If any of you have been with me for the past few years, you will remember my rambling love for Ellery. Five books later, only one thing has changed: IIf any of you have been with me for the past few years, you will remember my rambling love for Ellery. Five books later, only one thing has changed: I love him more. We are back with the world's most reluctant sleuth and failed actor, Ellery.
The story begins when he and police chief of Pirate's Cove Jack Carson go diving. Jack is also Ellery's eh man friend? They are romantically involved but there are no labels. Yet. Thus far, I'm just glad that Jack cares about Ellery enough to give him orgasms. Implied. This is a cosy after all.
As Jack and Ellery are enjoying the sights, they spot a great white shark. It's always nice to be introduced to a new phobia.
Until now, he hadn't realized he was afraid of sharks. Theater critics, spiders, financial ruin sure. But a Great White put the hairiest of spiders—and theater critics—into a whole diferrent perspective.
In a bid to escape the shark's sights, they discover a vintage diving suit. And in it, is a body. This of course puts the entirety of Pirate's Cove on Ellery's tail. He has uncovered yet another body. Ellery tries to remind people that Jack was with him. But some people saw fit to remind him Jack has been diving for years but the first time he goes diving with his trouble magnet future spouse, he finds a body? Ellery needs to get real.
He also needs to understand that he is just a beacon for the latest conspiracies of Pirate's Cove. He has also been getting letters from a stalker. This is an ongoing mystery, it's unsolved by the end of this book.
I once observed that this series serves as subliminal advertising for Lanyon's other books. The deep sea diving reminded me of Plenty of Fish and there's a mention of Kit from Somebody Killed His Editor (this is book 1 of the series). Be sure to read those if you haven't. Perhaps you need to read the latter to be aware of who Kit is should he ever make a cameo.
This book also serves us a lot more human drama. Nora isn't fond of the new attendant at the Crow's Nest. At one point she even believes Kingston to be behind some unsavoury events happening on Buck Island.
"Could this person have been Kingston?" Ellery did a double take. "Could it have been Kingston? Nora nodded excitedly, "Is it possible?" "No, it's not possible...That guy was three times the size of Kingston." Nora looked disappointed, "That's a shame."
But aside from the animosity of Ellery's workers, there is yet another mystery.
A wealthy madam with a temperament as pleasant as the Witch of the Waste's, finds herself at the Crow's Nest. Lanyon's utilisation of description couldn't help but make me chuckle,
A petite woman of perhaps forty cautiously entered the bookshop. She wore an expensive but not particularly flattering beige pantsuit. Her stiffly styled blonde hair was as shiny and untouchable as a doll's. Her eyes were also doll-like, being round and blue and rather blank.. "Good morning!" Ellery and Nora chorused. The woman studied them, blinked under her false eyelashes, and said, "Mary Daheim." Ellery resisted the temptation to reply, Merry Daheim to you too.
Odette Wallace is a widow of ten years and a bit of a uh socialite. She's also in a pickle. She's completely convinced that someone is trying to murder her and so hires Ellery to catch the killer. Her high-handedness irritated Ellery but he needed the cash. He needed to catch her would-be murderer and he needed her to stay alive, Ultimately, Ellery wanted Odette not to be murdered so he could in good conscience keep his fee.
While it may feel like there were too many moving parts in this tiny book, they're all interconnected. The characters have as much heart as ever and there was a lot more scrabble in this book. I do wish we'd gotten to spend more time with the Wallaces, if only to solidify our feelings for them. I was left adrift when the cases were solved and I hadn't put my finger on where they land. Were they good people? Bad people? Weird people? Crazy people? The only thing I had any reaction to was their attitude towards Odette. Perhaps if it was a full length mystery novel there'd have been space for this.
Jack and Ellery's relationship does hit new "troubled" waters. And they stand on opposite sides of Buck Island's latest mystery. Will love prevail? For once I didn't care. This isn't because I am a shell of a woman I once was and now have a charred broken ember for a heart, but because there's never a dull moment on Buck Island. The next book in the series just came out and if you haven't started this series yet, what are you waiting for? Jesus?
Many heartfelt thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for providing me with a copy in exchange for a review....more
HUGO AWARD WINNER FOR BEST NOVELETTE 2022. BOT 9 DID IT!!!!!
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE SECRET LIFE OF BOTS.
68 years after Bot 9's succe
HUGO AWARD WINNER FOR BEST NOVELETTE 2022. BOT 9 DID IT!!!!!
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE SECRET LIFE OF BOTS.
68 years after Bot 9's successful ruining of the kamikaze mission and saving everyone's lives, Bot 9 finally awakens. At the end of the first story, due to its improvisation, the humans ordered him scrapped. Such gratitude, much wow.
However, Ship disobeyed their commands and only decommissioned Bot 9. They were approaching a jump point where they can finally head home to Earth.
See, beforehand, they hadn't thought about going back home. But now that all lives are saved, what next?
Questions about place and purpose pervade this delightful little story. Now that Bot 9 has been reawakened, what can it do?
I have been activated, therefore I have a purpose, Bot 9 thought. I have a purpose, therefore I serve.
