turtles

Been a while since I did a random photo dump! Here are some miscellaneous non-pet pictures from June until now that just never quite fit with another post.


On our way to the local pride event at the distillery: a bunny!


On one of my work walks, a little cicada! These guys are SO LOUD for how small they are!

Eight more pictures below the cut:

From a moving car on the way to work, a young deer grazing alongside the horse pasture. I like his fuzzy antlers.


On the path I walk along at work, there've been some really nice chickory flowers this year. (And a little bug friend on the flower to the left, which I didn't even notice at the time!)


Cute little beetle friend on one of my walks.

Lead in for this one: when my mom finds caterpillars in her garden, she saves them for me, and I feed them to my frog and toad. One of the jars of caterpillars I'd gotten from her had a couple medium-ish ones, that I hoped to feed for long enough for them to grow up to be big enough for Berry Mad. But then one went missing. I assumed it had gotten loose and probably fallen into the sink and died or something.

Until I looked over at a little coleus plant that was rooting in a jar of water...


Apparently the caterpillar was pretty fond of coleus.

Berry Mad was fond of the caterpillar.


When heading up to meet a friend, we accidentally took a long cut through Denver. Here's the famous blue bear sculpture outside the Colorado Convention Center.


One of our very hot days, a very hot magpie.


The biggest fucking horsefly I've seen in years.


The sun through the window at my mom's house a few days ago. This was "before the smoke got bad," but you can see that it was definitely already there.

I also have a bunch of miscellaneous pet pictures that haven't gotten posted, so I'll probably do a roundup of those at some point too, ha.

For the month of July I read seven books! The month felt both shockingly fast and excruciatingly long, which is always a weird combo. I can’t believe how fast the month went, but at the same time it does feel like the 4th of July was like… a year ago, lol.

This was a good month for me, in that I liked everything I read!

I did run into the same issue that I did the previous month, which is just that I’m often really tired by the time I get home from work, and by the time I get my other stuff done (dinner, household stuff, posting, replying to things,) I have less energy and time than I wish I did. I’ve tried hard to carve out time for reading, and that’s mostly been right before bed… but then it’s unfortunately the thing that gets cut short if I’m dozing off. Not sure yet how to try and remedy that!

In July I read…



This cover is still fine, but is honestly not really how I picture Sarah, ha.
Butterfly Effects by Seanan McGuire
Book 15 of Incryptid
2026
Urban fantasy/Science fiction - m/f - physical novel - read with Taylor
3.5/5

Sarah Zelaby is a cuckoo, a member of a parasitic species of psychic, humanoid wasp that are primed to infiltrate other populations. Sarah was adopted as a child into the extended Price family, but ever since her forced metamorphosis into a cuckoo queen, and the near-incomprehensible power it granted her, Sarah has held herself at arms length from her family. She is unable to overcome her grief and guilt over both the accident that erased the mind and personality of Artie, the man she loved, and her inability to prevent another family member’s death.
Then representatives from Johrlar, the dimension where cuckoos originated, arrive. They want to hold Sarah accountable for the crime of being an unsanctioned queen, bringing her back to Johrlar to stand trial. They also kidnap Arthur—the new consciousness that lives in Artie’s body after Sarah’s failed attempt to bring him back—as evidence of her crimes.
On Johrlar, Sarah is pulled into political machinations that she has no desire to mediate. Some citizens wish for her to help them in their desired rebellion against the nearly all-powerful hive mind that rules them. She’d really prefer that everyone leave her alone.
But Sarah’s grandparents, Alice and Thomas, her cousin Antimony, and Antimony’s fiancé, Sam, follow them to Johrlar. Even if they don’t fully trust Sarah anymore, and if Arthur is practically a stranger, they’re still family, and they want to bring them home.

My thoughts, vague spoilers:

I read this book back in March when it came out, and then Taylor and I read it together as well. It was still enjoyable on a reread! My thoughts aren’t much different than the first time I read it.

I do very much like getting some closure and conclusion to everything that happened with Sarah after the queen instar, and reckoning with what happened.

