May was kind of a lost month for me: a lot of waiting for the end of the month to just get here already.

The Fisherman, John Langan

As I spent most of the month worrying about the mortality of my spouse, I gotta say: The Fisherman, which has men becoming widowers as as much of a recurring theme as it does angling, is probably the first time I’d have welcomed a Content Warning. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, the novel was a surprise and a delight. Spooky, evocative, creepy. Everything I could have hoped for it.

I’m a big sucker for when a nested story nests a story and so forth, and Langan gave me something nested five, six levels deep? It’s goofy, and I’m here for it.

Strongly, strongly recommended.

Perry Mason, S2

I just read that Perry Mason wasn’t picked up for a third season, which is a goddamned shame.

It’s truly one of the bleakest shows I’ve watched in recent memory. I think when we think of “Perry Mason” we’re supposed to think of the triumph of justice, but that’s not what this century’s adaptation gives us. It gives us abject poverty, corruption, and lawlessness. This season made Los Angeles feel like the only thing that distinguished LA from the Deadwood of the 2004 Deadwood show (one of my all time favorites) is that LA deludes itself that it’s something other than camp set up on someone else’s home, full of predators abusing everyone they can, including each other.

It’s excellent: even if this is all we get, it’s great.

Boltgun

Boltgun came out at the end of the month, and I haven’t had the chance to really wallow in it too much yet but boy does it feel perfect.

The gameplay is fast and fluid. The tone is flawless. The classic Doom vibe is so on-point.

I had high expectations for it and when, early in the game, you just drop several stories to land on a cultist, exploding him into cloud pixelated gore… I knew it was everything it could be.