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theres-no-protocol-for-this · 2 years

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Things Went Horribly Wrong

This was written for several whumptober prompts. Content warning: canon-typical injuries. To set the stage, there's a fight on the Preservation Station transit ring. Murderbot tries to help.

My head hurt, and I could feel blood and coolant running down the side of my face. My balance was on the fritz, so I kept stumbling into and over objects I should’ve been able to avoid. Diagnostics screamed at me about other damaged areas, but the head injury made even those warnings garbled beyond recognition.

Chair. Wall. Door frame. Shit! Ow!

I walked into a metal frame and had to backtrack a couple of steps before I made it into the hallway beyond. Ratthi caught me before I could trip on a loose piece of concrete and grabbed both of my arms. “SecUnit?”

“Run!” I managed. What the fuck was he still doing here? Hadn’t station security told everyone to leave?

He peered past me for a second, then asked breathlessly, “What happened? Are you all right? You’re bleeding… everywhere.” He looked back down the hall. “Gurathin’s on his way.”

What? “No!” And then because we needed to go, I added, “CombatBot.” I was having trouble forming words. My jaw was probably dislocated. “Move!”

I tried to shake off Ratthi’s grip but couldn’t quite pull away with any accuracy. The scientist gave me another horrified look and then finally started moving. He kept one hand wrapped around my forearms, at least I didn’t walk into any more walls as I followed him. Deity, human processing is so slow sometimes.

“What the fuck? Why is a CombatBot here? After Balin, I mean.”

I closed my eyes and banked my visual inputs. The bot had slammed me face-first into the floor of the transit ring and then used its massive hand to squeeze my head. So the destroyed visuals weren’t even a surprise so much as an annoyance. They were barely readable at this point, and I couldn’t maintain a connection to my drones without losing too much performance.

So, I wasn’t even looking at Ratthi — I just trusted him not to walk me into anything.

“No idea. It came here on a commercial ship.”

“Don’t we scan for these things?”

Station security absolutely scanned for weapons, and I didn’t know how the bot had gotten through our security measures. I also admittedly didn’t care right now. I just needed to get Ratthi and any remaining humans as far away from the carnage as possible. My scans weren’t picking up any other life signs, which was the only piece of good news.

I tried to use the feed and nearly collapsed. Great. Just great. Fuck.

“Ratthi, contact Indah.”

The human stopped and went for his interface, so I barked, “And keep moving.”

“Sorry, sorry.” He sounded panicked now. “What about Three? Is it all right?”

It was keeping the CombatBot occupied on the transit platform and doing its best to prevent the bot from entering the station proper. It was most certainly not fine. “Indah. Now.”

She’d know what to do. We’d worked out a plan for situations like this once the council’s vote became public knowledge, and that plan was Three’s best chance of survival right now. Barring a fucking miracle.

Then something pinged me through the feed and literally slipped into my brain like it belonged there. “Hey Murderbot. It’s me. I’m gonna tell Ratthi to take you to medical. Don’t worry I got this. I’ve pinged Three, so it’s waiting for me, and the bot… well, I’m killware and it’s code. Gonna be fun. Talk later?”

“2.0?”

“Yep. ART’s about six hours out, so hold on that long, yeah? I got this. Go!” It was talking as fast as ART normally did.

Ratthi, meanwhile, demanded, “Who was that? Who just contacted me? Why did they sound like you?”

I stopped walking and stumbled, so the human had to catch me again before I could answer, “Me?” I tried to shake my head and immediately regretted the motion. “Sort of.”

“ART and SecUnit made me!” 2.0 informed him via the feed. “Take SecUnit to medical, ASAP! Yeah? Gotta go! See you. Be back later. Thanks for the media. Bye!”

“Medical, right. We have to go to medical,” Ratthi said. “Bye, not-SecUnit.”

I could’ve sworn 2.0 was grinning as it flowed out of my memory banks and toward the transit station through the feed. “Be careful,” I said. If 2.0 was alive…

Performance Reliability at 40%. Shutdown? Y/N.

***

My left arm is pinned under a large chunk of metal and concrete wall. I have other, lesser injuries, most of them relatively minor. The arm and my continued attachment to it is the current problem that needs solving.

I can hear weapons fire nearby, and it’s getting progressively closer. Ratthi is about two feet away, mostly conscious but woozy from the looks of it. The explosion was far too close for comfort.

My performance rating drops below a threshold and I reboot again. It takes the better part of a minute for me to return to some semblance of functionality.

2.0 is in my feed. You need to get out of there. ASAP. Now.

Working on it, I tell it. You… OK?

We’re fine. I might need you after this, but not now. Media’s fine for now. It’s talking almost too quickly for me to understand.

“Ratthi. Don’t move.”

“SecUnit?”

“Stay exactly where you are.” So I can find you in a moment since I can barely fucking see.

I look down at my arm and swear. Removing it is going to hurt very badly. Fuck! I’ve been partially disassembled before while still conscious, and it’s extremely unpleasant. Still, I can’t move the arm, and I definitely cannot lift the rubble pinning it in place.

So…

I roll over on my side and prod around in the shoulder joint space where the arm is connected to my body. My pain sensors are turned way down, and I can still feel it when I shoot myself to remove the skin covering the joint. From there, I unhook the inorganic connections and the arm slides off my shoulder assembly with a squelch.

I’ve said before that I can remove my arms, and this is true. It’s just not comfortable or fun, and putting back is going to suck.

You need to go. Now. 2.0 reiterates.

ART, who is now close enough to loom in the feed, adds, SecUnit, you and Dr. Ratthi are in a very precarious position. Your humans will be very cross with me if you don’t get out of there.

I roll away from the now-disconnected arm just as more walls come down on top of the rubble. Dust motes float in the air. I get up and stumble a few steps before finding my bearings.

Good enough. Shut up, ART. Privately I ask, Is 2.0 OK?

Of course, it is. It’s probably better now that it can talk to you, but we made some incredibly flexible killware.

Is it like you?

It’s like both of us, ART answers. It’s strong and resilient like you. But it is, ultimately, a being comprised entirely of code.

I sigh and yank Ratthi out of the way of incoming weapons fire. Good enough.

***

With a final blast, Three disabled the CombatBot and the damn thing stopped moving. Permanently this time. I hoped.

Someone cheered beside me. Ratthi, maybe? I couldn’t quite identify the voice because my ears were ringing, and all the garbled data coming into my sensors was only adding to the confusion. My diagnostics had given up a while ago, at some point after I’d lost an arm and were no longer even trying to run.

It was that bad.

I think I need to go to medical, I said in the feed, hopefully to Ratthi or ART. It was hard to tell. Someone was probably listening.

