#murderbot…another thing on my reread list | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

beamorgan · 6 months ago

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Favourite Reads of the Year

I will not be ranking these, because that would hurt my heart. Buckle up folks, there are a lot of amazing books out there

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

I know, I KNOW, I'm late to the party but omg this whole series is just as good as people say!!! I know I said I wouldn't be ranking, but if I was these would be fighting for the top spot. I have already relistened to all the audiobooks. I anticipate rereading them literally every year from now on. I would die for Murderbot, which it would think is a stupid thing for a human to do when there is a SecUnit right there. [adult, scifi]

Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett

Sequel to last year's fav Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries, this follows a bullheaded academic trying find the magical door that will let her faerie boyfriend back into his faerie kingdom. Chaos ensues in the Alps. It's fabulous, and the author's approach to using folklore is very similar to my own writing, which I love and also get imposter syndrome about. 10/10 recommend [adult, historical fantasy]

Model Home by Solomon Rivers

Would you like to be repeatedly punched in the gut? Look no further than this story of racism and child abuse in a Texas McMansion, with gorgeous prose and a genderqueer protagonist and the laundry list of content warnings you can expect with the genre. It hurt so good. [adult, contemporary gothic horror]

You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian

This love affair between a baseball play and a sports reporter was recced to me by the lovely @colubrina and boy was it worth the two-day binge it inspired! Romance can be very hit-or-miss for me, but this knocked it out of the park (please enjoy my pun). I didn't even have to know anything about baseball to love it! [adult, historical (1960s) romance]

The Locked Tomb Series by Tamsyn Muir

Another tumblr fav, FOR A REASON. Gideon is hilarious. Harrow is an absolute mess. Nona is BABY, my beloved. (Camilla and Palamedes have my whole entire heart). Also, the audiobook narrator is fantastic. In the words of the author, the buns are also fried chicken. [adult, sci fantasy]

Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian

This one is @elodieunderglass's fault. Historical buffoonery on boats. The main characters are ridiculous. The sailing jargon is incomprehensible. It's great. [adult, historical fiction]

All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung

This is a gorgeous memoir of an interracial adoptee trying to make contact with her birth family while pregnant with her own child. It grapples thoughtfully with reconnecting to a lost culture, the complexities of family history, and the social and legal barriers adoptees face to learning about themselves. [adult, memoir]

Death in the Spires by KJ Charles

I devour everything Charles writes, so I was EXCITED for this mystery. She made it very clear on social media "It's not a kissing book!!" (it's kinda still a kissing book). She wrote a stonking book, as usual, with an underdog protagonist revisiting the murder that happened during his toxic time at Oxford university. [adult, historical mystery]

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

My favourite literary fiction read of the year, this meditation on Iranian diaspora identity is written by a poet and you can tell. I would suck the prose up through a straw if I could. The protagonist is an addict and also quite suicidal. It was fun :) [adult, literary fiction]

She Who Became the Sun by Shelly Parker-Chan

and the sequel, He Who Drowned the World. I don't even know how to sell this, all I want to do is flail incoherently about how amazing it is. IT'S AMAZING. JUST READ IT. (wait I know: this satisfied the part of me that was obsessed with Mulan as a kid) [adult, historical fantasy]

A Little Trickery by Roseanna Pike

The voicey-est book I've ever read. I screenshot like every other page. It follows an orphaned girl trying to survive in Tudor England through various means, such as faking a miracle in the church where her gay best friend is priest. [adult, historical fiction]

At the End of the River Styx by Michelle Kulwiki

My friend wrote a book! It made me cry!!! They were delighted with this!!! Please give this to any teenager in your life who needs to see thoughtful representation of grief and depression and boys in love. [YA, contemporary fantasy]

#there's a little bit of everything in here #sorry to the thriller fans #I am too stressed to read many of those at the moment #bea reads #book recommendations

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muskoxen · 1 year ago

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Vibin'

So I've been thinking about how some of my favorite books vibe with one another, and a map might be a better format for this and this is really just for me to quiet my brain a little but whatever, here's the list:

(The top line book will be the ur-book that sets the vibe, usually a childhood favorite; this does not mean that these are necessarily kid-friendly books!) (If you actually see and read this post, please reblog and suggest books because I'm going to throw down some ur-books that I have yet to find any simpatico fellows for!) (I will update my list as I read and discover)

Murderbot

Is it just me or would El Higgins and Murderbot coexist well??? Also, can’t believe I almost forgot to put my favorite traumatized construct on this list!

Howl's Moving Castle

Emily Wilde and its sequels

Ten Thousand Stitches

Sabriel and its sequels

Vespertine

Sorcery of Thorns (specifically, Lirael and there's also a UU library but also a Mogget)

Nettle & Bone

The Blue Sword

Crown Duel

The Goblin Emperor

Crown Duel

The Vorkosigan Saga

The Queen’s Thief

Discworld

T Kingfisher's World of the White Rat, incl. The Saint of Steel series. The gnolls esp. feel Discworldish.

A Deadly Education and The Scholomance series. Both El and Vimes understand The Beast

To Say Nothing of the Dog, Doomsday Book and Connie Willis at large

The Lord Peter Wimsey series

PG Wodehouse

Ella Enchanted

Half a Soul and its sequels

The Lord of Stariel

Thornhedge awww

A Sorceress Comes to Call

The Hunger Games

The Locked Tomb

Also Vespertine (above) a bit. Lots of dead things, and sassy ghosts in your head, and religious fanatics, and eldritch horrors. TLT is A Lot so I don’t want to overpromise but the main character is an neurodivergent nun and she’s wonderful. Also there’s a hot priest. It is YA so significantly less gore.

His Dark Materials

Godkiller also vibes with THG a bit. Def a dash of Peenis.

Temeraire, except obviously Lyra would be friends with Temeraire and Pan and Lawrence would commiserate

Pride & Prejudice and Austen at large

An-Ever Fixed Mark and its universe

A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting this author is so wildly unknown and underrated where is the discourse wtf

A Lady's Guide to Scandal

Memory of Morning. It’s a one hit wonder but it really, really hits for me. She’s a ship doctor who gets shore leave and gets to hang out with her bluestocking family during the season in a not-Britain. There’s language of flowers. There’s alien-intelligence-giant-glowing-octopodes. There’s a wee little doggy. I haven’t enjoyed anything else by this author but damn do I keep rereading this one.

The Beldam & the Baronet (Or, The Magician Debutante's Trials & Tribulations) by @dwellordream

Kate Daniels

Hidden Legacy but only the Nevada books sorry IA

The Inkeeper Chronicles obv

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iwonderwh0 · 1 year ago

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Hiii :) I've been wanting to get into more android or artificial intelligence related media lately, got any suggestions or faves? Movies, shows, books, anything really!

Heyy, sorry for late response, I was trying to think of maybe a bigger list, but huh, here we go

I'll start with the classic that although obvious is still among my most favourites

(Upd.) A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) – I'm updating this list to put this movie at the top.

Ghost in the Shell (1995) – among the absolute best of the genre. Doesn't place technology as something opposing humanity, but explores how it can become part of it.

Do androids dream of electric sheep (Philip K. Dick) – I recently reread the novel and yeah, I still love it. Also both blade runner movies (all three are completely different stories. First movie is nothing like a book (not worse or better, just completely different), second movie is nothing like the first. All three worth checking out (tho my favourite if Blade Runner 1984)

The Murderbot diaries (Martha Wells) – a series of books with probably the best example of how can a non-human character be written in a way that doesn't turn it into a story about "becoming human" or some other cliche. Network Effect is my favourite, I was literally screaming here in my posts as I was reading it because FINALLY it is a book where author properly utilises the fact that the main character is partially a computer. It processes multiple visual inputs at once, uses drones as the extension of himself and pings and hacks everything that moves.

