vivdunstan

This is so sad to see. My dad was depute rector at Hawick High School from 1971-1996, and for most of his time working there his office was in the Henderson Building that's now been demolished. I knew that building and his office from when I was very tiny. Long before I went to the school as a pupil. It was a beautiful building, really nice architecture. I wish they could have kept it.



Here's a glimpse of what the building looked like before this last week.


Image © Crown Copyright: HES

I was just talking to my Mum earlier this evening, and mentioned that the Henderson Building must be nearly gone if not gone already 🙁

Just finished reading this for my book club. Struggled hugely with the writing style - so many extremely convoluted sentences. I liked the core plot, but think Hammer's movie version The Vampire Lovers (1970) rearranges the core parts better. I need to rewatch that soon!

Never mind being alarmed by Christmas looming far too soon. Picked up today in our local supermarket, an information booklet + booking information for the New Year's Day Dook in Broughty Ferry, Scotland. Shiver! No we're not doing the chilly swimming thing ourselves!

Back to game coding, working on another chapter of my latest interactive fiction parser game. Coded probably the only door+keys combo in the game. Added a couple of "test X" shortcut commands. Love Inform, the natural language / object oriented / declarative programming language for IF parser games.

This is all partly inspired by having played through, judged and reviewed loads of IFComp interactive fiction games in recent weeks. And it's that time of year (my favourite!) when I'm keen to work on new projects. Or in this case pick up an old one! I hope to enter this game in IFComp 2026.

Just finished this, which I was reading on my Kindle, but had also nabbed a signed copy from my local bookshop. I've previously read the author's books Babel (adored) and Yellowface (enjoyed), and was very much looking forward to this dark academia journey into the Underworld.

Katabasis follows two PhD students at Cambridge University who join forces to journey to Hell to bring back their supervisor. As such it draws on many past writings about journeys to the Underworld, and is chock full of nods to these, while still being accessible to the general reader.

The portrayal of the British PhD process, even for a fictional subject like Analytic Magick, felt somewhat off for me, which jarred. Kuang herself is pursuing a PhD at Yale University in America, and it felt often as though she was muddling the longer and different American PhD process with the shorter British one, as well as having a lack of detailed understanding of the British approach. She did study taught postgraduate degrees at Oxford and Cambridge, but that's not the same as undertaking a PhD there. I did, however, buy into the idea of a graduate degree as a potential hellscape! Even if my own two PhD experiences (Computer Science, St Andrews, full-time, had to drop out after my neurological disease struck; and History, Dundee, part-time, completed) were hardly anything like that. PhDs are also extremely dependent on how you luck out with your supervisor(s), and it's fair to say, without being too spoilery, that Alice and Peter didn't have the best luck in this area.

I think what impressed me the most about the book is how well it works given how tiny the core cast is. The focus is primarily on PhD students Alice and Peter, as they travel through Hell, and for it to sustain my interest with that remit is pretty impressive writing. There are some other especially interesting characters encountered along the way, but it's very much Alice and Peter's story. It did sag for me about half way to two thirds through, but picked up nearer the end. Much of the story is told through back stories which are gradually revealed, and it's very twisty and turny, as new information the reader learns upends previous perceptions.

As well as the journey through Hell itself, and the idea of academia and PhD study as a hellscape, there is literal horror in this book. Extremely gruesome in places. I found one section particularly disturbing, but there was a narrative reason for it. Ultimately I was satisfied with where the book ended up.

I haven't read all of Kuang's books, but I really like how varied those I have read have been. Admittedly there are a lot of personal autobiographical elements in them. For example in this one Alice felt reminiscent of Kuang, and Peter (not least a back story that's uncovered for him) of Kuang's own husband Bennett. But each story is very different in tone, genre and setting, and I really appreciate that flexibility in approach.

I'm very glad that I read this book, and look forward to her next novel.

Looking at an academic textbook I bought so I could access it quickly. "Yup, this will be useful!" And grateful for its fairly extensive index, which is much more detailed and useful than the index for a related 1970s textbook Martin borrowed for me from the uni library (I have staff borrowing rights too, but he was on the spot!). Which pretty much just indexes names. As an academic I'm expected to read textbooks as needed. Unfortunately it's a huge problem with my progressive neurological disease and has been for 25+ years now, inc during my history taught MPhil and PhD. So I'm extremely grateful for anything that can help narrow it down. Including a good index!

Today's unplanned activity was deciding to finally get graphical adventure game Starship Titanic by Douglas Adams running on my Mac. I went with the low cost GOG version, and with a little jiggery pokery got it running nicely in my existing installation of ScummVM.

Another bunch of books finished since my last post.

( earlier books )
1. The Lantern of Lost Memories by Sanaka Hiiragi
2. The Fiddle in Scottish Culture: Aspects of the Tradition by Katherine Campbell
3. Voices of Scottish Librarians: The Evolution of a Profession and its Response to Changing Times edited by Ian MacDougall
4. Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor: Volume 1: Terrorformer (graphic novel)
5. Some of Us Just Fall: On Nature and Not Getting Better by Polly Atkin
6. The Whisperwicks: The Labyrinth of Lost and Found by Jordan Lees

Of the newly finished ones, The Lantern of Lost Memories was a novel idea, and explored a serious subject, but was rather unbalanced in its few main sections, and frustratingly left some key questions unanswered. It did feel reminiscent of, though not as good as, the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series of books. It certainly fits into that genre of Japanese fiction.

The fiddle history book was clearly a repackaged PhD thesis, and full of interesting content, but often lacking sufficient analysis, or otherwise unbalanced. Somewhat frustrating to be honest. Though not so much as how unobtainable the book is today, having been originally printed in a very limited print run, and going out of print rapidly. I was lucky to be able to borrow it from my local library in Angus, sent over from their Forfar store.

More successful for me was the collection of working memories from librarians working through twentieth and early twenty-first century Scotland. I was most interested in their accounts of their working lives, revealing changes in library practice over time, but there were many other pages to wade through of earlier childhood experiences. I cherry picked the most relevant portions for me.

The Doctor Who graphic novel was a Twelfth Doctor and Clara one. But very disappointing. Too much tell and not show, and hefty info dumps mid way through each story, about things I couldn't bring myself to care about. It was also plagued by repeatedly splitting into multiple POVs, with muddy artwork not differentiating them clearly enough.

Polly Atkin's book was good, and overall I rated it 4/5. But it felt overlong to me, and often padded with lengthy digressions, which made it hard for this chronically ill person to keep reading and following. Though it was very interesting to hear her story, not least as the sister of a friend.

The first Whisperwicks novel was a children's book, telling the story of a child drawn into a mysterious steampunk-like world of magic and quests, and much danger. Felt very Harry Potter like, but original in its approach. I could certainly see me reading the sequel.

Onto this story, after last time’s pivotal one. Going into major spoilers ... ( Beware! )