So, let's jam for a second about quotes or passages. Anything get stuck in y'alls head pretty regularly?
This bit from Joe Abercrombies Best Served Cold rattles around and resurfaces every time I start reading an actiony novel.
You were a hero round these parts. That's what they call you when you kill so many people the word murderer falls short.
Probably the best opening line to any book I've read for how much information it packs into so few words.
"The building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault."
From the Dresden Files, Blood Rites to be specific. It immediately conveys the setting, gives a good idea of what kind of person is saying the line by the fact he has to deny being the instigator after a short pause with the implication that he's been in this situation before in a much less innocent position.
The opening bit to John Dies at The End has stayed with me for years.
Solving the following riddle will reveal the awful truth of the universe, assuming you do not go utterly mad in the attempt.
Say you have an ax - just a cheap one from Home Depot. On one bitter winter day, you use said ax to behead a man. Don’t worry - the man’s already dead. Maybe you should worry, ‘cause you’re the one who shot him. He’d been a big, twitchy guy with veined skin stretched over swollen biceps, tattoo of a swastika on his tongue. And you’re chopping off his head because even with eight bullet holes in him, you’re pretty sure he’s about to spring back to his feet and eat the look of terror right off your face.
On the last swing, the handle splinters. You now have a broken ax. So you go to the hardware store, explaining away the dark reddish stains on the handle as barbeque sauce. The repaired ax sits undisturbed in your house until the next spring when one rainy morning, a strange creature appears in your kitchen. So you grab your trusty ax and chop the thing into several pieces. On the last blow, however - Of course, a chipped head means yet another trip to the hardware store.
As soon as you get home with your newly headed ax, though… You meet the reanimated body of the guy you beheaded last year, only he’s got a new head stitched on with what looks like plastic weed-trimmer line and wears that unique expression of you’re-the-man-who-killed-me-last-winter resentment that one so rarely encounters in everyday life. So you brandish your ax. “That’s the ax that slayed me,” he rasps.
Is he right?”
I am in the business of saving lives.
+7
JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
Man, John Dies at the End. Much like Neal Stephenson, I disagree with Jason Pargin more and more as the years go by, but he's written some of my favorite passages ever. I need to get those first couple of books in print, they'd be perfect for binge reading under a blanket next time my power goes out.
I fell into rereading Gideon again. One of the little bits in it I love are just how much goddamn shit gets... Not even foreshadowed really, just bluntly spelled out, or how the villain is basically telling you their whole emotional deal right up front, but there's so many other little details that are fascinating it all just goes sliding by.
Just a selection of random lines that I highlighted halfway through the book:
full book spoilers obv
The first time Gideon talks to Crux, and they're arguing about letting her go from the Ninth, Gideon says "Say my shuttle exploded. I died, and it was such a shame." shortly after this but unknown to us, Crux will plant a bomb on the shuttle that Gideon ends up not using.
When the Third house arrives with supposedly twin necromancers: Teacher waved it off with an indulgent hand and a wheezing laugh: "What can we do, what can we do?"
"But it's impossible-"
"Only trouble at the end of the line," he said, "and a trouble confined to them."
and then in the next scene: "I see no reason not to hope that I may behold eight new Lyctors by the end of this, joined together with their cavaliers, heir to a joy and power[...]
Teacher knows exactly what the lyctor process is, and knows a third person will just be a third wheel, and basically just says straight up what happens to the cavaliers, but no one realizes he's being literal.
When Gideon is following the third house around, Ianthe seems to realize they're being followed, and looks back into the room where Gideon is hiding: "This is not a clever path to start down," she said softly. "I would not attract attention from the necromancer of the third house."
Ianthe just refers to herself as The Necromancer, when supposedly there's two.
A lot of Teacher/Dulcinea conversations can be read as Teacher sort of knowing who Dulcinea really is. "Oh, lady," he said sadly, "you should not have come."
She gave a flashing, sudden smile, the edges of her teeth scarlet. "But isn't it beautiful that I did?" she said.
And Gideon thinks how it's hard to tell how old Dulcinea is Her babyish face made it difficult to give her a timestamp. She might've been seventeen, or thirty-seven.
