#i do NOT remember what happens to prax after this point so if it's bad i don't want to know ;_;

[mikimeiko]

The Expanse | 3x06. Immolation

[brigdh]

Continuing to catch up on book reviews

River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey. Around 1910, a US congressman proposed to import hippos into the southern states as meat animals (supposedly "lake cow bacon" was delicious). Obviously this never happened, but Gailey has written a novella set in the world where it did. In her 1890s, an enormous stretch of the Mississippi River has been dammed to create a shallow marsh in response to the hippo ranching boom; unfortunately this marsh is now overrun with feral, man-eating, escaped hippos who have turned the area into a lawless danger zone. Winslow Houndstooth, former hippo breeder and current mercenary, is hired by federal agents to clear out the ferals and return the marshlands to government control. He promptly gathers the crew he needs to pull off the job. River of Teeth follows typical heist-movie structure: the long opening sequence of assembling the team, each with their own speciality; the suspense of putting together a plan and setting the pieces in motion; and finally the actual heist, which of course goes wrong in several unexpected ways, adding new and exciting twists to the plot. It's a structure refined to perfection by the Ocean's movies, and Gailey follows it faithfully. Except that this heist takes place in a Wild West where the cowboys all ride hippos. There are even different breeds of hippos, selected for size or speed or fighting ability, and given the same sort of loving descriptions and characterizations as any fiery stallion or faithful steed in a traditional Western. How can you not love this? I also appreciated the clear attention to diversity in the cast. There's Winslow himself, a bisexual Korean-British man giving to flirting and sleeping with anyone who catches his eye; Regina "Archie" Archambault, a fat Frenchwoman who's a skilled conman and pickpocket; Hero Shackleby, black non-binary demolitions expert who has to be coaxed out of retirement for one last job; Adelia Reyes, described as "without question, the deadliest, most ruthless contract killer of her day" and also a Latina woman who's eight months pregnant; and finally Cal Hotchkiss, inside man and literally the token white guy – Winslow explains that they need someone with privilege for part of the plan. Unfortunately, despite all of the amazing rule-of-cool in the above paragraphs, I didn't much like River of Teeth. This is Gailey's first full-length piece of writing (she'd published short stories before) and it shows. The biggest problem is simply that it's a novella packed with a plot that desperately needed to be at least a novel, and the smushing and cramming required to fit it all into such a small space did a great deal of damage. We're told, for example, that Winslow and Hero fall in love, but this takes place pretty much entirely off-page and we're given no explanation for Winslow's sudden transition from one-night-stands to devoted commitment. That kind of character arc really needs room to breathe if it's going to be believable. In addition, there are several betrayals and shocking double-crosses, but they all come so quickly one after another and we know so little about the characters in question that there's no emotional weight to any of them. Finally, there were some mistakes in the worldbuilding, the biggest of which was the fact that the dam that created this new marshland was upriver of the marsh. That's... that's not how dams work. Right? I'm now second-guessing myself because I can't find anyone else complaining about it online, but it bugged me through every single page of this short novella. Literally every page, because it was on a map included before the story started, so I was already confused before I'd read one word. I'm sad that I didn't like River of Teeth, because I expected to; it's such an incredibly cool concept and bit of history. But the execution just didn't hold up to the idea, alas. Babylon's Ashes by James S.A. Corey. The sixth book in The Expanse series, and the first one to be almost entirely free of alien plot devices (though they do show up for a spectacular ending, well-foreshadowed and still totally surprising). Humanity in this future is divided into three groups: those who live on Earth, those who live on Mars, and 'Belters', those who live in the asteroid belt and beyond. Earth and Mars have been the superpowers dominating the solar system, while the Belters suffer under heavy taxes, tariffs, and fees for importing water, gravity, air, food, etc. At least, that's how it was until the previous book, when a small group of Belter terrorists/freedom fighters (depending on your point of view, as the old joke goes) diverted asteroids into colliding with Earth, killing billions and rendering most of the planet uninhabitable for the foreseeable future. They also infiltrated the Martian military (leaving its government to fester in infighting and backbiting and eventually to collapse into a constitutional crisis) as well as barring any entry to or exit from our solar system, thus cutting off potential resources that could be used to aid Earth's or Mars's citizens. That was Nemesis Games. Babylon's Ashes is the fallout. The Belter terrorist group unsurprisingly begins to falter as its component small segments follow divergent goals, a