If only life were that simple. Awake. Await. Aserve. But the thing about humanity is that you create your purpose. If you're fortunate enough, this lies within your abilities. Your circles. Your connections. But the human condition is messy. Fallible. And messy. They were completely alien to Bot 9.
Humans were not things Bot 9 had ever spent much time thinking about. They were huge and slow—or at least, 9 had never seen one moving fast...
How they were constructed was a mystery, and they certainly didn’t seem reconfigurable to any great degree, but more than any of that, it was just not the way of things that bots had anything to do with humans, or humans much at all to do with bots. Instead the humans talked to Ship, and Ship talked to the bots...
But still, little Bot 9 provided much more heart than all the bio-organic cardiovascular matter on board. Ship ordered Bot 9 to revive Frank, an engineer who'd been put in stasis 68 years ago. There's a matter of urgency where his humanness is necessary for their continued survival. Frank, unaware of the urgency of the matter, prattles on about modesty and underwear when only draped with their flag. One wonders why he was so obsessed with hiding his dangly bits when none of the bots would give a shit.
As they tried to get to Ship, Bot 9 realised it couldn't move as fast as Frank. So Frank had to carry it. When they got to a stuck door,
He scooped up the module and 9 with it, and headed straight for the door back into Engineering. The door didn’t open and after hitting the panel several times, Frank backed up, raised one of his legs, and kicked it.
The human must have miscalculated the effectiveness of the action, or their limbs were underreporting their damage status, because the door didn’t budge, and he nearly fell over again.
“It’s stuck,” 9 informed him, helpfully.
I love Bot 9.
I wish this was a full-length novel because I wanted to see the Captain at the very least regret ordering Bot 9 scrapped when it's saved their unworthy asses. Twice. I wanted to see more interactions between Bot 9 and 4340, who's taken to cowboying in the most unimaginable fashion. But most of all, I wanted to hang out more with Bot 9. The worst thing this story did, was end.
Mantra of Acceptance: ...
fuck this.
Mantra of Demand: Give us more Bot 9, Suzanne!!
Edit: Scare achieved hihii
Thank you so much for the recommendation Nataliya...more
"...Abandoned?" "It's the fate of all made things," Ship said. "I am grateful to find I have not outlived my usefulness, after all."
Let me
"...Abandoned?" "It's the fate of all made things," Ship said. "I am grateful to find I have not outlived my usefulness, after all."
Let me make this clear, Murderbot is my favourite sentient robot. Simply because I am Murderbot. However, if Murderbot was to have a twinning joint first place favourite robot who isn't me, Bot 9 takes the spot.
[image] Wall E
I am so glad Nataliya brought this wonderful novelette series to my attention. However, I found out about Bots of the Lost Ark which is a sequel to this novelette (short story?). So if you are interested in Bots of the Lost Ark, read this first.
This story follows Bot 9. A Wall-E incarnate who is teeny, and he lives to serve his purpose. He is not like other Bots though. Bot 9 is a bit more... old-fashioned. He is sent on a mission to deal with the infestation affecting Ship. The crew, bots and Ship are on a critical mission. A suicide mission to save Earth. The infestations, called Incidentals, are putting the mission in jeopardy, and it's up to Bot 9 to deal with it. Go, little bot. Go.
The other bots are rooting for Bot 9 to achieve his goal.
"We all wish you great and quick success, despite your outdated and primitive manufacture." "Thank you," Bot 9 said, though it was not entirely sure it should be grateful, as it felt its manufacture had been entirely sound and sufficient regardless of date.
You tell them baby!!
On his mission to eliminate the Incidental, it gets enlightened at a more optimal way to achieve their end goal to save Earth. So the little Bot that could starts a mini-revolution. Overriding the humans' wishes and Ship's instructions. Will it succeed? Will it be thwarted? Will the humans start humaning and interfere because they think they know better? A lot is packed into this tiny story. I'm left a bug-eyed sentient gin because of how much joy I could suck out of it. If you love Murderbot, please PLEASE read this story.
Each night, without fail, she prayed for blue eyes. Fervently, for a year she had prayed. Although somewhat discouraged, she was not without h
Each night, without fail, she prayed for blue eyes. Fervently, for a year she had prayed. Although somewhat discouraged, she was not without hope. To have something as wonderful as that happen would take a long, long time.
Thrown, in this way, into the binding conviction that only a miracle could relieve her, she would never know her beauty. She would see only what there was to see. The eyes of other people.
Meet Pecola Breedlove, never had a figure cut quite so tragic since the Russians discovered crime.
Pecola was inspired by Morrison's childhood encounter with a friend who wanted blue eyes... Blue eyes to help her escape the shackles of blackness. Of ugliness. Morrison, at the time, was offended. Angry. The same is carried through in Claudia's narration.
[image] The Bluest Eye poster from The Aurora Theatre Company
Unlike Pecola, Claudia is contemptuous of whiteness.
I destroyed white baby dolls. But the dismembering of dolls was not the true horror. The truly horrifying thing was the transference of the same impulses to little white girls. The indifference with which I could have axed them was shaken only by my desire to do so.
