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It's happenstance that I get to the end of Bujold's "Cryoburn" on Father's Day, my own father long gone. Bujold is that good and I cry that easy, but god. GOD. Anticipatory weeping in the Epilogue and some solid sobbing in the Aftermath. I'm not really okay

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AMAZING point, and seconded. Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga has a bit of this. A group made this eidetic chip to implant in people's brains, giving them perfect (parallel) memory. PERFECT recall. Except 90%+ of recipients developed schizophrenia or worse from the overload. Not just every conversation, but every piss, shower, drink of water, trip to the mailbox, boring drive, EVERYTHING, held in semi-doubled storage since it was in addition to rather than replacing a brain's regular memory. Never really caught on, but one character had it because his boss'd been willing to gamble him 🙄

Semi-related, the series is great about the, like, LITTER of advancing technology. Jump pilots whose ships are obsolete and can't afford the surgery to get their neural implants upgraded. Half-completed public transport infrastructure abandoned when better tech came out. Older generations feeling lost and curmudgeonly about this "damned new-fangled frippery." The cultural effects of some places advancing faster than others (or the reverse of a place's culture determining what tech tree gets advanced). The ignored realities of the have-nots still living without power or running water. An entire new SPECIES gengineered to thrive in freefall made unemployed and endangered by cheaper gravity generators entering the market. It's all so stupidly familiar

I feel like there is not enough sci-fi that explores how fucking stupid technology innovators can be. Like specifically there is kind of utter derangement only experienced by intelligent people who are super pumped up about Technological Innovation.

For example, a friend of mine works on a specialty transport ambulance. Recently, the hospital ordered a super fancy new rig that has a built in radio and a smart screen, spent a shit ton of money on it, made it extra big and hard to drive, and then resized the back so that the gurney actually cuts off the space that the nurses and other patient care providers need for their legs so they can, you know. Do patient care.

No, they didn't talk to any EMTs, nurses, or other people who actually work on the rigs before designing it and ordering it. Yes, everyone who actually has to work on it is super mad and hates it. Yes, they do expect my friend to drive the expensive garbage heap anyway.

Anyway, please imagine them designing a super fancy AI powered starship and making the doors so low that half of the crew hits their head on them, as an analogy.

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While I am mostly enjoying the experience of listening to Chrichton's Jurassic Park, few things have brought me more literary rage than his phenomenally inept depiction of children. Literally. LITERALLY any time Lex (here the younger sibling at ~8yo) speaks, I get frissons of loathing. I can feel it in my TOES

The SINGLE SOLE ONLY character trait Lex displays is Petulance. That's it. I'd subject myself to this whole fucking thing again just to count the number of times she's said "I'm hungry", the number of times she's disregarded EVERYTHING in favor of whinging, whining, or wheedling. Mr Mikhaile Krihton physically put fingers to keyboard to type out, himself, not under duress, "nya nya nya nya nya nya" at the T-Rex

I'm just AGOG at how badly she's written. Did he have kids? Had he ever seen one played on tv? Was drunk when someone described a children and decided he had a handle on the situation? I'm fuming

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Nora Roberts does excellent sex scenes, right? God knows she's done enough of them. I tend to skip or skim the myriad ones in her "In Death" series, but sometimes I catch a bit that just, like... doesn't go. Just like a weird bit of grammar can pull you out of your reading flow, I caught this bit in my skim and my visualizations did a record scratch

The problem is in the pluralization of "hands". They've been rolling around just previous to this, and there's a pretty clear indication of missionary position. So my brain's doing this "hang on I want to figure this out" refusal to move on and flipping through the possibilities of how he's not doing some bujangasana hoverboard shit

Like if he shifted to one hand and lifted her hips with the other, makes sense. Otherwise "he shifted" is gonna have to cover him, like, strugglebussing around to get his knees under him -though he'd have to be lifting her hips REALLY high to still get the "long hard strokes." Or scootching them both down until he can stand at the edge of the bed, if it's high enough to accommodate his long legs (which hasn't been much mentioned before)

It's really not important but it's definitely one of those "I think the author lost track for a bit" moments

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Get me going on Bujold's take on free will and the concept of chosen ones in the World of the Five Gods

i will defend to the grave that literary analysis IS enjoyable and a valid hobby but it's amazing how a hyperfixation on The Character will have you writing essays for fun

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Reading a Terry Pratchett book is literally just: Here's a funny little joke Here's something that you can tell is a joke but don't get and will only figure out five years later Here's a surprisingly cool fantasy concept Here's a unique and well written simile Here's a lil guy Here's something that has aged depressingly well into the modern day Here's something that has aged remarkably queer into the modern day Here's a character that you can barely understand what he's saying Here is the most terrifying and deeply disturbing concept you have ever heard, casually mentioned Here is the dumbest fucking pun you've ever heard but in the best way Here is a quote so profound that it makes you view morality and the world in a different way Here is a plot twist that you can't tell if it's genius or stupid Congratulations! You've finished the book! It has fundamentally changed you as a person and you will never be the same!

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The first chapter of "Wuthering Heights" is a prime example of like when people say "✨love me a bad boy 💕" but then actually get one and it's suddenly "oh shit why are you like this, you're awful ☹️"

Legit, Lockwood starts out saying "this is a great place to be a misanthrope," then IMMEDIATELY meets Heathcliff like "why are you so unwelcoming?? Don't you want me here??" And I never recovered

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I'm in the middle of "String of Pearls" aka "Sweeny Todd and the People Pies" and there are just SO many thoughts to be had but the main one right now is a war between being very judgy towards the church people who were living in Rotting Meat Stink for over a month while doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT IT, and the inescapable truth that I'm juggling rocks in a glass house

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Oh my god I can't TELL YOU how annoying it is to write three fucking paragraphs of a book review and have the kindle app eat it. Fucking hell.