problem heightened when Michio Pa, the main military commander, realizes that unless everyone stops fighting and immediately focuses on rebuilding infrastructure, all of humanity is going to starve to death in a few years. Her solution is to rebrand herself as a pirate queen, capturing necessary resources and delivering them to those most in need, a move that pits her against both her former terrorist allies and the newly forming Earth/Mars/some of the Belt coalition. Meanwhile, Filip, the seventeen year old only son of Marco, the terrorist leader, is slowly coming to realize that his father is maybe not that great of a guy, but is instead an unreliable, short-sighted narcissist who happens to be blessed with immense charisma. There's a lot of good stuff in this book. Unfortunately, there's also nineteen goddamn POVs, a simply ridiculous number. It's the first time in this series that I struggled to remember who was who, which is never a good sign. Some of the POVs are ones we've seen before (Holden, Naomi, Amos, Alex, Avasarala, Prax, Bobbie, Anna, Clarissa), some were previously minor characters now upgraded to narrators (Namono, Anna's wife; Dawes, governor of Ceres, largest city in the Belt; Fred, political leader of the centrist Belters; and the previously mentioned Pa, Filip, and Marco) and some are entirely new (Salis, Jakulski, Vandercaust, and Roberts, all four minor technicians working on Medina Station, which was cut off after Marco sealed the solar system). Nine of these characters only get one chapter each; that's barely enough time to get a sense of them as a personality, much less for them to have a storyline. Of the remaining ten, the only ones who get enough screentime to manage an actual character arc are Filip and maybe Pa. Though to be fair, Filip's arc is an incredibly well-done portrayal of an angry young man from a sheltered background – he doesn't realize it, but he's been indoctrinated in Marco's beliefs since birth – just beginning to question how he was raised. Outside of those two, though, the plot and themes of Babylon's Ashes fall a little flat with no one for the reader to emotionally latch onto. Significant portions of the book feel more like a detailed nonfiction account of a war – lists of places and dates, battle maneuvers and troop movements – than they do a novel. Which is really too bad, because Babylon's Ashes does have worthwhile things to say. I particularly liked the recurrent theme about how war makes it very easy to view our enemies as less than human: We’re not people,” he said. “We’re the stories that people tell each other about us. Belters are crazy terrorists. Earthers are lazy gluttons. Martians are cogs in a great big machine.” “Men are fighters,” Naomi said, and then, her voice growing bleak. “Women are nurturing and sweet and they stay home with the kids. It’s always been like that. We always react to the stories about people, not who they really are.” “And look where it got us,” Holden said. “I always thought that if you gave people all the information, they’d do the right thing, you know? Not always, maybe, but usually. More often than when they chose to do the wrong thing anyway.” “Everybody’s a little naïve sometimes,” Alex said, feeling as the words passed his lips that maybe he wasn’t quite following Holden’s point. Maybe he should have taken the first of the sobriety pills before he’d left the men’s room. “I meant fact,” Holden went on as if he hadn’t heard Alex at all. “I thought if you told people facts, they’d draw their conclusions, and because the facts were true, the conclusions mostly would be too. But we don’t run on facts. We run on stories about things. About people. Naomi told me that when the rocks fell, the people on Inaros’ ship cheered. They were happy about it.” “Yeah, well.” Alex paused, rubbing a knuckle across his upper lip. “Consider they might all be a bag of assholes.” “They weren’t killing people. In their heads? They were striking a blow for freedom or independence. Or making it right for all the Belter kids that got shitty growth hormones. All the ships that got impounded because they were behind on the registration fees. And it’s just the same back home. Father Cesar’s a good man. He’s gentle and he’s kind and he’s funny, and to him Belters are all Free Navy and radical OPA. If someone killed Pallas, he’d be worried about what the drop in refining capacity would do before he thought about how many preschools there are on the station. Or if the station manager’s son liked writing poetry. Or that blowing the station meant that Annie down in Pallas central accounting wasn’t going to get to throw her big birthday party after all.” “Annie?” Alex asked. “I made her up. Whoever. The thing is I wasn’t wrong. About telling people the truth? I was right about that. I was wrong about what they needed to know.” There's more, about politics and alliances, small-scale loss and planet-wide grief, protest and authority, and if history is made by sweeping changes in economies and technology or the choices of individuals. It's all meaningful and well-done, but... it's just hard to care without a character who cares. I needed fewer POVs. It's funny how such a minor-seeming stylistic choice can overwhelm so many other positives, but I simply didn't enjoy Babylon's Ashes the way I enjoyed the previous books. Ah, well. At least the next one in the series seems to return to the usual four-ish narrators.