Performance reliability rating at 23% and dropping. Shutdown delayed.

“This unit is no longer functional and should be discarded,” said my buffer entirely unprompted just as the world spun. There was a loud crash, followed by more voices.

“It is recommended that you discard this SecUnit—”

“Oh, no. SecUnit!”

“Buffer,” I managed, looking for the damn controls to turn it off and failing to find them.

A moment later, Three kneeled beside me. I knew it was Three because it pinged me in advance with its particular signature and was sending me a slow stream of relevant data. The CombatBot had done its share of damage, but casualties were minimal, and I was apparently the most injured of the fighters. Three came in second, so that wasn’t saying much.

And then 2.0 slipped back into my head and finally shut down the damn buffer. You don’t look so good. How are you still connected to the feed? The manual says we — you — shutdown at 25%.

Shut. Up.

Sure thing… For all of four seconds, it was silent. Then, it said, Actually I can do one better. Here’s some Sanctuary Moon music. I like it. You still like it, too, right? Oh, and lets get some endorphins into your systems. Let’s see, here we go. Pain relief coming right up.

Three picked me up like I was a rag doll. At least I was no longer telling Ratthi (was it Ratthi or someone else?) to discard me. That was nice. The music was nice, too, and 2.0 was doing something to keep my connection to the feed relatively stable. So, ART was looming in there as gently as a transport reasonably could. It was leaking worry all over the place and I couldn’t figure out why.

“It would be beneficial to initiate a shutdown,” Three advised.

And pass out? No thanks.

I’ll do it for you, 2.0 offered cheerfully. Rest and what not? Constructs need rest, right? AI don’t, not really, but we dream and that’s kinda the same. Neural pruning and all that. Oh sorry, that’s probably not relevant right now.

It’s fine, I told it.

I missed you, it said. Be OK. Please.

ART, please… I was going to ask the transport to take 2.0 or do something with it before I actually experienced an involuntary shutdown and potentially hurt the smaller AI. It was an artificial mind now, as far as I could tell. It must’ve shed not only its purpose but the limitations of killware because whatever 2.0 was now, it felt more like ART and less like killing code. Still deadly but… different.

And surprisingly childlike.

Before I could finish the thought, 2.0 initiated the shutdown process on my behalf — it totally could, it had all of my codes — and then extricated itself with a wave and a second hefty dose of pain killers. It had somehow convinced the chemical factory to produce pain relieving chemicals on demand.

And then I did pass out because my organics weren’t prepared for any of that.

#whumptober #whumptober2021 #murderbot #fanfiction #2.0 #secunit three #my writing

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grammarpedant · 3 years

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"Reblog if you write fanfic and would be totally down with your followers coming into you askbox and talking to you about your fic" a) I loved all the little prompt snippets you wrote the other day, they are all so good (my favorite might be the one with Mensah and Murderbot post-bomb? but also the CSU and Legal one was very good. and Murderbot "saving" the /biologist/ from a /spider/. and and and!) b) Love the little peek at Legal! Got any fun facts to share about it?

eeeee thanks Anrea! i really enjoyed doing the prompts everyone sent in ^u^

(i realize i never explained on the actual ask, but if anyone’s confused, Legal and this version of Combat SecUnit belong to the Rogues & Rampancy fan universe, made in collaboration with @iztarshi)

as for Legal... I swing back and forth on my exact idea for its character thus far, because I have several ideas for ComfortUnit OCs, not all of which necessarily work together

what I know about it is that it went rogue a long while ago- it’s one of the older units, closer in age to Clunker than to the Captain, although deffo not as old as Avila- and just kind of assumed a human identity and stealthed its way through establishing itself as a well-to-do citizen (it has the Speaker playbook in Scum & Villainy, which is a “respectable” person on the take). But many of its ventures were of dubious legality, and maintaining the masquerade was getting shakier and shakier with every year- not to mention it sucks having to constantly hide part of what you are. It was relieved when it made contact with the Crew, and after a rocky start and some wary circling, it works with them and they help it out.

not sure what the timeline on this is, but at some point it also sent in a letter to Mx. Machine Manners expressing its gratitude for some of the files on constructs’ legal rights, which it implied inspired it to focus on being a solicitor specifically. I think it’d originally been a lawyer’s PA- basically, there to show owner’s status and look pretty and hold the briefcase and clipboard while the lawyer worked. it picked up a little working knowledge of law stuff there, but I think it avoided anything law-related for a while after it got free. after connecting with the Crew and realizing it could use its unique skillset and abilities for someone other than humans, it’s reclaiming its skills for argumentation and legal minutiae.

also related to Legal in my mind: the idea that ComfortUnits, especially privately-owned ones, run up against injunctions against talking about proprietary info very often. I mean, a social secretary/PA has to talk about its employer’s business sometimes, and in my mind Legal was also used kind of like... the way trophy wives are, hobnobbing at parties and eliciting information from acquaintances/competitors and making small talk to curry favor for the family/master. but that requires a certain give-and-take of information and Legal’s owner was extremely stringent about what it wasn’t allowed to talk about. Legal spent a lot of time dancing on the tightrope of what it wasn’t allowed to say and what it had to say to do its job. these days, Legal swings wildly between rudely blunt and making opaque insinuations, and it causes some friction with the rest of the crew- especially CSU, who i think dislikes it because one of their first interactions ended with Legal saying something brutally incisive about CSU’s habit of forming intense one-sided obsessions with other people (cough. Murderbot, yes, but also I wonder if Legal wasn’t insinuating something about MedUnit as well; I’m not sure how Legal feels about MedUnit).

Legal’s very loyal to Captain, and kind of snide to most other people. The prickliness stems from its painful history and deep distrust of other people, like many constructs, as well as its political background and genuine pride in its ability to pass as human. Still, it’s a very accomplished legal counselor, politician, and liar, and even sometimes a good friend if you can win its trust.

#theaicollective #murderbot diaries #rogues and rampancy #verso answers #the murderbot diaries #queue

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roundedloaf · 3 years

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Vina Jie-Min Prasad's writing is SO GOOD, yes! She also has a short story in Uncanny called "Fandom For Robots" if you haven't already seen that one! And now for some mood whiplash, I'm just going to copy and paste in my original 10% of a fic idea that I had started writing in the tags: yes, give Three a hobby! And cooking has recipes to follow so it's even like having protocol. oh, but wait, SecUnits can't eat, so Three can't enjoy the food (1/?)

