Author: Brian Behrend

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The Codex (by Douglas Preston) – ★★½

The Codex

Ooof. Wasn’t awful but was certainly stilted/poorly written in spots. Not nearly as interesting or in my wheelhouse as the Lincoln Child books I’ve been reading. (Ironically, I’ve been catching up with all these old Preston and Child books while I wait for the first Preston & Child book Relic to be available on Libby.)

I think the voices/accents the reader uses in the audiobook likely made it even worse, but even for a book from 20 years ago this was pretty culturally incompetent. And it saved some of the worst racism for a totally unnecessary final coda that doubled down on bigotry and some of the worst language yet.

I read Preston’s Tyrannosaur Canyon on vacation ages ago and liked it, so despite struggling with this one I’m still eager to reread that and check out the rest of the Wyman Ford books. Hopefully they’re a little more fun and a lot less dated in their perspective.

Rating: 2.5 stars

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? Buy The Codex on Amazon

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Disrupting the Game (by Reggie Fils-Aimé) – ★★½

A relatively thin personal memoir that tried too hard to be a business book and to cover every one of Fils-Aimé professional life events instead of going particularly deep on anything interesting. Considering the name, tagline, and cover art of the book more focus on Nintendo.

The behind the scenes moments with the late Satoru Iwata were the most interesting but Fils-Aimé memoir lacks much real introspection or insight into what was happening at Nintendo during his time there. 200 page book and only 7 pages or so are spent on the failure of the Wii U and the launch of the Switch.

He still seems just as proud of the Bigfoot Pizza as he does of his time at NOA, despite mentioning in the book that the pizza wasn’t very good and had to stop selling it relatively quickly because it was negatively impacting the overall sentiment of Pizza Hut’s pizza. But I guess it was a marketing success and that’s all he cares about?

I definitely already had opinions on hiring sales people as president/CEOs and nothing in this book really dissuaded me of that sentiment.

I only really know Reggie from his E3 stage presentations, and while this book makes him seem like a pretty decent person it also is written as if he thinks he is the smartest person ever and Nintendo would still be making the Ultra Hand and Love Testers if it wasn’t for him. I’m not sure if that’s really how he feels but the way the book is written frequently comes off that way.

I’m probably just not the target demographic for business dude memoirs and should be reading investigative journalism and history books instead of this.

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Wichita “Falls”

While it would be more accurate, I guess “Wichita Artificial Water Feature We Turn Off When It’s Hot” is probably too long to be the name of a city.

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Big Red and Texas BBQ

Rudy’s has always been “just ok” but accessible barbecue, but whoever made the decision to replace Big Red with Pepsi products deserves to be kicked in the nuts.

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The Third Gate (by Lincoln Child) – ★★★

The Third Gate

First Jeremy Logan book where Jeremy Logan was actually the main character and so far the worst of the series. Both the general premise and the actual events in this book were the weakest so far (IMO), and even worse Logan himself is the least interesting main protagonist. There’s just not a lot of personality or backstory there despite the fact that he at least existed in two previous novels.

Spoiler warning
I found myself rolling my eyes several times at Logan’s statements/beliefs and the entire pseudoscience connection to the ancient world a lot harder to connect with then the good ol’ fashioned ancient aliens or mystical beasts tropes from the first two books. The direction this one took definitely has me a bit worried.

I’m flying through these audiobooks on Libby super fast so unless book 4 falls off a cliff I plan to keep going but hopefully the characters and mysteries of the next books in Child’s series are much stronger.

? View my Goodreads review
? Buy The Third Gate on Amazon

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Little Shop of Horrors – ★★½

Little Shop of Horrors

I don’t know how old I was when I first saw this (or more accurately small parts of it) as a kid but to this day I remembered being totally terrified of Audrey II. Turns out still totally creeped out by it.

Finally decided to actually sit and watch it on Max after watching the really great Howard Ashman doc on Disney+. Music is great and so is Rick Moranis but man it is just so, so weird.

I don’t know what to call the style of humor from late 70s to 80s but “whatever fully weird Steve Martin thinks is funny” I just don’t personally find funny at all. (I like a lot of Steve Martin movies from this era just not when he goes full Steve Martin.)

Had hoped my musical loving kid would be into this but she’ll definitely think it’s too scary and “old”. Oh well. Glad I finally caught up with it.

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? Buy Little Shop of Horrors on Blu-ray

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Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind – ★★★★

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind poster

Took the kids to watch this in the theater today as part of Studio Ghibli Fest. First time for me to ever see a Miyazaki movie on the big screen.

This was one of my least favorites when I originally was running through my Miyazaki blind spots back in 2020, but giving it my full attention now I really enjoyed it quite a bit. I was pleasantly surprised how much both my girls liked it considering how “old” it is and how relatively few laughs there are. They were probably the only 2 people under 30 in the theater today.

Nausicaä is such a fantastic character as are all the other valley residents, but boy do I hate every single Tolmekian and Pejite moron. And they remain pretty much completely irredeemable for the entire movie. (I know we’re supposed to dislike them but still.)

It is bit depressing how little progress we’ve made as a society in 40 years towards the Nausicaä’s basic themes of environmentalism, empathy, and pacifism.

It’s early so not quite as breathtakingly beautiful as some of the films that followed it, but it sure is imaginative and interesting to look at. It is also remarkable how much imagery from this have influenced (or share influences with) current Japanese video games including Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. TotK’s “depths” areas seem like a mix of Nausicaa’s forest and the gloom from Mononoke.

Buying tickets now to go see Mononoke in a month.

? View Letterboxd review
? Buy Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind on Blu-ray