#062: No gods, no kings, no recipes
Pop culture & cosy nonsense for July
The front door
Hello and welcome to The Brew.
Earlier today a car I didn’t recognise came up our long ass driveway and turned around in the backyard. I went to see who it was and it turns out they were looking for the neighbour’s place.
After I gave them directions, I turned to walk back inside and promptly ate sh!t on the grass next the driveway. I limped inside, covered in mud, to the bewilderment of my partner.
I can only hope that they had already driven away before this happened, but deep down I think they saw me take just five steps out of my house, speak to them, then immediately fall over like a mucous-covered lamb in early spring.
The moral of this story is: never help anyone. And never go outside.
Library
Books
Threads That Bind by Kika Hatzopoulou—I’m reviewing this YA romantasy for the AU Review, and absolutely loving it.
In a world where the children of the gods inherit their powers, a descendant of the Greek Fates must solve a series of impossible murders to save her sisters, her soulmate, and her city.
Descendants of the Fates are always born in threes: one to weave, one to draw, and one to cut the threads that connect people to the things they love and to life itself. The Ora sisters are no exception. Io, the youngest, uses her Fate-born abilities as a private investigator in the half-sunken city of Alante.Amid unveiled secrets from her past and her growing feelings for Edei—the boy with whom she shares a rare fate-thread linking them as soul mates before they’ve even me—Io must follow clues through the city’s darkest corners and unearth a conspiracy that involves some of the city’s most powerful players—before destruction comes to her own doorstep.
This is a very well-executed, deeply layered book. The world that Hatzopoulou has created is somehow both ancient and far-future, almost stretching into the realms of sci-fi and post-apocalypse fiction, while also being firmly rooted in a realm of mythology and folk tales, all wrapped up in a gruesome mystery that kept me guessing right to the end.
The characters are complex and multi-faceted, and there is a sort of noir quality to the mystery. The protagonist is hard done-by, has her own code of ethics, lives in a hard scrabble world and is fiercely loyal to those she loves, while also suffering for it.
My full review will be out on AU Review soon, but already know I’ll definitely be reading the rest of the series when they’re released!
Notes
Yarram StoryFest was a delight, again!
I had so much fun, met a bunch of cool bookish people, and supped at various venues across town. Thanks so much to everyone who came along, sent nice messages, and participated in the ‘Fest. Here’s to hoping it comes together next year as well!
Lounge
TV
Deadloch (2023)—Something about chilly islands makes people want to write crime about them - Iceland, Shetland, Tasmania… smaller landmasses surrounded by ocean just attract fictional murder and cantankerous cops.
Deadloch is a series out on Prime about the fictional Tasmanian town of Deadloch, where a grisly murder has just taken place. The local Sargent, Dulcie Collins, reluctantly starts investigating as she waits for a ‘cowboy detective from Darwin’ to come down and take over.
Described as “A feminist noir comedy set against a bucolic backdrop with a rising body count”, it’s a uniquely Australian mix of black comedy, small town politics, and characters who swear so much I had to turn on the subtitles so I could understand what they were saying.
It’s written by Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan, who created The Katering Show some years ago on YouTube, the most famous episode of which was probably the one about Thermomixes, which to this day is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.
If you like Aussie comedy, black comedy, or rural crime noir, this series will scratch that itch and then some.
Music
Cello + Chill
When I first attempted NaNoWriMo (that’s: National Novel Writing Month) in November of 2015, I found that the crushing silence of noise-cancelling headphones was almost as distracting for getting work done as my housemates banging around in the kitchen making bacon candles (don’t ask).
This was before Lofi Girl was launched (more on that in a later issue), so I started looking for comfortable background music to listen to while physically ripping words from my brain each day during the month.
I found that the most soothing of sounds to accompany this violent process was the cello, especially cello covers of songs I knew. Cut to eight years later (dear god) and when I need to work intensively on something for hours at a time, I still check in with my Cello + Chill list (so named because Cello + Intensive Word Vomit Exorcism isn’t quite as motivating).
Games
Not strictly a game.
Frequent readers may remember that I have sunk over 2,000 hours of my one and only life into a pixelated farm-sim game called Stardew Valley.
The algorithm is well aware that I’m obsessed with this game, and daily throws up every article even remotely related to it.
And sometimes this level of surveillance and marketing pays off, because recently it showed me something called the Stardew Valley Portrait Creator.
This portrait creator is intended for portraits of your game character, but I made one to look a bit like me, and I love it.
Check it out here. Even if you have no idea what Stardew Valley is, it’s a fun little thing to play around with, like that app that ages you ten years, but without all the existential crises.
Kitchen & Garden
Food
No food this week, just a meme that hit hard:
And another thing…
Find more of my writing on my website: Oddfeather Creative
The Brew is created and sent from the lands of the Gunaikurnai people and I acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which I live and work, and pay my respects to the Elders, past and present.