And Dulcinea doesn't pretend to be Not Immortal very hard And you do look like a nice kid. Sorry," [Dulcinea] added hastily," you're not a child. But I feel so old right now. Did you see the pair from the Fourth House? Babies. They have contributed to me feeling ancient.
and later: "Oh, by all rights I ought to have been the first one to die," said Dulcinea, giggling a bit fretfully, "but once one accepts that, one stops worrying quite so much."
and then later: "It's very easy to die, Gideon the Ninth... you just let it happen. It's so much worse when it doesn't. But come on, chicken. Not right now, and not yet."
and then later Harrow and Dulcinea are talking: [Harrow] said abruptly, "Why did you want to be a Lyctor?"
[...] The older woman was leaning against Protesilaus's arm. She looked extraordinarily sad, even regretful; when she caught Gideon's eye, a tiny smile tugged on the corners of her mouth, then drooped again. Eventually, she said: "I didn't want to die."
Gideon's first description of Pro is totally that of a corpse, because of course he is: He didn't look healthy... He was a dour, bulky person whose skin had something of the girl's strange, translucent tinge. He was waxen looking in the sunlight [...] He was staring at Gideon emptily. You're gigantic, she thought but you move awkwardly, and I bet I could take you.
At the dinner party Dulcinea asks Abigail about her work:
Abigail: "Canaan House is a holy grail! What we know about the Lyctors is tremendously antiseptic. I've actually found what I think are unencrypted communiques between-"
Even with Dulcinea Septimus making the intense eyelash bat of What you are doing and saying is so fascinating to me, Dulcinea Septimus, Gideon knew a boring conversation when she heard one.
and then at the end of the dinner: "I liked that dinner," said Lady Septimus, with deep satisfaction. "It was useful."
and then in the next page Dulcinea murmered, "Oh, Gideon the Ninth, the Houses are arranged so badly ... full of suspicion after a whole myriad of peacable years. What do they compete for? The Emperor's favour? What does that look like? What can they want? It's not as though they haven't all gotten fat off our Cohort prizes ... mostly. I have been thinking about all that, lately, and the only conclusion I can come to is..."
Abigail mentioning finding out clues about who the Lyctors actually are leads Dulcinea to immediately killing her and her husband after the party. And before she does it she also basically gives half of her villain motivation monologue, but it goes right over Gideon's head.
Book 2 stuff:
"I pray the tomb is shut forever," recited Harrowhark, with the curious fervidity she always showed in prayer. Boy this one doesn't get explored AT ALL until book 2.
Harrow talking about Gideon's two-hander: I never liked that cursed thing anyway; I always felt like it was judging me.
Boy does that become a plot point later!
Kana on
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
Ministry for the Future is about how the people killing us all have names and addresses. Fuck
Coinage on
0
Lost Salientblink twiceif you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered Userregular
edited February 2021
Admittedly I've read it twenty-something times but I have a LOT of bits from Catch-22 pop in my head fairly regularly. I've read it so many times that I literally had a bit of it in my head and was convinced it was from a movie that I couldn't recall until Grey Ghost was like "Uhh dude that's from your favourite book, not a movie" and I was like "Ohhh yeaaaah..."
The part in question was from the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade:
Major _______ de Coverley turned from the counter with his tray full and came to a stop. His eyes fell on the groups of other officers gazing at him in mute appeal, and, with righteous belligerence, he roared:
"Give everybody eat!"
I also often think:
"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed. "It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.
There are lots of incredibly beautiful passages from other books but if we're just talking things that pop to mind during every day life most of the ones that aren't Catch-22 for me are Douglas Adams:
"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t."
"Oh no, not again."
"He stared at it. 'Yellow,' he thought, and stomped off back to his bedroom to get dressed."
And of course, "Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is."
Lost Salient on
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
+6
Brovid Hasselsmof[Growling historic on the fury road]Registered Userregular
edited February 2021
My absolute favourite passage is from The Road
From daydreams on the road there was no waking. He plodded on. He could remember everything of her save her scent. Seated in a theatre with her beside him leaning forward listening to the music. Gold scrollwork and sconces and the tall columnar folds of the drapes at either side of the stage. She held his hand in her lap and he could feel the tops of her stockings through the thin stuff of her summer dress. Freeze this frame. Now call down your dark and your cold and be damned.
Seconding Song of Achilles. It is an extraordinary book.
Stephen Fry has a series on Greek heroes, but it doesn't look like he tackles Achilles. I guess that makes sense, as most of the heroes he does cover fight monsters or go magical places or do cool things. 'On camera' Achilles is mostly killing dudes and moping.
Seconding Song of Achilles. It is an extraordinary book.