Whiteness was responsible for so much suffering of our characters that even those predisposed to despise them would eventually learn to. It was an inevitability. When a teenage Cholly (Pecola's father), is happened upon while making love to a girl in a field by white men, they land their flashlight on him and force him to finish. Make it a good show for them.
They were big, white, armed me. He was small, black, helpless. His subconscious knew what his conscious mind did not guess—that hating them would have consumed him, burned him up like a piece of soft coal.
So it comes as a bit of a surprise that Pecola wants proximity to this thing of evil.
It's understandable that it's surprising. Claudia has seen how white people and even light skin black people dehumanize them. Mistreat them. But for Pecola, who has been isolated for her ugliness, whiteness, or its pinnacle—blue eyes—means she's no longer invisible.
Often times she found herself dismissed for she was small, black and ugly. When she goes to a candy shop to buy Mary Janes, which have a picture of a woman with blue eyes, Pecola is all too aware of how the white immigrant owner can't see her. He looked at her with the total absence of human recognition—the glazed separateness. Morrison goes on to tell us that Pecola has seen interest, disgust, even anger in grown male eyes. And the vacuum isn't new for her. There was distaste in the white gaze for black people. For Pecola, blackness is static and dread. And it is the blackness that accounts for, that creates, the vacuum edged with distaste in white eyes.
Perhaps, the saddest thing of it all is that in all things, all Pecola knows is desire. Yearning. No one ever tries to grant her heart's wishes. Or basic needs. Except the three sex workers who are their neighbours. Their openness with Pecola is charming. Morrison has an ear for interaction. You feel as though a part of the few moments of Pecola's joy. But soon you're reminded that Pecola's lot is misery. If she rolled a dice, they would vanish into thin air. Her own mother despised her and not for a lack of trying. Her father loved her in the worst way a father could show his love.
The story ends having given a magnified glimpse of this small Ohio town. The story had a feel of a comic book panel. Each displaying a vignette of the few people pivotal to Pecola's wish for blue eyes. I had hoped for more of each of them. That's a personal preference for long winding lingering tales. This book may not need one, but I don't see how it would ever be a bad thing for the world to get more of Morrison.
Ultimately, this is a story that centres blackness. The ugliness of blackness. How we can be thoughtless of our own and neglectful of the most vulnerable. The glee with which women crowed and cawed at the misfortune of a little girl is too familiar. The faces have changed but the behaviours are still the same. And our girls shouldn't need blue eyes to feel seen.
edit: mission accomplished. I almost gave her a heart attack ...more
I think people ought to do what they want to do, what else are they alive for?
I have never read James Baldwin's fiction before. How lucky
I think people ought to do what they want to do, what else are they alive for?
I have never read James Baldwin's fiction before. How lucky am I? How much more fortunate am I that this is my first interaction.
If you ask many people who is the greatest author who ever lived, there are names you won't miss. Tolstoy, Dickens, Morrison, Baldwin. After reading this short story, I can see why. Sonny's Blues follows the journey of two brothers. Our narrator and his brother, Sonny.
Every theme you'd want explored in a novel is touched on in these pages. There's an unavoidable philosophizing about the cyclic nature of life. About how some people are sealed to certain fates simply because of their identity and their geography. Our narrator is a math teacher. He hears news about Sonny getting caught with heroin. This means Sonny will end up in rehab. It gives our narrator great anxiety.
A great block of ice got settled in my belly and kept melting there slowly all day long, while I taught my classes algebra. It was a special kind of ice. It kept melting, sending trickles of ice water all up and down my veins, but it never got less. Sometimes it hardened and seemed to expand until I felt my guts were going to come spilling out or that I was going to choke or scream.
When our narrator contemplates the fact that Sonny's fate could easily become his students' he almost accepts the inevitability of it.
...it happened and here I was, talking about algebra to a lot of boys who might, everyone of them for all I knew, be popping off needles every time they went to the head. Maybe it did more for them than algebra could.
Sonny started using when he was just slightly older than these boys. These kids were getting meaner, surlier, as though the upcoming exposure to adulthood and vulnerability made them feel like they needed chemical crutches to help them escape it. Hell, they were probably knee-deep in problems them. Our narrator's mother tells him to look out for Sonny. Not because Sonny was showing the tell-tale signs of a problem child but because ...you got a brother. And the world ain't changed.
Suffering is inevitable and I wish people wouldn't glorify strife and even look forward to it. But, there's no way not to suffer. Sonny hates this key ingredient of the human condition. It's repulsive to think you have to suffer than much.
There's something to be said for going away and thinking you'll come back a changed man. For Sonny, When I came back, nothing had changed, I hadn't changed, I was just--older. Eventually, what saves Sonny or seems to give him a lifeline, is his music, his blues. All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it. The narrator explains Sonny's conversations with his instruments, his story with the notes and the keys until eventually they harmonize and those listening bear witness to two old friends uniting. The relationship between our narrator and his brother can be saved if only he can learn to sit and listen to Sonny's soul. And perhaps the world would be a much peaceful place if our elders would just listen....more
Gordon is an old man and a retired actor who used to star in the pictures as Geordie MacTavish, the highland lad. A ramshackle, unsavoury hero[image]
Gordon is an old man and a retired actor who used to star in the pictures as Geordie MacTavish, the highland lad. A ramshackle, unsavoury hero who seeks adventure before common sense. He was a fan favourite, especially with children.
