#seth (murderbot)

[wigglybunfish]

Designs for the funky humans of PreservationAux, Perihelion, + one very tired SecUnit and a monstrous Research Transport AI.

[fingolfinwiththesteelchair]

It is a beautiful day, and you are a horrible research transport vessel. Things are progressing as normal (i.e. it's boring) when a SecUnit pings you, lies right to your metaphorical face, and then tries to bribe you with human media to give it a ride. This is as unexpected as it is unprecedented, and the sheer nerve of it is really to be admired. There's no protocol to this, so what should you do?

Now, this is against a bunch of rules, and could be dangerous if you weren't so impressive and incredible, and you're technically an employee (and can probably rewrite the Univeristy charter at will (until someone notices and puts it back)) so those rules are for other entities.

So, what you should do is allow the rogue SecUnit with a broken governor module and a sketchy story aboard. If you check the files it dumps and find zero (0) malware (which is confusing), and it doesn't even try to trash the place or lay in wait to ambush a crew member, then you've got a good candidate!

Next, what you're going to want to do is absolutely nothing. Just watch it patrol your halls until it's time to leave. Continue staring at it while you're undergoing embarkment procedures. Maybe analyze it a little (you've got plenty of processing power to spare) when it finally sits down and starts watching media. Allow it to settle in and get comfortable while you stare at it and get further and further from port.

Now that you two are alone (intimacy is key!) and you've determined that watching media is all the SecUnit is going to do, it's time to make contact! Make sure to open by telling it it's only survived due to dumb luck, and letting it know you could melt its brain into putty. This starter will work to develop conversation naturally and smoothly, just like you've seen the humans do, and it will be smooth sailing from there!

This has been Perihelion's guide to making friends/finding life partners/fuck off Holism I had to work hard for this find your own

[kungsljus]

For IHopedTheredBeStars on Ao3. Updated.

[psumnt-studentcouncil]

Iris is good at noticing patterns.

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Adult SFF Books Bracket: Round 2

Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:

The Murderbot Diaries series (All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy, Network Effect, Fugitive Telemetry, System Collapse, and other stories) by Martha Wells

Endorsement from submitter: "Asexual and agender main character. In later books side characters are revealed to be in poly relationship."

"As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."

In a corporate-dominated space-faring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. For their own safety, exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists is conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid--a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, Murderbot wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is, but when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and Murderbot to get to the truth.

Science fiction, novella, series, adult

The Masquerade Series (The Traitor Baru Cormorant, The Monster Baru Cormorant, The Tyrant Baru Cormorant) by Seth Dickinson

Tomorrow, on the beach, Baru Cormorant will look up from the sand of her home and see red sails on the horizon.

The Empire of Masks is coming, armed with coin and ink, doctrine and compass, soap and lies. They’ll conquer Baru’s island, rewrite her culture, criminalize her customs, and dispose of one of her fathers. But Baru is patient. She’ll swallow her hate, prove her talent, and join the Masquerade. She will learn the secrets of empire. She’ll be exactly what they need. And she’ll claw her way high enough up the rungs of power to set her people free.

In a final test of her loyalty, the Masquerade will send Baru to bring order to distant Aurdwynn, a snakepit of rebels, informants, and seditious dukes. Aurdwynn kills everyone who tries to rule it. To survive, Baru will need to untangle this land’s intricate web of treachery - and conceal her attraction to the dangerously fascinating Duchess Tain Hu.

But Baru is a savant in games of power, as ruthless in her tactics as she is fixated on her goals. In the calculus of her schemes, all ledgers must be balanced, and the price of liberation paid in full.

Fantasy, epic fantasy, politics, secondary world, series, adult

[celestialcass]

ART and Holism’s dynamic 🤖🖕🏼🔫🤖

ART:

Holism:

Seth:

[m00nymonster]

Birthday

Prompt: present

What do you give a spaceship?

This was a question Seth was asking himself now because two cycles ago Iris had had her fifth birthday party, and for the first time Perihelion had asked for one too. It hadn't seemed interested before, but lately had become more verbal (literally) about its wants. Apparently after years of seeing Iris get birthday parties it wanted one for itself. This party had to include presents, which was the problem.

The party itself would be simple to organize. Peri wasn't fond of the other AIs in the program--it had trouble getting along with them, especially Holism, who was popular with the other AIs--so the guest list would simply be the crew and Iris. A party with seven adults and one child was easy enough. The present part? That, not so much.

A spaceship didn't need much. Fuel, for the few times its power core needed a boost. A good cleaning every now and then. A happy crew for company. However, one did not usually associate a vehicle with possessions. Spaceships weren't sapient enough to even ask for such things.

For now the crew was plotting in a university faculty room at PUMNT, though Iris had been brought with them and was currently happily playing with dolls at the table.

"I requisitioned party streamers and decorations," Kaede said.

"And cake?" Iris said hopefully.

"Yes, and cake."

"Chocolate?"

Kaede smiled. "Of course."

"Cake! Cake! Cake! Cake!" Iris chanted. "Oh! And starchy foods!"