Stephen Fry has a series on Greek heroes, but it doesn't look like he tackles Achilles. I guess that makes sense, as most of the heroes he does cover fight monsters or go magical places or do cool things. 'On camera' Achilles is mostly killing dudes and moping.
EDIT: Wait, it's already out? Paperback is available? Dunno. Anyway, you can get your Achilles via Stephen Fry if so desired.
Oh that's so cool.
I just got Song of Achilles, that new translation of Beowulf, and the One and Future King to sate my new interest in myths.
I'm rereading The Storm light Archives because I wanted to give the guy another chance to see if I would buy Rhythm of War or not. It took Sanderson 2,586 pages through the first two books and not until the 38th chapter to even begin to explain what the hell was going on with the Heralds and wow could that have been revealed so much earlier.
EDIT: Hey he's got two other books, Mythos and Heroes that look great!
MegaMan001 on
I am in the business of saving lives.
+3
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Those are all great books and I'm excited to hear what you think
I'm reading the oddest book. It's some spy/mystery genre fiction that I picked up for $3 from a secondhand bookshop as a light read, so I'm not mad I don't love it. But it's just ... well. Odd. It's set in the 50s, and reads like someone doing a good pastiche of a bad Agatha Christie. If it was actually an old book, I'd nod along and think ok, not a great work of literature but about par for the course for a mediocre pulp page turner of that era.
... but it was written in 2012. And there's something utterly jarring about the idea that someone can sit down and earnestly write such a politically, sexually, and socially naive book in the 21st century. I keep trying to look for knowing irony, or at least a wink and a nod that says "yeah of course we know this is all bullshit really", but there's nothing there. I'm up to the bit where moustache-twirling european Communists are revealed to be the big villains, setting out to corrupt America's otherwise pristine youth through the evils of heroin, and I keep flipping back to the publication date thinking "... are you fucking serious? You can't be serious. At some point another shoe is gonna drop, right?"
I'm reading the oddest book. It's some spy/mystery genre fiction that I picked up for $3 from a secondhand bookshop as a light read, so I'm not mad I don't love it. But it's just ... well. Odd. It's set in the 50s, and reads like someone doing a good pastiche of a bad Agatha Christie. If it was actually an old book, I'd nod along and think ok, not a great work of literature but about par for the course for a mediocre pulp page turner of that era.
... but it was written in 2012. And there's something utterly jarring about the idea that someone can sit down and earnestly write such a politically, sexually, and socially naive book in the 21st century. I keep trying to look for knowing irony, or at least a wink and a nod that says "yeah of course we know this is all bullshit really", but there's nothing there. I'm up to the bit where moustache-twirling european Communists are revealed to be the big villains, setting out to corrupt America's otherwise pristine youth through the evils of heroin, and I keep flipping back to the publication date thinking "... are you fucking serious? You can't be serious. At some point another shoe is gonna drop, right?"
I'm reading the oddest book. It's some spy/mystery genre fiction that I picked up for $3 from a secondhand bookshop as a light read, so I'm not mad I don't love it. But it's just ... well. Odd. It's set in the 50s, and reads like someone doing a good pastiche of a bad Agatha Christie. If it was actually an old book, I'd nod along and think ok, not a great work of literature but about par for the course for a mediocre pulp page turner of that era.
... but it was written in 2012. And there's something utterly jarring about the idea that someone can sit down and earnestly write such a politically, sexually, and socially naive book in the 21st century. I keep trying to look for knowing irony, or at least a wink and a nod that says "yeah of course we know this is all bullshit really", but there's nothing there. I'm up to the bit where moustache-twirling european Communists are revealed to be the big villains, setting out to corrupt America's otherwise pristine youth through the evils of heroin, and I keep flipping back to the publication date thinking "... are you fucking serious? You can't be serious. At some point another shoe is gonna drop, right?"
we'll see, I guess!
this lines up with everything i know about europeans though
ok well I didn't want to stand up to get the book so I looked up the author instead (Helen MacInnes) ... and apparently she died in 1987, whoops
SO
a) this flyleaf is misleading at best as regards original publication date (Wikipedia - "North from Rome, 1958" yes that sounds more likely)
b) I'm kind of relieved that this is, in fact, something written by a middle-class lady in the 1950s, instead of an insane person of this century, but also disappointed because now I'm definitely not going to get an interesting switcheroo in the back half.
