STG's

 Kingdom Rush Frontiers is a tower defense (TD) game. It follows most of the formulas, expect for having a tower that dispenses soldiers, and a power that calls soldier (yes, I've seen it before, but it is not that common). It also has a hero. Graphics are acceptable. I had some difficulty getting it to display properly in QHD, but full screen mode solved it. There are heroes you can select, and upgrade, as well as upgrades for your towers and powers. That should give you a lot of tactical options. The only problem it has, is having no speed up mode. That makes it feel pretty slow at times. Overall, pretty nice, specially on sale. Update 04/Jan/2021: I have "finished" the game. There is a little bit of a grind, as you need to run through levels more than once to get max stars, and thus get the upgrades to the later levels. One unusual thing is that after you end the game and get credits, you get a few extra, completely different, levels. Art seems a little weaker, though....

 Velocity 2x is a very unusual game, with platformer and shoot'em up elements. One pretty annoying thing is that the controls are very, very unusual. Even worse, it only displayed controller button (I prefer to use the keyboard and mouse for most games). Eventually I couldn't figure out an alternative for a keyboard command, even looking at the controls table, and switched to the controller. There are parts on the platformer that feels like run and gun, but it doesn't use the regular keyboard/mouse controls, which is pretty annoying. Probably because they wanted to save the mouse for teleporting. Graphics and sound are OK. Funnily enough, the program icon is very, very nice, which I hardly ever remember noticing. Overall, OK, but pretty weird.

 Necronator - Dead Wrong is a mix of Slay the Spire and RTS (barely). You have a card deck, and almost exactly the progression you have in Slay the Spire. Graphics are OK, but the UI is annoying at times. Also, the tutorial mostly isn't. Overall, it is OK so far, but I wouldn't recommend it.

 I've just finished reading Doctor Sleep, by Stephen King.  Coming just after a read of The Shining, this one feels a whole lot better. The pace is much faster, and also there is way more development of the actual powers. As usual, the book was better than the movie, but in this case not as much as usual - I really liked the movie. I felt it was somewhat interesting how the endings were quite different, and that they started from different places (as The Shining movie kept the hotel intact, but the book destroyed it). Overall, pretty great, and I really liked it. Reading a couple of old King books recently (It and The Shining) I really feel he improved a lot over the years, specially in the tradeoff between cool, full story background and slow pacing.

 I recently viewed The Shining (the movie), so that I could see Dr. Sleep (also the movie). I liked Dr.Sleep, but felt that while the atmosphere, photography and acting in The Shining were great, the story itself was barely OK. So I decided to read the book (maybe again - if I read it before it was on the early 90s and I don't recall it), and it was not at all surprising that it was much, much better. As usual per King, it is more verbose and longer than would be necessary, but it works well. Halloran has a much better story, and the ending felt a lot better too. Overall, strongly recommended for horror fans.  I have now started reading Dr. Sleep (which I actually bought around release, then forgot completely), and so far it is pretty good.

 C#9 was recently released. I like how the language is slowly progressing. Nothing revolutionary, but some new nice items. I really like the new record (which of course looks a lot like Kotlin's data classes), and the new short main program. The new pattern matching features are also interesting. MS Announcement

 Fury Unleashed is a roguelite platformer. I usually don't like platformers, but this one goes relatively easy on the platform part. Jumps and dashes aren't incredibly precise, and have a lot of leeway. Mostly you shoot or melee monsters around. There is some dodging, and a few guns. There are also challenges (such as reach N combo, or kill the next N enemies in melee).  Graphics are good, and so is movement. I don't think there is much of a story. It does have one thing I do like in roguelites - progress through getting action points, which are used to unlock upgrades. Overall, pretty good for the price (something like US$3.5 on sale after exchange). Very simple fun.

 Crying Suns is a tactical rogue-like, where you are a fleet commander exploring a galaxy that had a mysterious failure of most of their automation.  It has an interesting, pixel art style, and a whole lot of story built in. So far I like it, but I find it a little tiresome. There is less guidance than what I'd expect of a tutorial system, although it does have some.

 The Saints of Salvation is the latest book in the Salvation Sequence, by Peter F. Hamilton.  SPOILERS AHEAD! In the previous books, humankind came into contact with aliens that pretended to be friendly, only to be found to want to cocoon and preserve all mankind for their god at the end of the universe. Humankind is quickly overwhelmed by their superior tech and leaves Earth and all previously settled planets, in an exodus across the galaxy.  Meanwhile, we also follow a group far in the future - trying to strike back and get everyone back from the cocoons. In this book, the fate of some characters in the past before the exodus is revealed, and then we go back to the humans striking back. I really like the tech here. No FTL, but portals that can only be moved in sub-light ships (which allows a lot more cleverness in the plot/tech). AIs, but not sentient (except for recorded people). I liked that they went for the group consciousness thing (which reminded of a classic, For...