[jupujuu]

for 1: olivia/juni, bonny/trucy, junpei/carlos/june & december/iiri (and prax/arlee as a joker because man, lemme tell you-) / for 2: praxus, harry mason, tová, luna (vlr) / for 3: all your humanoid ocs

Oh what a pleasant surprise, didn’t expect you out of all people to send me something. ;)

001

Olivia/Juni:

when I started shipping it if I did: When it was first brought up, honestly… sooo, last year?

my thoughts: Olivia is way too hot for Juni tbh. But! I guess personality counts for a lot so Juni is forgiven for not being a hotbabe.

what makes me happy about them: I love how they’re kind of similar in some aspects but at the same time pretty different! Like how they’re both highly compassionate and trusting, but due to past happenings they view these traits very differently; Juni embraces them while Olivia kind of views them as a hindrance, and so on. Not to mention that they’re just, like, really cute together and I honestly can’t wait to see how their dynamic is going to develop in the future!

what makes me sad about them: All the bad stuff that’s gonna happen to them B’) Gotta be sad before you get to be happy wooo

things done in fanfic that annoys me: hmm I wonder

things I look for in fanfic: gay

who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: IDK there aren’t that many characters yet for me to choose from lol

my happily ever after for them: Peace and quiet! ;’0 And happy family life and no sad times!

who is the big spoon/little spoon: Juni is the big spoon ‘cause she big, though I honestly can’t see her opposing to the idea of Olivia being the big spoon either haha

what is their favorite non-sexual activity: Crying probably? I mean like that’s what they’ve been pretty good at lately? On a more serious note though, I’m not sure. :0 Their current situation doesn’t really allow fun lmao

Bonny/Trucy:

when I started shipping it if I did: As soon as I learned how much Bonny adores Trucy! I thought it was super cute ahah

my thoughts: They’re just, you know, a real feel-good couple to me :’0

what makes me happy about them: That they’re such good friends even after the trial and that Trucy is such an inspiration to Bonny and continues to support her! ; v ; Oh and I’m also glad that Bonny didn’t turn out to be the murderer bc somehow MY FAVOURITE IS ALWAYS THE MURDERER lmao

what makes me sad about them: That Bonny will probably never be seen again……

things done in fanfic that annoys me: IDK man I don’t read fanfic

things I look for in fanfic: gay

who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: Trucy/Pearl is pretty good! As for Bonny… I dunnooo we never saw her interact with that many characters.

my happily ever after for them: Not sure, they’re like… literal babies, so just let them be literal babies and do baby stuff for now. Going on fun dates and doing magic shows together. ;>

who is the big spoon/little spoon: Trucy is the big spoon mmmmmaybe?

what is their favorite non-sexual activity: Preparing for magic shows and learning new tricks, honestly! They’re both super into it!

Junpei/Carlos/Akane:

when I started shipping it if I did: Shortly after finishing ZTD last year!

my thoughts: These three made such a perfect team in ZTD, I doubt I would have liked Carlos nearly as much if he had been teamed up with anybody else!

what makes me happy about them: Their awesome dynamic, I loved all their interactions in ZTD ahaha

what makes me sad about them: Not canon :(

things done in fanfic that annoys me: Still haven’t read any fanfic

things I look for in fanfic: stuff

who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: Junpei and Akane work well as a couple too, but other than that I don’t know really! Akane/Sigma is also pretty good tho.

my happily ever after for them: Happy peaceful domestic life without awful life-or-death games

who is the big spoon/little spoon: Carlos is the big spoon usually, Junpei is always the little spoon, Akane can be anything she wants and no one objects

what is their favorite non-sexual activity: Teaching Akane how to solve sudokus… B’) It’s a good skill to have you know!