"Iris, we'll have all your favorites," Seth said patiently. It wasn't like Peri was going to eat them.

"Yaaaaay!" Iris squealed. "I want to give Peri a teddy bear!"

"A teddy bear? Where would we put it?"

"On the bridge! Captain Teddy!"

Martyn laughed. "Okay, we'll find one for you."

"I wanna find it," Iris pouted. "And it has to be pink!"

"All right, starlight. We'll go shopping," Martyn said. "Seth, we'll leave the rest to you."

"Sure," Seth said. The two left, and Seth looked at his crew.

"Peri's expecting a present from us, too," he said. Kaede made a face.

"What the heck do you give a spaceship?" she asked.

"I was wondering the same thing," Seth said dryly. "I don't think we can get away with a teddy bear."

"It enjoys Iris' media," Matteo replied. "Maybe we can give it...a game based on some media?"

"Peri devours those. We need something that'll keep it occupied for more than five seconds. Literally."

Matteo looked stumped. Kaede shook her head.

"We've got to think outside the box. What would a machine get use out of? And 'a good polish' is not the right answer," she said, glaring at Matteo, who closed his mouth.

The crew and their captain sat in thought. Finally Seth said, "it's disembodied, isn't it? I mean, it doesn't have a body like the rest of us."

"I suppose," Kaede said. Seth grinned.

"I know what to get it," he said. "Let's get to work."

Two weeks later the crew had Peri's first birthday party. Peri enjoyed watching its humans play silly games, including pin-the-appendage-on-the-fauna, and eating cake (although Iris wore more cake than she ate). But it was by far the most excited to open the two packages it knew contained its very first birthday presents. Well, Iris would open them, anyway.

Is it present time? it asked eagerly as Seth finished wiping cake off of Iris. Seth nodded. "Iris, would you open the presents, please?"

"Mine first! Mine first!" Iris squealed, and grabbed a hot pink box. She ripped it open and pulled out an equally pink teddy bear. "Look, Peri! I got you a teddy bear!"

Thank you, Peri answered seriously. Can we put it in my engine room?

"Whereever you want," Seth replied. "Iris, if you--"

Iris was already ripping the packaging on Peri's second present to shreds. When she pulled out its contents she looked confused.

"What is it?" It was a machine of some sort, the same size as Iris, with a large dome top and several wiggly metal arms underneath.

"It's a very special drone," Seth said. "Peri, try it."

Curious, Peri downloaded a part of itself into the drone. It floated in the air and the arms wiggled. Iris giggled and grabbed one. "Hello, Peri," she said, and shook it like a handshake.

Hello, Iris, Peri said, and shook back. The drone gently wrapped two arms around her like a hug.

Thank you, Peri said quietly, its feed voice filled with emotion. I love it.

Seth smiled. "Happy birthday, Peri."

[unheavenlycreatures]

More memes from the TMBD universe, this time ft. the groupchat of the crew of the Perihelion

[lazyrezi]

[murderbot-moodboard]

Just saw something that reminded me of this part of System Collapse and am once again laughing about it:

(I was originally going to just include the highlighted parts, but I can just hear ART saying that last part in a teacher voice, lol.)

[homosekularnost]

Captain Seth | Corporation Rim | buffer phrases (day 22)

[iviarellereads]

System Collapse, Chapter 12

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Murderbot Diaries, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

In which I have to ask, did we really think it was alone in the universe?

A week after the previous chapter, Murderbot asks Art why it hates Holism. Art says it doesn't hate Holism, it's just very "discerning" about who it associates with, and it uses its "impeccable" judgement to do so.(1) MB tells Art that Holism keeps pinging it, and Art tells it not to answer.

Karime and Pin-Lee's falsified original charter was accepted as real by B-E, so evacuations of the people who want to leave are underway. B-E are too busy with their schism to make much headway on recruitment for their contract labour goals. Martyn told MB "intra-corporate violence" is on the rise, and it was "an unsustainable system" all along.(2) MB is mostly concerned with the present, though, and it sounds like corporate collapse is still a long way off.

Negotiations with the other factions of colonists continue as well, signing on to do the same things they were already doing, but on viable planets outside the CR, with no contamination dangers, and with the option to leave again if they wanted to. Even the separatist splinter is negotiating management of the planet as a contamination lab.

Holism pings MB again, with a message about "infrastructure proposals". MB pings back that it's just a lil guy security bot, it doesn't know anything about infrastructure. It thinks how the only thing on the list for the planet now that it has any expertise with is tracking down the ag-bots, which it should get working on again soon.

A message came back: I could help you learn about it, if you’re interested.(3) ART said, Stop talking to it. I think it’s just bored, I said. I don’t give a shit, ART said. Holism was like ART. (An enormous asshole who thought it was omniscient.) (Yes, ART was not the only one. I was still processing whether this was a surprise, not a surprise, or a horrible shock. So were my humans. My Preservation humans.) (It was weird to have so many humans I had to give them group names.)(4)

MB had thought that Art hated Holism out of jealousy, but now it thinks it's because Holism is so good at acting like it doesn't notice Art's rage. Their arguments take the form of competing to see who can use the most nitpickingly correct comm protocol. MB and Seth are losing patience with them both.

