#strategy books

[blogtey45]

Jon Corteen Understands Profit, Value Systems, and Strategy

[damonp304]

Jon Corteen Understands Profit, Value Systems, and Strategy

🌟I've got a clear-ish vision of where I want to go, a fairly good idea of what I have to accomplish now and in the next....oh, three or four minutes...

[fascinatedfinch]

Murderbot September day 3: (Alternative prompt) “I don’t like you.” / “I know.”

[sensitiveheartless]

<- (Previous part)

(Next part) ->

[izzystizzys]

TW: discussion of something approximating suicidal tendencies but with the usual crack programming of this blog

“Ah, High General Windu”, says Fox, pleasantly. “So we meet again.”

High General Windu raises an unimpressed eyebrow at him, Fox thinks, though it’s getting hard to tell with all the blood rushing to his head. “If I let you go, will you try to throw yourself out of another window?”

Fox makes a vague shrugging motion - or tries to, anyways. It’s hard to tell where any of his limbs are going, hanging upside down in the air as he is. “I am willing to discuss terms.” A bridge will do just fine.

Impossibly, the High General’s eyebrows climb even further up his forehead. “A compromise, then, esteemed Commander.” And so, he righths Fox the head way up in the air, but leaves him floating just above the ground, at which point several painted shells come skidding around the corner followed by billowing robes and screeches.

“WHAT”, says Kote, calmly, “THE BANTHA-KARKED, FORCE-LOVING KRIFF, FOX.”

“You’ll short out your helmet mic”, Fox advises him, sagely. Fondly, he thinks back to decimating his own on only his second time in the newly-christened official Coruscant Guard Scream Closet. He’d just received the comm about the Zillo Beast being transported to 000, and made sure to take his bucket off thereafter to improve the quality of his closet time.

High General Windu’s face does something complicated between sympathy and constipation.

Because the Galaxy doesn’t hate Fox enough already and Cody wasn’t enough on his own, Wolffe elbows his way through their batch to plant himself in front of him, shoulders squared and shaking with repressed rage. “If you try that again, dickhead”, he begins, in a low growl that quite frankly sounds more cringe that intimidating, “I’m going to resurrect you and then kill you again.”

“Ah, Wolffe”, Plo Koon says, in his deep, shivery timbre, “Remember our conversations about effective conflict resolution and communication of needs?”

Wolffe’s eyes narrow at Fox, because all non-Guard are sweet summer children who walk around buckets off on 000 like absolute lunatics. Fox prays they never have to find out why that’s a bad idea. “I feel”, his ori’vod presses out between clenched teeth, “that if you make me watch you throw yourself out of another window, I’m going to jump after you and strangle you on the way down, you little bitch.”

“That’s fair”, says Fox, and watches High General Kenobi bury his face in his hands. Wolffe twitches in place and makes an aborted groaning noise, the hypocrite.

“Excuse me, High Marshall Commander Fox, but I fail to see what’s so dire about this situation that the Jedi High Council and your brothers cannot help you solve”, says Windu, the only sane one left on this Force-forsaken bloated corpse of a planet. Behind the gaggle of Jedi and ori’vode already gathered in front of Fox, the rest of them come veering around the corner in a commotion that’s quite frankly embarrassing. High General Yoda is mounted on Skywalker’s back like he’s a race-Eopie, which is Fox’ only consolation.

He got up this morning at 0300, bleary-eyed and with a pounding headache as always, and all was right in the world. And then Fox got called into the Jedi High Council’s chambers and was ceremoniously informed that in the wake of Chancellor Palpatine’s unfortunate demise (hah), and through the emergency state of the Senate, as well as several invented promotions foisted on Fox to make the delegation of any and all paperwork less shady, he was now next in the chain of command and-

Well, Fox is the acting Chancellor, in short.

Haha, he had said, and been meet with several seconds of silence, until it got both awkward and exceedingly painful. Wait, he’d said. You’re kriffing serious.

Kriffing serious, we are, had said High General Yoda, and thus Fox launched himself out the first best window with a maniacal cackle of, you’ll have to catch me first!

And catch him, High General Windu sure did.

“The will of the Force this is”, Yoda interrupts Fox’ train of thought. He scans him thoughtfully from beneath his wizened brow, and hems to himself. “Shake things up, this will. Determine the fate of the Galaxy, this shall. A feeling, I have, that a good Chancellor you will make. A better one, hmmm.”