Good things:
- I liked the portrayal of the hive mind, in both its good and bad aspects. There are ways in which it is very horrific: people born into roles they can never deviate from, the immediate destruction of any sort of differing desires, the specific ways in which any significant dissent is punished. Even so, there are also positives: a sense of certainty and connection, an automatic desire for collective care to ensure all members are provided for, efficiency of services. The positives don’t seem worth the cost, but it does seem clear that the current leaders of the hive mind have created something worse than it needs to be.
- I love Mark, the supposedly-impossible cuckoo king! I know that he wants to be done with the whole Price clan, but I hope he gets dragged back in for some reason at some point, because I really do love him.
- I wont spoil the ending conclusion, but I am very interested in seeing what happens with it, even as I’m happy for the good things that happen for some of our characters. I can foresee both good outcomes and some very serious potential problems.

Neutral thing:
- As I’d mentioned the first time, Sarah’s books (the earlier two and this one) have done the most out of any of them to really alter the scope of the series. The concept of interdimensional travel has been present from the start (both the start of the series as-published, and the author’s design for it; Alice’s dimension-hopping quest for Thomas has always been a key thing.) And we’ve always known that the cuckoos, like Sarah, have an instinctual and inescapable affinity for extremely complex math. However, the actual dimensional travel feels far different now than when the series started, skewing much more toward a sci-fi feel than the urban fantasy that the series is ostensibly supposed to be. I’ve really liked Sarah’s books, but it sort of doesn’t feel like I’m reading the same series I started, and sometimes I miss the earlier, smaller scope. I liked it being about a family of cryptozoologists interacting with intelligent cryptids in the modern world, instead of it being about multidimensional conflict set on alien worlds. (I also worry about whether the story can successfully return to that more limited scope. I sort of hope so, and the books focused on Mary felt a bit like a return to form. I just don’t want the scope and stakes creep to start feeling like it needs to keep escalating.)

Less good:
- I was ultimately a little disappointed in the kairos. The mystery of what they are, what it means that the family has kairos blood in their ancestry, the way that serves the story function of explaining the family’s relationship with coincidence and luck, has been so very built up… and I felt pretty underwhelmed. I know that this too is a long-term plan by the author (any cryptids based on real-world folklore will be from earth; creatures that are entirely the author’s creation have the potential to be from anywhere.) Unfortunately, I liked the mystery they represented rather than them being another dimensional alien species. I also preferred the cuckoos (and the Crossroads) being sort of anomalous in terms of being from a different dimension, as something that made them extra frightening or threatening and “big,” rather than that aspect being fairly unremarkable in the grand scheme.
- One thing that I vaguely recall from my first read and that was even more apparent on the reread: there’s a lot of backtracking in this book. Lots of “we have succeeded in getting to location B from location A! Now we must escape and go back to A. Oops, we need to return to B.” Some of the repeats were more understandable than others, but a few of the trips back and forth just felt redundant, and like I wish they’d just done everything in one go.

Taylor did text me the cover reveal for the next book, Pride and Poltergeists. And a prediction I made (though I made it a few books ago, when trying to guess who would be the protagonist after Mary) has come true! We get a James book, so I’m excited for that!

This cover is fine, though doesn't blow me away. I do like how much it's doing with a pretty simple design.
The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin
Book 2 of The Earthsea Cycle
1971
Fantasy - ebook novel
5/5

In the Kargish Empire there are multiple gods: The Godking who rules, the Twin Gods who are worshiped… and the Nameless Ones. The Nameless Ones were there before anything else, and will be there long after. They have the oldest temple, half falling-in, and they have one priestess.
Arha, or “The Eaten One,” is that priestess, her own name taken away when she was brought to the temple at five years old, after being identified as the reincarnation of the One Priestess who has always served there. Arha’s status as the sole priestess to the Nameless Ones, and her position as the highest-ranked priestess over the rest, isolates her. She is raised and taught by priestesses of other gods, but her tasks for the Nameless Ones are hers alone. She performs their rituals; guards the Undertomb, protecting it from light and the presence of men; sacrifices the occasional prisoner sent by the Godking; and she walks the secret Labyrinth, a maze of near-identical and dangerous rooms and corridors that guards what she’s told is the greatest treasure in the world.
Then a wizard comes, his presence profane in the Undertomb, and she succeeds in trapping him in the Labyrinth. His life—or death—is under her control… but his presence makes her start to question parts of what she has always been taught, and her own role as priestess in the tombs.

