[books 2014] New Dresden Files!

24. Skin Game by Jim Butcher


The eagerly awaited (by me) new Dresden Files novel.

I had some issues getting into it at first – the central plot is that Dresden gets dragged into a heist operation thanks to his obligations as Winter Knight, and I'm not a big fan of heist capers as a rule.

But I stuck with it because I love the series as a whole, and was well rewarded. Harry does stupid stuff and makes wisecracks. He's spent the past year out on his island in Lake Michigan while a lot of bad stuff has been going down in Chicago, so his friends are (understandably) suspicious and resentful when he turns up asking for their help to do something which is obviously Not Good, and he has to win their trust back.

As always, there's a big piece of magic at the end that is genius and very silly at once. And a few developments.

This one's weird in that Harry's brother Thomas doesn't appear, and his apprentice Molly only comes in at the very end.

Not my favourite in the series but good fun, and the developments at the end mean I can't wait for the next one.

On being a human science experiment

Today was a gym day, and I realised about lunch time that I'd left my inhaler at home. I knew putting it in my other bag yesterday was a big mistake - I normally only use it before the gym, but I'm still having the occasional dry hacking cough, and I do wonder if the "so humid I feel like I'm drowning" sensation is partially asthma related, so I decided to take it with me.

Decided to run tonight anyway. Oh, sensation of breathing through a straw, how I have not missed you.

The science, though:

Incidentally, when I look at my total numbers for today's run it's not that much worse than I've been doing since I started taking the inhaler. It just felt horrible, and there were a few moments of awful stomach cramping and feeling sick afterwards.

The interesting bit is everything else. The reason I had been in denial about putting on weight again until this week is that previously, every tiny gain in weight has meant disproportionate pain in my ankles and shins. But recently, nothing. Until today. It's nowhere near as bad as back in the winter, but I can definitely feel it and not in a good way.

I've never heard of this happening, but it would appear that it's possible that some of my impact (in)tolerance is related to not getting enough oxygen. Weird.

I was ready to crawl into bed at 8, which is something that hasn't happened post exercise for a bit, and I find it fairly easy to chalk that one up to oxygen deprivation.