Her (2013) – while I hear people talking about how some other movies/novels are the most realistic portrayal of our nearest future I get annoyed because in my opinion THIS is the closest one (among those I've seen anyway). It's practically reality. Even the job the main character has – I was thinking the other day that it seems like something that would be done by AI, but then I gave it another thought and now I actually consider it to be quite valid – a human protagonist doing a job supplying the demand for human sincerity while writing letters for people he doesn't actually know, but somehow it doesn't even matter as long as it's good work of fiction that just *feels* real, even if everyone on the receiving end knows it's not. Melancholic portrayal of this digital loneliness that doesn't read as a condescending story about some big scary AI that will destroy all humanity. No, scratch that. This movie is actually telling a story and doing it amazingly.

After Yang (2017) – it's a movie that should be watched alone, as it's not really good for collective watch. There's little action and some will probably call it boring, but oh man, I really really loved it. A family with adopted daughter has an android "sibling" whose role was to "connect" the little girl to her heritage (she's Chinese while her adoptive parents aren't). One day he shuts down. The rest I won't spoil. I must admit, after playing D:BH it weirds me out how some sci-fi has conscious AI that has no autonomy and somehow it coexists without conflict. One thing that I really liked about this movie that I NEVER saw mentioned anywhere else is how an android character struggles with identity not in a sense of whether he really is human, but whether he is really Chinese. Loved that.

Animatrix (2003) – it's animated take on Matrix that shows more context around the whole humans/machines resisters timeline that at the beginning is really similar to how it went in dbh. It consists of short parts, each animated in different style. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but I didn't even know this movie existed and find it interesting enough to recommend.

Electric Dreams (1984) - I LOVE THIS MOVIE, it's one of my absolute favourites that I can't recommend enough. This is actually a romcom, not "serious" sci-fi, but to be honest I feel like even silly and goofy as it is this movie is far superior as a sci-fi than a whole bunch of "serious" ones that are just using AI for the sake of a blockbuster or some cliche story about humanity. Seriously, it was filmed in 80's and has so much fun with the concept, it ironically feels really ahead of time in how it portrays it. It was surprisingly accurate too, like there's a scene on how this computer learns to imitate sounds and it really does look like a process of how neural networks learn to imitate the input they receive. It's actually ridiculous how a romcom got more accurate depiction of artificial intelligence than most sci-fi movies.

EX Machina – I don't actually like this movie and find it incredibly boring and cliche for the 90% of its length, but the ending 10% makes it worth watching.

Android (1982) – I like it more than EX Machina but once again I mostly like it for the plot twist at the end than as a whole.

I probably haven't yet seen and read a lot of great movies in the genre so anyone can feel free to add to this list your favourites.

Actually, I'll add one more

Frankenstein (Mary Shelley) – although it's not technically about an android character, I feel like this book is like the mother of the whole genre. Definitely worth checking out, even if only because of how significant it is in the pop culture and how often people reference it with some absolute horseshit takes that hints at how they've never actually read it. There's a great audio version on YouTube too.

#asks #recs

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semusepsu · 12 days ago

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I was tagged in this meme by @venndaai, here are ten books that I want to read before the end of the year.

Comparative Takic Grammar by Jane H. Hill and Kenneth C. Hill - I am partway through this one already, but it is long. It compares the grammar of the Takic languages, a subfamily of languages spoken in Southern California in Los Angeles county, Orange County, and as far inland as Coachella valley. Fun fact, these languages are part of the Uto-Aztecan language family, meaning they are distant relatives of Comanche and Shoshone in the north and Nahuatl in the south. I have a great love for these languages that has grown as I study them.

A Coalition of Lineages: The Fernandeno Tataviam Band of Mission Indians by Duane Champagne & Carole Goldberg - A birthday gift I received from a friend, about the Fernandeño, speakers of one of the Takic languages. I can't wait to learn more about life in my area in precolonial times.

The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins - I am partway through this one. A history of the interventions the United States did during the Cold War of the twentieth century. I was already familiar with some of this , but seeing it all in the context of the rest engages me.

Fit to Practice: Empire, Race, Gender, and the Making of British Medicine, 1850-1980 by Douglas Haynes - I put this book down a while back, but I want to finish it. A look at the history of the institution of medicine in the British Empire, with a focus on its policies that limited who got to be a doctor, a political fight which continues into the modern era.

All Systems Red by Martha Wells - I ended up getting the ebook of the second murderbot book as a sign on thing for a publishers email list a while back, and most of my fellow sci fi book fans are into it, so I finally want to give the series a shot.

Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir - I loved Gideon the Ninth, and I had such trouble reading Harrow the Ninth, that the last book in the series has sat on my shelf. But no more, I will reread the series and finish it.

Apostles of Mercy by Lindsay Ellis - another case where the sequel was hard to read. the last book, the Truth of the Divine, was quite depressing, but I have heard good things about this installment and will give it a go.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson - I know a lot of folk who liked Imperial Radch were really into this book, and I have it, but I have not finished it. It's not even that it put me off, its just that I had a ton of books I felt like I 'should' read first. Honestly that's still true, since Ive got these others on the list.

On Basilisk Station by David Weber - I've enjoyed a bunch of the later books in this series, despite the way the unexamined space capitalism annoys my inner commie.

Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban - This one is written in a future dialect of Kentish English and details a post-apocalyptic British society that has regressed to the iron age discovering technology from the nuclear age, the technology that ruined the world.

Tagging people, let's see… Who is reading books here? Consider yourself tagged. @signipotens @lotuseaterconference @byrdsfly @fishmech @anouthereyes @pizza-and-ramen @unefemmedamnee @tabkatta @aurpiment @butzenscheibe @finalgirl-nihilbliss

#meme

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rjalker · 1 year ago

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"you should talk more about what you like about The Murderbot Diaries instead of just complaining about the bigotry and bad writing!"

It's funny, it's entertaining. That's about it.

They first 5 books, chronologically, are extremely episodic and insular. There's no real overarching plot or anything to seriously connect each story besides the existance of the character, and the episodic parts are so shallow there's really nothing to talk about besides just summarizing the plot.

That's why I liked this series. It's light reading. Takes no brainpower.

Until of course we get to the two absolute failures of novels, but that's another thing entirely.

There's no worldbuilding for me to talk about, the characters aren't actually deep enough to explore without making everything up.

The Murderbot Diaries is funny. It's easy reading. It's entertaining.

What else do you want me to say? Should I summarize the plots? Should I waste my time doing worldbuilding that Martha Wells refuses to do herself when I'm not getting paid for it?

Sure, speculation can be fun, but not if I have to do literally all the work, which is what The Murderbot Diaires is demanding of me. And if I have to put in so much effort as to build the entire setting from the ground up from scratch because it just straight up doesn't exist in th text, I'd rather be putting that effort towards my own original characters and settings.

Martha Wells didn't even bother to tell us that Murderbot's fingers are metal until seven whole books in. And we don't even know anything about the rest of its body, besides that its feet don't look like human feet in some way we're never going to get specifics on.

There's not really any way to talk about what's good about The Murderbot Diaries besides saying "it's funny, it's entertaining, so far it respects touch averse people and aroace people".

Because anything more than that would literally just require me to spell out the plots for each extremely simple book. And it's not even like the plots themselves are particularly good or interesting.

Like, these are novelas that don't even put in as much world building as any random short story from 1930. What am I supposed to say about them besides the basics of "I liked reading them over four times now and I'll reread them again in the future?"

I know no one wants to admit it, but this series, excluding the two trainwrecks of full-length novels, is extremely light reading.

They're quite literally not that deep in terms of worldbuilding and characterization. Murderbot could be replaced with any other Martha Wells protagonist without any changes to the plot.

It's such light reading I could probably convince my mom to read the first book if I really wanted to. And that's saying something.

If you want to expend your creative energy doing all the work that's literally Martha Wells job, you can. But if I'm going to be expected to create an entire setting from the ground up and take characters from 1D blatantly Mary Sue concepts to round character...I'll just create OCs and get paid for my hard work.