My thoughts, some spoilers:

I loved this book! I had somewhat expected to: I’ve had multiple people tell me it’s their favorite of the series, and I know it’s one of Taylor’s favorite books.

I really enjoyed how small aspects of the story were. It’s clearly an expansive world, with so much in terms of history and politics and religion… but this story is extremely contained. There are few characters, focusing almost fully on Arha/Tenar and then Ged when he arrives. She interacts with a handful of other priestesses and has Manan, her eunuch servant, but there are very few other characters that appear. The setting is also almost entirely confined to the temple grounds, just referred to as “the place,” and surrounded on all sides by desert. It’s particularly set in the temple of the Nameless Ones and the passages underneath. Despite those limits, the story felt very layered and rich. (Somewhat unsurprisingly, I’d say that the depth in such a limited setting does a lot to make the whole of the world feel richer, if every single piece of the world could contain so much.)
This does mean it strikes a very different tone than A Wizard of Earthsea, which was a bit more of a series of snapshots over the course of several years of Ged’s life, moving between different settings, dealing with entirely different people, etc. That was a very broad view (if following one specific throughline), where this book has a much narrower focus.

That said, one of the strengths to me was something that was a point of similarity: both books are about watching somewhat insufferable teenagers growing up, ha. Arha is sometimes a bit awful, but also so extremely understandable. She’s often rude to the other young priestess in training that’s closest to being a friend (getting her in trouble, when Arha knows she’ll be spared the punishment herself, or sometimes holding her own status over her head); she’s aware that sometimes she’s cruel to Manan, even as she knows he cares about her; she enjoys the thought of being in power over the other priestesses and over the lives of those who come to the temple (though she’s then quite haunted by her own cruelty in regards to prisoners.) Those cruel or mean impulses are extremely recognizable ones, seeing how someone with almost no agency or power of choice will take advantage of the opportunities they do get. (It’s also arguable, I think, that this cruelty is being cultivated in her, both by one of the high priestesses and by the Nameless Ones themselves.)
While both the first and this book are about the protagonist growing up and discovering themselves, and what it means to become their own person (as well as both the promise and the cost of that sort of freedom,) I like how extremely different those arcs are, and what kind of powers the characters have. (Le Guin mentions it in her afterword, how Ged is driven by seeking power, while Arha/Tenar had power forced on her. There’s also a distinct difference, as she says, between “power to” and “power over.”)

In addition to the different kinds of power, I also think it’s interesting how many different ways of being “trapped” there are. Literal imprisonment within the Labyrinth is clearly a big part of the plot, both the prisoners from the Godking and Ged later on, but Arha is also absolutely imprisoned by her role, by the isolation of the temples.

I found Le Guin’s afterword to the book very interesting. She talks about how A Wizard of Earthsea was really intended to be a standalone, and that it surprises people that it wasn’t always intended to be a trilogy (and later longer.) It surprises me, as this book specifically follows one of the plot seeds I found intriguing in the first book (the exiled people Ged encounters on an island, and the broken ring one of them gives him.) And this story, for Ged, was mentioned at the end of the first book, but she says it was just meant to be a sort of “and he went on to do many great things, the end” closure, not a sequel hook, ha.
It’s also interesting to see what her thoughts on gender were when writing it… choosing to write a female protagonist, but still feeling that she couldn’t serve the same sort of heroic fantasy role as a male character, because fantasy is a reflection of reality rather than wish fulfillment. I’m interested to read more of her later work, because again, she reflects that she thinks she was later able to see very different, possibly kinder potential for stories and characters (including within Earthsea.)