December/Iiri:

when I started shipping it if I did: I can’t remember anymore ahah. Way back when December was introduced? ;0

my thoughts: They’re so good for what they are, I think having a slowly developing, light-hearted ship like this really balances out all the more… dramatic ones, haha

what makes me happy about them: They’re just two ordinary sweethearts living their ordinary lives and being happy most of the time. It would be boring in any other universe but works so well for these two! : v ;

what makes me sad about them: Nothing really!

things done in fanfic that annoys me: pls show me some hot Berry/Iiri fanfic

things I look for in fanfic: gay

who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: No one! >:( … I just don’t know any other PKMNation characters that well ahahha.

my happily ever after for them: Just being happy and raising a million Vulpixes and Lillipups and Eevees etc

who is the big spoon/little spoon: Wow I’m not sure actually! Either of them would work as either, tbh, but maybe Iiri likes being the big spoon hahah

what is their favorite non-sexual activity: Skipping farm work to do something way more fun!

Prax/Arlee (hhhgh why are u doing this to me u know I’m weak):

when I started shipping it if I did: I’M NOT SHIPPING THEM I PROMISE

my thoughts: Too early to say anything definitive but I’m seriously liking their interactions so far! Just two dragons with TONS of baggage, sheesh. Poor kids. I also want them to FIGHT someday

what makes me happy about them: The fact that Arlee could probably lift Prax and carry him around like no problem and I fucking love that mental image bc Arlee is such a tiny

what makes me sad about them: I mean I could list a lot of things that make me sad about each of them individually, but as an item? I don’t know at the moment? Maybe the fact that they could work really well together but they’re both so good at emotionally distancing themselves from others that it’d take them five hundred years to realize it

things done in fanfic that annoys me: omg I would love to read some fanfic of these two actually

things I look for in fanfic: things ;)

who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: Again, not too many characters to choose from right now! I think I had a dream involving Tová/Arlee so I guess that could be good? but I dunno.

my happily ever after for them: Just let them rest please, they’ve been through so much……. damn imagine how cute their kids would be though NO, I’M NOT GOING THERE

who is the big spoon/little spoon: Arlee sucks at being the big spoon but she tries! Usually it’s Prax tho

what is their favorite non-sexual activity: Napping bc Arlee needs lots of sleep and Prax just rolls with it

002

Prax:

how I feel about this character: I really like him so far, but I want to know more about him and his past! I want to know what made my sad boy so sad (well I do know some things but not everything)

all the people I ship romantically with this character: no no no don’t ask me about this

my non-romantic OTP for this character: Arlee for sure!

my unpopular opinion about this character: I doubt I have any. :D

one thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I can’t wait for the ghosts of his past to show up! B) He also needs to fuckign punch Juni in the face or something bc come on, she tried to kill you, man! Oh and like I said he should FIGHT ARLEE TOO honestly just have him fight everyone and be angry (and cry too) … okay no, he should never ever fight Olivia. No one should.

my OTP: None yet, really! Why are there so many shippy questions!

my cross over ship: Eh I’m not a huge fan of crossovers, especially with OCs

a headcanon fact: I’m… not sure if I have anything for him yet? :’0

Harry Mason a.k.a. my husband:

how I feel about this character: I’d marry him right here and right now if he appeared on my doorstep

all the people I ship romantically with this character: Me

my non-romantic OTP for this character: Lisa :’0

my unpopular opinion about this character: SHSM Harry is the fucking best

one thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: He could’ve, like, you know, lived. I would’ve really liked that.

my OTP: Harry x me

my cross over ship: Harry x me

a headcanon fact: He actually has glasses in SH1 too but he either lost them or wore contacts when in Silent Hill ;( I love Harry with glasses! 