I'm willing to spend a lot of energy on fandom creations if there's actually real world building and real characterization for me to work with. Not if I have to do literally all of the work myself because the author's too lazy to do it themselves.

There's not a lot of things to praise about The Murderbot Diaries without just straight out listing out the plots of each story, which is nothing but spoilers anyways, because the good things are subjective, and very shallowly written, but there sure as well are a lot of things to criticize that don't require specific spoilers.

whatcha want me to do, summarize the plot like a chatGPT?

#Rjalker reads The Murderbot Diaries #The Murderbot Diaries #Martha Wells critical #fandom behavior #fandom #TMBD #stan culture

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eluvixnsarchived · 1 year ago

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here is my recs list from a bunch of lovely new friendies and mutuals:

books;

the murderbot series

warriorcats

even though i know the end

american hippo

the disasters

games;

the outer worlds

alan wake series

hades

disco elysium

cult of the lamb ( i tried this once before it was fun but i never got far into the game as a whole )

hyper light drifter

hollow knight

gonna start working through them this weekend and through the summer i think bc i also have this list

illuminae ( book - this is like my fifth or sixth reread for me i just miss aiden LMAO )

howl's moving castle ( book - reread bc of course )

ffxiv dawntrail ( game - WHEN I FINALLY GET THROUGH FUCKIN ENDWALKER AGAIN im probably gonna binge it in two days like i did last time )

pokemon violet ( game - i must finally do this so i can work on my national pokedex )

elden ring dlc ( game - rly hoping the streamer i like streams it so i can watch him since ive never played and i like how he plays )

hotd s2 ( tv )

and then my art projects i wanna work on and studies and stuff and also once my income stabilises a bit with going back to work i have like, terrarium projects i wanna start and i wanna give keeping an aquarium another try but with different fishies bc i dont think i could mentally manage losing another betta 🥺

but ahdlfkdhs im excited and v grateful people gave the time to share things with me!! if there's anything i should add lemme know like tv shows or films or things too. i think i'ma save anime and stuff for the autumn i gotta repair my relationship with it first

#🍊.txt #max's to do #i reblog a lot of stuff with the intent to check it out atm

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thevulcanbobdylan · 1 year ago

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My 2023 reading list

I'm not sure why I'm sharing this. 40 books is more than double my average number for a year, but I don't really believe in book count as a useful stat. I rolled all the fanfic up into one item, but I counted each reread of my daughter's favorite as one 😁

Anathem is starred because it was my favorite, although it's honestly too hard to choose between that and the Silmarillion.

Anyway. I don't know. I just like keeping track.

Space Raptor Butt Invasion/Turned Gay by the Living Alpha Diner - Chuck Tingle

Richard II - William Shakespeare

Killers of the Flower Moon - David Grann

No Filter - Paulina Porizkova

The Future of Another Timeline - Annalee Newitz

You Look Like A Thing and I Love You - Janelle Shane

One Last Stop - Casey McQuiston

Henry IV part 1 - William Shakespeare

Spare - Prince Harry

Learning the Tarot - Joan Bunning

Clean Architecture - Robert C. Martin

Poetry of Petrarch

Gender Queer - Maia Kobabe

Will in the World - Stephen Greenblatt

Rocannon's World - Ursula K. LeGuin

Planet of Exile - Ursula K. LeGuin

City of Illusions - Ursula K LeGuin

The Three Body Problem - Liu Cixin (reread)

Old Babes in the Wood - Margaret Atwood (read most)

The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K LeGuin

Fugitive Telemetry (Murderbot #6) - Martha Wells

Circe - Madeline Miller

A Study in Scarlet - Arthur Conan Doyle

The Sign of the Four - Arthur Conan Doyle

Anathem - Neal Stephenson *

This Is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Exhalation - Ted Chiang

Camp Damascus - Chuck Tingle

Hamlet - William Shakespeare (reread)

Women Who Run With the Wolves - Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Best Wishes - Sarah Mlynowski (aloud to P****)

Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

More stories and poetry of Poe

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis (aloud to P****)

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis (yes, again lol, aloud)

Winter's Heart - Robert Jordan (WoT 9)

The Silmarillion - J.R.R. Tolkien

Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier (reread)

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis (yes, again lol, aloud)

Hella fanfic

#reading list #year in review #2023 reads

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cultivating-wildflowers · 2 years ago

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Books of 2023 - June

Temporarily broke out of a reading funk by finding some easy sci-fi; but the rest of the series didn't exactly hold up, and I'm back to where I started (behind on my non-fic list, slogging through a good but thick historical fiction, and unable to focus on anything). It may be time for a reread that isn't Narnia.

Total books: 7 | New reads: 6 | 2023 TBR completed: 1 (0 DNF) / 12/25 total | 2023 Reading Goal: 43/50

May | July

#1 - Old Man's War by John Scalzi - 5/5 stars

*obligatory content advisory here: language, violence, and gore on a level with The Murderbot Diaries; sexual content on a level with the World of the Five Gods series (and easy to skip)*

The easiest way for me to describe this book is "Ender's Game but with retirees instead of children". And possibly a little less introspection on the part of our hero, not that I'm complaining.

I snagged a copy of this book from my local used bookstore after a friend heartily recommended it. (Thankfully the dust jacket was missing, because I found what the cover art probably looked like and. No thanks.) When a succession of historical fiction, children's fantasy, and classics left me feeling a little bored, I decided it was time to pick up Old Man's War.

I tore through it inside of 24 hours.

While the main character's voice is a little bland, the writing itself is fantastic: bantering dialogue, masterful strokes of world-building, a good balance of humor and gravity, just enough techno-babble to convey the stakes without bogging down the story, and moments of sincerity that made me tear up. Solid sci-fi all around.

#2 - Jane of Lantern Hill by L.M. Montgomery - 4/5 stars (audio)

Another hit from Montgomery. This one reminded me a lot of The Blue Castle, which was an automatic point in its favor. A straightforward, cozy sort of story; although, knowing it was Montgomery's last book and that she was working on the sequel when she died, I got to the last couple of chapters and really started to fret that we wouldn't get a resolution before "The End". (Spoiler: everything turned out alright.)

#3 - The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi - 5/5 stars (audio)

This sequel to Old Man's War features a new POV character and a new cast, with a few familiar faces thrown in. I definitely found Jared's POV far more compelling and engaging than John's, but what I really loved were the underlying themes of home and belonging. I also appreciated a deeper dive into technicalities that were understandably brushed over in the first book. It worked well here, with characters who needed that deeper knowledge.

#4 - The Last Colony by John Scalzi - 4/5 stars (audio)

And back to John's POV for most of this one. John is just so...meh. I don't know why but he isn't compelling to me. He feels shallow, maybe?

The story itself is solid as ever and I really liked the conflict. A little predictable, but good all the same.

#5 - Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi - 3/5 stars (audio)

Scalzi's weak point really seems to be his characters. Somehow, despite not actually being related to him, Zoe suffers from the same "just some guy" syndrome as her father John (but not in the way that makes it fun). I think most of it stems from Mr. Scalzi not really knowing how to write teenagers.

As for the book itself? Decidedly meh. It's a retelling of the story from the previous book, told from the POV of John's adopted daughter. About 75% of the book tells about Zoe's experiences while her parents are trying to keep their new colony from collapsing, sprinkled here and there with details we didn't get in The Last Colony.

And it's frickin' boring. It feels plain old lazy, like Scalzi finished his trilogy and then had all these ideas of things he wished he'd added to The Last Colony, so he went back and added them in, and then swore the POV character and her friends to secrecy so it didn't look like retconning.

But hey, I got a title that starts with "Z" for my alphabet book challenge, so? (Also if anyone sees this, this is the book with the unhugging.)

