STG's

Night of the Full Moon is a deck-builder strategy game. I played the Android version, which I got for free on Play Pass. I really liked this. I played Slay the Spire quite a bit, but this seems cleverer in a number of ways. The characters are well done, sound cool and look great, there a ton of options, and they don't force grinding nearly as much.  The variety of cards and character types is pretty good, too. If I have any criticism, it is that some things are not very clear, and should have been better explained at the beginning, and that the cards layout make them hard to see when there are many on the screen, even in a tablet. It also sounds weird at times. It still does have options ads, even with Play Pass, but only to double your coins after boss fights. Very much recommended.

 Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire, by Brad Stone, goes into the story of Amazon, mostly about the recent stuff (he already wrote a book into the earlier stuff, which was also good).  Quite enjoyable. I have been buying from Amazon since the year they opened, and it was entertaining to read about everything, and particularly about the development of products such as Alexa, AWS, Blue Origin and others. The politics - and the whole mess with Bezos and his girlfriend - actually feel more like a novel.

 Bombslinger doesn't seem to be bad. I like the retro graphics, and the bomb theme is a classic. However, zero instructions or tutorials (or even a key changer so I can figure out what each key do) is way too annoying.

 Ruin and Rising, by Leigh Bardugo, is the finale of the Shadow and Bone trilogy. After the disaster at the end of the last book, Alina is recovering underground, without powers. For a while, at least... This one had a nice set of battles, and what I specially liked were the twists, specially on the third amplifier and what happened when she got it. Overall, very good. I wouldn't say that was my favorite book series ever, but it was very nice.

 Siege and Storm, by Leigh Bardugo, is the second book in the Shadow and Bone trilogy.  So, the main characters (Alina and Mal) escaped at the end of last book. They are almost immediately captured. Then they meet the pirates (sorry, privateers), which lead to another series of adventures and another confrontation with the Darkling, of course. Overall, I like the series so far. I liked this one more than the last, but mostly because it actually advanced the story, given I started by seeing the Netflix show's first season. There is way too much teen romantic drama, though.

 I read Shadow and Bone, by Leigh Bardugo because of the Netflix series, which I watched and liked. It is pretty much the same in most aspects - as usual, some of the explanations made more sense in the book. It does not include the whole Crow crew, which I understand they pulled from another book series - Six of Crows. As a vague summary, in this universe there are people that are born with various powers. In the book it sounds like they could be trained for specific powers, instead of just being fixed - darkness, telekinesis, fires, light, etc. The main character (Alina Sarkov) is the first since times of legend with light powers, and is expected to destroy a big barrier in the middle of the fictional country (Ravka), which is tearing it apart (and killing many that try to pass it). There is also a boy she grew up with that she really is close. There is a nice twist on what is happening near the end, and it ends well enough but unresolved (just like the series, but diff...

 Exhalation, by Ted Chiang, is a SF book in the form of short stories and novellas. There were many excellent stories, in many different styles. It already starts with a great time travel story, in a very uncommon ancient fairy tale style. Then there is a cute conceptual universe, where people run on pressurized air (the book title Exhalation). The Lifecycle of software objects is about artificial life. I had already read it, but I'm not sure when or how. It is also great and have many thoughts about raising kids, and the responsibilities we have towards AIs. The truth of fact, the truth of feeling talks about what happens when everything is recorded. I particularly liked the parts about the nature of memory, and how technologies as simple as writing change it. Omphalos is about a world where the constructed nature of the world is expressed everywhere, and a new fact makes them doubt it (although I would say that in this case the logical thing to assume is that they discovered a cl...