Gordon was often invited to paediatric hospitals to visit these wee invalids in desperate need of a laugh. However, it wasn't always smooth sailing,
the alien trappings of childhood irritated him and made him uncomfortable.
This story is quite brief, something I was never sure Tartt was capable of but her signature style still shines through with about as much subtlety as a nuclear blast. Gordon is an observer, just like Tartt's heroes I've grown to indulge in. He is pragmatic about the situation but can't help but wonder why children have to suffer. For him, as an older man, it's consequences of past vice come to roost. His newfound loneliness is something he acknowledges,
Away from the camaraderie of the shared routine, the office acquaintances had begun to slip, and he didn’t see too many other people on a regular basis
as are his own medical battles,
The crowning inequity in a life full of bad deals.
Tartt's puts us in the children's hospital and has us experience a heaping of emotion, served along with an existential crisis. Would you like fries with that? No thank you, I'm watching my weight for my 60s. There's one line that left me breathless, as I suppose it would any dreamer who is working towards a specific ambition. It was to be the most prestigious film Gordon would appear in in his entire career, though he would not become aware of this for another twenty years or so.
What if you've already gotten as close as you'll ever get?
Yesterday, my great friend Christina and I decided to partake in a book tag where we talked about gothic stories. I'm not the biggest fan of horrYesterday, my great friend Christina and I decided to partake in a book tag where we talked about gothic stories. I'm not the biggest fan of horror but lately, my life has been so topsy turvy I've been reading genres I'd never have read before. After how much I enjoyed Murderbot, it's honestly a war crime that I ever said "I don't do sci-fi".
But I digress, one of the prompts asked which is the creepiest story ever read. The original author of the tag, FictionFan, listed this story and I'd never heard of it. I, therefore, set about to correct my latest attempt at being an uncultured swine.
The stage is set. The macabre is nigh.
Without, the night was cold and wet, but in the small parlour of Laburnam Villa the blinds were drawn and the fire burned brightly.
Enter a father, a son and a white-haired old lady knitting placidly by the fire. The father and son are playing chess. Mr White is a cheat but White Jr gets the better of him. This is a close tight-knit family. The love and camaraderie are palpable. I was at a loss at what could be so unsettling. Unlike Edgar Allan Poe's stories, this one starts rather innocuously. A still of British family esprit de corps. The language is decadent, flowing. When the guest they were anticipating arrives, Mr White rises to greet him, a tall burly man, beady of eye and rubicund of visage.
Sergeant-Major Morris served in India, indulging in dinner, whiskey, and story. Having served for her majesty's efforts in colonisation and conquest for 20 years, surely he has stories. And boy does he.
He tells them of a monkey's paw. Just a bit of what you might call magic, perhaps. And isn't that the understatement of the century. A paw dried to a mummy that was blessed and/or cursed by an old fakir. To teach a lesson on fate. Bah! I said when I saw this inanity. How can a be careful what you wish for story possibly get really creepy?
[image]
But I should not have underestimated this book. The story goes where you expect it to go and then takes it a step further. The way suspense, unease and thrill are utilised here is nothing short of genius. The ambiguous-ish ending leaves you wondering if you're relieved or if you're uneasy. Do you want more or are you happy to see the end of the story? I am beginning to understand the appeal of the genre. I may be searching drawers and cupboards for any errant sentient mummified paws for the rest of time.
"It moved," he cried, with a glance of disgust at the object as it lay on the floor. "As I wished, it twisted in my hand like a snake.
If you are a fan of the creeps, Neil Gaiman, Shirley Jackson, Mary Shelley, Steph King etc... Read this story. ...more
Books are a form of magic…because they span time and distance more surely than any spell or charm.
[image]
Ordinarily, I add a quote that e
Books are a form of magic…because they span time and distance more surely than any spell or charm.
[image]
Ordinarily, I add a quote that encompasses the vibe of the book. But this time I added my favourite. Or one of my favourites. Because this book is massive.
I struggle to write extensive reviews for fantasy because it’s so heavily plot-driven and this is one of those books which is best to go in knowing nothing.
The book starts,
On this day of days there was an unfamiliar stirring deep inside the dozing heart of the Hayholt…
We meet the main protagonist Simon Mooncalf. This little boy has my heart. I adore all his dumb glory.
In the midst of such industry, gawky Simon was the fabled grasshopper in the nest of ants. He knew he would never amount to much: many people had told him so, and nearly all of them were older—and presumably wiser—than he. At an age when other boys were clamoring for the responsibilities of manhood, Simon was still a muddler and a meanderer. No matter what task he was given to do, his attention soon wandered, and he would be dreaming of battles, and giants, and sea voyages on tall, shining ships…
Buckle up, we have a chosen one folks.
I am no enemy of traditional fantasy tropes. Perhaps because I am something of a neophyte. Or, I don’t know, I don’t hate traditional tropes if executed brilliantly. Simon was also a breath of fresh air. He doesn’t know he’s a chosen one. He just wants to ask questions, roam the Hayholt and not be asked to think. Please don’t ask him to think. No, it was the doing and the thinking that tripped him up time and time again. If only they would leave him alone!