#6 - The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis - 5/5 stars (reread)

I never noticed before this reread exactly how much Lewis loved the dynamic of "snarky boy and girl thrown into an adventure where half of their mistakes are because they're stubborn and the other half because they're showing off". Eustace and Jill, Aravis and Shasta, and now Digory and Polly.

This installment shot up into second place on my list of favorite Narnia books. There are so many little things to admire here, and so many intriguing questions it opens up for the world of Narnia. (Where did the Lady of the Green Kirtle come from if she was one of Jadis's race? What happened to the toffee tree? What happened to the guarding apple tree? Why don't we see more pegasuses in the other books? If Frank and Helen's kids married nymphs and dryads and the like...I don't really know what the question is but I have one.)

#7 - Ahab by E.B. Dawson - 3/5 stars ('23 TBR)

"It is the nature of man to fight his enemies. If none are readily available, he will create them for himself."

I would like to start by saying I've never read Moby Dick and possess only a passing understanding of the plot. So as for how this retelling holds up to and honors the original? No idea.

It had a strong opening that carried through to about the 40% mark, but after the first major confrontation the pace eased up and I got distracted for...well, several weeks. At that point it was easy to get back into, but somewhere around the 70% mark things switched gears and the ending felt incredibly rushed. Who are all of these new characters? Wait, this specific issue is what we should be focusing on? The final confrontation is happening NOW? And then the epilogue, which…again, felt rushed.

I loved the broad strokes of the worldbuilding and I liked what was happening with the characters, but it seemed like we needed a little more time to process a rush of information near the end and fully understand the stakes; or maybe when the pace eased up at the 40% point, we needed that time to learn the true stakes and character motivations, instead of taking a romance subplot sidetrack (which I wanted to like but, again: not enough time). Overall, it felt incomplete.

My only other complaint was that the dialogue was kind of stiff. I definitely skimmed a lot of that.

DNF

Synapse by Steven James - Talk about heavy-handed spiritual themes. They were Mjolnir-heavy, and I only got 3% of the way in before stopping.

World-building was clunky rather than organic, and not at all eased by general exposition. "There was an explosion. Ok, now that I have your attention, lemme info-dump on you about everything that looks different here compared to your world and time." (Side note: will someone please give us more sci-fi/futuristic stories where the main characters go "don't ask me how nano tech works; I'm in customer service!")

The search for tolerable modern Christian spec fic continues.

#2023 reading list #mine #I can't believe I spelled Mjolnir correctly the first time #minus the fancy ö but that can be forgiven #Old Man's War #The Ghost Brigades #The Last Colony #Zoe's Tale #John Scalzi #Jane of Lantern Hill #L.M. Montgomery #The Magician's Nephew #C.S. Lewis #Ahab #E.B. Dawson

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sherry-a-h · 6 months ago

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Around 20 books? I don't actually count my reads

I reread a few things, including Time to Orbit: Unknown by Derin Edala and the first book of the Stormlight Archives by Brandenburg Sanderson.

Top books in no particular order: TTOU by Derin Edala, the first Murderbot Diary book and the first, third and fourth book of the Stormlight Archives. Read the second one last year and haven't gotten to the reread yet so not on the list.

@derinthescarletpescatarian is a fantastic author who I started reading this year

I'm very much a fantasy person, so mostly that.

I read books, so of course I have a lot I intended to read but didn't get to lol

I don't have goodreads and don't know what this means.

I finished the first 4 stormlight archive books and the novellas, and read most of my bookclub books this year, so my reading goals were achieved.

I was never one for historical fiction but it grew on me while reading She Who Became the Sun. I've also read some romantasy books for the first time but I only read it to join friends' DnD groups lol

TTOU by Derin edala was my favourite Release that I've read. Absolute banger!

I read the first Mistborn book that's been out for a while. Absolute delight

The only disappointing book was Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personal. Just not enough follow through on any of the short stories, they felt a bit shallow, but I assume that's because it was the authors earlier works

Least favourite are the one I listed in 12 and Fourth Wing. I read it hoping to have a fun narrative with dragons with a character with the same disability as me. Ended up feeling like the author really needs to work on her internalized ableism for the same condition cause wtfwtfwtf. The worldbuilding was also very nonsensical.

I want to finish reading Wicked before the end of the year (started reading it after watching the movie and it's much less weird than people made it out to be). I also wanna start readin Wind and Truth, the 5th Stormlight Archive novel that released last week.

I don't really care about awards so no idea if I read anything nominated.

Most overhyped is definitely Fourth Wing.

I tend to have high expectations of books, so not really surprised by how good they were. I just appreciated most of them for what they made me feel and consider.

I bought a bunch of books. Mostly as Gifts for other people. Not gonna say how many lol

Yes I used my library!

Most anticipated Release is the 5th Stormlight Archive book and haven't read it yet so can't say if it meets my expectations. Just gonna say that Brandon Sanderson never undershot them before.

I did watch soom Booktube Videos about fourth wing cause I wanted more perspective. Usually stay away from it tho.

Longest book was the 4th Stormlight Archives book. Got around 1400 pages if I remember correctly.

Fastest read time would have been the thirs Stormlight book, also with around 1400 pages that I read in 3 days. I'm a fast reader and absolutely ravanous for this guy's writing

I didn't decide to Do Not Finish any book this year. I read fast enough that it usually doesn't matter all that much to spend some extra time to have a book finished and if I speed read, taking another 30 minutes reading 100-150 pages is more than fine.

Reading goals for next year: finish the Mistborn series and at least start rereading all of the stormlight archives with the additional context, stay in the bookclub, and have a good time reading!

end-of-year book ask

How many books did you read this year?

Did you reread anything? What?

What were your top five books of the year?

Did you discover any new authors that you love this year?

What genre did you read the most of?

Was there anything you meant to read, but never got to?

What was your average Goodreads rating? Does it seem accurate?

Did you meet any of your reading goals? Which ones?

Did you get into any new genres?

What was your favorite new release of the year?

What was your favorite book that has been out for a while, but you just now read?

Any books that disappointed you?

What were your least favorite books of the year?

What books do you want to finish before the year is over?

Did you read any books that were nominated for or won awards this year (Booker, Women’s Prize, National Book Award, Pulitzer, Hugo, etc.)? What did you think of them?

What is the most over-hyped book you read this year?

Did any books surprise you with how good they were?

How many books did you buy?

Did you use your library?

What was your most anticipated release? Did it meet your expectations?

Did you participate in or watch any booklr, booktube, or book twitter drama?

What’s the longest book you read?

What’s the fastest time it took you to read a book?

Did you DNF anything? Why?

What reading goals do you have for next year?

#reading #books #reading goals

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pythonmelon · 6 months ago

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2024 New-to-Me Media

In 2022 I started keeping track of all the new books/movies/games/etc that I got to experience, so I decided to post the 2024 list! Including basic thoughts on them-

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells- I highly recommend this series of novels and novellas, they're fun, emotionally resonant sci-fi with some extremely cool premises for setpieces and action

True stories (1986)- Honestly I half-watched this one at a friend's house but it was very funny and charming, the Talking Heads are there

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri- I need to read more poetry and older writing in general, it gives so much to how I see modern media and people of the past. The narration was a bit dry on my audiobook but that is not the fault of the text.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle- Charming for what it is, I can see why its held up as a kid's story for as long as it has but it is also so very of its time.

The summer war (2009)- I expected this to bit more action/cartoon than it was going in but I found a really good family story in there. It's an excellent watch

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams- Its everything it's touted as, clever and witty and dry, but I think reading it for the first time as an adult in 2024 really takes away from the punch. It's had so much influence on things after it that it almost feels superannuated

Dracula by Bram Stoker- This is technically my second go at Dracula, but the first one I was 12 and got bored with it. There is so much more to this book than any adaptation has given justice. I would die for Mina and Johnathan. Dracula is so funny

The Boy and the Heron (2024)- Another gorgeous and meaningful work from Studio Ghibli, and the first I have ever gotten to see in theatres. The pacing and storytelling feels a little disjointed at times, but it deserves a rewatch

Terrified (2018)- This horror film has an incredibly strong opening and first half, but unfortunately I think it falters in the climax. Definitely recommend though.