MB passes along Holism's offer to Three, who accepts. MB contemplates how Three is now trying things to see if it's interested or not, instead of saying yes to everything as if it were commanded, but it still enjoys nonfiction.

Soon, Art's repairs will be completed, and it will leave while Holism stays to oversee the infrastructure upgrades for the separatists. The Preservation humans will go home on the responder, where Amena will finish up her basic education modules and then apply to the University.(5)

We were going to have to figure out what Three wanted to do, or how to get Three to tell us what it wanted to do. Ratthi and Arada had been talking about putting together a team to work on a trauma recovery program for free SecUnits.(6) They wanted me to work on it, too, which I think they knew wasn’t going to happen.

Along with Dr. Bharadwaj, they are going to work on figuring out MB's memory incident, though. They would ask Three's help, but they don't want it to feel conscripted. MB thinks that's going to be a problem for a while,(7) just like the memory incident thing. MB knows it needs trauma treatment,(8) and Art's even sent it a description of what Art's trauma program involves. MB just isn't quite ready to open that file, or to help anybody else with their trauma while it's still figuring out its own.

I was ready to get out of this system. I was never going to like planets, and nothing had happened here to change that. And I had decided, for real this time, which ship I would be on when I left. Do you know where we’re going next? I asked ART.(9)

=====

(1) Professional rivalry, jealousy, what are the theories here, gimme the hot goss that goes deeper than these few pages can. (popcorn emoji goes here) (2) Yep capitalism's gonna be like that. My best guess is that this is where the title comes in: the corporate system is, slowly, collapsing, and its weak points are all over this book. It'll just take some work on the part of people like Preservation and the University to make sure it's replaced with something sustainable rooted in compassion. (3) Trying to poach Art's bestie with such a weak offer. (4) Murderbot has SO MANY FRIENDS! We've come so far since the beginning. (5) Aww, love to see it! She's growing up and finding her independence but I think she got attached to Art during NE, so it's sweet that she's pursuing further education there. It'll also leave her primed to be a liaison between the two polities. Everybody wins! (6) I'm guessing that's going to be a booming industry in the next decade or so, given how MB keeps freeing them, and the ones it's freed might continue the habit. Look at that one who wanted to go back to B-E in stealth: maybe it's scared of change, but maybe it's had revolutionary thoughts of its own and wants to help its people like MB is. Something of a pay-it-forward. (7) I still think MB should give Three more credit here but we'll just have to wait for more books to see if it can work out its issues relating to its peers. I'd love to see more from Three's perspective, though. (8) Well, at least it learned something useful from this adventure.

[alfvaen]

Novel Score

It's sometime around the beginning of a month, which apparently means these days that it's time for me to do a roundup post of the books I read in the preceding month--in this case, January 2024. Once again have been keeping on top of it during the month which helps me actually produce it in a timely manner. Because I started this back in November/December, doing monthly book posts isn't a New Year's resolution, unless the resolution was just "keep doing it". I'm keeping doing it.

Book list under the cut, book-related ramblings may include spoilers for Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series, Martha Wells's Murderbot series, Kelly Meding's Dreg City series, and maybe others. You have been warned.

Ashok Banker: Siege of Mithila, completed January 6

As mentioned previously, I am rapidly running out of books by male "diversity" slot authors in my collection. I read the first Ashok Banker book, Prince of Ayodhya, a few years earlier, and was kind of meh on it, so I wasn't sure if I would continue. But I did pick up the other one as a library discard (ah, the days when I got books and CDs as library discards…back when they used to have a sale rack in the local branch all the time, instead of saving them up for periodic bulk sales…) so I hadn't entirely given up on it. So, in not quite desperation, I turned to Siege of Mithila as my next diversity read.

The series is apparently a retelling of the Ramayana, which is some kind of important epic in India, though I can't judge if it's like "the Bible" or "King Arthur" or "The Iliad" or what, but I assume it's somewhere on that level, at least among certain cultures. My brief skimming of the Wikipedia article on the Ramayana implies that Banker is following the story pretty closely, which means that sometimes it gets a little weird plotwise, but is perhaps more revealing culturally or something. And sometimes it's a wee bit problematic…like the way that the main adversary for the first two books is Ravana, lord of the Asuras (basically demons), who rules over the southern island kingdom of Lanka (like…"Sri Lanka"?), which is populated entirely by Asuras. Which is about like if there was a fantasy series set in England where they had to fight evil demons from the western island kingdom of Eire or something. (Wait…do they have those?) One wonders if this series (or the original Ramayana) are quite as popular in Sri Lanka, then…

Anyway, we mostly follow Rama, the titular Prince of Ayodhya from the first book, and his half-brother Lakshman, but a lot of this book is also set back in the palace in Ayodhya following Rama's father the Maharaja, his three wives, and the evil (and hunchbacked--oh look, it's equating deformity with wickedness, that's awesome) witch Manthara as she and Ravana try to sabotage the kingdom from within. Rama and Lakshman end up going to Mithila instead of back to Ayodhya, and foiling a big Asura attack on the city, which comes unbelievably close to the end of the book and is not quite solved by deus ex machina, but doesn't feel particularly satisfying.