It also means that the rather elusive gay-coded character introduced in the first third is probably not gonna get an on-page romance either, and for that I am sorry.
ok well I didn't want to stand up to get the book so I looked up the author instead (Helen MacInnes) ... and apparently she died in 1987, whoops
SO
a) this flyleaf is misleading at best as regards original publication date (Wikipedia - "North from Rome, 1958" yes that sounds more likely)
b) I'm kind of relieved that this is, in fact, something written by a middle-class lady in the 1950s, instead of an insane person of this century, but also disappointed because now I'm definitely not going to get an interesting switcheroo in the back half.
It also means that the rather elusive gay-coded character introduced in the first third is probably not gonna get an on-page romance either, and for that I am sorry.
I'm reading the oddest book. It's some spy/mystery genre fiction that I picked up for $3 from a secondhand bookshop as a light read, so I'm not mad I don't love it. But it's just ... well. Odd. It's set in the 50s, and reads like someone doing a good pastiche of a bad Agatha Christie. If it was actually an old book, I'd nod along and think ok, not a great work of literature but about par for the course for a mediocre pulp page turner of that era.
... but it was written in 2012. And there's something utterly jarring about the idea that someone can sit down and earnestly write such a politically, sexually, and socially naive book in the 21st century. I keep trying to look for knowing irony, or at least a wink and a nod that says "yeah of course we know this is all bullshit really", but there's nothing there. I'm up to the bit where moustache-twirling european Communists are revealed to be the big villains, setting out to corrupt America's otherwise pristine youth through the evils of heroin, and I keep flipping back to the publication date thinking "... are you fucking serious? You can't be serious. At some point another shoe is gonna drop, right?"
we'll see, I guess!
Oh there's a huge sub-culture (if you want to call it that when it's apparently 30% of the country) in the US that really really hates "Europe" (ie: the EU) for being too socialist to just let poor people die of preventable illness and actually having laws against bigotry and shit.
Apparently Wayfarers 4 came out overnight as I got a notification that it had loaded onto my Kindle this morning
Now I just need to wait until the end of the work day to start reading it. Maybe lunchtime. Maybe once I finish writing this test. Maybe once I finish this coffee
The one about the fucking space hairdresser and the cowboy. He's got a tinfoil pal and a pedal bin
Ministry for the Future started off hot but I got too bored to finish it. Also its hypothetical future solves tax evasion by making all currency on the blockchain, and bruh
Finished the audiobook of Magician and oh boy that was over 33 hours to work through. It took until about hour 14 to really get going, I would say. Still hough, a pretty good yarn once it gets its boots on. I think I'll switch to some other author for a bit before going on to Silverthorn even if that one is a lightweight 16 hour job.
TBR cart is a game changer y'all. Not pictured a giant illustrated edition of all the Wizard of Earthsea books. It's wide enough that I can easily fit bookmarks, snacks, or temporarily discarded dust covers for the books I'm actively reading behind the books. And it's on wheels! So I can easily drag it to whichever seat I'm using.
I read Gideon the Ninth and then I read A Memory Called Empire.
It was interesting to see a handful of plotty points line up between the two
(spoilers for both books)
- Shared consciousnesses in one person, where one is ultimately subsumed
- Mysterious alien force threatening empire
- Gay crying kiss after much tension
- Last act sacrifice
- Last act meeting with emperor and request
the last three are just genre tropes rather than setting or story points but they were fun with I noticed them.
Ultimately I liked A Memory Called Empire more and I like the sadness of Mahit/Three Seagrass' relationship at the conclusion more than Gideon/Harrow even though it was a different sadness.
everybody's gay in space but it's space so nobody thinks it worth talking about
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
+3
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Hey so I follow John Scalzi and read his blog, and a couple days ago he mentioned a "thing" that happened and that he wasn't going to engage with it until at least his current project was over, and maybe not even then, and for people to stop emailing him about it. Any idea what he is talking about? Google was less than helpful. I'm not terribly plugged into the literary world.
JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
edited February 2021
It's fine. Jason Sanford wrote a Patreon post pointing out that the Baen's Bar forum is showing worrying signs of becoming a Sad Puppies/alt-right stronghold, and he referenced and linked Scalzi's 2014 blog post about The Orthodox Church of Heinlein, in which he addressed the conservative bent of one of Baen's publishers and the creepiness of many modern Heinlein fans.