This is one of my favorite things I’ve read this year, and while I don’t know if the rest of the Earthsea books will be quite as strong as this one (again, this seems to be the stand out for a lot of people,) I am looking forward to more.

I do always like the Murderbot covers.
Exit Strategy by Martha Wells
Book 4 of The Murderbot Diaries
2018
Science fiction - physical novella
5/5

After obtaining evidence of GrayCris’ wrongdoing on Milu, Murderbot has decided to deliver the data directly to Preservation. Then it gets a news update on the case, and realizes that Dr. Mensah has apparently been taken hostage by GrayCris. It travels to the station where she is being held, and discovers that other members of the Preservation team have already arrived, and it will have to protect them, too.
GrayCris is clearly desperate, contracting with additional security companies as they both try to hold Mensah for ransom and buy off the company that used to own Murderbot and is still supposed to be assisting Preservation. Getting all the Preservation team members off the station safely is a nearly impossible task… one Murderbot can’t even undertake without something even more terrifying: having to talk to the team members for the first time since it left.

My thoughts, some spoilers:

Another Murderbot novella, another one I love.

While I do love Murderbot’s voice in semi-isolation, I really think it shines most when it has other characters to play off of (which is part of what makes book 2, where ART is introduced, and this one, where it has to interact with the Preservation characters again, my favorites in the series up to this point.)
I do find its mostly one-sided beef with Gurathin very funny. Murderbot insists that it’s two-sided, and that Gurathin doesn’t like it either, but I don’t think that’s really true.

One of the things I do love about Murderbot is its awkwardness, and this book definitely has a few of my favorite examples.
- I love when it’s talking to the Preservation team about what it wants to do to rescue Mensah, and it tells them that it will go wait in the lobby while they make their decision. Before it can leave, they stop it to tell it that no, they already made their decision. It pauses and just tells them it’s going to the lobby anyway, and then just walks away, because it already stood up.
- I also enjoy when it’s thinking about how SecUnits aren’t allowed to use human furniture, so when it rents a hotel room, it goes and sits down and puts its feet up on the table just because it can… but immediately stops because it’s not comfortable.

While it is a running theme in the series, and has come up plenty of times already, this book really does lean into just how horrifically awful the extreme capitalism of the Corporation Rim is, even in small everyday ways. Some of those small ways feel just… so tragically relatable to things as they are now. The station feed that’s supposed to provide important information, but is so choked with ads that it’s basically unusable. Hotels that offer premium feed access for a price, and therefore throttle the publicly available one to try and force people to pay for the higher-level one. Hotels making a big deal about the way they protect guest privacy in the rooms… while being extra aggressive about collecting and selling guest data from public areas.

I had remembered that the first four novellas all came out around roughly the same time (or close; I guess the first came out in 2017 and then the other three all came out the following year,) but I’d forgotten that it was at the time very much intended to be complete after those. (I’m glad that it didn’t end there, if only because I recall Network Effect being so so good.) But the inside jacket for Exit Strategy calls it “the fourth and final part of The Murderbot Diaries series…” in big bold letters.
To be fair, this would be a reasonably satisfying conclusion. The specific conflict between Preservation and GrayCris, started in the first book, is reaching a conclusion. Murderbot did get its time on its own, and its interactions with ART and Miki, as well as the multiple human teams it worked with, provide some sorts of insight into itself. As Preservation is expressing some interest in addressing part of what made it want to leave in the first place, it’s in a position to make its own decisions in a way that it wouldn’t have been able to at the end of book 1. It’s open-ended, but ends on a hopeful note.

Still, I’m glad the series continues on.

This cover is very colorful, ha. I do like the sort of alien-mechanical look of the mech.
Luminescent Machinations: Queer Tales of Monumental Invention edited by Rhiannon Rasmussen and Dave Ring; illustrations by Sarah Allen Reed
2023
Science fiction/fantasy (various subgenres: mostly mecha and queer) - various relationships - ebook anthology
3.5/5 [This is the rounded average of my ratings for the 28 individual stories. My average came out to a 3.55. My lowest rating was a 2.5 and my highest a 5.]

This was another book from the Pride Storybundle.

This was an interesting collection! The overall theme was basically “mecha, and make it queer.” There are definitely plenty of ways in which the two can easily go together; themes of self, of bodily autonomy, about being something or someone small in comparison to giant forces, about connection and disconnection from a body that is and is not yours… I enjoyed it, even though (despite my love of several classic mecha anime) it’s not really a subgenre I’ve given much thought to recently.

(I’m glad to be reading more anthologies! That was one of the things that I wanted to do this year! But reviewing them is ~haaaaard~. I tried not to make it too long, but of course it still is. I don’t want to skip any of the stories, and I don’t want to be so brief that I’m not sharing anything about what I thought. So… long it is. Long and hard, that’s what he said, etc etc etc.)

“Decommissioned” by Casey Lucas
Sci-fi, poetry
3/5

A poem about what happens when conflict ends, and a weapon faces peacetime.

My brief thoughts:

A good reflective poem, with a sci-fi twist to a common theme: “what doe a warrior do after the war is over?” Those sci-fi trappings are a good imaginative aspect. I like the line “The parts I shed still circle the earth.”

“Nursemaid’s Elbow” by Anya DeNiro
Sci-fi, dystopia - trans woman protagonist
3/5

Everything about her quiet, isolated, confined life—the fruit in a bowl on the counter, her memories of a late husband, her tense and angry phone calls with her distant daughter—feels wrong. When pushed, she remembers more: her time as a pilot of a Killsugar mech, agreeing to a placid, simulated, enforced peace after losing the war. Something always breaks through to remind her, pushing her to find her grandson.

My thoughts, slight spoilers:

I like the ideas in this story, but it felt like the execution could have had a little more oomph, to me. Part of that may be the limitation of it being a short story, when I think that it might have been better explored with a little bit more breathing room. The unnamed main character figures out what’s happening very quickly, when I think that allowing a bit more tension around that initial “unsettlingly normal” part would have made that payoff better. (Though the apple on the counter being a red delicious made me laugh. Worst apple, ha.)
I also feel like part of the whole setup doesn’t make sense to me, but it’s a bit of a spoiler. Basically, the protagonist has broken out of the illusion/simulation she’s kept in multiple times, in part because her mech is hidden there with her. But… why is it there, if she’s supposed to be kept docile?
And a minor gripe, but the daughter’s name switches between Everly and Evelyn over the course of their conversation, and that was annoying. It’s a short story! That shouldn’t have been an issue!
There is a twist, which I won’t spoil. I like the way it recontextualizes some things.

“Being Quicksilver” by Elly Bangs
Sci-fi - arguably agender protagonist
3.5/5

You, and the others like you, have been fully integrated into the military’s new mecha. You don’t even miss your humanity, as you and your new mech-siblings discover all the new senses and abilities you’ve been granted. The military wants you, the triumph of their technological progress, to fight in their war… but you all know the danger that represents, and none of you want to risk losing part of the new hivemind.

My thoughts:

This was a good one! It may say something about me that I so consistently enjoy stories of military and scientific hubris gone awry.
Hivemind type stories tend to paint that hivemind as a horror aspect, a loss of individuality treated as abhorrent, impersonal, awful forced conformity. That’s certainly how the human characters (other than the scientists, who are mostly delighted about their deeply unethical experimentation) react. The sergeant in charge of them is deeply horrified!
However, in this story, from the perspective within this newly-created hivemind, it’s something wonderful. As opposed to a robotic (literally!), depersonalized, ‘cold,’ experience, the main character finds it to be an extremely sensual experience, a sense of understanding and connection with the rest of the collective, belonging and lack of judgement or distance.
It’s definitely an interesting inversion!

“Corpses Float, Pearls Sink” by Kehkashan Khalid
Sci-fi - f/f (past)
3.5/5

Sauleha works for the Galactic Kahilafat as a miner, using a Valkyrie 365 mecha. When her grandmother, the last remaining member of her family, passes away, she’s given a mandatory break to mourn. Her relationship with her grandmother was a complicated one: mixed gratitude for her grandmother saving her from the disaster that killed her parents, then supporting them both as refugees, but also resentment over her grandmother never approving of her choice of career, or her sexuality. After being suspended from work for signs of addiction to the Valkyrie, she has the opportunity to discover more about her grandmother, including secrets she’d never guessed.

