She just was, a very complex cascade of switches and logical inferences. Made so human he couldn’t mistake her for one, and yet made complex enough th
She just was, a very complex cascade of switches and logical inferences. Made so human he couldn’t mistake her for one, and yet made complex enough that he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t talking to something.
This isn't (just) sci-fi but also a chilling reminder of what our near future could look like....more
This could definitely be adapted into a full length novel - the bones are all there. I'd love to read it.This could definitely be adapted into a full length novel - the bones are all there. I'd love to read it....more
I wouldn't have minded another 100 pages about their relationship and increased world building.I wouldn't have minded another 100 pages about their relationship and increased world building....more
Organic ships have long been an interest of mine in science-fiction. This was an amazing short story of one such being and her passengers. I especiallOrganic ships have long been an interest of mine in science-fiction. This was an amazing short story of one such being and her passengers. I especially love that Saga, our main character who is a maintenance worker for the ship, watches an old television show called Andromeda Station that is thematically similar to DS9. It ties everything together for me....more
"SecUnit, do you have a name?” I wasn’t sure what she wanted. “No.” “It calls itself ‘Murderbot,’” Gurathin said. I opened my eyes and looked at him;
"SecUnit, do you have a name?” I wasn’t sure what she wanted. “No.” “It calls itself ‘Murderbot,’” Gurathin said. I opened my eyes and looked at him; I couldn’t stop myself. From their expressions I knew everything I felt was showing on my face, and I hate that. I grated out, “That was private."
I loved??? this??? The Murderbot absolutely reminds me of how many of us disaffected millennials feel: genderless, sexless, just wants to be left alone to watch their shows and read their books.
Reread: Honestly, I feel like I relate to Murderbot even more now that I know more and understand myself more. I hope that Alexander Skarsgard lives up to it....more
A solid 4.5 stars. Very smart, short comics, many of them about books or the elitist side of literature. I'll let them speak for themselves.
[image] [imA solid 4.5 stars. Very smart, short comics, many of them about books or the elitist side of literature. I'll let them speak for themselves.
Jacqs is offensive and ignorant and kind of an asshole. I loved him against my will. He is based on the character of Jayne from FireA solid 4.5 stars.
Jacqs is offensive and ignorant and kind of an asshole. I loved him against my will. He is based on the character of Jayne from Firefly, a hypermasculine man who is uneducated but has developed high survival skills because of his shitty, shitty life.
Jacqs makes homophobic and sexist remarks consistently, which is initially very off-putting. However, through the narrative, we see that much of his derogatory language is tangled in his ignorance of sexuality. For example: thinking that hypersexual women have sex with everyone , whereas (in this society) it is defined as someone requiring sexual intimacy as a way to know someone before entering into any sort of relationship. Jacqs feels singled out as undesirable when Allie Grah (a hypersexual navigator on his ship) doesn't want anything to do with him and it bothers him more than the usual standard rejection, of which he can seemingly take with ease. The same is true of men who enjoy sex with other men - his deprived childhood in the overrun refugee camps gained him many experiences of seeing men being truly awful to others sexually and it colored his viewpoint. Jacqs is not the type of person to seek out new information; if it happened in front of him, he takes it as rote fact.
Enter Zeke, his new commanding officer, who is a true war hero. Someone with prescence and experience, someone Jacqs can respect, as the only other frontline veteran on the ship he has been banished to. He is also pansexual, which confuses Jacqs, who has a pretty terrible image of such sexualities in his head. Zeke has a predatory grace that draws Jacqs in, even if he doesn't quite peg it as attraction at first. Once the ball gets rolling on Jacqs' introspection, we see that his prejudices were mostly personal dislike. He didn't hate Lt. Taylor because he was registed as homosexual, but because he was a whiny pissant. Once pushed into thinking about it, Jacqs looks beyond Zeke and realizes there are other men fitting his criteria who he would gladly, as he says, "knock boots with"(thankfully, that takes Turbulence out of the "gay-for-you" genre). Jacqs just has a competency kink, y'all.