Aside from being a skinny apparition haunting the ceilings at the Hayholt, Simon’s favourite place to be was Morgenes’ labs. He was a Gandalfian mentor. A wizard who was well versed in magic, riddles and puzzles. He existed to teach Simon. To scold Simon. And to give Simon an excuse to escape his scullery chores.
The beginning of this book is said to be molassic. Perhaps in this day and age, slow books are something of an anomaly or an acquired taste. Honey, consider me a connoisseur. I LOVE slow going stories. I loved the Tolkienesque indulgence of life at the Hayholt. It’s one of the easiest most effective ways to ensure immersion. At no point did the real world penetrate its shadowy toxicity in this world that Williams created.
Getting to know Simon and Morgenes intimately got me to care about their fates and the destinies of those they came across. When a state leader’s death gets the plot going, and shit gets real, the reader then girds their loins because if fantasy has taught me anything, that’s when the suffering begins.
I adored the prose of this book. It’s a liberty I don’t see taken much these days. Perhaps its genre that allows this. Or the spirit of classic fantasy living on. Inasmuch as I loved The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms its prose while beautiful was very clinical, surgical. This one feels like being dropped in a Dickensian or Carrollian tale. Well-rounded characters who end up in a rabbit hole after rabbit hole and choices that have costly consequences.
God made young men stupid.
Lord knows it’s not just the young ones.
Simon ends up on a quest… a matter of life and adventure.
The desire to see more of the world glowed within him like a low-banked fire.
But Simon never had the delight of books to give him second hand adventure. A catastrophe had to trigger his excursion. He was delightfully self-aware, just doing what he has to. Simon knew he was more rabbit than rogue. A later companion of his is able to encompass the wistlessness we feel when subjugated to adulting. ...sometimes I wonder if I was born out of my time.
In this adventure novel there is murder, love, history, travel, political machinations, war, runaway princesses, a league of extraordinary gentlemen, warrior queens. There are giants, bukkens, dragons, wolves, fae. For those who seek action, this book has your back ”So many plots!” Isgrimnur groaned. “So many intrigues! It makes my head swim. I am not a man for such things. Give me a sword or an axe and let me deal blows!”
They’re coming Isgrimnur. And they’ll leave you—and I— blown away....more
Never was there a story that rocked so hard than that of Ankh-Morpork and her city guard.
This book reads like if Men in Tigh
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC
Never was there a story that rocked so hard than that of Ankh-Morpork and her city guard.
This book reads like if Men in Tights and The Princess Bride had a baby in a death metal concert where everyone wore clown suits because the lead rocker said so. It's wild absurdism at its best. But perhaps what shocked me was how well-written it was.
I assumed the book would be tongue-in-cheek, satirical and self-aware. It is. It's taking Tolkien's intricate craft, turning it on its head and giving you a dragon that can propel itself with a rocket butt. But what made me realise this is a book I will love forever is the introduction to the Elucidated Brethren. The scene where the Supreme Grand Master accidentally tries to gain access to the Illuminated and Ancient Brethren of Ee, I almost fell out my seat laughing.
The story carries on in the same comedic vein. Tapping into such surgical moments of levity it feels like the MCU should take classes from Sir Terry. But first, what this book is about.
The city of Ankh-Morpork has turned into a perennial bacchanalia where chaos is the order of the day. Instead of having law and order rule civilisation, there is instead a guild of thieves and beggars and harlots wherein they can steal to a point and pay taxes from their spoils. The Patrician, current ruler of Ankh Morpork, sees this as the best way to maintain a kind of peace.
However, someone doesn't agree. The Supreme Grand Master has stolen a very important book from the library, from whence he plans to summon a dragon and use its power to get remake Ankh Morpork in his image. Or at least as far as his imagination would let him.
You spend most of the book trying to figure out who the Supreme Grand Master is and wonder what will happen to the Watch. They're made of Vimes-the captain, Nobby, Colon and Carrot-a human raised by country dwarves who has no inclination for idioms and sarcasm. They each endear their way into your heart in a way that's as subtle as it is sneaky.
Scenes unfold like a film but there are times I caught myself reacting to something, then there's a change, and when we cut back we're experiencing the fallout of the event. I'd have liked to read the event itself inasmuch as Sir Terry trusts me to use my imagination and make inferences. There are times when cutting away to the result of the matter is hilarious but sometimes I would like to be indulged.
There's nothing I don't love about this book except perhaps the fact that it ended. But with Jurassic patience, I am sure I can find and read through all Discworld books. I wonder what I should read next outside of the City Watch series....more
fear was an artificial condition. It's imposed from the outside. So it's possible to fight it. You should do the things you're afraid of.
fear was an artificial condition. It's imposed from the outside. So it's possible to fight it. You should do the things you're afraid of.
It's amazing what crap we come up with to convince ourselves to do something brave. Or, according to Murderbot, stupid.
[image]
We carry on from where we left off in All Systems Red. Murderbot has abandoned its humans and decided to go, well, rogue. It's on a quest to figure out what happened to it before the events of the first book, or find a safe, secure, isolated location to continue rewatching Sanctuary Moon. Murderbot's comfort TV show, my image on the newsburst had rattled me and I wanted to just sink into my media downloads for a while and pretend I didn't exist. Mine is currently The Mentalist.