My thoughts, some spoilers:

I did enjoy this one. This is one of the ones that I was thinking of when I mentioned some stories feeling like different iterations of similar elements; this one is a very different exploration of some very similar aspects to the earlier “Nursemaid’s Elbow.”
I like the way the story comes full circle, as another one with a sort of twist toward the end that recontextualizes things for both the main character and the reader. I like the aspects of family cycles, and relationships that can’t fully be classed as good or bad. Also characters that can’t be: Sauleha is sympathetic, but it’s also easy to see the ways in which she’s screwed up her own situation.

“And Your Name Rings Out Tonight” by Iori Kusano
Fantasy - nonbinary protagonist
5/5

Mayu is a shrine maiden at Itsukushima. They, as well as a few other shrine maidens, have been roped into conflict; bonding with the ghosts of women who were once entombed alive in hitobashira intended to protect the shrine. Bonded to these spirits, they repeatedly battle against a vengeful, mythical serpent. In the unceasing fights, Mayu begins to wonder about the spirit of the woman they’ve bonded to, as well as whether their enemy may have a reason for seeking his vengeance.

My thoughts, some spoilers:

This is possibly my favorite story out of the collection! It is one of the ones that feels like a very unique take on the theme, too. The “mecha” are much more fantasy than sci-fi, made of the wooden hitobashira that the past women were entombed in, powered by those spirits bonded to the current shrine maidens, rather than robotics and metal and electricity. It’s a fun genre blend (it still feels a bit like a mecha story, but also a bit kaiju, and also a bit magical “girl”. Though the protagonist struggles a bit with their own gender, how despite their role as a shrine maiden, they aren’t a woman or a girl.)
One of the themes is about how one thing can actually be many… heroic protector figures who were also cruel despots; mythical monsters that are also ghosts of wronged children; shrine maidens who are also nonbinary and struggling to advocate for what they want that to mean for them.
I do feel like this was a relatively complicated story for one so short, but a lot of that complexity just comes from unfamiliarity; I did have to look up a few words (like hitobashira!) There were a fair number of concepts that I was already familiar enough with to follow (like some aspects of how shrines work in Japan), but I can see it being confusing if you haven’t encountered those ideas before. I don’t think that the writing is confusing, or that the concepts are presented in difficult ways. It just doesn’t pause to explain things; if a concept is familiar to the protagonist, it’s presented as if it’s familiar. This is usually my preference, so I liked it. I also don’t mind looking up words when needed, ha.

“The Helmsman” by Sam Kung Yoo
Sci-fi - nonbinary protagonist
4/5

Janus is the helmsman of the SS Endymion, an integrated human intelligence that helps to run the ship. They are responsible for keeping the ship safe as it moves across the battlefield. They receive communication from the helmsmen of other ships, but it inspires little emotion; they must solely be concerned with their own ship and crew. But they were human, once.

My very brief thoughts, avoiding spoilers:

This one is quite short, but I think it packs an excellent emotional punch to it… I just really don’t want to say what that punch is, because it does pretty well spoil the whole story.
I do think the story was well-structured, and one that suits its length quite perfectly; dwelling longer or rushing through faster would both have removed that punchiness.

“I Am My Art” by Ayida Shonibar
Sci-fi/fantasy, dystopia - f/f
2.5/5

Imprisoned as punishment for rebellion, the protagonist is forced to help magically forge the metal weapon-armor the oppressive regime uses. But if a metalbonder can create the weapons of an unjust occupation, is there any reason she could not also use them?