As with any interaction with grumble gators, everything descended into a deeply depressing level of hysterical shit-throwing more or less instantaneously, and since Scalzi is the most public figure tangentially involved in any of this, a bunch of the shit started spattering into his Twitter feed and DMs.
It really does seem like this is a case where he's not commenting on it because he has nothing to do with any of it. Which is unusual, because in most cases "oblique reference to something I'm not going to comment on" is code for some really shady stuff you hope is going to get swept under the rug if you ignore it hard enough.
Posts
Probably the best opening line to any book I've read for how much information it packs into so few words.
"The building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault."
From the Dresden Files, Blood Rites to be specific. It immediately conveys the setting, gives a good idea of what kind of person is saying the line by the fact he has to deny being the instigator after a short pause with the implication that he's been in this situation before in a much less innocent position.
Terry Patchett vibes there.
Yeah at the risk of turning this into a running thread I think
is one of my favorite sentences I've ever read
Just a selection of random lines that I highlighted halfway through the book:
full book spoilers obv
When the Third house arrives with supposedly twin necromancers:
Teacher waved it off with an indulgent hand and a wheezing laugh: "What can we do, what can we do?"
"But it's impossible-"
"Only trouble at the end of the line," he said, "and a trouble confined to them."
and then in the next scene:
"I see no reason not to hope that I may behold eight new Lyctors by the end of this, joined together with their cavaliers, heir to a joy and power[...]
Teacher knows exactly what the lyctor process is, and knows a third person will just be a third wheel, and basically just says straight up what happens to the cavaliers, but no one realizes he's being literal.
When Gideon is following the third house around, Ianthe seems to realize they're being followed, and looks back into the room where Gideon is hiding:
"This is not a clever path to start down," she said softly. "I would not attract attention from the necromancer of the third house."
Ianthe just refers to herself as The Necromancer, when supposedly there's two.
A lot of Teacher/Dulcinea conversations can be read as Teacher sort of knowing who Dulcinea really is.
"Oh, lady," he said sadly, "you should not have come."
She gave a flashing, sudden smile, the edges of her teeth scarlet. "But isn't it beautiful that I did?" she said.
And Gideon thinks how it's hard to tell how old Dulcinea is
Her babyish face made it difficult to give her a timestamp. She might've been seventeen, or thirty-seven.
And Dulcinea doesn't pretend to be Not Immortal very hard
And you do look like a nice kid. Sorry," [Dulcinea] added hastily," you're not a child. But I feel so old right now. Did you see the pair from the Fourth House? Babies. They have contributed to me feeling ancient.
and later:
"Oh, by all rights I ought to have been the first one to die," said Dulcinea, giggling a bit fretfully, "but once one accepts that, one stops worrying quite so much."
and then later:
"It's very easy to die, Gideon the Ninth... you just let it happen. It's so much worse when it doesn't. But come on, chicken. Not right now, and not yet."
and then later Harrow and Dulcinea are talking:
[Harrow] said abruptly, "Why did you want to be a Lyctor?"
[...] The older woman was leaning against Protesilaus's arm. She looked extraordinarily sad, even regretful; when she caught Gideon's eye, a tiny smile tugged on the corners of her mouth, then drooped again. Eventually, she said: "I didn't want to die."
Gideon's first description of Pro is totally that of a corpse, because of course he is:
He didn't look healthy... He was a dour, bulky person whose skin had something of the girl's strange, translucent tinge. He was waxen looking in the sunlight [...] He was staring at Gideon emptily. You're gigantic, she thought but you move awkwardly, and I bet I could take you.
At the dinner party Dulcinea asks Abigail about her work:
Abigail: "Canaan House is a holy grail! What we know about the Lyctors is tremendously antiseptic. I've actually found what I think are unencrypted communiques between-"
Even with Dulcinea Septimus making the intense eyelash bat of What you are doing and saying is so fascinating to me, Dulcinea Septimus, Gideon knew a boring conversation when she heard one.
and then at the end of the dinner:
"I liked that dinner," said Lady Septimus, with deep satisfaction. "It was useful."
and then in the next page
Dulcinea murmered, "Oh, Gideon the Ninth, the Houses are arranged so badly ... full of suspicion after a whole myriad of peacable years. What do they compete for? The Emperor's favour? What does that look like? What can they want? It's not as though they haven't all gotten fat off our Cohort prizes ... mostly. I have been thinking about all that, lately, and the only conclusion I can come to is..."