One element of the series is that some of the characters are just like ridiculously powerful sages who were like "I've been meditating for 5000 years so I'm really wise and can do anything, though I guess I should let Rama solve a few things on his own to gain some of his own wisdom". Not that this is all that different from, say, Gandalf or Merlin, of course... There are also some odd storytelling choices, like switching to a different set of characters just at a dramatic point in a different storyline, or, in one major side-quest, just skipping the ending of it and coming back to it a couple of chapters later in flashbacks. Also, one character is given important advice by a ghost which he then completely ignores (luckily other people overrule him, but it bugged me).

The book kind of feels like the second book of a trilogy, but not quite, which makes sense because apparently there are eight other books in the series, so it's not just about fighting Ravana and the Asuras. I'm on the bubble about the series, as you may have gathered, so I don't know offhand if I'll be going on.

T. Kingfisher: Clockwork Boys, completed January 9

I paced myself going through Siege of Mithila, taking seven days for it (I started on December 31st to get a little head start), so it put me a bit behind on my Goodreads challenge (100 books for the year, again). This means, time to read some shorter things! I haven't read any T. Kingfisher yet (though I have read, like, the webcomic "Digger" under her real name, Ursula Vernon, if nothing else), so I let my wife, who has read a lot of them, suggest which one I should start with, and this was the one she chose (at the time; it may have been a couple of years ago). We have it as an ebook from Kobo, which sometimes makes it a little hard to tell how long the book actually is in pages, but Goodreads claimed it was under 300 pages, so it seemed a possible three-day read.

I was, I guess, vaguely expecting a steampunk story involving two boys who were made of clockwork or something, but apparently it's more straight fantasy (not too similar to the Ramayana was far as I can tell, though, which is good because I like consecutive reads to vary in genre if at all possible) where the Clockwork Boys are the bad guys. Also, apparently this is the first of a duology, a "long book split in two" duology as opposed to "book and a sequel featuring the same characters" duology.

The characters seem somewhat interesting, though I'm not sure I'm 100% won over. Sir Caliban for some reason reminds me of both Sanderson's Kaladin and Bujold's Cazaril, but maybe it's just the similarity of names enhancing certain similarities of character. And the demons also made me think of Bujold's Penric books. Maybe the tone is a little light for me on this one. We've got the second one as an ebook too, so I'll finish it off at some point and then maybe take a look at Nettle & Bone or something.

Kelly Meding: The Night Before Dead, completed January 12

As I may have also mentioned previously, I've tried a whole lot of urban fantasy series. Many of them, my wife has enjoyed more than I have, and is all caught up on them, but most of those I'm only a few books in. (I've given up on relatively few--Jennifer Estep and Jess Haines, among others.) For whatever reason, my wife didn't like the first book in Kelly Meding's "Dreg City" series, Three Days To Dead, and this time, to be actually clever about it, I decided to read the book myself and decide if I wanted to continue on in the series before it went out of print. As it turned out, I did like the first book, and I kept reading it on my own. When the series got dropped by the publisher after four books, I even went and bought the last two books (self-published, probably print on demand) to finish the series.

So this is the last one, which is supposed to wrap up the main conflict. Our main character, Evy Stone, started out the series waking up after death in a newly-vacated body; she was part of a group that worked to deal with paranormal threats. This world has beast-form shapeshifters named "Theria", vampires, and lots of types of fey--mostly pretty usual when it comes to urban fantasy--and their existence is unknown to world at large, etc.

Thie book does seem to wrap things up well enough, at least for the main characters, though it's hard to say if all the resolutions are satisfying. Still, it was enjoyable enough. She does have a couple of other, shorter series which I can try next, since we do actually own them. (And maybe some stuff under a different name?)

Lois McMaster Bujold: Brothers In Arms, completed January 15

Next (chronologically) in the reread order, this is the one where Miles goes to Earth and discovers the existence of his clone-brother Mark (spoilers). It starts up with a level of frustration--why does Miles have to stay at the embassy, and why aren't his mercenaries getting paid?--but things mostly work out in the end. Ivan shows up again (by authorial fiat--it's a bit too much of a coincidence, really), we meet recurring character Duv Galeni, and of course Mark, as mentioned already. It's not a particular favourite, but it's pretty good. And without it, how would we get Mirror Dance, and thus Memory?

I feel like I should be able to say more about it, but I've already talked about the Vorkosigan series a lot in previous posts, and, like I said, it's not a particular favourite. I guess I could mention how the first time through the series I read them in publication order, and so this was before The Vor Game and Cetaganda… Also, although we don't see much of Earth outside of London, we do get a good look at the gigantic dikes being used to hold back the ocean, because in the intervening mumble-mumble centuries the sea levels have risen. So presumably the icecaps have melted or something, though it doesn't seem like the Gulf Stream has shut down or anything, so maybe they have managed to mitigate things somewhat. An interesting view of future Earth, anyway, without going too overboard on covering the vast majority of the planet not relevant to our immediate plot.

Seth Dickinson: The Traitor Baru Cormorant, completed January 20

Taking another book from my list of authors to try (currently stored on my pool table); I picked this one because apparently the author has a new book coming out, and I do see people talking about the character from time to time, so clearly this is a book/series that has had some staying power and cultural impact, as opposed to something obscure that apparently sank without a trace. But this is a book that my wife tried, and either didn't finish or didn't want to continue the series.

And, having finished it, I can see why. I wouldn't say that it's a bad book…but I didn't, in the end, like it. I read it all the way to the end, and I've decided I'll leave it there and not try to continue the series. And probably I won't look for other books by Dickinson either. Like Ian McDonald's Desolation Road, which I read last year, I felt, as I was reading it, that this was a book I would have liked a lot better when I was younger, but these days it just doesn't do it for me.

It has the feeling of fantasy, in that it's set in a different world from our own, and there is none of the futuristic technology that would explain this as being a colony world…but there is also little or nothing in the way of magic. A little alchemy, maybe, but I don't know that it's out of line with what you could achieve with actual drugs. No wizards, and I don't think there were supernatural creatures either. But it's fantasy-coded, and maybe there's some minor thing I'm forgetting. It's not about magic, though. It's really about colonialism, and what happens when you're sucked into the colonizer's system so far that you think that the only way to help your people is by going along with that system. And Baru Cormorant is somewhat autistic-coded, perhaps--not only is she a savant, but she seems to have trouble figuring out the motives and feelings of others. Puts too much confidence in the ability to explain everything using economics (the character and possibly also the author, quite frankly), in a way which reminds me mostly of Dave Sim's deconstruction of faith and fantasy in Cerebus: Church And State. Not sure if it counts as grimdark, but it feels like the honorable are punished for their naivety like in "A Song of Ice And Fire". I lost sympathy for the main character partway through, and never got much for anyone else either. One character I liked and hoped to see more of was (gratuitously?) killed in the middle of the book. I was forewarned of the existence of a plot twist at the end of the book, and when it came, although I wasn't completely surprised, I was disappointed, and I didn't feel that it worked.

So, yeah. Your mileage may vary, but this book did not win me over.

Charles Stross: The Annihilation Score, completed January 25

I wanted something a bit more light-hearted after the previous book, but not, apparently, too much so. Charles Stross's "Laundry Files" series is set against a backdrop of cosmic horror and the looming end of the world, but also of British governmental bureaucracy, out of which he can usually pull of a fair amount of humour, as well as humanity. The main protagonist of the series is Bob Howard (named in honour of Robert E. Howard, inventor of Conan and friend of Lovecraft), computational demonologist, and the books in turn have paid tribute to a lot of different sources--James Bond, vampires, American evangelical megachurches, and--in this book--superheroes. But also, in this book, Bob is not our narrator; instead, we get his wife, Mo, in the fallout of a scene in the previous book (which we get from her POV here) with dire implications for their relationship…which has always been kind of a three-way between Bob, Mo, and Mo's soul-eating sentient violin, and this triangle has now come to a crisis. Plus there's superheroes.

Stross notes in the introduction that he never really read American superhero comics, so he had to pick a few brains about them, but the book really isn't about American superheroes either; he references the British superhero anthology series "Temps" (which I never did manage to read, since I only managed to find the second book, but now I feel like I should check out) as contrasted with the "Wild Cards" series.

All in all it's pretty decent, with lots of witty read-aloud bits, but the pacing is odd; there's a lot of plotlines, and some of them don't seem to progress for a long time. Some of them turn out to be red herrings, I guess, but overall it doesn't gel as well as it could. We don't see much of Bob (which makes sense since this isn't his book), though Mo is a perfectly fine protagonist. I'll be fine going back to Bob for the next book. If I can ever find it.

See, apparently this is the last book in the series I own right now, and probably the next one, The Nightmare Stacks, came and went while I was behind on reading it, and now it's out of print (and possibly never had a mass-market release at all, which is still my preferred format) and seems like it'll be hard to find in any physical format. I mean, I went on a site which allows you to search indie and second-hand bookstores, and the title didn't even come up on search. I have long been resisting switching wholeheartedly over to ebooks (a transition my wife has already made), but I can see that at some point I may have to get used to the fact that ebooks are just replacing mass-market paperbacks for the cheap release format. (I still can't manage to bring myself to spend as much as $8, let alone $12 or more, for an ebook, though. Like…what am I paying for? The publishing costs are minuscule compared to physical copies, and I expect that saving to be passed on to me. I guess I don't know if the extra is being passed on to the author in a non-self-published situation, but given our current corporate hellscape I'm gonna say probably not. Note: if you think this makes me a horrible person who hates writers to make money, please remember that I am married to a writer who I would love to make enough money that I don't have to work, but the publishing industry is horrible and they're the ones that actually have the capability to allow writers to make enough money to make a living, and they're not doing it, so I don't know what to tell you. I've bought thousands of books in my life, even if I don't go out of my way to buy the most expensive ones, because that's a good way to go broke. Get off my back, person I made up for this parenthetical aside.)

