Nothing major to show for today, so here’s a stream of consciousness of things that have been on my mind lately.

• The updated version of Valley of Appraisal should be ready by the end of the week, or next Monday at the latest. Ideally, the updated version of Forward, the Lyte Brigade should be ready the week after that. The majority of the work is done for both of them.
• Charge of the Lyte Brigade probably won’t be ready until the New Year, but I’m hoping to have it ready very early in the New Year. Fingers crossed.
• On the plus side, it’s close enough to done that a preview chapter will probably be ready soon.
• I’m probably going to do another Writing Every Day thing like I did in October in either January or February.

• Like I said earlier, I’m undertaking an ongoing process of consolidating my recommendation posts onto a single master list, in addition to reposting each one individual onto a page of its own with a more concise URL. The list, which is being constantly updated can be found here:

Speaking of recommendations, I watched Shang–Chi and Jungle Cruise on the weekend. I wasn’t moved by either one enough to feel the need to do a full recommendation — plus, they’re both big budget Disney movies, so it’s not like they need me going to bat for them — but they’re noteworthy enough to share some quick thoughts.

Overall, Shang-Chi is probably the Marvel movie with the highest obscure character-to-good movie ratio. Like, I’m pretty well-versed on Marvel characters (though by no means an expert) and even I’d never heard of Shang–Chi.

I’ve said before that I’ve pretty much stopped caring about the MCU, but the fact that everything eventually ends up on Disney Plus means I’m probably going to watch most of them at some point.

So, Shang-Chi is ultimately meaningless to be as a piece in the larger MCU puzzle. But on its own, it was a pretty solid two hours.

The short version is that I feel pretty much the same way I felt about Black Panther; it’s an important moment for representation in Pop Culture and a perfectly adequate movie.

As for Jungle Cruise, I read a review that described it as a movie cobbled together from pieces of other, better movies. As harsh as it sounds, it’s pretty accurate. For one thing, it ends up turning into basically a freshwater version of the first Pirates of the Caribbean (which, incidentally, I also rewatched recently).

On the other hand, the Rock is just so inherently, effortlessly charismatic and charming that any movie’s he’s in is pretty much worthwhile just because of him.

And Emily Blunt does pretty good as the female lead and real main character.

Overall, it’s not great, but it’s probably worth at least watching once. Especially if you’re already paying for Disney Plus. Though, of the two, Shang-Chi is definitely the better, more enjoyable movie.

So, yeah, stay tuned for the new, improved version of two Realmgard books.

And in the meantime, check out my social media pages and email list: