impressions

Not quite reviews, I talk about books I read and enjoyed.

Caleb is a young black boy without a mother who lives on the edge of the swamp in the town of Lewis, down by the Bayou. When he is a boy, he discovers his neighbor’s house on fire and helps to save the girl who set the fire.

It turns out that all is not well in the town of Lewis.

Cere was born to destroy the world. Her father, a sorcerer and erstwhile preacher, was bound and determine to murder a man/spirit/creature/monster named Catfish John. The best way to destroy something bigger than the world was to destroy the world, Archie Royce figured, so according to his daughter he shaped her to do the job.

She was not as keen on it as Archie may have hoped.

In the beginning of the book, Caleb was a boy, trying to piece together truth and fiction, and the definition a monster.

By the end of the book, he has taken his father’s place as Sheriff of Lewis, just in time for the horrors of his childhood, and Cere, to return.

At 110 pages, Catfish Lullaby is a terrorized run through the swamps and out the other side of humanity, where we can see who the monsters are and what they leave behind when their good intentions get twisted by their mission. The world building is strong enough to smell the swamp water without getting bogged down (sorry) in environment. The story is satisfying and solid, and leaves me wanting to hear more about Caleb’s co-worker Rose’s war stories in a future publication.

Catfish Lullaby is available now on the publisher’s site or you can preorder it on Amazon for a September release.

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Day 556: Stairways to heaven

One Among the Dead

Sometimes you need a project that’s just for, y’know, goofing around. This is the ongoing saga of my Minecraft character. For lack of a better title, we’re going with “One Among the Dead”. 

Day 556:

I’m practicing building staircases up steep hills, like the one to the south, so that I know how to handle them when I get to the big mountain.

It’s important to build something that won’t just become a giant mud slip zone, or a knot of roots with ankle-breakers in between, or something with loose stones that will slip out of place and take me with it down the side of a mountain.

Plus, I have a ton of leftover stone, and my ability to give a duck about whether I’m spotted died a violent death when I realized that a few days ago I passed 550 days here, which is ridiculous.

SOMEBODY GET ME OFF THIS ROCK.

So yes, climbing  small mountains in practice for big ones, putting stairs down, lighting torches at the top.

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Day 555: sauce

One Among the Dead

Sometimes you need a project that’s just for, y’know, goofing around. This is the ongoing saga of my Minecraft character. For lack of a better title, we’re going with “One Among the Dead”. 

Day 555:

I miss barbecue sauce.

I wish I’d learned how to cook before landing on this rock.

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Day 554: practicing on cushions

One Among the Dead

Sometimes you need a project that’s just for, y’know, goofing around. This is the ongoing saga of my Minecraft character. For lack of a better title, we’re going with “One Among the Dead”. 

Day 554:

I’m practicing my sewing on making cushions that I can see if I’ve gotten this gut-string right yet. It’s also kind of nice to think I can make something to sit on other than the bed that isn’t literally rock hard.

I’ve got a ton of wood available to make furniture from, and I’m thinking a chair might be nice.

I think this was the kind of stuff my ancestors did over the winter, but so far there’s still no sign of a season change, so unless there’s an extremely long orbit on this rock, it’s not tilted at an angle and the seasons are determined by the latitude and the elevation.

Which would explain the snow on the mountains that are virtually in my backyard, anyway…