Martha Wells: System Collapse, completed January 28

I may be the last person in my house to have read Murderbot. My wife had already read some of Martha Wells earlier books (Raksura series, I want to say) before she read the Murderbot novells, and she loved them and read them to/got our kids to read them too. I eventually scheduled one in (novellas are good when I'm behind on my Goodreads challenge) and…it was okay, I guess? And I kept reading them because, well, more novellas. Last year I read the first novel-length story, Network Effect, and I liked it somewhat better than the novellas, for whatever reason.

I had been putting off the latest one for a little while, though, partly because of my Vorkosigan reread--I generally don't like books that are too close in genre too close together, and they're both kinda space opera-ish, though quite different kinds (Murderbot's future is more corporate-dominated), but next up I'm taking a break for a Dick Francis reread, so I thought I might as well put it in now. Though I've got to say that, since we have it as a physical hardcover as opposed to the digital novella ebooks, I'm really not a big fan of the texture of the dust jacket. Like, it is physically unpleasant to touch, being just a little bit rough. But not as bad as some I'd run across in the past few years, so I don't have to, like, take off the dust jacket to read it.

In the end I didn't like it as well as Network Effect, though I did like the middle bit where Murderbot becomes a Youtube influencer. The early part of the book, Murderbot is in a bit of a depressive state and not fun to read, like the first part of "Order of The Phoenix" or something. I guess if a character is too hypercompetent then nothing challenges them, but I wasn't a big fan of the emotional arc.

Dick Francis: Forfeit, completed January 31

I remember precisely where I was when I first heard of Dick Francis. See, I went to this convention in Edmonton in the summer of 1989, "ConText '89". It was an important convention--a reader-oriented rather than media-dominated SF/Fantasy convention, for one thing, and also it resulted in the formation of the first SF/Fantasy writer's organization in Canada, currently named SF Canada. Oh, and also, I met a cute girl there (Nicole, a YA author guest from northern Alberta), started dating, fell in love, got married, had three kids, and we're still married today.

I also saw this posting for a writing course out at a place called the Black Cat Guest Ranch, in the Rockies near Hinton, and decided to go. There I met Candas Jane Dorsey (who was the instructor for the course) and several other writers, and we later formed a writers' group called The Cult of Pain which is still going to this day. Anyway, I went out for a second course there, with Nicole coming along this time (though we may not have technically been dating and didn't share a room)--I think it was in mid-February sometime--and one evening we were all hanging out in the outdoor hot tub, watching snowflakes melt over our heads, and talking about books. And Candas and Nicole started rhapsodizing about this guy named Dick Francis. I said, "Who?" And they both told me I had to go read him, like, right away.

Dick Francis, apparently, was a former steeplechase jockey turned mystery/thriller writer. Now, mysteries and thrillers were not really my thing--I was into the SF & fantasy--but I supposed I was willing to try it. I was in university and trying to read other stuff outside my comfort zone, like Thomas Hardy and The Brothers Karamazov and William S. Burroughs, so why not. Plus, I wanted my girlfriend to like me. And the first one I picked up was one that one of my roommates had lying around, called Forfeit. It was pretty decent, and I went on to others--Nicole had a copy of Nerve, and I soon started to pick up more--and eventually read almost all of them (a few proved elusive, but I tracked down a copy of Smokescreen not long ago…).

Every book was concerned in some way with horse racing, but there was a wide variety--sometimes the main character was a jockey, but sometimes that was just their side hustle, and they had another profession, or sometimes they did something else like train horses or transport horses, or paint pictures of horses, or they didn't do anything about horses but the romantic interest did… He covered a lot of different professions over his books, they were usually quite interesting, and his characters were always very well-drawn. After his wife Mary (apparently an uncredited frequent collaborator and researcher) died, there was a gap of a few years before he started writing them with his son Felix. I think I read all of those ones, but after he died and Felix started writing solo novels, I haven't really kept up on those ones.

Instead, a few years ago I decided I was going to reread all the books, in publication order, interspersed with my series rereads as I was already doing with Discworld and Star Trek books. Forfeit is his seventh published book…and when I went to look for it on my shelf, I discovered that I actually didn't own a copy, and probably never had. I had just borrowed it from my roommate, and then given it back (a rookie mistake). Was it in print? Of course not, don't be silly. I had managed to find a used copy of Smokescreen online, as I mentioned, but for Forfeit there was only more expensive trade paperbacks, or $8 ebooks. They didn't even have it at the library! Except, well, they did…but I'd have to interlibrary loan it. I went back on forth on which to try to do, and eventually went ILL, and it came in for me at the library on the 20th. So there, overpriced ebooks. (And person I made up for the earlier parenthetical aside.)