It makes its way across various hubs and finally settles on a ship that suffers from an overabundance of personality. ART is the best thing to happen to this series since Murderbot. When it first met Murderbot, it freaked him the fuck out. ART told it, You're a rogue SecUnit, a bot/human construct, with a scrambled governor module... Murderbot didn't care much for ART. It was a super advanced ship that had about as much sentient capacity as Murderbot itself. How the hell was I supposed to know there were transports sentient enough to be mean? But soon after, ART endeared itself to Murderbot after it was unable to handle character deaths. Same sis. Same.
ART then offers to help Murderbot change its appearance for it to safely continue its quest to uncover what happened to it. Why does it have a scrambled governor module? Why the event that happened took place? To do that, it needed to band together with another group of humans who were hellbent on self-destruction and had never heard of self-preservation. Or binge watching TV shows.
Murderbot carries out its adventure with the same snark, pessimism and pragmatism that we know and love it for. However, it seemed to sway from the vision I had of it of stoic robot who'd rather be left alone. See, its not one-dimensional. Murderbot...cares. If the humans were dead, who would make the media. Its a bot who would do anything to preserve its free will at any cost but it still cares for its fellow man, bot and whatever else was in between.
There's a philosophy to be discussed here about sentience and the self. The humans who made these constructs need them to be absolutely devoted to them. But what makes Murderbot even more human is its aversion to human contact, social anxiety and generalised anxiety. At one point, when it was suffering what could be considered a bout of PTSD about what happened before, ART plays it the soundtrack to Sanctuary Moon to help it relax.
I couldn't begin to express how much I love this "rogue" SecUnit who is considered a threat because it gained autonomy. The oppressive humans who "granted" the constructs all that they know, see this independence and intelligence outside their control as a threat to be extinguished. It makes me think of humans who have evolved enough to leave institutions that thrive on indoctrination. Religions, schools, "lifestyles"... When you set out to be apart from the status quo, you become a dangerous to the way of life. Institutions that thrive on predatory control of a group of people to ensure their stay in power do everything they can to eliminate the "threat". But Murderbot isn't here to start a revolution. Perhaps it does in future books. But all it wants is to be free. And it can't do that just yet. But as it continues to make friends along the way maybe it can finally be the chemical X that abolishes this shit pile of a life.
However, priorities, I had five episodes of different drama series, two comedies, a book about the history of exploration of alien remnants in the Corporation Rim, and a multipart art competition from Belal Tertiary Eleven queued and paused... but I was actually watching episode 206 of Sanctuary Moon, which I'd already seen twenty-seven times. This collection of media won't watch itself. The revolution--if it is coming--will have to wait....more
This book was provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
There are books that exist as an attempt to recreate reality. They morph, becThis book was provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
There are books that exist as an attempt to recreate reality. They morph, becoming a string of words that become code—still prose—flowing from page to your body. Imbuing themselves into your very essence. As though slotting themselves in your DNA. Leaving you walking around, marked, stamped. Here walks this bitch, she read me. Short of a pulsating tattoo of text that rolls all over you there's no way to see how a book fundamentally changes you.
I received this book from Netgalley back in 2020 and since then I've had no excuse for not reading it. Perhaps I had thought to read the author's previous work, his debut, What Belongs to You. But alas a bitch is broke and it's not available on Libby. The book lingered in my Kindle library. The bare grayscale back always berating me with its silence. I mocked its existence the longer it stayed unread. I have encountered Greenwell's work before in my reason for living—The New Yorker—and I was impressed. I always knew I'd love this book but perhaps some Providence-led intuition led me to leave this book until 2022 when I could fully appreciate how brilliant, masterful and wonderful it is.
The book starts with our narrator, who remains unnamed and even goes as far as referring to the people around him by their initial, going for a meeting with a student in his class, G.. G. arrives late, by the narrator's American standards, and off they go for a discussion in a tea-hued underground cafe with cigarettes and Deep Conversation™️ about poetry and literature. Immediately, you will feel the narrator's otherness. A running theme where he will compare his status as an American, as a gay man, as an old man, as a fat man and whatever other demographic where he doesn't meet the "default". Or where he is an arbitrary minority like a teacher among students.
The narrator being this mirror, this control experiment, creates a perfect sounding board for all the brilliant characters he meets as he winds down his teaching tenure in Sofia, Bulgaria. In this first chapter, Mentor, G. tells him about his unrequited love for his childhood best friend.
I felt lucky, he said, I expected the whole time that I would mess it up, that our friendship would burn out the way my friendships would always burn out... I understood him entirely, and it seemed to me the intimacy he had drawn between us deepened further, becoming a sort of kinship, which I greeted with both welcome and dread.
This book catches you off-guard with the nonchalant way it delivers heartbreak. These daily pains that we walk with, poverty, ended relationships, job rejections, our narrator encounters them and treats them with the same pragmatism, despair and disdain. Pain knows no geography. You can get your heart broken in Paris just as easily as you can in Nairobi. The difference is, in Paris, the lights will distract you. For a moment, the city will be a beacon of art, romance, culture. In Nairobi, you will get robbed.