“That’d be high praise, if not for the fact that a dead lemming would make for a better Chancellor than the last one”, says Fox, drawing and indignant gasp from Skywalker. He doesn’t bother with either that or the green goblin’s cackle, lost in the deep sense of resignation that settles over his shoulders like a suffocating blanket.

“Alright, then, get me Thorn on the comm. As my first act in office, I’m firing all the Jedi. No offense, but you’re kind of a disaster. Then, someone get me to the Chancellor’s office, I’m calling Dooku to let him know the war’s off. And please get me Judicial, they’ll be up all night working on my datafolders - I’m having the Senate arrested.”

“Who - is - arresting - “, Bly pants, hands on his knees from where he’s just come sprinting around the corner with his Jedi.

Underneath his bucket, Fox smiles a smile that’s all teeth. “The Senate”, he says, sweetly, wondering if he’s just imagined the shiver that’s gone through the room. “I’m suing the Senate, and taking them all into temporary custody for abuse of sentient rights.”

[hanafubukki]

Malleus Draconia versus Ortho Shroud

It seems some people are surprised at Malleus’ actions? That he destroyed the robot dogs and almost destroyed Ortho.

But I would like to point out that Malleus has always been like this; very protective of his loved ones.

For example: In Lilia’s PE vignette, he nearly took Rook’s head off because he thought Rook was trying to hurt Lilia.

Then we come to book 7, chapter 7 update.

Yes, he destroyed the dogs and almost Ortho but remember Malleus is protective of his loved ones.

Malleus OBed because he wants his loved ones happy and Ortho is a threat to that, so of course he’s going to destroy any threats to them and Ortho basically labeled himself as such.

Now I want to bring up a point that I don’t see many talk about?

Malleus understood Ortho’s explanation about how Ortho woke up and how he was able to penetrate the barrier.

Ortho described himself as immortal basically because he can transfer his data to any body, which Malleus understood as transferring vessels.

This is when Malleus finally took the steps to destroy Ortho. Not because he wanted to kill him, but because he knew that Ortho would still live and transfer himself to another body.

Did Ortho feel fear? Yes because Orth doesn’t like lightning and that’s one of Malleus’ powers but think about it.

Feeling fear is an emotion no one wants to repeat. Malleus acknowledged that Ortho might be feeling fear

With Malleus knowing that Ortho can feel such things, Malleus told Ortho he would end him swiftly because in a way that is an act of kindess isn’t it? To end it quickly rather than prolonging the fear.

But at the same time he knows that Ortho will live and remember this emotion, and that’s what Malleus wants, so Ortho would be too scared to try again.

Malleus is protective of his loved ones and he always has been.

While his actions might seem as if he’s out of control, he isn’t. He understood in his own way what Ortho explained to him before making his move.

He didn’t attack because he’s raging but made a more calculative move on his end to stop Ortho, one that he would make repeatedly if need be, since he knows that Ortho can transfer bodies.

[tumatawa]

Started reading dungeon meshi

[rookflower]

on one hand yeah this is the kitty cat book fandom where at least 95% of the people here are just here to draw funny cats or for nostalgia reasons and it's really not that deep, there is nothing wrong with taking a critical backseat on this one. but on the other, the amount of people in the fandom who seem to genuinely believe that children's literature and xenofiction are both somehow inherently unworthy of any form of criticism whatsoever, to the point where random tumblr posts casually identifying shit like.... themes.... and narrative trends... is looking into things way too deeply and makes you a bad or stupid person in some way because "they're just cats", gives the literature student in me such a headache

[kalashtars]

y'all remember when book fairs used to have those "banned books" display sections that advertised books based on that fact that they had been banned in schools in the past and everyone went "haha wow, it's crazy that they banned books like this! what a wacky thing to do!" haha........ yeah....... who would even do that......

[aliteratepenguin]

"It's very dramatic," Ratthi added. "The crew think you're a special security agent who betrayed the company to save us." It was very dramatic, like something out of a historical adventure serial. Also correct in every aspect except for all the facts, like something out of a historical adventure serial.

Exit Strategy by Martha Wells

[aroaessidhe]

ace books: f/f YA

the romance is a subplot in most of these!