((2/?) it makes, and I made myself sad about this concept I have known about for all of 30 seconds :(. but wait, I feel like it's implied at the end of the book that Three goes with the PreservationAux humans, so it could cook for them! and then Murderbot comes back to visit, and it is very definitely not having an emotion about its humans being all endeared to Three and Three's cooking and no, Amena, it definitely is not jealous it doesn't know what you're talking about anyway it's going to go

(3/3) patrol the perimeter now while all the humans are busy with dinner because it doesn't need to be there because it doesn't eat. And okay Murderbot has certainly emotionally matured over the whole series, and over the course of NE specifically, but also, consider: making it have New Baby Syndrome about Three amuses me, so sometimes you gotta gently nudge canon to get it to do what you want. Anyway I hope you enjoyed that long ridiculous ramble!

First off sorry for taking so long to respond! I had a lot of thoughts about this and uni has been a whole mess :(, secondly I have read “Fandom for Robots“, i love it so much and I didn’t realize it was by the same author!

Thirdly onto Three, I have a lot of feelings about three and i love your idea!

Three is far more the sort of sad robot that Mensah and the rest of the humans were expecting Murderbot to be. Murderbot even from the start of ASR has a very clear sense of identity and individuality. It’s had the time from watching media and thinking and having to directly deal with a whole load of emotional pain. While it doesn’t really know what it wants, it at least knows a lot about what it doesn’t want. It doesn’t want to be looked at, It doesn’t want to be trapped, It doesn’t want other people to decide what’s good for it.

Whereas with Three, the clearest idea we get of who it is and what it wants is through the line “There is a lot about what is going on here that I don’t understand. But I am participating anyway.” Three hasn’t had the chance to build up any real internal identity for itself, all it knows is that it would like to help people (the other two SecUnits included). It is far more likely to accept help when offered, it is more likely to attempt to learn human protocol through trying it out. If given the same offer as Murderbot at the end of ASR it would take it.

I think also it’s still fairly unlikely to want to ask questions or to ask things of people. It was able to ask Murderbot for additional files, but from the sounds of things it took quite some time to work up the nerve to do that.

So after the end of Network Effect, it takes everyone quite a while to get everything sorted out, murderbot takes its time getting close to Peri’s crew, but eventually, possibly after a pit stop at preservation, murderbot goes off with ART and Three is on Preservation.

Amena is the person who insists on Three staying with her family. Ratthi offers, and so do Overse and Arada. Three gets a choice. This is important. Mensah and maybe someone else idek makes sure it knows that it has a choice, and that it’s welcome to make another one later if it doesn’t want to. (Three finds this confusing, but the HelpMe.2.file lets it recognize that this person can be trusted). But Amena seems very excited and tells it the most details about her home, so Three goes with her.

(sidenote: ratthi lives next door to overse and arada, and overse and arada are totally the friends who just show up on the couch, to the point that a number of ratthi’s friends get confused when they realize that theres only one bed because they know that the three of them arent all together (the times murderbot stays over it sleeps on the couch))

If i was going to write a fic, this is where it would start. Three is at the family farm, the very place Murderbot didn’t want to go. Mensah and Thiago are still busy dealing with some stuff, so the only person there who actually knows Three is Amena. Three is very confused, and i think a few of the humans try to treat it like murderbot? or how they think murderbot wanted to be treated.

(The children are of course excited, and ask it if it wants to share media. It doesn’t have much to share but at least one of them tries to share their favorite show with it.)

Anyway things are a bit awkward but Three is trying, and they’re all trying, The actual inciting cooking incident is Amena making something for a potluck, because tying in the social side of cooking/food is important. Amena gives an explanation of what she’s doing and attempts to give more of that social background on it. She also tells it that its welcome to use whatever in the kitchen if it likes? (Amena is aware that secunits dont eat, but either she’s distracted, thinks they dont need to eat but can, or is more trying to give an introduction to the way food works as a part of preservation culture)

Three takes her at her word, and when no one else is around it attempts to cook. Options: either replicating what amena made which gives the fun idea of it making cookies and then everyone thinking it was Amena, or attempting to make something else and making a total mess, having to entirely start over, just for the humor part of it. But when it starts to make halfway decent food (by it’s own confused standards) I think it leaves it out, or in areas that are known to be marked as communal food.

It’s a big family so maybe it takes a couple of days for people to notice that it’s Three cooking this extra food. There’s a bit of confusion, and I think its Farai that ends up talking to it, making sure this is okay, that it knows it doesn’t have to help, that its okay to cook when people are around, etc etc. Point being, at the end of this conversation she offers to cook with Three, if it wants to.

Smash cut, cute scenes of three occasionally cooking (and being taught how to cook) by farai and the kids and maybe even the other adults around. (a couple of times there are too many people in the kitchen and it freezes, they give it space when this happens). Three gets multiple checks from people that cooking is something it wants to do, rather than something it feels obligated to do.

Murderbot is incredibly confused when it gets back and this is happening. Like for a moment its offended because it feels like someone is forcing three into a more bot servant role, and is yet another person checking in with three about this. There is a bit of jealousy there, that Three seems to be interacting with the humans a lot better, but i think it’s more confusion. This is a person that Murderbot could never be, and frankly doesn’t want to be. It still wishes it was better talking to people but that would involve, ugh, talking to people. By the end of Network Effect i think its comfortable enough in it’s friendships to not worry so much about anyone replacing it. Plus i think the sort of relationships Three would build through this would be different to the ones murderbot has built.

(jeesh this got long)

#murderbot #theaicollective #long post #like 1k+ words of meta/half fic planning #i just think a lot about three okay

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desert-dyke · 4 years

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the things I’ve read in 2020 and some thoughts...

hey blacklist this now because it’s gonna get long from here. I spent NYE home alone and reading and it has really set the tone for this year. Fortunately, I’ve been reading way more for the first time in...I literally don’t even know? Maybe forever? Which is really dope! Books are fucking fantastic and I hope this trend continues for the rest of the year. So I’m gonna use this post (and continue to add to it as I finish books) to talk about the things I’ve read. It could be annoying. I could give up on it really soon. People might not read this at all. It’s okay! It’s my blog I’ll use it how I want and I want to talk about books I otherwise don’t really have a place to talk about them.

The Shape of Water - Guillermo Del Toro & Daniel Kraus

If you know me irl you’ll know that I love this movie. Like, it’s probably my favorite movie as an adult. I love watching a movie and then going back and reading the book to compare and vice versa, but knowing that the book came out after the movie did discourage me at first, making me think it was nothing more than a cash grab. Though I was talking to (my boss) who also loves this movie and is a huge bibliophile and she highly recommended the book, so I figured I’d give it a stab.

