I’ve been playing Phantom Doctrine. A Cold-war spy-thriller turn based tactics game.

The leader of your group (and nominally your personal character) is Agent Deadpan if you’re playing with a CIA background like I am.

Suffice it to say that in a week or so I’ll get shot in the head with a silenced pistol and nobody will have been able to do a thing about it, or figure out who was responsible.

At least it’ll be quick and painless.

If I know they’re coming?
Well, I can die on my feet I guess. I don’t think I can get together any sort of meaningful defence in a week.

All the good ones.

Not kidding, that’s basically my first metric for a good author.

If I can’t get into this state of mind then I’ll often put the book down.

Wholly with you.

For me, Harry Potter as a franchise peaked at Goblet of Fire.
The climax and the return of Voldemort is literally the point where the series started going outside of the scope that I bought into as a kid. Every single book, play and film produced after that singular moment is downhill from that point, with rare highlights that resurface.

For me, the whole franchise is fundamentally about a boy who learns he’s actually a wizard, goes to wizard school and is blown away by the magic of that experience.
I truly do not want anything outside of that, and nothing that strayed from that formula has managed to stick with me.
I have to think hard to remember the plots of the later books in any detail.

Fantastic Beasts did very very little for me. It was nice to see wands and magic in new ways, but it wasn’t what I look for in my Harry Potter franchise stuff.

I think if there was a way to draw me back to it, it would be a TV series set at Hogwarts. Maybe when Harry’s parents were at school. Give me that golden glow of happiness that Harry’s early years captured.

Terry Pratchett is a definite Comfort-read for me. Doesn’t really matter which book. His humour and almost poetic conversational style really clicks with me.

I also enjoy Larry Niven and Charles Stross for similar reasons.

I often feel that the english language really lacks for words to describe things we do for the sake of feeling or matters of the heart.

Surutyö is a great word.