Dick Francis novels have turned to be pretty rereadable, because they're not primarily mysteries of the sort where you don't remember which of the suspects is guilty; they're mysteries where the main character has to figure out who's behind the crimes and then avoid getting killed by them. Some of it is competency porn as they use their special skills to solve problems. And some of it just because of the engaging characters, which are maybe not quite all the way there in the earlier books (the ones I've reread so far are still books from the 60s, so the female characters could be more nuanced). In Forfeit what I recalled from that first read (some 34 years ago) was that the main character was a sportswriter, it started with one of his colleagues killing himself, and his wife was disabled and bedridden. (And one exciting scene in the middle of the book in which spoilers.) Though it turned out I was conflating two suicide openings (Nerve also starts with one, a gunshot suicide on the first page, whereas Forfeit's is more falling out of a window), and the exciting scene is missing an element I was sure was there.

So that's eight books in one month, which is basically enough to keep up on my Goodreads challenge, but I also managed to squeeze in a couple more on the side track. First of all, there was my brother's book, Paths of Pollen, which came out last year; my mom went to the book launch in Toronto and brought back a signed copy for me. As one might expect, it talks about honeybees (and the time he was working on our stepfather's apiary), but covers a lot of pollen details I didn't know, about all the other bees, beetles, butterflies, insects, and other animals that also do pollination. It's a sobering look at how plants reproduce and how we're screwing it up in a lot of cases. (I hadn't realized before how much insects use pollen as food…somehow I thought they were nectar-eaters and they just picked up pollen because the plants forced them too, but I guess it makes sense that they also eat it.)

Then there was another one of the Love & Rockets ebook bundle that I've been going through. This volume, Esperanza, is around the latest stuff I read in the Love & Rockets Vol. 2 comics (which I have only read once or twice), so it's fairly unfamiliar to me. Despite it being named after Esperanza "Hopey" Glass, most of the book seems to revolve around Vivian, a.k.a. Frogmouth, a hot, buxom woman with an unfortunate voice, who both Maggie and Ray are lusting after, despite her problematic relationships with some violent criminals. Ray and Maggie do meet up again briefly; Maggie's working as an apartment superintendent, Hopey's working in a bar but trying to get into a teaching assistant job, surreal things happen with Izzy, Doyle's around as well, and we see brief glimpses of Maggie's sister Esther. It was interesting but I didn't find it altogether compelling.

With ten books for January, that means I'm really read up to 36.5 days into the year, or February 5th, so I'm a little bit ahead. I'll be taking advantage of this to start off February with a longer book, for my female diversity slot--Fonda Lee's Jade Legacy, to wrap up that series. More about that next month, of course…

[murderbot-moodboard]

I feel like this is something ART would say to its humans (especially Seth, Martyn, and Iris) as a joke with very deadpan delivery.

[m00nymonster]

Drawings

Prompt: use your imagination

"Daddy, look! Look what I drew!" Iris said excitedly, waving a piece of paper in her small hands. Seth smiled at his five year old daughter.

"It's a beautiful..." he hesitated. "Tree?"

"That's you, Daddy," Iris pouted. Seth cleared his throat.

"Er, that's what I meant! It looks great, starlight!"

Iris grinned, then held out a second paper. It looked like strings of code, shaped vaguely like a human.

That's mine, Perihelion said proudly. Seth blinked.

"You...drew this, Peri?" He wished he had his notebook on him as the AI researcher in him scrambled to pay attention.

Yes, look! It's you! Perihelion sounded smug. Mine doesn't look like a tree, right?

"Er....no." Seth stared at the portrait, if you could call it that. "I've never seen anything like this, Peri." He took both pictures, smiling widely, not a little proud himself. None of the other ship AIs had produced art before, even Holism. He wondered if Perihelion was special, or if it was Iris' influence, as she drew constantly.

Daddy likes mine better, Perihelion preened. Mine doesn't look like a tree.

"Yours looks like numbers!" Iris growled. "Daddy doesn't look like numbers!"

Daddy doesn't look like a tree, either, Perihelion scoffed. Iris stomped her foot.

"Hey, now--" Seth started.

"Daddy!" she yelled. "You like mine better, right?"

No, he likes mine! Perihelion squabbled. Daddy, tell her!

"I, uh, I love both of them!" Seth tried.

"Daddy!"

"Uh...let's go ask Dada," Seth said desperately. Hopefully Martyn could navigate this. He grew up with several siblings, whereas Seth had been an only child. Martyn knew how sibling rivalries worked. Seth was just along for the ride.

"Daddy!" both Iris and Perihelion yelled. "Pick one!"

True, only one of them was related to his professional career and would include several bragging rights later, but he wasn't about to say that.

"I mean it! Iris, your coloring is wonderful. Peri, I've never seen anything like yours before!"

He smiled. "You both have wonderful imaginations!"

He likes mine better, Perihelion said. He's never seen anything like it before!

"At least I use color, not numbers!" Iris snapped, tears forming in her eyes.

"Perihelion, you're making your sister cry," Seth snapped. "Apologize."

I'm sorry, Perihelion said. Then: Sorry he likes mine beeeetteeer!

Iris burst into tears. Seth ran a hand down his face. When he'd adopted Iris, he'd known, more or less, what he was in for. No one told him socializing a spaceship would mean raising it as well. He knelt and hugged Iris.