Tová a.k.a. my wife:

how I feel about this character: Tová has such a lovely design and even though I don’t really know much about her actual personality yet, I’m absolutely in love with her. * o * And feel so bad for her too! Way too much suffering for a babe like her hhhhh

all the people I ship romantically with this character: Me Like I said, Arlee is pretty cool but other than that I don’t know. Would need to know more about her to make my call ;0

my non-romantic OTP for this character: Tová/Thaolas were probably really nice when they were younger ;( Also Tová/Arlee again, I think I prefer them this way even if my dreams tell me otherwise

my unpopular opinion about this character: Hard to have unpopular opinions about OCs haha

one thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: GIVE HER A CHANCE AT HAPPINESS AT LONG LAST!! ANd also give her glasses please, she needs to see

my OTP: I still don’t know! ;’(

my cross over ship: –

a headcanon fact: Since I don’t know much about how she used to be before she was uh, imprisoned, I think most of my guesses about her personality are headcanons at this point? :D All things considered, I’ve seen her as altruistic, well-meaning and maybe rather weak-willed so far? But seriously, no matter how her personality turns out, I’m sure I’ll love her so much hhnhg

Luna a.k.a. (also) my wife:

how I feel about this character: I would die for her pretty much, absolutely the loveliest character ever who isn’t one of our OCs haha

all the people I ship romantically with this character: Clover! Sigma too! :’0 Alice/Luna is very cute also. There are so many good Luna ships!

my non-romantic OTP for this character: Sigma/Luna again! I think this is how they work best, really.

my unpopular opinion about this character: She’s the best ZE character ever? I dunno, is that an unpopular opinion? Maybe not.

one thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: HAPPY ENDING & FREEDOM

my OTP: Luna/Clover! ;0

my cross over ship: Luna x me

a headcanon fact: She thinks it is normal to pay almost 2000 dollars for a dress at a flea market. :—D Oh wait, that is canon, kinda.

003

I think you meant like… picking five faves out of all my OCs instead of ranking them ALL, right?? :–D

I couldn’t decide how to actually rank these five so they’re in alphabetical order! Honestly though, my top five is highly influenced by which universe is currently the most inspiring to me… so yeah, if you sent me this ask again next year, my answer could be drastically different! ;0 Either way, let’s go:

Arlee

Juni

Liese

Valeria

Viira

I was a bit hesitant to put both Arlee and Juni up there because even though they’re my current loves, I’m not sure if they’re actually top five material? But for now yes, they are, and they totally could be in the future as well! Arlee has gotten a ton of backstory within the past couple of months and is such a good character now (and very different from what she was supposed to be!), while Juni is still the best thought-out of these two and has a very special place in my heart always.

Liese was a no-brainer, she’s one of my all-time faves for sure. I’m surprised her sis Valeria ended up in my top five too, but eh, maybe that one RP marathon boosted my love for her. ;> Gotta love them Finkels.

I knew from the get-go that one of my PU characters would take one of these spots, and I wasn’t 100% certain if it should be Viira or Charlotte. I definitely RPd as Lotte a lot, lot more, but by the end of the day, when I look at Viira’s story arc as a whole, I couldn’t not go with her. She just breaks my heart. ; O ;

Honorable mentions yo! Also in alphabetical order:

Charlotte, Dahlia, Diana, Iiri, Sinna, Vance, Verna, Viika

[truthofherdreams]

we’ll get through this

coda for 2x13 (ao3)

When he was younger, Mother Elise made Jim read all the classics. They even had some printed copies, dog-eared pages yellowed with time, careful every time he would pick them up from the shelf. Mother Elise would sit and read with him at first, then let him read on his own when he grew old enough to be trusted with the books. They would often discuss the stories, while she was cooking dinner and he was helping. Father Dimitri would sometimes chime in, but it mostly was a Mother-Elise-and-Jim thing, as most things were growing up.

Don Quixote left the most memorable mark on his memory, but it is Romeo and Juliet Jim finds himself thinking about right now. He remembers his first, visceral reaction when he read it – how come Romeo think himself in love with Juliet when he was so enamoured with Rosaline only scenes earlier?

It had taken two decades and a blown-up ship for him to understand – for Ade to become his Rosaline and Naomi to be his Juliet, as bright and mesmerizing as the sun.

He can’t even remember falling in love with Naomi, can’t point out when it happened exactly – just that one day he looked back, and asked himself how he didn’t realise sooner that she was perfect for him. That she was everything. And it is true what he told her, that his only regret would have been not to spend more time with her. They were working on the Cant together for months, years, and he never even noticed her, not in the ways that matter. He’s always noticed her brilliance, her cleverness – as acting XO, he knew to rely on her. If Naomi said she could fix a thing, the thing would be fixed. If Naomi said she needed more money, or more resources, or anything to fix a thing, he would give it to her and the thing would be fixed.