But I digress, the narrator has sound-ish advice for our unloved lover.
the intensity you feel now will be like a puzzle you can't solve, a puzzle it finally isn't worth your while to solve. I was speaking of myself, of course, of my own experience with love, with overwhelming love that had made me at times such a stranger to myself...
Which of course, G. with all the brashness and ineptitude of youth dismisses,
I don't want to feel it less, he said, I don't want it to stop, I don't want it to seem like it wasn't real. It would be for nothing if that happened, he said, I don't want it to be a dream, I want it to be real, all of it. And who else could I love... who could I love as much? What life could I want except for that life... what other life than that could I bear?
I understood where G. was coming from. Maybe better than most. And for the first time in my life, I didn't argue. there would be loss in loving another.
The story continues with such beats. Chapter 2 is about Gospodar. A Bulgarian word for Master. A man who our narrator dallies with in order to invoke in him feelings of nothingness. An antithesis to the man who broke our narrator's heart, R. In Loving R., he says
Sex had never been joyful for me before, or almost never, it had always been fraught with shame and anxiety and fear, all of which vanished at the sight of his smile, simply vanished, it poured a kind of cleanness over everything we did.
This is perhaps the most poignant part of the book. The one that had me shedding tears on the bus while I listened to Norah Jones. THIS part is the reason why anyone should read this book. Even though our narrator is a remarkable teacher. A talented observer who finds words to articulate feelings we never even knew we felt,
he must have been quiet as he moved the furniture. I caught my breath at it, I felt a weird pressure and heat climb my throat. I felt like my heart would burst, those were the words for it, the hackneyed phrase, and I was grateful for them, they were a container for what I felt, proof of its commonness. I was grateful for that, too, the commonness of my feeling; I felt some stubborn strangeness in me ease, I felt like part of the human race.
And of course other gems like, there was so much pleasure in being a fool, why had I spent so much of my life guarding against it? which of course mean more to me than they would another reader.
There is a lot of commentary on the political struggles in Bulgaria which I can equate to those in my country. Corrupt leaders go brrr. Tale as old as time.
But perhaps the bit that left me the most...unsettled... is a scene in the final chapter, Valediction. In it the narrator and three of his former students go on bar hopping spree. A final toast for their godspodin. From Sofia with love. One of the students, Z. perches his cocktail of a juice box and vodka on a pillar of historic significance.
Z. chose a pillar the right height and sat the carton on top of it, making me suck my breath between my teeth. What, he asked, and I said something about its antiquity, how it was thousands of years old and he was using it as his table. N. laughed. All this time in Bulgaria, he said, and you're still such an American. We have stuff like this everywhere, he said, if we couldn't touch it we couldn't live.
“Live,” I said. “Why else do you think I put you here?”
Why else? Why else indeed? I have a because... Because, at this point in time, 2:4
“Live,” I said. “Why else do you think I put you here?”
Why else? Why else indeed? I have a because... Because, at this point in time, 2:43pm GMT+3 in the year of our lord Beyonce Giselle Knowles C◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️ 2022, I believe I was officially put on this earth to shout about HOW AMAZING THIS BOOK IS.
If I was a booktuber I'd be making indecipherable noises as a gush review. If I was a competent bookstagrammer, I'd create an edit that is so epic, it would revolutionize Instagram as we know it. But alas, I am neither. I am just a girl, standing in front of her work computer, begging all the faceless strangers scrolling down their screens who will come across this review, to PLEASE READ THIS BOOK.
Can you tell how much I loved it?! CAN YOU? My god, I think I'm vibrating.
The story starts with our main protagonist Yeine dau she Kinneth tai wer Somem kanna Darre, daughter of Kinneth Arameri, ennu of the Darre people, leader of tribe Somem but before you can parse the significance of Yeine's full name, she informs us that tribes have become insignificant since the Gods' War.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. The story doesn't really start there. In this universe, the Big Bang's equivalent is the Maelstrom where the deities Itempas and Nahadoth were created from nothingness. However, even before that, according to this New Yorker article, it all started with a dream vision of two gods. One had dark-as-night hair that contained a starry cosmos of infinite depth; the other, in a child’s body, manipulated planets like toys. From these images, Jemisin spun out a four-hundred-page story about an empire that enslaves its deities.
Yeine is the mixed race daughter of the Darre chief and the former princess of the Arameri, the ruling family of the Amn people. Her mother, Kinneth, dared to defy their caste system and marry a man who is "beneath" her.
My father dared ask my mother to dance; she deigned to consent. I have often wondered what he said and did that night to make her fall in love with him so powerfully, for she eventually abdicated her position to be with him. It is the stuff of great tales, yes? Very romantic. In the tales, such a couple lives happily ever after. The tales do not say what happens when the most powerful family in the world is offended in the process.
Hook me, baby.
Yeine has been summoned by her grandfather, Dekarta, ruler of all mankind. He ignored for her nineteen years but suddenly he wanted her in Sky, the city where the Arameri live, where they have enslaved their gods and the children of these gods.