Just King Things (Ranged Touch network podcast)- An incredible, funny, academic analysis of all of Stephen King's books in publishing order. I have learned a lot and gotten so much cool context (and other reading reccomendations!) from it.

Beyond the Gender Binary by Alok Vaid-Menon- An excellent little memoir on being nonbinary, worth a read on someone's experience

The Tommyknockers by Stephen King- This book is wild. It's like three books and way too long, but its an amazing look at King himself at the time in a metacontextual way. It's peak Weird King with a lot of his great emotional punches. There's a flying murderous coke machine.

Christine (1983)- It makes cars so sexy. It kind of lets all the main characters down. The gas station scene RULES.

Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King- King's throw at a shorter pure fantasy aimed at a (younger?) Audience. I get a lot out of it but it is another wild one.

The Shining by Stephen King- Stunning how long it took me to read this incredible staple work of King's. It manages to be so thoughtful and strange and haunting. The final act suuuucks but. Man it hits.

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster- While charming and packed with puns, this would 100% be better in the movie or illustrated book version than the audiobook form I read it in

Fairy Tale by Stephen King- Hey this one fucks severely. One of my favorite King books now. Modern dark fantasy adventure that would fit right in as a Labyrinth-esque movie with a lot of grit and cynicism and thought on People. I loved it.

Revival by Stephen King- I think this suffers from a similar issue a lot of his books do with endings, but its so good through it. I enjoyed this one a lot, it loves rock and personal faults in a really great way.

Paradox Space Volume 1- I remember reading this comic when it was actually coming out. For Homestuck content- it is ok!

Homestuck made this world from the Ranged Touch network- A full, complete reread and discussion of homestuck but the method is great- it focuses on not just discussion from an experienced reader and a totally new one, but cultural and fandom contextualization of Hussie and all their works from the very beginning. Its so interesting.

The Dark Tower by Stephen King- I actually started this one in 2021 and then chickened out because I was so anxious about ending this bizarre trek through King's widest and most personal work. It's weird. It has punch. I cannot say it doesn't fit. It is worth the read.

Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree- A charming and incredibly well written little fantasy slice of life, its a little dry for me but very sweet.

Electric Dreams (1984)- You can tell this was directed by someone who makes music videos. It is so fascinated with early computers. I wish there was a little more to it, especially Edgar, but it sticks with me.

Graveyard Shift (1990)- The ultimate pro-union movie. There's so many rats. The acting is weird. The credits song is WILD. I love it.

Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett- You'll see this put me on a Discworld bender that carried me through the end of the year. I had only read one Discworld book before this (Mort, many years ago) and it ate me alive. If you have a gender and like monsters, this is THE book.

Watership down by Richard Adams- Another excellent and interesting read. It actually had the same reader as The Divine Comedy and it did not benefit from it, it was so dry, but again it is not the fault of the book and I highly recommend it.

The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett- I can feel this influencing my writing already. I love Tiffany. It has so much emotional resonance. It is endlessly charming.

Bookshops and Bonedust by Travis Baldree- everything I said about the first one goes for this. It has different strengths and faults, but is still well written and relaxing.

Fever Dreams by Dev Solovey- A brand new novella with some INCREDIBLE horror and some bafflingly punchy and well-timed jokes, all about nightmares and trans victory and surviving despite it all. Cannot recommend enough.

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie- Another that did not benefit from the reader not giving enough of a performance to the characters, it is a lovely little mystery that is a classic for a reason. I love when a lot of characters are smug and charming and strange.

Shark Side of the Moon (2022)- This movie is stupid and bad. It KNOWS its stupid and bad. It has shark titties in it. 10/10

Death Note (2017)- I have not read or seen the original Death Note. This one is ALSO stupid and bad. They really want to soften Light and the casting/Americanization is weird. Why is the girlfriend the villain

The Book of Bill by Alex Hirsch- Hirsch knows where his audience is. This one is so funny and visually interesting and strong, especially for Gravity Falls fans who were there at the start.

Dr. Sleep by Stephen King- A fitting and really cool sequel to The Shining. Its definitely a sort of... softer King? But it has such surprisingly sweet takes about life and death to it and the horror is just as King as ever (good and bad but definitely sticks with you). Another I really enjoyed and recommend

Prince of Darkness (1987)- Man, I like John Carpenter and the concept SHOULD be amazing but this one misses. It spends so much time justifying its own premise that it does not do any good character work. Its also grossly misuses an Alice Cooper cameo AND song. What the hell man

Renfield (2023)- So glad I gave this one a try. Fucking wild. Nic Cage is doing amazing as Dracula. It vibes.

Shocker (1989)- This movie is too long and a little confused but it is so fucking weird. It pulls off being baffling and sometimes funny. I enjoyed it?

Going Postal by Terry Pratchett- This one is ALSO excellent. It is clever, compelling, one of my favorite Discworld books so far and definitely my favorite book about the logistics of the postal service

Great God Grove by Limbo Lane games- What a stunning, funny, charming followup to Smile For Me. More on trauma, self value, inherent queerness and the value of communication. Its also just cute. Check it out.

Evil Bong (2006)- Baffling. Terrible. Had a blast.

Thud! By Terry Pratchett- The mystery is the most compelling part of this and like all Pratchett books so far it has a lot to say. Not my favorite, but I am not putting down Discworld yet at all

A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett- While not quite as strong as The Wee Free Men, it is a worthy and thoughtful followup with a lot of feeling and interesting ideas.

Making Money by Terry Pratchett- Again a worthy followup that is not quite as strong as the previous book. I like what it is doing with the characters, but I still do not understand the banking system.

Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988)- Lot of boobs. I think it misses out on some opportunities but hey, what can you do. Boobs

#Here comes another Python post #A lot of great stuff this year!#I look forward to more new experiences in 2025

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vincaminor42 · 1 year ago

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2023 Reading List

A silly thing I've been doing the last few years is making a long list of my reading over the course of the year, month by month. It started as a way to keep track of what I'd read and try to remember it all at the end of the year, but has become a bit of a fun way to look back on my year and what I was into or focusing on over the course of it.

I used to post the results to facebook (which ended for obvious reason), then did a synopsis on twitter for a couple years (which also ended for obvious reasons); plus there's something about putting the whole list up, rather than just a summary, which is very satisfying.

Included on the list are professionally published short stories, novellas, novelettes, novels, graphic novel issues & collections. Not included are fanfic; short fiction posted untitled online; tumblr, twitter & other social media original fiction; non-fiction essays/articles; poetry; webcomics; and podcasts (too many & too hard to keep track of).

During 2023 I read 199 individual works. These consisted of

34 longer pieces of prose (novels and novellas)

118 short prose (novelettes and short stories)

27 graphic novel collections and long form comics

17 short comics and comic issues, and

3 kids books (a slightly nebulous category mostly middle grade and younger, though some middle grade might've been counted in a different category, cause I'm kinda wishywashy about these)

Most read authors for the year were

Terry Pratchett with 26 works (a book of his short stories did most of the heavy lifting there)

Seanan McGuire with 19 works, as she continues to be frighteningly prolific, with 3 active series, several other books a year, and at least one short story a month on Patreon

Kore Yamazaki with 14 works, as I made my way through most of The Ancient Magus Bride manga

Martha Wells with 10 works, mostly Murderbot rereads but also her new fantasy novel and some short stories

and my always favourite author Ursula Vernon (aka T Kingfisher) with 8 works; 2024 might be due for another Great Ursula Reread (last done in 2020, probably been long enough)

Only 28 things were rereads this year, which is a bit low for me (I'm a big believer in comfort rereading).