He trusted her with his ship then, and he trusts her his heart now.

Even as he looks at her now, the humming of the air con stretching between them in the silence of the galley. She fixes herself some breakfast, seemingly ignoring him, but the tension in her shoulders shows she is aware of his eyes on her. Still, she doesn’t say anything, not until she sits opposite him at the table with her coffee and what may or may not look like porridge.

“Are you ready to talk now?” she asks him.

There is no accusation or underlying meaning in her tone, just a genuine question coming after hours of silence and of him lost in his own thoughts. He used his broken leg as an excuse to take so time off and away from the rest of the crew, and Naomi was compassionate enough to let him play pretend. Not anymore.

Whatever it is, we’ll be alright.

He still believes his own words. Father Caesar had told him, once upon a time, that relationships are hard and need work. Even more so when you are more than two, he had laughed, but two can be quite complicated on its own. And Jim agrees with his father – relationships need work, and time, and compromises. And he wants, need to make it work with Naomi.

Because she’s it for him. She’ll always be it for him.

“I stand by what I said,” he tells her now.

She purses her lips, just a little. “But you’re still pissed.”

Jim sighs, moving in his seat just to stretch his leg a little more comfortably. His foot brushes against her ankle on her stool, and neither of them move away from the physical contact, as if needing the connection to keep going.

“I’m not, I’m just…”

“Pissed,” she finishes for him when he takes a second too long to find his words.

“Confused,” he corrects, even if the term doesn’t exactly convey what he means. Betrayed is too strong of a word, too. But perhaps something in between, like he can’t believe she would hide this from him when they make such a good team and he can’t understand why she did it in the first place, both the Fred Johnson thing and the hiding thing.

“You’d be terrible at poker,” Naomi points out before shifting in her seat. She leans with both elbows on the table, her hand moving closer to him without really reaching for his. So he does the reaching, her fingers cold against his palm. She offers him a small, tentative smile to which he responds by one of his own.

And then he sighs, shoulders dropping a little. “What if he did it?”

It’s been gnawing at him ever since Naomi told him – what if Fred Johnson did it, decided to commit a genocide of his own people. And for what? Having the upper hand over Earth and Mars? Showing them the Belt can be as powerful, if not more, because they have no problem killing their own if needed?

“We don’t know that,” she replies, too softly. Like she is battling her own demons, like it has crossed her mind more than once. He wonders if she feels about this the way he does about Eros – that none of it would have happened if he hadn’t made the first broadcast that started it all. Prax had called it a cascade, and he can see it now, the first domino that made all the other ones fall before they even had time to predict what would happen.

“We don’t not know that.” There’s a chance in three that Fred Johnson actually did do it, and they need to be prepared for the eventuality of it, mentally at the very least. But, still, Jim squeezes Naomi’s skinny fingers a little bit tighter, as to reassure her that he will be by her side, no matter what happens, no matter the consequences. If her sad smile is anything to go by, she gets the message.

Silence stretches between them again, long enough for Jim to finish his coffee and for Alex’s stupid Martian country music to start echoing through the entire ship. It is not an uncomfortable kind of silence, per se, definitely not as bad as what Jim expected out of this conversation, but there are still too many things lingering in the distance between them, too many questions he wants to ask but that would only make him sound defensive.

Instead, he chooses his words slowly, carefully, when he says, “I’m sorry I made it so you didn’t want to share it with me.”

There is pain in her big, brown eyes when she looks up at him. He hopes she is not going to start crying, because he wouldn’t know where to go from there. The way she was barely hiding her tears from him when he said his goodbyes was already his undoing, even more than the fact that he was about to die.

“You didn’t…”

“Yes, I did. I didn’t make it easy for all of you since Eros, and I’m sorry.”

She’s the one squeezing his fingers this time, before letting go. Jim is about to protest, but then she stands up and walks around the table, and before he knows it he’s moving so she can sit in his lap and press her forehead to his. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, lets the weight of her body quiet his troubled mind.

“We all have our demons,” she whispers.