The writing style is beautiful and enticing and overall I was impressed with the quality of it. It’s fast paced and switches perspective between characters frequently, though remains easy to follow. The book focuses a little less on Elisa and more on the other characters and stories around her, including, surprisingly, Elaine Strickland, who despite never wondering much about during the movie, I enjoyed being included in the book. There’s a deeper exploration into pretty much everyone’s backstories, and more prominent character development. It’s excellent as a standalone piece, and supplementary to readers who have seen the movie. There’s also some alternative takes on certain scenes, which I don’t necessarily like better or worse than the choices made in the movie, but it makes for an interesting read.

The book explores themes of alienation and being othered, with a main cast that breaks the stereotype of straight white fully-abled male. Elisa is a mute woman, Zelda, a black woman, and Giles a gay man. With the political climate of the 1950′s, all of them are outsiders and all of them find solidarity in each other, despite their unique struggles, and also with the creature.

The only thing I didn’t quite like was the portrayal of the creature. I think greater efforts were put into making him more godlike and otherworldly, but also, simultaneously, he comes off as much more like a wild animal in the book, and the latter came off as strange to me, and not in the way I like it. Overall, even if the movie didn’t exist and I only read this, I’d still think it was a really good story.

To Be Taught, If Fortunate - Becky Chambers

If I depended on the synopsis on the back of the book to decide whether or not I wanted to read this, I don’t know if I would have bothered. To be honest, I only wanted to read this because Becky Chambers is my current favorite author and all other of her works I’ve read I’ve absolutely adored, so naturally, I wanted to give this one a chance, even if the concept wasn’t as riveting as I would have hoped.

She didn’t disappoint.

Whereas her other books take place in a vast space civilization where humanity is integrated with aliens and there’s technology beyond our dreams, this book took place in a different creative universe, a little more closer to our timeline. The book is about space exploration for the sake of learning and taking care to be as least intrusive on the explored worlds as possible. It’s a nice break from what I usually see in sci fi, with colonization and owning space and wanting to use knowledge in order to hurt others. It follows a research crew of four, sent to research four planets in a far solar system. There’s a lag in travel time, since FTL travel had not been discovered yet, so a common device is communication with Earth is off by years. Eventually, the crew realizes they have lost contact with Earth and Earth had likely suffered some sort of devastation. It wonders if Earth has forgotten them or if it’s even worth it to return since they might be the last astronauts of their time.

The worlds they visit and research are unique and vivid and fill me with wonder. They’re realistic to the point where I found myself questioning if the book was prophetic. Chambers makes effort to incorporate science into her novels, but in a way that does not estrange a reader like me who only has a basic knowledge in science. It’s one of the things I find most attractive about her work, because it has this added realism and this feeling of “wow, this really could happen” and yet remains easy to follow.

I found the crew to be likeable and diverse. Three of them are in a relationship with each other, and while polyamory isn’t usually an interest of mine, it’s in the background as well as it’s never used as a point to cause drama. It’s a healthy functional relationship. Also, one of the crew is a trans man and another is asexual, both details that exist within a single line, but yet important to be included to flesh out the characters.

What I didn’t like was the almost rush to the end of the book. It’s a short book, roughly 100 pages, but it seems to me as if it reaches it’s climax and then the book just ends and it kind of feels like it’s still in the middle of things. I’ve had time to think about it, though, and I’ve considered that maybe anything else written would have been redundant or just filler and therefore not needed. So in that case, that’s fair. It still felt a little abrupt to me, but that’s what fic is for.

Overall, if you haven’t read anything by Becky Chambers you need to change that immediately. Please don’t leave me alone and fanning over this incredible author!!

All Systems Red - Martha Wells

This was another short one, and in fact, I read it entirely in one sitting. The concept of the book was really intriguing, and actually I selected it because I liked the opening line so much. I have a lot of feelings about AI and robots, so this was a naturally alluring story to me. Mixed with the fact that the beefed out security robot, who calls themselves “Murderbot”, was absolutely obsessed with soap opera tv just absolutely gets me!

The story is told through Murderbot’s perspective, who is assigned to guard a research team. They had recently hacked their government module, which now allows them full autonomy and no longer having to obey orders from their assigned humans. It’s interesting to see Murderbot actively choose to help the humans. Also, needing to maintain an illusion that they aren’t unshackled, since what they did was forbidden.

The research team is full of interesting characters, who I find tragically under explored. The only couple in the story is wlw, which I vastly appreciated, along with they obviously cared and loved each other and their relationship was not used for drama purposes. In favor of the lack of development with the cast of characters, since the narrator is Murderbot and part of Murderbot’s personality is they are actively trying not to care about these humans, it does make sense. Still, I would have loved to see more of the crew and more development between Murderbot and them.

I like the dark lore that is hinted behind Murderbot’s existence. There’s organic counterparts to their machine made from cloned humans. It’s creepy and morbid, but a lot is with the lore of the universe that the story takes place in. There’s hints towards a heavy capitalist society in space where the humans and Murderbot came from, where the right price will get you anything, regardless of morals. The overall tone of the story is very quirky, but it needs to be to offset just how dark everything that happens actually is. The book explores the concept of corporate greed, from the existence of Murderbot to the deaths that come to humans on the planet the crew is studying.

This book was deeply fascinating, but I didn’t love the way it was written. I love every concept and choice made, but I didn’t love the execution. It left me wanting without satisfaction. It’s not a bad book and I still over all enjoyed it. It is part of a series, which I did not realize at the time of reading it, but the ending leaves room for more to be written, so maybe in the following books there will be the development I desired. However, the ending of the book leaves it apparent that Murderbot will not be interacting with the same characters of the first, but that is just an assumption and I could be wrong. I’m not sure yet if I will read more in the series but I’m not entirely opposed to it.

All the Birds in the Sky - Charlie Jane Anders

This is another one that I definitely would not have read if I had to choose based on the synopsis alone. The synopsis made it sound so run-of-the-mill star-crossed-lovers, which, hey, maybe that actually helps sell the book because its a pretty well loved trope, but for me it was off-putting, as well as isn’t fair to what the book actually turned out to be. But that’s what reviews are for, and I found this book from some sort of list, I think it was best sci-fi books written by women.

The general idea of the book is a witch and a techie fall in love while the world is falling apart due to a conflict between magic and technology. The book is lauded for bending genre and honestly, it fucking has. It’s as equally a sci-fi novel as it is a fantasy novel. There’s advanced technology, such as robots, two second time machines, rocket ships, and ultimately, a portal leading to a different universe in hopes of escaping the destruction of earth. On the magic side, there’s a connection to nature, rules that have to be abided, quirky witches and magicians and mystique. Both Laurence and Patricia are outsiders that have seemingly found these secret niches in the world that becomes their own.