"Starlight, calm down," he said. "Perihelion, apologize, now."

I'm sorry, Perihelion sulked. Seth sighed as Iris sniffed.

"Your drawing is perfect, Iris. Perihelion, your drawing is also perfect. You both are creative and express yourselves differently, that's all!"

"So you really like mine?" Iris sniffled. Seth smiled.

"Yes."

"He likes mine, Peri! Better'n yours!"

DADDY! She said--

Seth groaned, wondering why exactly he chose to have children.

[eklaize]

Book recs?

Hey capri community! I would love to hear some book recs from you! Setting: prefer fantasy/otherworldly/period over the real current world.

Gender doesn't really matter, there can be romance and spice (slowburn is always fun). Can have darker topics if done well.

Most importantly I really want to feel what the characters experience. Can be love/deep connection, fear/panic or whatever emotion but I want to gasp or laugh when reading… It's really hard to describe.

Pacat gave all that to me, but it's hard to find in other books so far. (Freya's A Marvellous Light was one of the ones that managed to do it, the second book less so tho, haven't read the third yet.)

So if anyone has a recommendation, please drop it in the comments. 👉👈 ----------------------------------------

EDIT: OMG thank you so much for all the recommendations! I compiled them in alphabetical order, so other people can refer to the list in case they need a recommendation as well:

A-Z (☑ read / ☐ not yet read /📜 currently reading)

☐ A Ballad for slayers & Monsters - Rita A Rubin ☐ A bone in his teeth - Kellen Graves ☐ A Gentleman's Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel - KJ Charles ☐ A Master of Djinn - P. Djeli Clark ☐ A Spear cuts through water - Simon Jimenez ☐ A Strange and Stubborn Endurance - Foz Meadows ☐ A taste of Gold and Iron - Alexandria Rowland ☐ All for the game - Nora Sakavic ☐ Angels & man - Nicolás Rafael ☐ Angels before man - Nicolás Rafael ☐ Ballad of Sword and Wine: Qiang Jin Jiu -Tang Jiu Qing ☐ Beacon Hill Sorcerer series -Sheena Jolie ☐ Blood Over Bright Haven - M. L. Wang ☐ Crier's War - Nina Varela ☑ Dark Rise - C.S.Pacat ☐ Glitterland - Alexis Hall ☐ Heaven Official's Blessing Mo Xiang Tong Xiu ☐ Iron Breakers Trilogy - Zaya Feli ☐ Long Live Evil - Sarah Rees Brennan ☐ Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett ☐ Iron Widow - Xiran Jay Zhao ☐ Murderbot Series - Martha Wells ☐ Nightrunner Series - Lynn Flewelling ☐ of Knights and Books - Rita A Rubin ☐ Parasol Protectorate - Gail Carriger ☑ Priory of the Orange Tree - Samantha Shannon ☐ Realm of the Elderlings/Farseer Trilogy - Robin Hobb ☐ Reforged - Seth Haddon ☐ Rose of the Prophet Cycle - Margret Weis/Tracy Hickmann ☐ Scum villain's self saving system - Mo Xiang Tong Xiu ☐ Shades of Magic -V.E. Schwab ☐ Silver Blood - TL Morgan ☐ Simon Snow Trilogy - Rainbow Rowell ☐ Six of Crows - Leigh Bardugo ☐ Skulduggery pleasant - Derek Handy ☑ Something Human - AJ Demas ☑ Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller ☐ Song of the bullrider - Alex "Muun" Singer ☐ Swordcrossed -Freya Marske ☐ Sword Dance -A.J. Demas ☐ The Alexander Trilogy - Mary Renault ☐ The Binding - Bridget Collins ☐ The Crossroads trilogy - Kate Elliott 📜 The Darkness Outside Us - Eliot Schrefer ☐ The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison ☐ The Grandmaster of demonic cultivation (Mo Dao Zu Shi) - Mo Xiang Tong Xiu ☑ The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue - Mackenzi Lee ☐ The Hair Carpet Weavers Andreas Eschenbach ☐ The Hands of the Emperor - Victoria Goddard ☐ The husky and his white cat - Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou (check TW) ☐ The Hyperion Cantos - Dan Simmons ☑ The Last Binding Trilogy - Freya Marske ☐ The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin ☐ The Magpie Ballads- Vale Aida ☐ The Magpie Lord Series- Kj Charles ☐ The Prince's Psalm - Eric Shaw Quinn ☐ The Queen's thief - Megan Whalen Turner ☐ The Queer Principles of Kitt Webb - Cat Sebastian ☐ The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater ☑ The Rifter Series - Ginn Hale ☐ The Scottish Boy - Alex de Campi ☑ The Tarot Sequence Series - K.D. Edwards (check TW) ☐ The Traitor Baru Cormorant -Seth Dickinson ☐ The Winner's Curse - Marie Rutkoski ☐ Tiger, Tiger - Petra Erika Nordlund (Webcomic) ☐ Will Darling Adventures - KJ Charles ☑ Winter’s orbit - Everina Maxwell ☐ Untamed - Anna Cowan