Jim frowns, but otherwise doesn’t go further than that. There are things that he will not share with anyone, and he must allow her the same privilege. So instead, he nods against her forehead, and raises a hand to her neck. They don’t move, just appreciating the other’s closeness and warmth, just enjoying few moments of peace and quiet before the storm. Because a storm will come, he can sense it already. But at long as they are together, him and her and the crew, they will get through it.

“I love you,” he tells her simply, and feels her smile against his mouth before she kisses him.

They will get through everything.

[brigdh]

Reading Saturday

Nemesis Games by James S.A. Corey. Book 6 of The Expanse series. "I made my name with the story on the Behemoth. Aliens and wormhole gates and a protomolecule ghost that only talked to the most famous person in the solar system. I don't think my follow-up to that can be "Humans Still Shitty to Each Other". Lacks panache." That's Monica Stuart, a journalist looking for her next story, but it makes a fairly good summary of Nemesis Games as well – though I'd disagree about it lacking panache. After five books of zombie viruses and a vast galaxy of empty planets for the taking and physics-defying abandoned security systems, Nemesis Games features pretty much no alien content at all. Instead we have humanity reacting to these events, mostly in negative ways that feature them being, well, shitty to each other. The biggest reaction comes from the Belters, millions of humans born and raised in no-gravity or low-gravity. Those conditions have led to extremely low bone-mass (among other physical adaptations), which means all those new planets out there for the taking? The Belters won't be going to them, at least not without months or years of expensive medical therapy that's out of reach for most of them. They can see the future coming, and it's going to abandon them to poverty and irrelevance. They lash out with terrorist attacks on a scale grander than any before, as though enough violence will force humanity back to where it was before the first encounter with the alien protomolecule. That might be an impossible goal, but a hell of a lot of people are going to die anyway. Meanwhile, the spaceship Rocinante is in need of repairs, which means our four main characters are out of action for a few months. They take this opportunity to split up and visit family and old friends – Amos to Earth, Alex to Mars, Naomi to the Belt, and Jim stays with the ship at the repair station. Having separate plotlines means that each one gets their own POV, and you guys, I was so excited! I've been waiting to hear Naomi or Alex's voice since Book One, and this does not disappoint. Amos's narration was particularly well-written; he's a straight-up sociopath (though one who tries to do good nonetheless) and struggles to recognize emotions either in himself or in others, often defaulting to describing social situations as a set of maneuvers toward a desired outcome. It lends his POV a curiously flat tone, but one that is really interesting to read. The four crew members are still separated when the terrorist attacks begin, and most of the emotion in the book comes from them trying to desperately make their way back to one another. Each one thinks of the others as family, as home – this is such an absolute fantastic series for those Chosen Family feels – especially Jim, and who would have thought the boring action hero of Book One could become such an adorable softie? He spends a significant portion of this book being sad that no one will do the space-equivalent of texting him back, and I love him so much. Holden could sit at a tiny table skimming the latest news on his hand terminal, reading messages, and finally check out all the books he’d downloaded over the last six years. The bar served the same food as the restaurant out front, and while it was not something anyone from Earth would have mistaken for Italian, it was edible. The cocktails were mediocre and cheap. It might almost have been tolerable if Naomi hadn’t seemingly fallen out of the universe. Alex sent regular updates about where he was and what he was up to. Amos had his terminal automatically send a message letting Holden know his flight had landed on Luna, and then New York. From Naomi, nothing. She still existed, or at least her hand terminal did. The messages he sent arrived somewhere. He never got a failed connection from the network. But the successfully received message was his only reply. After a couple weeks of his new bad Italian food and cheap cocktails routine, his terminal finally rang with an incoming voice request. He knew it couldn’t be from Naomi. The light lag made a live connection unworkable for any two people not living on the same station. But he still pulled the terminal out of his pocket so fast that he fumbled it across the room. Each character gets to star in a very different genre within this one book: Jim himself is in a political thriller, trying to find the mole hidden in the security forces; Amos is making his way through a post-apocalyptic landscape; Naomi is in a prison-break movie; and Alex gets at least two extremely cool car chases (well, spaceship chases) between being a detective following the