Over the past two decades in particular whenever I’d revisit a C64 emulator, I’d of course try to fire up Bards Tale III only to be horrified at the graphics. Memory, after all, is inexact<\/strong><\/a>, and my memories of the game no longer matched the game I could play in emulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’d heard for the past year that there was a remastered version of the Bards Tale trilogy on Steam, and recently when I got a new laptop I finally succumbed to temptation and signed up to Steam for the sole purpose of getting my hands on Bards Tale again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ironically, the remastered version, with graphics and sound infinitely better than anything I’d played on the C64 is<\/em> how I remember it from the C64. And it’s been a true delight revisiting such an early gaming memory in a modern context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Somewhere around the edges of my long days (it’s remarkable how long a day can feel when your first meeting is at 2am and your last finishes at 4 or 5pm), I’ve been managing to get in some good reading of late.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’m not big on autobiographies, but I read the promo excerpt in The Guardian<\/strong><\/a> for Suzanne Heywood’s Wavewalker<\/em> and was simultaneously entranced and shocked. This was a story I definitely wanted to know more about \u2013 parents deciding to just uproot their kids and start sailing around the world, without any real consideration as to the impact it might have had on them. And yet, it’s hopeful and triumphant. I devoured it in a weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Adrian Tchaikovsky certainly knows how to weave interesting science fiction. I’d still say that Peter F Hamilton is my favourite SciFi author, but Adrian knows his stuff. I’ve been reading this series as each volume was released. It was great then to have the final book come out in the last month and finish it off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is a series I’ll look forward to re-reading sometime now the set is complete (there’s always a different appreciation to be gathered from a series you can binge-read vs a drip-fed release-by-release approach), and as always it’ll be interesting to see what Adrian does next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Look, “Mongolian Throat Singing Techno” is not<\/em> a phrase I could say that I had ever imagined myself saying. To be perfectly honest, I haven’t actually even listened to techno that much for the past 20 years, but there I was, distractedly watching random reels on Instagram (yes, I do that) and stumbled across a quick clip of Ummet Ozcan<\/a><\/strong> doing just that. The subsequent delight was realising it was a full song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Intro](\"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/BardsTaleIII.jpg\")
<\/a>Reading<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Wavewalker<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"Book](\"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Wavewalker-666x1024.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe Final Architecture<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"Book](\"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/The-Final-Architecture.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nListening<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Mongolian Throat Singing Techno<\/h3>\n\n\n\n