Greetings from the Picklesverse!
It’s the 15th of May, so the Ides are upon us once again, and it’s time for my monthly missive. Here’s what I’ve got for you today:
🛳️ Series name survey… the results are in!
👩💻 Hacking away,
🌊 Assorted stuff, things, bits, and bobs.
Let’s get stuck in!
🛳️ Booky McBookFace
Huge thanks to everyone who participated in last month’s survey about the series name. It’s time to reveal what you said!
🥄 Last place
As anticipated, Ben’s suggestion of “Ben and Charlotte’s Amazing Adventures” was met with deafening silence, receiving no votes. (It was like a preview of Britain’s scores in the Eurovision song contest…) Ben’s pretending to be OK about it, but I think he’s actually quite upset, so if you don’t hear from me next month, it’ll be because he’s locked me out of my computer. In any case, I think you made the right decision.
🏃♀️ Also rans
A couple of options received some attention, but not enough to place in the top three. These were “Walk in the Sun” and “Future History.”
At this point, I’d like to give a special mention to all the people who submitted their own ideas. I loved “Bengineered” (so did Ben!), as well as “Silicon Fen“, “Escape from the Underbelly,” and “After the Melt.” The survey was anonymous, but I salute whoever submitted “Booky McBookFace.”
🥉 Third place
Receiving enough love to make it a contender was “The Melt.” Perhaps this title would work better for a prequel series set while the Melt was happening. I’ll keep that in mind for the future…
🥈 Second place
It was extremely close between the second and first place series names, and I still feel torn between them. In second place was “Awkward Questions.”
🥇 Winner winner, chicken dinner
Which, of course, means that the most popular series name was “The ArkTech Series.”
👏🏆 To celebrate, I’ve asked Ben to hastily mock up what the cover for Time Hack might look like with this series name included (for illustrative purposes… the actual series cover design will be revealed later).
Here it is:
👩💻 Hacking away
Work on Time Hack continues to go well, and my exciting news is that I’ve committed to a helpful, motivating (and certainly not in any way terrifying) deadline with my editor for handing over this draft. It’s very cool to be nearing that milestone, but it does mean my May and June emails may veer off from the usual structure while I juggle All The Things.
Rather than writing a longer article this month, I’ve gathered up several shorter nuggets to share with you. Perhaps this format will work even better… let’s find out. If not, please direct any complaints to Ben, who’ll respond appropriately.
🌊 Stuff, things, bits, bobs
Will the real Project Mirror Shade please stand up?☀️
It emerges that the UK government is sponsoring outdoor research into Solar Radiation Modification. I can only assume they’ve read Artificial Selection and they enjoyed it so much that they want to make totally sure we’re on track for the Melt to start in 2048. Is the Advanced Research and Innovation Agency (ARIA) similar to IQUO? Will they launch their own version of Project Mirror Shade in 2037? I guess we’ll have to wait and see. 👀
(To recap, SRM is where reflective particles are dropped into the atmosphere to reflect solar energy away from the Earth. It’s highly controversial for lots of reasons, many of which are mentioned in the article linked above.)
Inadequate flood protections
Meanwhile, the Climate Change Committee has published a report criticising the UK government (yes, them again) for not putting adequate protections in place to safeguard people, homes, and the economy from the effects of climate change. The photograph in the article shows flooding in Cambridgeshire (where I live) in 2024. It says that by 2050, one in four properties will be at risk from flooding. And that’s without the help of Project Mirror Shade. So David and I will be investing heavily in buckets, sand bags, and inflatable rubber rings, while also keeping up with our kayaking drills. (Our house is on the only hill in Cambridgeshire, but I’m guessing we’ll still need a boat to get to the supermarket… 🚣)
Marvellous punctuation
Let’s move on to some better news. Despite having reached “peak Marvel” some time ago, we went to the cinema to see Thunderbolts*, which is the new film from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. When it finished, I was deeply confused because something was wrong with my emotions. Recent instalments of the MCU have typically left me feeling some combination of irritated, disappointed, and tricked out of my money. So it made a change to leave feeling… happy! Because IT WAS GOOD! This article matches my opinion quite closely (although, I thought the third act worked well enough, and I was glad the film wasn’t massively long).
*The asterisk is actually part of the film’s title, rather than one of my asides… but it’s worth mentioning that the reveal about what the asterisk refers to was possibly my favourite part of the whole experience. (Then again, as an author, former English teacher, and language enthusiast, I’m probably more punctuation-focused than most people… in any case, I won’t spoil it for you by telling you what it means.)
“Change is coming”
Let’s stick with the theme of enjoyable entertainment experiences, but move on to the topic of video games…At the 2024 Game Awards, Swen Vincke (of Larian Studios whose team won the award in 2023 for Baldur’s Gate 3), gave a wonderful speech in which he said “change is coming” to the games industry. In his view, games made with love would keep winning out over those designed purely in the pursuit of profit. Just like the decline in quality of recent MCU films, David and I have noticed that more and more video games over the last few years have been launching incomplete, full of bugs, not remotely as advertised, or bloated with filler and micro-transactions.
But somehow, this month, we’ve both stumbled upon games that have absolutely blown us away. David’s playing Expedition 33, a turn-based RPG with a great story, and I’ve started playing Blue Prince, a clever puzzle game about an architect trying to find a secret room in an ever-changing house. (My game’s pun-tastic title becomes more obvious when you say it out loud.)
So if you’re into games and you fancy playing something original, high-quality and made with love, I’d recommend checking these out.
Currently reading…
I’ve started reading The Night Sessions by Ken MacLeod. (Thanks very much to Neil B for recommending it). I’m enjoying it so far, and it’s fun to read something set in a future Edinburgh, where I used to live. However, I’ve since noticed the author’s Goodreads profile states that “his novels often explore socialist, communist and anarchist political ideas, most particularly the variants of Trotskyism and anarcho-capitalism or extreme economic libertarianism.” And I thought “crikey… I mostly just do dad jokes.”
But, of course, jokes about communism are only funny if everybody gets them. 🥁
On that note, that’s all from me this month.
I hope all’s well in your own personal universes.
Walk in the sun,
Marianne