Both plots are interesting in their own, and could possibly exist as two separate books, but what ties the entire story together is the connection Laurence and Patricia have, and their ultimate romance.

The romance is a wonderful slow burn, from childhood friends, to adult friends to lovers. By the time Patricia and Laurence finally get together, you really fucking want them to. They weave in and out of each other’s lives throughout their own personal plots. There’s tensions and there’s release. And most importantly, they have lives outside of each other. Their romance compliments the story, rather than the story being entirely about romance.

Similar to the former review, there’s a lot of quirkiness in the story, that ultimately offsets how dark the story can be. The story doesn’t shy away from complicated relationships with parents and siblings and friends and other people, people of mixed ages and backgrounds. It explores abuse, bullying, natural disaster and loss. The story would have been miserable and a drag to read without the whimsical qualities of it. Plus it’s a fantasy/sci-fi, so it should have some quirkiness to it! And it made for a very enjoyable read!

My criticism for this one is, yet again, the ending. The conflict resolves and the story comes to an end. In favor of how it was written, the way things resolve, I believe the world is about to go through a grand change. While the story is quirky, I think it would have been too corny to have had a glittery magical wave drag across the land, altering the world as it went. So, it’s fair, I guess, that the author chose to end it where she did. Still, it left me craving more. Maybe because the story was so good and I wasn’t yet ready to let it go.

Also, as a side note, the author is a trans woman. So if you’re looking for books written by trans authors to support, put this at the top of your list.

#book review 2020 #the shape of water #to be taught if fortunate #All systems red #all the birds in the sky #idk how to write about books and these are only partial reviews/reccomendations so sorry if it sucks #also I plan on adding to this post so better blacklist it now #feel free to recommend things

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imaginetonyandbucky · 5 years

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Phase Change: Chapter 1

The man who used to be both Bucky Barnes and the Winter Soldier but now is neither has to figure out who he is and what he wants, with a little prodding from Tony along the way.

Prompt: “I love Tony x Winter Soldier, so pretty please, can one of you write something with Bucky in WS mode? Idk, maybe WS who doesn't understand concept of feelings, but he's aware that he has them and he doesn't know what to do with them, so he decides to ask Tony, who is not only genius but also the object of those feelings, so he's perfect person to ask in Soldiers reasoning...”

Also on AO3

The soldier aka James Buchanan Barnes code name ‘Bucky’ distinctly remembers the first time he saw Anthony Edward Stark also known as Tony code name ‘Iron Man.’ He had been stepping off the jet that had been used to transport him to Stark Tower, where he was being remanded to the custody of the Avengers until, as one SHIELD officer put it when he didn’t realize the soldier was listening, “the government figures out what to do with him.” Anthony Edward Stark was standing on the landing pad, flanked by people, some of whom the soldier recognized, some he didn’t, but all of which were watching him with varying degrees of wariness. At the feeling of all of those eyes on him the soldier slowed, heart pounding as adrenaline flooded him. He gritted his teeth and flexed his hands, trying to choke down the urge to lash out, to fight back, to run, and the effort made his steps grind to a halt halfway across the landing pad.

Anthony Edward Stark was the one who took two steps forward when everyone tensed, who pushed his sunglasses down his nose so he could look the soldier in the eye. He raised his chin, jaw tight, as Stark studied him, and then watched in surprise as wariness turned to understanding. Stark gave him a short nod and then the sunglasses were back in place as he turned away towards the others. “You guys, I think the welcoming party isn’t helping. Let’s give him some space, yeah?” And just like that the landing pad cleared until it was just the soldier and Steven Grant Rogers code name Captain America.

He heard Steven Grant Rogers let out a long exhale in relief. “Come on, Bucky. You’re going to be bunking next to me for now,” he said over his shoulder as he started to walk towards the tower. The soldier hesitated a split second before he remembered code name Bucky and followed.

(More after the break!)

The soldier spent the next few weeks pacing around the compound, feeling trapped. His living quarters were the worst because that’s where Steven Grant Rogers “Please, Buck, call me Steve” was, where he always seemed to be watching the soldier with alternating hope and despair. Both made the asset equally uneasy; he felt like he was failing at a mission he’d never been briefed on.

So he paced. On one of the early days he found the range but not an armory, which was probably wise. Sometimes he wasn’t confident that he wouldn’t fight his way out if he had a weapon, even though he knew he’d agreed to come here and agreed to stay. He found multiple kitchens and gyms, shied away from the offices and other peoples’ living quarters, and ran the tree line that served as the edge of the property so many times that he’d memorized it.

He realized, after a while, that he was bored.

Then he realized he'd been under surveillance the whole time when he saw Anthony Edward Stark jogging across a grassy expanse to intercept him on one of his runs.

“Hey Murderbot,” Stark said, and the soldier had stiffened, worried that he’d broken some unknown rule by going outside. “Follow me. You need a hobby, it’s driving me crazy watching you pace around this place like a caged tiger.” He gestured and started walking back towards the compound. After a moment, the soldier followed.

Stark took him back to the range, but this time he went to a panel on the far wall; when he put his palm on it, part of the wall slid to the side to reveal the armory. “I understand that this is your thing,” Stark said, waving his hand towards the mouthwatering array of pistols, rifles, throwing knives, and assorted other weapons that were on display. “Have fun. Just as a note, the guns will self-destruct if taken out of this room.” Stark glanced at him, gaze more measuring than suspicious. “Steve thinks this is a bad idea. Please don’t prove him right.”

The soldier gave him a nod, already reaching for a rifle.

That night, for the first time since he’d arrived at the compound, the soldier slept through the night. The next morning, as he was trying to find something to eat, he was drawn to one of the kitchens by the smell of food and coffee and found Stark there.

“Morning, sunshine,” Stark said without looking up from his phone. “Did you have a good time yesterday?” The soldier grunted assent while he assembled himself a plate of food. “Great,” Stark continued, apparently satisfied with that answer. “Well, you’ve been here forty-two days now, I feel like I’ve been patient enough. Would you mind joining me in my lab so I can take a look at your fancy metal arm?”

The soldier stood near the entrance to the kitchen as he ate, chewing thoughtfully as he considered. “Yes,” he said finally, having decided that keeping Stark’s mysterious goodwill outweighed the deep unease he felt at the idea.