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Don't go out alone parts from Symbiont by Mira Grant

Knowing the direction doesn’t mean you have to go.

Silent house and silent hall,

Room so big, and you so small,

Looking in the closet, looking underneath the stair.

I know just what you hope you’ll find,

But this is all I left behind:

I hope that you can listen to a frightened monsters prayer

The broken doors are hidden. You must not wait to be shown.

My darling ones, be careful now, and don’t go out alone.

In the places time forgot

What we are meets what we’re not:

Every choice you make throws another choice away.

Choose the passage. Choose the task,

Choose the face or choose the mask.

If you choose correctly then, my darling you can stay.

The broken doors are open – come and enter and be home

My darling girl, be careful now, and don’t go out alone.

Take the bread and take the salt,

Know that this is not your fault;

Take the things you need, for you will not be coming back.

Pause before you shut the door,

Look back once and never more.

Take a deep breath and take a step, committed to this track.

The broken doors are kept in places ancient and unknown.

My darlings ones, be careful now, and don’t go out alone.

Solve the puzzle, take your time,

Spurn the reason, shift the rhyme,

Let the shadows guide you through the darkness to the dawn.

Children’s games can break your heart,

We all have to play our part.

Know this world will miss you when it wakes to find you gone.

The broken doors will open for we sinners who atone.

My darling boy, be careful now, and don’t go out alone.

Break the mirror, it tells lies.

Learn to live in your disguise.

Everything is changing now, it’s too late to go back.

Caterpillar child of mine,

This was always life’s design,

Here at last you’ll find the things you can’t afford to lack.

The broken doors are ready, you are very nearly home.

My darling child, be careful now, and don’t go out alone.

Sell your face to but your mask,

It will serve you in this task,

And masks can see us better than the mirror ever could.

Closer now, but still so far,

Lose your grip on who you are.

The next time that you see me, you will be with me for good.

The broken doors are kept for those the light has never known.

My darling girl, be careful now, and don’t go out alone.

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Book: Feed

Author: Mira Grant

Started: Apr 2023

Reread? Yes

Notes: I don't think there's a single post-apocalypse book I like better. What if we survived the zombie outbreak? How did it change us? I love that you think it's a zombie book but it's, like, journalism and political thriller? With zombies.

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Funny story: I'm rl friends with KA Doore, author of the fabulously gay Chronicles of Ghadid. When I was still on Twitter, I'd interact with her a lot, plus other maybe-unknown authors. I find out FEED author Mira Grant is actually Seanan McGuire, whom I've seen a bunch on said Twitter. She is not my friend, but brain says she is friend-shaped

I post about how the internet breaks my brain because I want to do the same excited "I'm about to read your book!" to not-friend McGuire like I'd do to actual-friend Doore. McGuire sees this and replies "welcome to the parasocial relationships of the internet"

Book: Feed

Author: Mira Grant

Started: Apr 2023

Reread? Yes

Notes: I don't think there's a single post-apocalypse book I like better. What if we survived the zombie outbreak? How did it change us? I love that you think it's a zombie book but it's, like, journalism and political thriller? With zombies.

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Book: Feed (Newsflesh #1)

Author: Mira Grant

Dates: Apr 2023 (finished ~3 days later)

Reread? Yes

Recommended By: Ananana, as being her favorite book

Notes: I don't think there's a single post-apocalypse book I like better. What if we survived the zombie outbreak? How did it change us? I love that you think it's a zombie book but it's, like, journalism and political thriller? With zombies.

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BOOK: Pendric & Desdemona, pt 3

AUTHOR: Lois McMaster Bujold

DATES: March '23 -

RECOMMEND BY: Mom got me on the author 20+ years ago (fuck me running)

NOTES: currently on Physicians of Vilnic, 8th novella in the Pendric & Desdemona series. Last time, I fell off on the 7th, with the orphans. At this point, with ZERO evidence, I have this "I'm not going to like it" in my head, which is making it hard to keep reading. It's inaccurate. It wasn't even accurate for Orphans, though that's why I lost momentum last time. I hate my fucking brain sometimes

I started to count the novellas individually, but I have the first three collected in a book, so I might as well do the same with the others. The first arc (1 - 3) covered him getting the demon and their individual runs together, second arc (4 - 6) covered him meeting and eventually marrying his wife, not sure yet of the thematic spread of the third set. Or if it even HAS an arc, since I'm the one grouping it

I fuckin LOVE these two, though. Penric and Desdemona. You want to talk about zero toxic masculinity, get you a male protagonist with a two-hundred-year-old, ten-woman-conglomerate consciousness in his head

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Well if THIS don't encapsulate the whole of it...

BOOK: Transmetropolitan

Author: Warren Ellis

Dates: March '23 -

Recommended By: ...Puppy? I know ExHusband loved them too, but I think initial exposure was from Puppy. Most of my comics were

Notes: I love these comics. They probably fall under that header of "If you dig it, cool. If it's your FAVORITE, 😬" because this is a Very Flawed Character but it's easy to revel in that. They were UNCOMFY to read with Trump in office.

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BOOK: Transmetropolitan

Author: Warren Ellis

Dates: March '23 - March '23

(maybe fourth or fifth reread, maybe more)

Recommended By: ...Puppy? I know ExHusband loved them too, but I think initial exposure was from Puppy. Most of my comics were

Notes: I love these comics. They probably fall under that header of "If you dig it, cool. If it's your FAVORITE, 😬" because this is a Very Flawed Character but it's easy to revel in that. They were UNCOMFY to read with Trump in office.