Reading, reading...
I'm in a reading slump. I used to read a lot, but for a few months now I'm finding it difficult to engage with books. I barely connect with the stories, and I'm leaving books half-finished, when I had never done that. I tried reading a few anthologies, but the disconnect between the stories made it even worse. I also tried switching genres, to no avail. So I've gone back to re-reading some books I really liked in the last few years.
I started re-reading the Robot novels by Asimov. It's curious how the second read is adding so much. In Caves of Steel now I question the practicalities of living under giant domes. How does that look like, in practice? Who flies the planes, if everyone is scared of the open air? Now that I think about it, they are probably automated. The Earth is populated by 8 billion people, and Asimov considered that too much for the planet to sustain, to the point that they mostly eat yeast. How come humanity has abandoned the will to explore? How did ancient New York roads survive under all that steel?
For now, it's working in helping me get back to reading, but I still have to make an effort, when it was something that used to come naturally to me. I plan on re-reading The Expanse books after. I don't know if I have the will of reading again through all the Foundation novels, and I've completely discarded the Empire series. About The Expanse, I devoured those books last year. I read the novels and the short stories in chronological order and it was very enjoyable. I think I've read everything that James S.A. Corey has ever written.
Recently I got a Switch 2. I've been playing Breath of the Wild, but the open world is overwhelming me. It's one of those games to spend hundreds of hours on, and I'm not feeling up to it. I got Terraformers for six euros, and I'm playing that one much more. It's a resource management game, where to goal is to terraform Mars. You need to build factories, mine resources, set up seas and an ozone layer... It's turn-based, but for only one player. I'm liking it a lot. It's like playing Civilization VI, but without enemies. I prefer it that way, because the competition part of the Civ games is what put me off a bit. I just want to relax with a nice game, not compete with someone or something else.
I have only played handheld so far, and I think that's why I'm playing more, because I don't need to turn on the TV, wait for loading times, etc. The screen is also pretty big, and it feels nice to hold the device. I had the opportunity to see a coworker's Steam Deck a couple of weeks ago. The screen feels smaller (I don't know if it really is), and the device feels less premium. It's a stupid thing, maybe, but if I'm going to spend a lot of money on something, I like it to be nice.