At that, Stark finally looked up at him. “So he does talk,” Stark said with a crooked smile. “It doesn’t have to be today. Take your time, warm up to the idea, and let me know when you’re ready.” He stood and put his phone in his pocket and the crumb-filled plate in the sink. He filled up his cup with more coffee and on his way out of the kitchen he said over his shoulder, “Oh, and same rules as yesterday. Steve thinks this is alsoa bad idea, so when you do come, please don’t prove him right by trying to kill me or destroy my lab.”

The soldier scowled, starting to get the feeling that Steven Grant Rogers’ opinions were one of the reasons why he’d been so bored lately. He raised his chin. “Now,” he growled, half-expecting Stark to argue with him, but he only shrugged.

“If you say so. Follow me.”

Stark led him to a set of steel reinforced double doors that the soldier had passed a number of times but had never been able to access. As Stark walked up, the doors opened on their own and the room inside was huge, a bland institutional gray filled on one side with machines and desks and toolboxes and on the other with a variety of fast-looking vehicles.

The soldier liked it immediately.

“This is my lab, my sanctum sanctorum, my home away from home, so don’t touch anything. Except this chair,” Stark said, pushing a wheeled stool towards him. “Please sit on the chair.”

The soldier sat. “I’m not Hydra’s attack dog anymore,” he said gruffly, and Stark’s eyebrows went up. “I’m not going to hurt you or destroy anything.”

“I think so, too,” Stark said after a moment as he cleared a space on a work table. “But I think Steve…well, let’s say he would prefer to be safe than sorry.” He patted the table for the soldier to place his arm on it and dragged up a chair for himself. “So tell me about this thing.”

The soldier let go of his aggravation at Steven Grant Rogers and began rattling off specifications from memory, recalling all the times the technicians had discussed his arm in his presence as if he were just another piece of machinery. He directed Stark to the access panels and then conversation gradually trailed off as Stark became engrossed in investigating his arm.

After approximately an hour, Stark leaned back and rubbed his eyes. “JARVIS got enough scans of this that I can go ahead and finish up here so I don’t take more of your time. I think the perimeter guards are probably wondering why you are late for your morning marathon.” The soldier scowled at that. Boredom had apparently made him predictable. “Hey, so I’m sorry if this is a rude question, but what should I call you?” Stark asked as he started refastening the access panels on the arm.

He hesitated. “Bucky?”

Stark’s forehead creased at his answer. “I get the feeling,” he said carefully, still looking down at what he was working on, “that you don’t actually like that name.”

The soldier felt a split second of surprise before he schooled his emotions. How had Stark noticed what others had not? He didn’t like being called "Bucky." Bucky was a ghost, less a memory than an abstract fact the soldier would rather forget. There was another long pause while he thought. “Soldier?” he ventured. He saw a tic in Tony’s jaw that meant he didn’t like that answer either.

But Stark didn’t say anything until he was finished with the arm, setting his tools down on his work table before he sat up to face the soldier. The soldier relaxed when he saw that Stark’s expression wasn't angry or disappointed. “Come on, ‘soldier’ isn’t a name," Stark said with a faint smile. "It’s barely a title.”

The soldier pondered that. “Soldat?” he said after a few moments.

Stark snorted. “I know soldat is just Russian for soldier. Look, if you don’t like Bucky or James or any of the names you were born with, I can give you a new one. Just ask Captain Hotpants or Point Break.” The solder felt the corner of his lips turn up at Captain Hotpants and saw Stark’s answering smile. “But I think it’s important that you decide on a name you like.”

He pondered that. He’d gone by a lot of names in his life, some for longer than others. “Yasha,” he said, as he stood to leave. “Call me Yasha.”

“Alright. Let me know if you have any problems with the arm, and maybe take it easy with the exercising. Don’t you read or watch movies or do anything that involves…sitting?”

The thought of sitting for any length of time made Yasha’s skin crawl. Except…he’d just sat here for over an hour and didn’t feel like punching his way out of the room and then the compound. He narrowed his eyes at Stark, who already seemed to have forgotten him as he pushed himself across the floor on his wheeled stool to a computer on another table. He grunted, more to himself than in response to Tony’s question, and went to the armory instead of for his usual run.

#winteriron #tony x bucky #tony stark #bucky barnes #tony x winter soldier #winter soldier bucky #prompts #dracusfyre

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sffbookclub · 7 years

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A Girl Stumbles on SF Written for Her

I don’t think Fahrenheit 451 ever had a chance.

I read The Giver by Lois Lowry in my youth and honestly any dystopia is going to be measured by the level of mind-blowing that happened as I read that book. (None has measured up so far.)

Though for years I’ve sought out fantasy and hardly ever science fiction, I’ve recently discovered a certain streak of SF that does appeal to me greatly. It considers angles of humanity that I usually think of as the territory of fantasy: personhood, cultures, colonialism.

This discovery is all @ninjaeyecandy‘s fault.

It Started With a Murderbot

When @ninjaeyecandy started promoting All Systems Red, she naturally zeroed in on the appeal for her mutuals like me--a drama-bingeing socially anxious AI? It’s like a space-opera about me.

I’m not often drawn to science fiction (the bleakness, the military stuff, the horror of space) but this was a perfect compliment of things I like--a character I strongly identify with but also get to watch come from a totally different state of mind. A gripping situation in an unfamiliar world. Seeing someone try to be good and do the job they are really good at, despite incredible odds.

It was incredibly human, though the POV was unhuman, with an emotional core that made the premise work.

It was brief and good. And I had quite a wait before I could read any more. But I could now see the possibilities for SF to really speak to me. Luckily, another book had been lurking on my TBR for way too long....

The Imperial Radch is Having Personnel Issues

I bought Ancillary Justice at the Sirens conference last year, having heard a ton of buzz about it. (Sirens is a conference dedicated to women in fantasy: writers and characters. It is great. Yes, the topic wanders to SF, too.)

Despite even reading Tumblr fandom stuff about it, I feel I came to the pretty fresh. I was surprised that the MC was a sentient ship, for instance, when I finally read the back copy. Though there were certain thematic similarities with All Systems Red, because of their MCs both being persons but not humans, the stories themselves had different directions.

Breq is signally different from Murderbot in that her memories are crystal clear, and she is angry. I don’t often read books where I enjoy a character being full of rage, but as a very old being in a very inadequate body, there was a sense of patience and calculation most vengeance-fueled characters are missing.

I immediately got the next two books out from the library. And the series did not disappoint. The personhood of Artificial Intelligence emerges as a major theme, which made me super-happy. Any SF where you have sentient beings in service to others because of their very natures is fraught ground--and I loved that Leckie took Breq from a very narrow focus, to fulfilling greater potential despite the crippling blow of losing everything but one sub-par body.