Abigail mentioning finding out clues about who the Lyctors actually are leads Dulcinea to immediately killing her and her husband after the party. And before she does it she also basically gives half of her villain motivation monologue, but it goes right over Gideon's head.
Book 2 stuff:
Harrow talking about Gideon's two-hander:
I never liked that cursed thing anyway; I always felt like it was judging me.
Boy does that become a plot point later!
The part in question was from the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade:
I also often think:
There are lots of incredibly beautiful passages from other books but if we're just talking things that pop to mind during every day life most of the ones that aren't Catch-22 for me are Douglas Adams:
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
@MegaMan001, look what you've brought upon us! Stephen Fry has a book about the Trojan War coming out this summer!
EDIT: Wait, it's already out? Paperback is available? Dunno. Anyway, you can get your Achilles via Stephen Fry if so desired.
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
Oh that's so cool.
I just got Song of Achilles, that new translation of Beowulf, and the One and Future King to sate my new interest in myths.
I'm rereading The Storm light Archives because I wanted to give the guy another chance to see if I would buy Rhythm of War or not. It took Sanderson 2,586 pages through the first two books and not until the 38th chapter to even begin to explain what the hell was going on with the Heralds and wow could that have been revealed so much earlier.
EDIT: Hey he's got two other books, Mythos and Heroes that look great!
... but it was written in 2012. And there's something utterly jarring about the idea that someone can sit down and earnestly write such a politically, sexually, and socially naive book in the 21st century. I keep trying to look for knowing irony, or at least a wink and a nod that says "yeah of course we know this is all bullshit really", but there's nothing there. I'm up to the bit where moustache-twirling european Communists are revealed to be the big villains, setting out to corrupt America's otherwise pristine youth through the evils of heroin, and I keep flipping back to the publication date thinking "... are you fucking serious? You can't be serious. At some point another shoe is gonna drop, right?"
we'll see, I guess!
You can't not tell us what it is
this lines up with everything i know about europeans though
SO
a) this flyleaf is misleading at best as regards original publication date (Wikipedia - "North from Rome, 1958" yes that sounds more likely)
b) I'm kind of relieved that this is, in fact, something written by a middle-class lady in the 1950s, instead of an insane person of this century, but also disappointed because now I'm definitely not going to get an interesting switcheroo in the back half.
It also means that the rather elusive gay-coded character introduced in the first third is probably not gonna get an on-page romance either, and for that I am sorry.
If you see any particularly hairy elephants in the neighborhood, probably just throw the book at them and run in the other direction.
Sounds like you owe that character some fan art
Just a shelf of white spines with HELEN MACINNES in big bold text staring out at you.
Oh there's a huge sub-culture (if you want to call it that when it's apparently 30% of the country) in the US that really really hates "Europe" (ie: the EU) for being too socialist to just let poor people die of preventable illness and actually having laws against bigotry and shit.
Now I just need to wait until the end of the work day to start reading it. Maybe lunchtime. Maybe once I finish writing this test. Maybe once I finish this coffee
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Holy shit, time flies. That's exciting.
Also in the good sci that's coming out super soon or is already out:
The fourth book (and finale) of Becky Chamber's Wayfairers.
I'm sad about this - i always wanted a follow up to the first book, more slice of life with the crew. Ah well.
Fugitive Telentry is out 27 of april, the next murderbot novella. It's set before the events of the novel.
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Is it another novella? Dang was hoping for another full length book.
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https://i.imgur.com/AbmksIt.jpg
It was interesting to see a handful of plotty points line up between the two
(spoilers for both books)
- Mysterious alien force threatening empire
- Gay crying kiss after much tension
- Last act sacrifice
- Last act meeting with emperor and request
the last three are just genre tropes rather than setting or story points but they were fun with I noticed them.
Ultimately I liked A Memory Called Empire more and I like the sadness of Mahit/Three Seagrass' relationship at the conclusion more than Gideon/Harrow even though it was a different sadness.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
As with any interaction with grumble gators, everything descended into a deeply depressing level of hysterical shit-throwing more or less instantaneously, and since Scalzi is the most public figure tangentially involved in any of this, a bunch of the shit started spattering into his Twitter feed and DMs.
It really does seem like this is a case where he's not commenting on it because he has nothing to do with any of it. Which is unusual, because in most cases "oblique reference to something I'm not going to comment on" is code for some really shady stuff you hope is going to get swept under the rug if you ignore it hard enough.