Actual list of works read under the cut, if anyone's masochistic enough to want to actually read them all, lol

I include anything I read during the month in its list, but if I didn't finish it that month it gets marked as "in progress" (and later "finished" the month it is, natch). Comics are marked with © to help keep track of them (short story comic anthologies make keeping comics vs prose tricky otherwise), and has nothing to do with copyright (though all of the comics read this year are still under copyright).

January - 24 works finished

Rincemangle, The Gnome of Even Moor – Terry Pratchett

If You Find Yourself Speaking to God, Address God with the Informal You – John Chu

How Much Harm – Seanan McGuire

Kindly Breath In Short, Thick Pants – Terry Pratchett

Cold Relations – Mary Robinette Kowal

There's No Fool Like an Old Fool Found in an English Queue – Terry Pratchett

Station Eternity – Mur Laferty (in progress)

Symbiosis – D A Xiaolin Spires

Lost in the Moment and Found – Seanan McGuire

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet – Becky Chambers (reread)

AirBody – Sameem Siddiqui

The Eight-Thousanders – Jason Sanford

Leiningen Versus the Ants – Carl Stephenson

Coo, They've Given Me the Bird – Terry Pratchett

Open House On Haunted Hill – John Wiswell (reread)

This Is New Gehesran Calling – Rebecca Frainow

And Mind the Monoliths – Terry Pratchett

The Cold Crowdfunding Campaign – Cora Buhlert

The High Meggas – Terry Pratchett

A Being Together Amongst Strangers – Arkady Martine (reread)

Sinew and Steel and What They Told – Carrie Vaughn

Justice Calling – Annie Bellet

Twenty Pence, with Envelope and Seasonal Greeting – Terry Pratchett

Incubust – Terry Pratchett

Final Reward – Terry Pratchett

February - 38 works finished

Station Eternity – Mur Laferty (finished)

My Country Is a Ghost – Eugenia Triantafyllou

In This, At Least, We Are Alike – Caitlin Starling

Whalefall – Seanan McGuire

Turntables of the Night – Terry Pratchett

#ifdefDEBUG + `world/enough' + `time' – Terry Pratchett

The Ransom of Miss Coraline Connelly – Alix E Harrow

Sunrise, Sunrise, Sunrise – Martha Wells

Hollywood Chickens – Terry Pratchett

The Salt Witch – Martha Wells (reread)

Lone Puppeteer of a Sleeping City – Arula Ratnaker

Once and Future – Terry Pratchett

Color, Heat, and the Wreck of the Argo – Catherynne M Valente

FTB – Terry Pratchett

Sir Joshua Easement: A Biographical Note – Terry Pratchett

DIY – John Wiswell

Yellow and the Perception of Reality – Maureen McHugh

Troll Bridge – Terry Pratchett (reread)

Theatre of Cruelty – Terry Pratchett (reread)

The Eternal Cocktail Party – Fonda Lee

The Sea and the Little Fishes – Terry Pratchett (reread)

Towered – Tansy Rayner Roberts

The Ankh-Morpork National Anthem �� Terry Pratchett (reread)

Medical Notes – Terry Pratchett

A Closed and Common Orbit – Becky Chambers (reread)

City of Red Midnight: A Hikayat – Usman T Malik

Thud: A Historical Perspective – Terry Pratchett

Montgomery Bonbon: Murder at the Museum – Alasdair Beckett-King

A Few Words from Lord Havelock Vetinari – Terry Pratchett

Death and What Comes Next – Terry Pratchett (reread)

A Collegiate Casting-Out of Devilish Devices – Terry Pratchett

Minutes of the Meeting to Form the Proposed Ankh-Morpork Federation of Scouts – Terry Pratchett

The Ankh-Morpork Football Association Hall of Fame Playing Cards – Terry Pratchett

The Adventure Zone: The Eleventh Hour – Clint, Griffin, Justin, & Travis McElroy, & Carey Pietsch ©

Our Love Against Us – Davaun Sanders

How to Raise a Kraken in Your Bathtub – P Djeli Clark

If You Take My Meaning – Charlie Jane Anders

The Coward Who Stole God’s Name – John Wiswell

March - 13 works finished

On Safari in R'lyeh and Carcosa With Gun and Camera – Elizabeth Bear

Content/Consent – Seanan McGuire

Beneath the Sugar Sky – Seanan McGuire (reread)

A Stick of Clay, in the Hands of God, is Infinite Potential – Neon Yang

Into the Windwracked Wilds – Seanan McGuire (as A Deborah Baker)

On the Hill, the Knitters – Steve Toase

What Moves the Dead – Ursula Vernon (as T Kingfisher)(reread)

The Bahrain Underground Bazaar – Nadia Afifi

The Bone Orchard – Sara A Mueller

To Sail the Black – A C Wise

The Goldfish Man – Maureen McHugh

A House with Good Bones – Ursula Vernon (as T Kingfisher)

Exile's End – Carolyn Ives Gilman

April - 12 works finished

Backpacking Through Bedlam – Seanan McGuire

Unknown Number – Blue Neustifter (as Azure) (reread)

The Mysteries of the Stolen God and Where His Waffles Went – Seanan McGuire

Slaughterhouse-Five, or the Children's Crusade (A Graphic Novel Adaptation) – Kurt Vonnegut, Ryan North, & Albert Monteys ©

Uhura's Song – Janet Kagen

Salt Water – Eugenia Triantafyllou

The Counterworld – James Bradley

Even If Such Ways Are Bad – Rich Larson

Magical Girl Burnout Bingo – Lauren Ring

Nobody Ever Goes Home to Zhenzhu – Grace Chan

Georgie in the Sun – Natalia Theodoridou

Your Slaughterhouse, Your Killing Floor – Sunny Moraine

May - 7 works finished

Slipping – Seanan McGuire

Unbreakable – Seanan McGuire (as Mira Grant)

The Ten Thousand Doors of January – Alix E Harrow (in progress)

The Shadow of the Gods – John Gwynne (in progress)

The Honey Month – Amal El-Mohtar

Elegant and Fine – Ursula Vernon (reread)

All These Ghosts Are Playing to Win – Lindsey Godfrey Eccles

A Lovers’ Tide in Which We Inevitably Break Each Other; Told in Inverse – K S Walker

June - 11 works finished

The Ten Thousand Doors of January – Alix E Harrow (in progress)

The Shadow of the Gods – John Gwynne (in progress)

Cursed Cocktails – S L Rowland

A Soul in the World – Charlie Jane Anders

Toad Words – Ursula Vernon (as T Kingfisher) (reread)

Beginnings – Kristina Ten

Dick Pig – Ian Muneshwar

Perhaps in Understanding – Anamaria Curtis

Yinying – Shadow – Ai Jiang

In Time, a Weed May Break Stone – Valerie Valdes

Blank Space – Delilah S Dawson

Bigger Fish – Sarah Pinkser

Space Treads – Parlei Riviere

July - 11 works finished

The Ten Thousand Doors of January – Alix E Harrow (finished)

The Shadow of the Gods – John Gwynne (finished)

The Bookshop and the Barbarian – Morgan Stang (in progress)

Theses on the Scientific Management of Goetic Labour – Vajra Chandrasekera

To Put Your Heart Into a White Deer – Kristiana Willsey

The Big Heavy – Steph Kwiatkowski

The Mausoleum’s Children – Aliette de Bodard

The Infinite Endings of Elsie Chen – Kylie Lee Baker

The Rain Remembers What the Sky Forgets – Fran Wilde

Désolé – Ewan Ma

In the Shadow of Spindrift House – Seanan McGuire (as Mira Grant)

August - 12 works finished

The Bookshop and the Barbarian – Morgan Stang (in progress)

Hot New Toy – Seanan McGuire

Camp Damascus – Chuck Tingle

We Built This City – Marie Vibbert

Agent of Chaos – Ursula Vernon (as T Kingfisher)

Murder By Pixel: Crime and Responsibility in the Digital Age – S L Huang

Thornhedge – Ursula Vernon (as T Kingfisher)