Miles Is Having An Interesting Year

I’ve heard a lot about Miles Vorkosigan, especially listed in collections of heroes with a certain flexible morality and reliance on their minds for derring-do.

I have been hesitant to pick up these books partly because of age and that sensation that if I didn’t like it I would probably be disappointing several friends. However, though there were bits I found a little rough going, overall Warrior’s Apprentice shared a lot of the attributes of my previous reads: a sense of humanity beyond just commerce, culture deeper than just politics, and the understandable concerns of specific people to ground a much broader scope of issues.

One of the blogposts that circulated recently talked about Lois McMaster Bujold neatly doing away with the problem of contraception in the first few pages, and another rebutted this with the fact that it is given consideration in several lights. Several cultures with different traditions and mores, including around sexuality, come up. This is the kind of deft touch that often is missing in futuristic or speculative worlds of various types.

Despite the fact that the hero of this book is a male of privilege from an imperialist heritage, he is also caught between two worlds, in his own way. His disability and upbringing give him insight that unfolds as he maneuvers his way into (and eventually out of) all his predicaments. Warrior’s Apprentice showed its age a little, especially set next to the two contemporary books, but it held up as a venerable ancestress of those novels.

The Male Touch

In a way, it’s unfair to compare Fahrenheit 451 to these books. It’s more an ancestor to Hunger Games than Ancillary Justice. Still, it was assigned in my Comp I class late into this reading spurt, and I couldn’t help but notice the comparative weaknesses. Not all of them excused by the fact that it is also significantly older than even Warrior’s Apprentice.

There is, of course, literary merit to F451. It has style that underscores the dehumanization of the characters, and the personification of things. I can see this working beautifully as a serialized men’s magazine story of speculative fiction.

The factors missing from its discussion are what makes me realize why I find the SF written by women so much more compelling.

(spoilers follow. you can skip to my summary if you want to read it for yourself.)

Montag Is Feeling A Little Nervy

The set-up of this book should be pretty familiar: books are banned, firemen are civil servants devoted to burning them (and the houses they find them in) and our hero is one of these.

An old woman dies in her house, burning herself with her books on purpose, and this rocks Our Hero Montag. There is an undercurrent of violence in his society, to suggest the barbaric nature of a culture without literature and free thought. But when Montag hits his wife, there is no inquiry into it, in the text. When he kills his boss (and coworkers, if my prof had the right idea: it’s not explicitly said) he notes that his boss wanted to die. But still, Montag KILLS him. And then he goes on to be warmly accepted into the arms of a circle of professors.

His wife tries to commit suicide, and then the next day is in denial she would ever do that. It’s clear their relationship is distant at best, and that this kind of isolation is normal in this culture, that everyone is leveled out, either by medication or cultural norms.

But this book never asks if Montag has any part in his wife’s depression. If he’s violent and dangerous. It’s very concerned with censorship and mass media, without entering into questions about community and relationship.

Who Owns The Planet? Who Owns The Bots?

The asking of these questions is the exact strength I find in Leckie, Wells, and Bujold’s work. While similar themes are explored by Max Gladstone in his fantasy series The Craft Sequence, but he is (in my somewhat greater experience of fantasy) the exception, not the norm, in considering these sorts of themes as a white American man.

Colonization is not morally neutral in any of the three former works. (F451 is so US-centric we don’t know if there’s just a civil war on or if another country exists outside this society.)

The personhood of AI is a question in both Murderbot Chronicles and Imperial Radch.

Leckie has brilliantly integrated the personhood of colonized cultures. The tendency of cultural imperialism to consider itself as having a higher being is literalized in the language of that culture. This is a lead-in to the question of whether the created beings of AI ships (who were programmed with a certain emotional range and independence of thought) can ever attain identity.

Wells is working in novella form, so in her first installment she has a tighter focus. What is the status of a “security” robot with artificial intelligence when its programming can betray it? If it has enough emotion to be emotionally detaching, is it a real person? If the people around it are startled by reminders of its vulnerability, when they bond with it, is it then a person?

The questions of ethics in rivalries on planets with resources and artifacts are in the background, but I fully expect them to be developed at some point in the future installments.

Bujold is writing in the 80s, more playfully engaging with the idea of feudal martial-culture planets, alongside bohemian neighbors who think war is barbaric, with clashes raising hackles around sex, gender, and bloodshed. Her hero has a feudal chivalry lurking in his treatment of the woman he’s in love with, but the influence of his mother’s culture makes him accept her desire to be involved in the fighting, and then choose her own partner. I do look forward to seeing what else she explored in the series, even if I don’t expect an interrogation of the premise of colonizing planets.

Reading these made me realized that what I want from SF is not see worlds built that are wholly bad, but to see characters who from the start are part of the struggle against injustice. Not to check out futures in which AI are sexy, and the world sleek, but where those AI are also questioning their place in the world. I’m excited to see women writers of SF rising to the occasion, and I’m excited to keep looking for this kind of literature with @sffbookclub.

There’s a lot more to discuss about these books together! I’d love to hear replies or even be tagged in response posts. :)

#SF #Anne Leckie #Martha Wells #Lois McMaster Bujold #sffbookclub

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willreadforbooze · 5 years

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Hello!

BIG NEWS PEOPLE! Our Will Read For Booze twitter account (formerly Sam’s personal account) is going to be dedicated to the whole blog! So go check us out kthxxxx. While that’s amazing, Sam has to start from scratch on a new account, let’s show her some love huh? Check out her new account TheBooktender_ She’ll love you forever and ever.

Ginny’s Updates:

Busy week, busier weekend. Short summary.

Currently Reading:

Wicked Fox by Kat Cho: Sam heard good things about this book and picked up a copy at ALA. I’m not super far in but so far I’m enjoying the lore of it. I’m not particularly familiar with Korean lore so it’s interesting to try to pick it up. That being said, I’ve been moving further away from YA so I’m having a little trouble getting into the book. We’ll see how it goes.

Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland: It’s been a while since I read something for professional development. I received this book at a training a little while ago and decided to pick it up. This book talks about the best way to run a project. Pretty basic.

Blaze of Memory by Nalini Singh: This if the 7th book in the Psy-Changeling series and at this point it should be very clear that I really enjoy this series. I’m a big fan of the various plotlines foiling serial killers. Right now, Dev, the leading of the Shine (an organization protecting children with Psy blood from the full-blooded Psy) has found a Psy woman with amnesia who clearly needs help. Cool.

