How to defeat a demon king in ten easy steps by Andrew Rowe

I din't really plan to buy this book. I got it because audible was offering a discount a half price for three months or something and then the second month they had a different discount with two books for one credit. This one just happened to be the most interesting sounding. 

Plot

The planet goes through cycles. A demon king will appears, rules for a hundred years and takes over roughly half the planet. Then the hero is born and defeats them, people rebuild and then a new demon king appears.

This time however it's different. An early alliance with one of the Kingdoms means that by the time the hero is born the whole world will be under the demon kings command. 

Young protagonist Yui is not a hero but has decided that they don't have time to wait for the hero and devices a plan to defeat the demon king anyway. Step one steal the heros sword from the stone.

My thoughts

The setting is very videogameish people get sorted into classes (not in an dystopian way its based on their actions). Classes that levels up with experience points from killing monsters. though slightly arbitrary like the hero class only being for those with a tragic backstory. It's very cliche. But it makes fun of those cliches and has characters who uses them to their advantage. Like making fun of the unrealistic inventory or ken who knows all the traditions and who by making Yui a green tunic is able to trick all the NPCs. I like Yui experimenting with her magic figuring out how it works. What would make her increase her level and skill as quickly as possible. Al with comments from her long suffering parents. 

Maybe I just have a fondness for clever characters who solves problems especially by using tools in unexpected ways. 

All that being said I'm fairly certain I would have gotten more out of it if I had ever played legend of Zelda or any similar game. I haven't all I know about them I do from just cultural osmosis. But its enough to recognize NPC dialog and enjoy the book.

The book does a very modern thing where it questions who the real villain actually is. Is it the demon king or the silver goddesses that perpetuation the cycle. But it does go somewhere with it and not like how I usually see it, in commentary videos or fanfiction. Though thinking about it this whole book might be considered a fanfiction now that I think about it. 

Regardless I enjoyed it.

Nice and short. 

Making Breakfast Bars

 I started making these regularly after I moved. At work there is an early morning meeting once a week and to get there on time I would skip breakfast eating two of these on the train instead. It gave me plenty of opportunities to improve the recipe. Now I could easily buy some bars instead but they are all 1 too expensive to be a regular purchase and 2 mostly sugar. 

Ingredients

3 dl Oats

50g Coconut oil
100g Datepaste or dates

1 Banana

100g Peanut butter

50g Almonds or other nuts

50g Dried fruit(I like cranberrys)

Instructions

In general you can mix these however you want but this is how I usually do. Preheat the oven to 175 C.

Melt the coconut oil in a double boiler (basically put it in a small bowl and then put the bowl in warm water). Personally I used my small mixing bowl and put the water in my large mixing bowl to avoid unnecessary clean up. While the coconut oil is melting use a blender to turn the oats into flour. I use a immersion blender and a mason jar. This doesn't have to be perfect since some texture is nice.

Peel the banana and put it in the mixing bowl with the oil along with the date past, and mush them with a fork. A thing a bout date paste, I prefer to use it but it can be somewhat hard to find in stores. You can replace it with finely chopped or blended dates.  

Then add the peanut butter, oat flour and stir. Roughly chop the almonds and cranberrys add those as well and stir it into a even paste. If its too dry you can add up to 50g of juice. 

Spread the mixture on a parchment paper on a baking tray making it about 0,5 to 1 cm thick. I tried to make it a square since it needs to be cut up later. Then bake for 20 minutes.

Once it's baked take it out of the oven and let it cool for a little. But before it cools completely and gets hard cut it up in 2×5 cm pieces.

Results

I have done this several times before and it turned out like usual so it's hard to have any opinions since its mostly what I was expecting. In general they are good and I lake them. If you are used to the store bought kind they are less sweet and they have a milder and less immediate taste. This is mostly because there isn't as much sugar. But most store bought bars are more like candy than food.  

There is a thing with the amount. I could have made a double batch and it would have filled out the baking tray rather than just a bit in the middle. But I like to save these for the days when I don't have time to eat breakfast therefor these will last me a long time a there is a limit to how much I want to store. 

About storing I put them in a box in the freezer, I don't think they would survive that long. But they thaw very fast in a few minutes you can eat them. 

All systems red by Martha Wells

Plot

 This is the first book in the murderbot diaries. One of my favorite series.