Sidenote: there are several instances in Zeke and Jacqs' interactions where Zeke would look as if he wanted to say something, but think better of it. This usually happened when Jacqs laid out his honest opinion on something. I would love to see this whole story from Zeke's POV.
Oh, by the way, there's an war going on between humans and some creepy ass alien species. That's kinda important too, I guess. Turbulence truly had a bittersweet ending - Jacqs and Zeke were attempting to prepare themselves emotionally for their inevitable separation. They knew Zeke would be recalled to the front after his "officer experience" training was complete. Instead, (view spoiler)[the war ends (and not in humanity's favor) and they become well-treated slaves on a mining planet. (hide spoiler)] But hey! They're together, right?...more
3.5 stars, really. Chosen for ONTD's 2017 book challenge for January: a book that is being adapted into a movie or TV show in 2017.
We start off with o3.5 stars, really. Chosen for ONTD's 2017 book challenge for January: a book that is being adapted into a movie or TV show in 2017.
We start off with our nameless biologist recounting past events, vague details of the grueling nature of an expedition to the mysterious Area X and her three nameless colleagues (a surveyor, an anthropologist and a psychologist, all women). The narrator never seemed to question the many things about the expedition that were withheld by her mysterious government benefactors: the nature of the border between her "world" and Area X, what the devices that they all carried were or what they detected. She simply noted her ignorance and moved on. I found this incredibly odd, but thankfully that is addressed as the novel progressed and not left as a weird quirk of personality. (view spoiler)[Months and months of hypnotic suggestion built into their survival and weapons training. They were made into Bucky-like specialist soliders, of a sort, with activation words for compliance rather than aggression. The title comes from the tigger word to "help induce immediate suicide". (hide spoiler)]
I liked the eerieness; the atmosphere was a little distant in the beginning, but it builds slowly and subtly as the group finds a tunnel (or tower, as our narrator keeps insisting) that is not on the map. Things go downhill from there, in weird and horrifying ways. There were clues scattered throughout that led me to believe that I couldn't entirely trust what the biologist was recording - she even makes oblique mention of it in the end.
The words in the tower and the overall spoopy tone have a very Lovecraftian vibe: (view spoiler)[The fact that said tower is legit a living organism they're clambering around in doesn't hurt either. (hide spoiler)].
... forms that never could be writhe for the impatience of the few who have never seen or be seen...
I'm not sure how well this will translate to screen, but I look forward to seeing Jennifer Jason Leigh as the suspiciously sinister psychologist. However, the less said about Natalie Portman playing a self-contained, introverted scientist, the better.
Creepiest phrase found in Area X:
There shall be a fire that knows your name, and in the presence of the strangling fruit, its dark flame shall acquire every part of you.
Despite the lackluster space initiatives in the past two decades, there's already just a crapton of junk floating in orbit around the Earth. It's incrDespite the lackluster space initiatives in the past two decades, there's already just a crapton of junk floating in orbit around the Earth. It's incredibly plausible to me that astronaut garbagemen could be a thing in the future. Especially if we 1. finally allocate more money to our space programs and 2. keep up our wasteful human habits while doing so.
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The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh?
There's some really excellent technical art in this series, from the junker shuttles to the bits and bobs that make up their atmospheric suits.
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Yuri's Level Four Tragic Backstory gets me right in the feels. His wife (presumably) dies in a traumatic crash and he spends the next six years tirelessly looking for her body, likely floating in the wilds of space. He avoids moving on at all costs. Yuri serendipitously finds her talisman during the course of a routine mission and in an emotionally charged moment, he lets her go. He realized that while she's forever lost to him, he has found a new space family in Fi and Hachimaki ... lots of dust in my eyes, okay. It happens.
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P.S. Yuri and Hachimaki seemed to have switched hair colors starting in the third chapter?? Am I crazy? what heck...more