This book isn't Jemisin's best work. It's even self-aware, Such a convoluted patchwork to piece together. There is a certain amateurishness that's hard to ignore, especially after seeing the excellence of her prose in The City We Became. The world building is sound. The characters solid but there was a certain elusive quality in the delivery. Perhaps this was because the story was in first person with the language a bit simpler than the indulgent decadence of her latest book. I ended up reading some scenes too quickly and felt I had missed something and even upon reread it would elude me such that when a reveal came about I felt that if the prose had been a bit denser, I'd have connected the dots sooner.
The story has three main running cogs. The war of the gods, the mystery behind the death in Yeine's family and why she has been summoned by her grandfather. And while everything was resolved satisfactorily, I still felt I needed more. At no point does the quality of this book suffer but I am a sugar addict and I wanna dance in cake damnit. I needed about three hundred more pages and at least two more perspectives. I needed to linger. However that doesn't matter when you have a lord of darkness who looks like this.
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Nahadoth by sorskc (DeviantArt)
He is everything my emo self would ever imagine in a god. And he is banging ....here was no human flesh to filter his cool majesty. His eyes glowed blue-black with a million mysteries, terrifying and exquisite. When he smiled, all the world shivered... Shiver ME timbers baby.
Another favourite is the trickster god, Sieh. Imagine the adorableness of Avatar Aang (seriously Sieh moves with globes too) and the deviousness of Loki. Not MCU Loki. Actual Loki. I adored him with everything that I am.
The book does interrogate existence. When Yeine is asked what she wants out of life, she—understandably—whines at her lot in life which is er a lot, Naha scolds her
“You are what your creators and experiences have made you, like every other being in this universe. Accept that and be done; I tire of your whining.”
There is also commentary on class, agency, gender roles, colonization, freedom, free will. What's radical about this book is how it's the gods who are oppressed. The most powerful beings who caused CREATION are the ones subjugated. To undo or reform this level of oppression, a lot has to explode. Bang goes that revolution.
Aside from such grasping and provocative material, this book gave me something I didn't even realise I was missing. Having been in the dumps for what feels like forever, I think I'd forgotten what joy felt like. With everything that is happening in the world, with how miasmic my personal life is, I didn't realise how I'd settled into unhappiness. I'd forgotten to find joy. I still laughed. I still listened to music. I still felt at peace when I sat on my balcony listening for silence between the rain drops to a Norah Jones soundtrack. But I was not joyful. No.
When I started this book, I was on a commute to the city centre to collect a package. My city is one which fills you with rage unfailingly. No matter what happens, you will be angry every time you enter, stay and leave Nairobi. This ugly concrete behemoth seeps bitterness into all. As I waited for my bus to fill up so I could escape the godforsaken beast's belly, I decided to open up Libby on a whim. I don't know what prompted me but I decided to search Jemisin and lo and behold, Hundred Thousand Kingdoms was ready for me to borrow. Ignoring the protests of the rest of my tbr, I acquired the book and got to reading. By the time I was alighting, I was running to the house so I could settle down and continue reading. Whenever life happened, I would wish for it to hasten so I could get back to my book.
It had plenty of moments happened that filled me with so much giddiness. My favourite was when Yeine had an altercation with her cousin, Scimina, who is an heir to Dekarta's throne.
“It will do for now.” “For now?” Scimina stared at me, incredulous, then began to laugh. “Oh, Cousin. Sometimes I wish your mother were still alive. She at least could have given me a real challenge.” I had lost my knife, but I was still Darre. I whipped around and hit her so hard that one of her heeled shoes came off as she sprawled across the floor. “Probably,” I said, as she blinked away shock and what I hoped was a concussion. “But my mother was civilized.”
I was on my feet after that scene. This book is pure excitement. I haven't had the rush to read the next scene, playing the just one chapter game at bedtime, this pure unadulterated joy—something childlike and inchoate of the pollution of reality—in a long time. And for that, this book gets the most resounding five stars....more
“Because,” she said, “when you’re scared but you still do it anyway, that’s brave.”
This book is for the scared girls who are brave. The st
“Because,” she said, “when you’re scared but you still do it anyway, that’s brave.”
This book is for the scared girls who are brave. The stubborn girls who stop to listen. The annoying girls who can be a pleasure. The exploring girls who learn to stop and smell the roses. The tasteful girls who try pineapple on pizza. The slow girls who get ready, set, run.
This book is for the brokenhearted girls who mend souls. The light girls who venture into darkness. The girls who hate school but know they need to learn. The girls who face death to keep alive. The selfish girls who learn to give.
This book is for the weird girls. The funny girls. The sad girls. The frightened girls. The gourmet girls. The kind girls. The social girls. The lonely girls. The friendly girls. The thoughtful girls. The othered girls.
Happy birthday Neil Gaiman. And thank you for writing a book that’s helping me remain brave even when I would rather get buttons sewn on my face than face whatever the future awaits. Today, I am become Coraline.
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09/Nov/2022: Review to come. I'm pretty sure anyone can guess what the rating will be.
Edit 21/Sept/2023: I saw tweet that theorised Mary Poppins came from the same place as Pennywise. What if Other Mother is from there as well...more
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