Murder bot is a secunit a security construct rented out by the company to provide security for research expedition on an uninhabited planet. But after two of the researcher nearly got killed by dangerous fauna that wasn't in the information packet. Large parts of their map is blank and when they loose contact with the only other expedition on the planet. It becomes clear that they are not as alone as they thought.

Murderbot must reveal that they are in fact not controlled by the habitat security system and haven't been since they hacked their own governing module month ago. 

My Thoughts

It's short I think its technically a novella and I read it in two days. But though there is places that could be stretched out I don't mind that they weren't. This isn't a suspense full book, the focus is on the mystery (who is messing with them and why) and outwitting them. Even more is about Murderbot´s anxieties about their changing circumstances. 

The whole book is from Murderbot´s perspective and it has captured it well both the anxiety and the in-humanness of them. A usual flaw of first person limited stories is how to incorporate conversations and events they weren't present for. This neatly solves that, the company records everything in the habitat to data-mine for trade-secrets. Murderbot, as part of the security system, can access these when they want. Beside using nearby cameras and drones as much if not more than their eyes. 

Interesting to see the expedition members reaction to realizing that Murderbot is less like a robot and more like a person than they thought. A somewhat traumatized, introverted person who gets overwhelmed by being talked to but who is also very capable of killing them all. 

It's surprisingly relatable. Murderbot doing the bare minimum of work to keep the Company from getting suspicious and reconnecting them to the system. All the while just wanting to watch their series. About the Company it's unnamed and while not really evil they are somewhat the antagonists they are just the worst of capitalism. Greedy and cheap, cutting corners where ever it can and will do the right thing only to avoid paying damages. 

Murderbot can be bought at Amazon

Making a basket of scrap fabric

In general I have far to much scrap fabric or rather the box I use to store it in is full and I've decided not to get a bigger one. Mostly as a nod to minimalism but mostly since crafting supplies have a way of multiplying if I'm not careful. 

Since I also kind of want something to keep project tools in while I'm working on a project but that can  easily be stored away when I'm not. Something to keep needles and thread in. I have been seeing these little folding baskets in some stores so I'll try making one.

Materials

Fabric: Two square pieces, mine are cotton 22×22 cm 

Four snapp fasteners.

For the handle either two rectangular pieces of fabric 5×24 cm or one could use a piece of ribbon instead. Or ignore it completely, the handle's not integral.

Also normal sewing supplies like thread, scissors, needle or sewing machine.

Instructions

First iron the fabric, measure out and then mark up the pieces before cutting them out. As I said I'm doing 22x22 because that's is the largest I can do with the amount of blue fabric but it can be made bigger or smaller. The important thing is that the handle pieces are slightly longer than the basket pieces.

To make the handle pin the handle pieces together inside out. Sew along the edges to turn it into a tube and turn it right side out.

Iron it again and then sewing again along the edges, this last one is mostly just to make it look nice. But it's a small thing. 

I then took the two square pieces again pinning them together inside out. Remember to place the handle in the middle going from one edge to the other. Let it be a little loose since it needs to be folded around the edge. I did not remember this and pinned it to the outside first unfortunately I had already sewed it together before I realized.

So I unpicked it re pinned it and sewed it along the edge same as the handle. Though since it needs to be turned I din't sew all the way. I then turned it right-side out before ironing it again, making sure to fold in the open unsewed part. Then sewed along the edges. Again mostly for neatness but it also because it closes the opening. Sewing under the handle was a bit tricky but it was worth it for the visual. I should say since I'm doing two different color fabrics I had to match the over- and under thread to them. 

I then pulled up the corners and pinned them in a way that looked nice. I used that to measure out  where I wanted to put the snap fasteners. In my case that was 3,5 cm from the edge and 1 cm down. Placing one at each side of the corner. Then all that was left was sewing on the fasteners. 

Result

This is a nice little project that I finished in a few hours. As a basket it works well when sitting on a table but the bottom is a bit to soft for carrying it around. It works but it's not that great. If I make another one I might put a piece of cardboard in it. But then I wouldn't be able to fold or roll it up when I'm not using it. I also didn't know how big the bottom would be. With 22 cm pieces it's bottom is only 12 cm so while it works well I can't fit my big scissors in it. So I'd probably make it a bit bigger.