A Dream of Electric Mothers – Wole Talabi

The Book Eaters – Sunyi Dean (in progress)

The Book Thief – Markus Zusak (in progress)

The Difference Between Love and Time – Catherynne M Valente

September - 12 works finished

The Book Thief – Markus Zusak (finished)

The Bookshop and the Barbarian – Morgan Stang (finished)

Drown the Lamenting – Seanan McGuire

The Book Eaters – Sunyi Dean (in progress)

Sleep No More – Seanan McGuire

Candles and Starlight – Seanan McGuire

Kaiju Preservation Society – John Scalzi

Goodnight Moon – Margaret Wise Brown & Clement Hurd (reread)

October - 16 works finished

The Book Eaters – Sunyi Dean (finished)

The Witch King – Martha Wells

Under the Smokestrewn Sky – Seanan Mcguire (as A Deborah Baker) (in progess)

Four Words Written On My Skin – Jenn Reese

We Do Not Eat Much Fish – Grace P Fong

The Ghasts – Lavie Tidhar

The Curing – Kristina Ten

The Coffin Maker – AnaMaria Curtis

November - 24 works finished

The Innocent Sleep – Seanan McGuire

Under the Smokestrewn Sky – Seanan McGuire (as A Deborah Baker) (finished)

So You Want to Be a Wizard – Diane Duane

Doubtless and Secure – Seanan McGuire

Bookshops and Bonedust – Travis Baldree

Yara – Nique ©

The Voice in the Night – William Hope Hodgson (reread)

Toad Words – Ursula Vernon (reread)

Winnie-the-Pooh – A A Milne (in progress)

December - 17 works finished

Winnie-the-Pooh – A A Milne

Paladin's Faith – Ursula Vernon (as T Kingfisher)

All Systems Red – Martha Wells (reread)

Velveteen Presents the Princess vs. the Congressional Committee for Superhuman Oversight – Seanan McGuire

Compulsory – Martha Wells (reread)

Artificial Condition – Martha Wells (reread)

Rogue Protocol – Martha Wells (reread)

Obsolescence – Martha Wells

The Star – Arthur C Clarke

Viral Content – Madeline Ashby

Exit Strategy – Martha Wells (reread)

Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory – Martha Wells (reread)

The Plague Doctors – Karen Lord

The Masculine and the Dead – Frank Bill

#2023 #year in review #reading list #terry pratchett #GNU Pterry #seanan mcguire #ursula vernon #t kingfisher #martha wells #ancient magus bride

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thepringlesofblood · 3 years ago

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back on my bullshit again - i have 2 audiobooks on my libby app rn, all systems red and graceling, and my brain is stuck in compare and contrast mode, so hot take.

murderbot and katsa (from graceling) would get along like a house on fire

i mean. the parallels. the autistic coding. the gnc vibes. the capability of incredible violence coupled with the reluctance to use it. the fear of being forced to use that violence unwillingly (again) due to past trauma. fuck.

im listing all the parallels i noticed under the cut bc this is going to be a long one

*disclaimer: I love the murderbot audiobooks. the graceling audiobook can choke - they do not do it justice. my standards are probably way too high tho lol i’ve been reading and rereading graceling for like a decade*

the line that sparked this connection is from graceling - katsa and po are talking about her grace, and she says she hasn’t helped as many lives as she’s hurt, and he says “you have the rest of your life to tip the balance”

like. if that doesn’t capture mb’s vibe idk what does.

here’s the list

autistic coding. we all know mb is autistic, but katsa show so many signs of it that are easy to miss if you’re not looking for it but once you see it you can’t unsee it.

I made a whole other post about it but I mean - sensory issues, not picking up on social cues, bluntness, it’s all there baby.

plus katsa and mb are equally bad at identifying their own emotions and what they want (big picture).

they both have relationships with gender and sexuality than differ from the norms of the societies they’re in

obviously their relationships to gender are wildly different, but both differ from societal gender perception in-universe. katsa is seen as odd for her short hair, pants, and rejection of the societal expectation of women to get married and have kids. her relationship with Po is unique, and negotiated on their terms, not dictated by societal norms. meanwhile murderbot’s experience of gender and sexuality is inherently tied to its identity as a construct, and while i’m sure there are agender aroace humans in universe, mb repeatedly ties its identity to being a construct, like saying ‘constructs have less than null interest in humans or any other kind of sex’ instead of just ‘i have no interest in sex’

they’re both really, really good at fighting and killing people, but they choose to use that capability to protect their friends and the people they love.

they learn that they aren’t just made for killing, that they can do so much more, and that they can find a place for themselves where they’ll be safe, independent, doing work they like, and that they have friends who know what they are and aren’t afraid.

For a long time they were under the control of a greedy, corrupt authority, which forced them to enact senseless violence. They’re both conflicted about the things they were forced to do, and harbor serious guilt and self-loathing about it, but over the course of the book begin to heal and acknowledge their pasts while working to take control over their future.

both have serious issues and trauma related to losing control over mind and body - mb with its governor module, katsa with randa’s threats and leck’s grace. they will do anything to never feel like that again.

in fact, at some point both of them say something along the lines of “I want to keep my mind my own” - mb with “the inside of my mind had been my own for 35,000+ hours...I wanted to keep me the way I was” and when katsa is fighting with po when he first reveals his grace, she says “what thoughts of mine have you stolen?” and “It’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one whose thoughts are not your own!”

they both make friends with someone who is “like them,” (ART is another bot and Po is another Graceling), but whose skills complement their own and who share common interests, but come at them from new and interesting viewpoints. (ART learns to like media, but it’s a bigass spaceship that has wildly different perspectives on things than mb does, and Po’s great at fighting, but in a different way and for a very different reason than Katsa).

They spend a long time sharing these interests (watching media/training), until something external happens, and there’s a betrayal of some kind that they then work together to overcome in pursuit of a larger goal.

mb and ART share media and generally are on good terms until the Targets happen in Network Effect and ART sends the Targets after mb and they fight and make up in pursuit of the common goal of Protecting The Humans.

katsa and po train for a while until she refuses to hurt Lord Ellis, and then realizes Po’s lie about his grace, and they fight and make up in pursuit of figuring out the whole grandfather tealiff mystery.

this relationship is unique, and does not fit into in-universe societal expectations - others try to put labels on it, even close friends, but they’re wrong. it is what it is. these two are just going to do what they do and not care about what everyone else thinks.

also there’s some mindreading going on any way you slice it, and ART/po has more power in that division, and navigating that power imbalance is an important part of the relationship.

the feed is the sci-fi version of telepathy, don’t @ me.

look, the best dnd classes are bard and rogue for a reason. ninja + smooth talker = profit

welp. lets see if anyone else has ever combined these two incredibly niche interests

#murderbot #murderbot meta #meta #murderbot spoilers #network effect #network effect spoilers #graceling #graceling spoilers #original post

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swamp-world · 2 years ago

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Aaaaa thanks @void-and-virtue for tagging me!! Also I am so sorry I have just vanished off the face of the earth, but consider this a general update and “I’m alive” too. Also it gives me a chance to babble about so very many things!!! And I will do so at length!!!

Currently reading: an incomplete list of what I am reading and cycling my way through at the moment.

1. Rereading The Queen’s Thief series for some levity and joy in my life; I’m currently midway through Thick as Thieves again and am loving it as ever, 10/10 would recommend to anyone who hasn’t read it. Also my partner studies classics and so I get to go and harass them with this book series and ask about how it reflects elements of actual Hellenistic life (I know MWT wasn’t going by any means for a one-to-one but I really really enjoy getting to learn what a lot of the probable inspirations were, and also how the metaphysics of the Geniad reflect neoplatonic philosophy).