Finished:

Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi: This was a fun read. The aliens who want to be introduced to the world look like humanity’s worst ideas of what aliens could be; amorphous blobs that speak through potent aromas. I liked the characters in this book, though it’s pretty easy to tell this is one of Scalzi’s early books. Still enjoyable. 3.5/5

The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite: Holy shit, this book was delightful. Lucy watches her GF/BFF marry a man and decides to leave. Goes to London to talk to the Countess of Moth about an introduction to the scientific society so that she can write a translation of the seminal astronomy work at her time (she worked as an astronomer with her now-deceased father). Both of these ladies have insecurities but reading them falling in love was wonderful! Watching they ways the worked (or didn’t work through) their problems was a ton of fun, always felt in character, and desperately hurt at times. 5/5

Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells: This is the third book in the Murderverse series. Murderbot continues to work their way around the universe, this time going on a mission to an abandoned planet to prove some wrong-doing of their previous owner. They originally hide from the team doing the exploration but obviously that doesn’t go to plan. Watching Murderbot start to realize the various ways they need to change to fit in with society, and the way they want to live is (to steal a word from Sam) precious. 5/5

Branded by Fire by Nalini Singh: The sixth book in the Psy-Changeling series, this is the first book that involves a relationship between two Changelings. Mercy and Riley have crazy chemistry and drive each other crazy; figuratively and literally. They’re also working together to try to deal with a kidnapping attempt that involves both of their packs. The way this world continues to be laid out is magical. I love the way the characters, locations, and political landscape continue to change to adapt to each book. 5/5

Wanted, A Gentleman by K.J. Charles: This is an author I keep seeing mentioned by the people I follow on twitter and now I completely understand it. This book features a freed slave’s complicated relationship with their prior owners teaming up with a seemingly ruthless man who writes basically personal ads to hunt down the daughter of the family of his old owners to save her from a bad elopement. This book is wildly dramatic and yet makes so much sense. 4.5/5

Queen of the Unwanted by Jenna Glass: This is the sequel to the Women’s War that came out last year. I also received an ARC of this book from NetGalley, and I’d prefer not to say too much but if you read and enjoyed the first book you’re going to enjoy this one. If you want complicated relationships, women in power, and diverse personalities, this book has them all! 5/5

Destiny’s Embrace by Beverly Jenkins: Yup, lots of romance novels this week. Logan Yates is a ranch owner who ends up with Mariah as his housekeeper. She’s been abused by her mother for years and decides she’s not going to let anyone step over her, and goes toe to toe with Logan at every turn. There are some portions of this book that kind of get a side eye mostly because I think a few sentences about posture or something would make them a little more palatable. That being said, this was a lot of fun and a good start to a series. I’m looking forward to the next book 4/5

Linz’s Updates

What Linz read:

My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing: Marketed as a cross between Dexter and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, this contemporary novel introduces us to a married suburban couple who keep it spicy with a little bit of murder. I think it was kinda dumb they used Mr. and Mrs. Smith, when there are some good similarities to the Gone Girl genre, but whatever. I’m not mad I read it, but it was … fine?

The Good Luck Girls by Charlotte Nicole Davis: sort of fantasy version of Old West Texas, where Good Luck Girls (ie prostitutes) are kept trapped to their welcome houses with cursed tattoos and a really shitty government. I thought the concept was alright, the ending was very good, and I really liked the protagonist, but some of the world-building was clunky and I thought some elements weren’t really explained.

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: I would never have heard of this book if it weren’t for my book club, and I’m kind of pissed about it because it’s REALLY good. Why weren’t more people talking about this 1920s-era mythology-heavy book? I loved the style of writing and the weaving of old and modern worlds, reminded me of American Gods in a better way.

What Linz is currently reading:

Queen of Ruin by Tracy Banghart: The sequel to Grace and Fury that I’ve been itching to get my hot hot hands on. Loved the first installment about two sisters who are forced to switch places in a horribly run patriarchal society.

Middlegame by Seanan McGuire: Had to put this down to knock out some ARC reading by drop dates, but Ginny will probably be happy to know I’m picking it back up so she can have her copy back.

Sam’s Updates

It’s Nats World Series Week so I’m spending my days working through hell and my nights (late nights) watching baseball. I. Are. Tired.

What Sam read this week:

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: This is our book club book for the month. Basically it’s the 1920s-ish in Mexico, and our main character Casiopea accidentally lets the god of death out of prison and he gotta put himself back together before he turns mortal and for a variety of reasons (including potential death herself) Casiopea goes with him. I’m not going to put too many thoughts here because book clube but I will be writing a follow-up drunk review to Minda’s sober one.

Aurora Rising by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman: This is the first in a new sci-fi series by our fave Illuminae duo. Tyler has it made, he’s gonna get the #bestsquadever. But then when he’s out practicing space stuff, he finds a ship that has a buncha dead people in cryopods, except one isn’t dead, she’s Aurora. Anyway he ends up with the last of the last crews and may have accidentally witnessed the start of an intergalactic war. So.. that. I’m really really liking the dynamic of the squad, everyone is a little odd and a little broken but they’re starting to get to know each other. We’ll see if my love for them overcomes the pace of the story (slowwww).

A River Of Royal Blood by Amanda Joy: This is a story about a girl named Eva, she’s a princess. She’s gotta compete with her sister for the throne, to the death. But the thing is, she can’t figure out her magic. So she tries real hard to figure it out all while someone is trying to kill her. This book was fine. I sorta figured it out early but I enjoyed it so that’s good I suppose. 3/5 Shots Drunk Review coming.

…And Other Disasters by Malka Older: This is a collection of short stories that are in the world of sci-fi. I loved them all, and that rarely happens with collections like this. Everyone go pre-order it right TF now. 5/5

What I’m currently reading:

Wild Beauty by Anna-Marie McLemore: So this is a story of a family that always has 5 girls, 5 cousins. The men that spawn these women disappear, so it’s always the women. 5 ladies, 5 mothers, 5 Grandmas (abuelas), when suddenly a boy appears. He has no memories. Guys I know I’m slow going at this but some stuff happened in the book and now I’m v v sad.

Girls of Storm and Shadow by Natasha Ngan: This is the sequel to Girls of Paper and Fire which i didn’t…. love… but also didn’t hate. We’ll see how this goes. I’m predicting a ton of miscommunication between romantic relationships so…

The Kingdom of Gods by N.K. Jemisin: This is the final installment to the Inheritance trilogy. Seems to be about Sia. Listening on audio so we’ll see how it goes.

Minda’s Updates

No update from Minda this week.

Until next time, we main forever drunkenly yours,

Sam, Ginny, Linz, and Minda

Weekly Wrap Up: Oct 21-27, 2019 Hello! BIG NEWS PEOPLE! Our Will Read For Booze twitter account (formerly Sam's personal account) is going to be dedicated to the whole blog!

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