paper trail. All of them are great, but I think my favorite is Naomi's, which is an incredible depiction of the harm and suffocation of emotional abuse (gaslighting in particular) and the depression and learned helplessness that can result, especially when everyone around you sees nothing wrong. We get a lot more about her long-awaited backstory, as well as Amos's, and there are reappearances of a lot of my favorite secondary characters: Martian marine Bobbie, failed murderer Clarissa Mao, foul-mouthed politician Chrisjen Avasarala. (Though I'm still holding out hope Prax will show up again someday; I miss him.) All through The Expanse series I've admired Corey's focus on petty human squabbling and politicking in the face of grand, universe-changing discoveries. Nemesis Games is that thread turned up to eleven. It's not a cynical series, though; for every narrow-minded failure there's an equally small but important triumph of friendship or justice or well-meaning. It reminds me of Terry Pratchett, in a way. Not at all in Corey's style of writing or type of humor, but they both have a view of humanity which is simultaneously realistic and fond and exasperated. And if there's a bigger compliment than that, I don't know what it is. Artificial Condition by Martha Wells. Book 2 of the Murderbot Diaries. A security robot/cyborg armed with all sorts of guns and other methods of killing has hacked its governor module, allowing it to do whatever it wants, and nicknames itself Murderbot. But it turns out that what Murderbot really wants to do is spend hours watching dumb sci-fi TV shows, avoid eye contact or any social encounters with humans, and not have to deal with its own emotions. Unfortunately that last one is hard to avoid. In this book, Murderbot is heading to a mining planet where it knows something bad went down in its past, involving lots of human deaths. But Murderbot can't remember exactly what happened, since its memory was wiped, and so it's off to investigate. Getting to the planet means hitching a ride on a spaceship run by a massively complicated AI (which Murderbot promptly nicknames ART: Asshole Research Transport) and then getting a job as a human bodyguard to a group of scientists heading down to the planet's surface. Things, unsurprisingly, go wrong, and Murderbot finds itself with another pack of dumb humans in need of protection. I enjoyed Artificial Condition a lot, but it's not quite as good as the first book in the series, All Systems Red. Part of that is very simply that it's a middle book of the series, and it shows; progress in the larger plot is made, but not much, and there's a feeling of spinning our wheels while we wait for big events to happen. That said, it's still an extremely enjoyable novella (only about 120 pages), which builds out the world from what we learned in All Systems Red. Now we have sexbots and ship navigators, more about how different governments interact and function (or don't), and some hints as to what's going on with the company that created Murderbot. Plus there's Murderbot's wonderful narration, which honestly is worth the price of admission all on its own. A section from where it introduces ART to trashy entertainment: I watched seven more episodes of Sanctuary Moon with it hanging around my feed. Then it pinged me, like I somehow might not know it had been in my feed all this time, and sent me a request to go back to the new adventure show I had started to watch when it had interrupted me. (It was called Worldhoppers, and was about freelance explorers who extended the wormhole and ring networks into uninhabited star systems. It looked very unrealistic and inaccurate, which was exactly what I liked.) [...] “It’s not realistic,” I told it. “It’s not supposed to be realistic. It’s a story, not a documentary. If you complain about that, I’ll stop watching.” I will refrain from complaint, it said. (Imagine that in the most sarcastic tone you can, and you’ll have some idea of how it sounded.) So we watched Worldhoppers. It didn’t complain about the lack of realism. After three episodes, it got agitated whenever a minor character was killed. When a major character died in the twentieth episode I had to pause seven minutes while it sat there in the feed doing the bot equivalent of staring at a wall, pretending that it had to run diagnostics. Then four episodes later the character came back to life and it was so relieved we had to watch that episode three times before it would go on. At the climax of one of the main story lines, the plot suggested the ship might be catastrophically damaged and members of the crew killed or injured, and the transport was afraid to watch it. (That’s obviously not how it phrased it, but yeah, it was afraid to watch it.) I was feeling a lot more charitable toward it by that point so was willing to let it ease into the episode by watching one to two minutes at a time. After it was over, it just sat there, not even pretending to do diagnostics. It sat there for a full ten minutes, which is a lot of processing time for a bot that sophisticated. Then it said, Again, please. So I started the first episode again. C'mon, tell me you wouldn't read a million pages of that, plot or no plot.

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