Arden Grey - contemporary, ace lebsian MC

You Don't Have A Shot - contemporary, queer ace MC

Forward March - contemporary, ace lesbian MC

The Summer Love Strategy - contemporary, demi-aroace LI

Earthbound Hearts - contemporary + a little sff, ace lesbian MC

The Facts and Legends of Callie Catwell - contemporary + a little sff, sapphic ace MC

The Art of Saving The World - sci-fi, ace lesbian MC

Belle Révolte - high fantasy - 1/2 MCs is bi ace

Queen of Coin and Whispers - 1/2 MCs is a demi-coded lesbian

Six Angry Girls - contemporary, 1/2 MCs is sapphic ace

#aspec books / aspec database / tumblr masterpost

[dabookgoblin]

[lueddegen-art]

The murderbot diaries have me in an absolute chokehold, thus it is once again time to ignore all my responsibilities and obsessively draw fanart.

[chimaerakitten]

I’ve been thinking today about off ramps in long running stories, especially book series.

By that I mean like, places where a person could stop reading and have a satisfying ending even if they’re not yet at the actual ending. (Someone tell me if there’s an established Tvtropes name for this I’m missing.)

Now, a lot of book series will have an off ramp at the end of book 1, because many first books are written without promise of a sequel. Like sure, there might be a sequel hook, but the actual second book is still up to publisher whims in most cases. So you can read All Systems Red or The Thief or A Madness of Angels and have a perfectly satisfying ambiguous-end sci-fi story or middle grade fantasy romp or inverted murder mystery revenge quest without ever picking up book 2. This is definitely an off ramp but it’s not necessarily the interesting or revealing kind because again. Whims of the publisher.

There’s also stories that have an off ramp after every installment. Leverage is famous for this—they had a philosophy of having every season be a satisfying ending, which says a lot both about the writers and about the story they were trying to tell.

But I think the most interesting ramps are the ones where by design or by circumstance, there’s a single off-ramp somewhere in the middle. One spot where unless someone tells you there’s more, you’d never be unsatisfied with leaving halfway through.

Sometimes these will be signaled in some way, where there’s a big timeskip after the off-ramp, or the series changes names or has a spin-off, or the POV changes, or after book 3 the author publishes a short story collection before hopping back in to novels, or the series suddenly jumps from being only novellas to a chunky 120k novel. (The Raksura books, Percy Jackson/HoE, Matthew Swift/Magicals Anonymous, and Murderbot all do one or more of these)

But sometimes off ramps aren’t visible in series order or marketing. Sometimes they’re organic to where a story happens to leave off at the end of an installment.

The queen’s thief has one of these after King Of Attolia. I know this was a satisfying ending because for seven years I thought it was the end. My local library didn’t have A Conspiracy of Kings, so I thought it was a trilogy. And you really can leave it there! KoA ends with Gen back in his element and recognized as king, the main internal threat to Irene neutralized, and peace on the peninsula. The Mede aren’t yet the immediate threat they are in the back half of the series, since up through KoA they’re mainly represented by the magus’s vague warnings and Nahuseresh, whom Irene thinks circles around. There’s no real reason to assume the Mede are a threat within the scope of the series. Now I absolutely prefer getting the whole story, but KoA is a damn solid off-ramp for anyone who feels like exiting there.

And that’s one kind of off ramp where the end you get is pretty similar in tone (mostly happy) to the one you get if you go on to the rest of the series. I’ve also read books where you can off ramp successfully right at the lowest point in the series and get a tragedy out of a series that ultimately ends happy, or leave at a high point and get a happier end than the main one, or exit at an ambiguous point and continue on with ambiguity. The Giver sequels make it pretty clear what happened to Jonas and Gabe at the end of the book. but you don’t have to read them or have that question answered if you want to.

I don’t have a really solid conclusion to draw here except that I think the positioning of off ramps says a lot about authors and stories, and choosing whether or not to take an off ramp says a lot about readers.

[formulahs]

its always interesting to me how f1 is obviously so high performance in every way possible for all the teams but like there is such a thing as knowing how to win regardless of how fast the car is, knowing how to plead ur case before the ruling body, knowing how to take advantage of the regs, like just knowing how to consistently deliver excellence? the grid being tighter than ever really highlights that cuz yes its an extremely high stakes operation for everyone but if you dont know how to win you just wont! like u could literally have the best package out on track and not win cuz someone knows how to make the most of what they have and you donttttt

[eagleeyethree]

EXIT STRATEGY

[Image ID: Fanart of Murderbot and Dr. Mensah from the book series The Murderbot Diaries. Murderbot and Mensah are holding hands and running down a corridor. Two drones look to the front while Murderbot glances backward. Only the back of its face is visible. Mensah glances at it instinctively. She wears a white flowing caftan while Murderbot wears a dark hooded jacket and pants. The second image is zoomed in on their faces. End ID.]