2. The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. It’s absolutely brutal and I’ve been going through it slowly because it…is rough. It’s really good, but also wow it’s heavy. Feels very relevant to mention that like…my roommates and I have been having long discussions about the climate crisis, wildfires, and just the approaching Crumbles, and it’s lovely as ever to see a book that actually approaches the community-focused approach to the Crumbles. Not just doomsday libertarian preppers.

3. In Deeper Waters, actually on your recommendation Kylie! I started reading the book like a year ago and then dropped it, but found the audiobook again, and the audiobook is also narrated by uhhh. Kevin R. Free if I’m remembering right? Who also does the audiobooks for The Murderbot Diaries, which I love with all of my heart. Loving the book, have to be honest that I don’t necessarily love the voice that he does for Athlen, but I love him too much to not listen to this. (Also I just looked it up and apparently he’s the voice actor for Kevin in WTNV?????? Makes sense but AAAAAAA [kronk voice] oh yeah it’s all coming together.)

4. Tractatus Logico-Philosophiscus by Wittgenstein. Trying it again, finally. But I found the centenary edition by one publisher that lays it out in a tree format of sorts instead of just linearly? Which is apparently how Wittgenstein originally wrote it. This is to say—the edition I’d been reading previously addresses points in an order of like, 2.14; 2.141; 2.15; 2.151; 2.1511; 2.1512; 2.15121; 2.1513 etc. etc. etc. but the tree format addresses all points before addressing subpoints, so it’s 1; 2; 3; 4; […] 2.1; 2.2; 2.11; 2.12; 2.13; 2.14; 2.15; […] which is very very neat and way easier to understand in my humble opinion. (See attached diagram. As you can tell I gave up before even finishing the tree for proposition 2.02123.)

ANYWAYS that’s a lot of words and half an hour of trying to draw this out to say—it’s a piece of logical philosophy which is extremely foundational for 20th c. philosophy in pretty much every way, and it’s also extremely funny to me. A lot of people find it extremely dry but I think that it’s hilarious. And not in a way of like, I’m laughing at Wittgenstein, or that in a lot of ways I don’t think he was writing intending it to be humorous, but I don’t think he’s totally unaware of it. It just feels so cheeky at times. Because the whole thing is written in these expanding propositions which build off of one another, and so the propositions themselves are often very simple and straightforwards. Ex:

2.012 In logic nothing is accidental: if a thing can occur in a state of affairs, the possibility of the state of affairs must be written into the thing itself.

2.0121 It would seem to be a sort of accident, if it turned out that a situation would fit a thing that could already exist entirely on its own.

And that’s just hilarious to me! That part of proposition 2.0121 I’ve just annotated with “cheeky” because I find it very funny. I’ve tried reading this twice now (each time on a plane) and I finally sat down to review my notes from the first two sections, so now I can finally get into the meat of it for propositions 3-6.

What I love about the Tractatus is that a lot of people will cite the part of “What can be said at all can be said clearly and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence” but treat that like it’s the only and final conclusion of the Tractatus, because it’s really more like “Look! I did it! I solved all of philosophy, and it’s done nothing!”

Wittgenstein is absolutely on the list of Top 10 Saddest Men Of All Time and he’s a bastard and a motherfucker and I love him. He’s hilarious.

5. Mengele: Unmasking the “Angel of Death” by David G. Marwell. This one is also very heavy and extremely depressing.

6. Silver Under Nightfall by Rin Chupeco. I’m kinda on the fence about this one, I don’t want to DNF it but it’s a bit too heavy on the horny romance for me and not enough on the geopolitical vampire plot (personal preference). But I had been enjoying it for a bit, wouldn’t not recommend I guess

7. Gay Bar: Why We Went Out by Jeremy Atherton, which is about the history and disappearance of gay bars and physical spaces for queer community. This one hits hard personally, right now my city only has one designated “gay club” though there are a lot of other queer places in a less official way. There used to be so many and it breaks my heart, and reading this has been equally heartbreaking and wonderful.

8. Not a book but it’s making up the majority of my reading right now so I’m putting it on here because I need to babble about it that I’ve been catching up on a lot of school readings to try to turn in some late assignments from the last (checks watch) two years, so there’s been a lot of essays by Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, a bit of Heidegger, and a lot of critiques of Heidegger—I’m currently rereading the part of Being and Time on Being-toward-death and Mitsein, and then following it up with sections of critique by Luce Irigaray from The Forgetting of Air in Martin Heidegger, and then the chapter “With Being-With?” from Being Singular Plural by Jean-Luc Nancy (and then after that, Simon Critchley wrote some notes on that, and I’m really looking forwards to reading that too); and also then “On The Coloniality of Being” by Nelson Maldonado-Torres, and then after that Aporias by Derrida, who I’ve also been reading a lot of for classes.

ANYWAYS.

Favourite Colour: You know when there’s a massive storm with really dark clouds, and it then passes, but the clouds are directly across from the sun, and so they’re being illuminated in front of you from the sun behind you, and then you have fresh green trees against the clouds? It’s the color in between the clouds and the trees, at the edges, because they look so golden. (Vital note: I do not wear my glasses as often as I should.)

Last Song: The Man With X-Ray Eyes by Bauhaus. Absolutely adore this album, it’s so so so goofy and I get this song stuck in my head all the time. Next time there’s a karaoke night I’m doing either this or Of Lilies and Remains because “Peter has fallen to the old cold stone floor wheezing and emitting a seemingly endless flow of ectoplasmic white goo from ears and mouth” is just so goofy and great to throw people off-guard. Please please please go listen to this whole album I love it.

Last Show: Baccano! Incredibly fun, 10/10, need to go and rewatch to get the plot straight in my head because of all of the time jumps. Also, outstanding jazz soundtrack. Love it so much. The best kind of bullshit.

Currently Watching: My partner got me watching The Owl House finally and I love it with all of my heart. Eda owns my soul. Hooty is great. Luz is my absolute beloved. I cried seeing on-screen queerness in this kid’s cartoon. Also Eda reminds me of my favourite professor. Identical energy, both absolutely deranged.

Last Movie: oh god. Uh. Literally the only thing coming to mind is Godspeed You! Black Emperor, which is a 1976 Japanese documentary about motorcycle clubs/gangs/movements in Japan in the ‘70s. A very uncomfortable watch, because it’s just…it’s very interesting, but watching bōsōzoku with fascist symbols plastered on their bikes, helmets, clothing, and skin, and their interactions with the cops and legal system, and the one kid’s interactions with his parents? It’s brutal. I know I’ve definitely watched other films since then but for some reason this is literally the only thing coming to mind.

Sweet/Spicy/Savory: Sour and/or salty. It can be sweet or spicy or savory but the important thing is that it’s either sour or salty.

Currently working on: One (1) extremely self-indulgent angst fic that I started ages ago, long-term WIP for when I’m feeling sad. A pile of papers for classes but one for fun on the digital location of (sub)culture and dark academia (in which the only real physical location for “dark academia” to exist is the academy, which is a fundamentally hostile environment that just sublates what “dark academia” considers itself to be); an essay on Benjamin’s Language as Such and the Language of Man and Arendt’s discussion of the inarticulate cry, both in relation to klezmer ornamentation as pure expression of language and/or grief; a piece that I might submit to a music zine about how Bowie’s song TVC-15 uses the stylings of surf rock in ways that create ambivalence about whether he’s singing about a bad trip and a TV (which he is), or a car that he loves deeply (maybe). Also the long-standing thing I’ve been writing about locutions of love, still an ongoing project. A history of my university, maybe? The line between projects for fun and projects for work have gotten a bit blurred.

Current obsession: beating the old Mortal Kombat arcade terminal at the punk bar down the way. It used to cost a quarter per game but now it’s a dollar so I’m very determined to get way way way better at it because otherwise it’s too expensive to play.

Tagging mutuals: Kylie I think you got most people I know but uhhhh. @uppercase-disgrace @edgy-contrarian dragging y’all into this??? anyone else who wants to!

#tag game #haven't done one of these for a hot minute

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