My thoughts, slight spoilers:

This one is very short, and in this case I think it felt a bit too short. I don’t know that it needed to be much longer, but it did feel like it needed more than it had. For being so short (with only four basic scenes,) one of the longest segments of the story felt like the least impactful (not that it didn’t matter, but the conversation with the taunting officer is a page and a half of a five page story, and felt like it had the least impact to the story arc as a whole.) We’re told that the story takes place over a long stretch of time, and that the protagonist has become an entirely new person than she was back at the beginning, but at the end when the protagonist returns to [redacted], she says it felt like nothing has changed. Unfortunately… that really is kind of how it felt. There just wasn’t enough room to actually feel like there’d been any real passage of time, or to feel like we knew the protagonist well enough to agree that she felt any different than she did at the start.
I did like the emphasis on artistry, how the metalbonding as it should be practiced is an art form that’s being corrupted and commodified by the occupying force to their own ends, when it is not something they themselves have the needed skill for.

“And Prison On My Back” by Phoebe Barton
Sci-fi, dystopia - f/f (past)
3/5

Ava is a truck, but she was not always a truck. This is her sentence, compelled to help transport cargo across the surface of Mars, as punishment for her “perversions” and the ways in which she would have harmed the society of New Mars City. Now she will instead make the city stronger, while seeking redemption for the ways in which she was not aligned with the correct values.
When an intercepted mayday signal from another transport accidentally shorts out the warden that controls her thoughts and actions, she sees a chance at escape… if she can get the rescued passenger to help.

My thoughts, mild spoilers:

I liked this one! It’s a very horrifying scenario - to be locked inside your own mind and a body that is not your own, as punishment for having the wrong politics and the wrong sexuality. New Mars City is pretty clearly the result of Musk’s Mars aims; her human guard is named “Pretorius,” which is a common Afrikaans surname (but also with a Roman vibe), and he repeatedly used curses like “Elon’s balls,” ha. (This is clearly not the only colony on Mars, just a particularly awful one.)
I hope for good things for Ava after the story ends.

“Recovery” by Anya Markov
Sci-fi - f/f
3.5/5

Vica is an engineer, piloting a mermech through the sea to find wrecks of human habitations and boats that can be salvaged in the aftermath of the war. Things should be good: she’s building a life with her wife, Esme; she’s pregnant with their future child… but Vica can’t forget the war. Everything feels like a reminder of past horrors, and she fears for the future that awaits them. The only place she ever feels safe is within her mermech.

My thoughts, some spoilers:

This was a pretty good one. It’s predominantly a story about PTSD and recovery. While it’s a sci-fi setting, the PTSD itself felt very real to me, especially when it comes to ways that coping can end up being further limiting. (Vica tries to think back to positive times… but those end with the war. She relies on the mermech to help her feel safe… but then struggles to leave it.) I also appreciate that her worry for the future isn’t unfounded; there is the potential for another major disaster to occur, which cannot be fully prevented, predicted, or avoided. That’s basically always the case in the real world too, so I like stories that actually grapple with the idea of having to choose to go on even knowing that the future could go to shit, ha.
The parallels between Vica’s pregnancy and her own comfort and safety being most certain within the body of her own mech were very clear. I don’t know if I want to say it was heavy-handed, but it wasn’t subtle.
I do appreciate that things like Vica’s PTSD have not been fully resolved by the end, but it does end on a hopeful note.

“The Bone Meal Corps” by Bendi Barrett
Sci-fi - a massive and complex polycule of all gender combinations
3/5

MAL pilots are prized, but still expendable parts of the military, people who can be pierced by the wires of the suits and march on in the endless succession of wars. They’re thought of as expendable and interchangeable, just another part of the bigger machine…
But the pilots know each other, learn each other, and this gives them access to a network that could never have been anticipated.

My thoughts, spoilers:

This is probably one of the stories that makes the “machine, as in a mech suit” and “machine, as in ‘the machine of war’” connection the most explicit, though war is a common theme throughout.
I like this one, where the bonds of human relationships (mostly sexual, but arguably also emotionally intimate) are a valid and successful method of combatting (ha, war pun) the dehumanization they’re all faced with. The conceit is basically that the MAL pilots learn each other so well, that even when one is killed, the survivors who knew them intimately enough can then basically ‘channel’ them in a way to unlock hidden memories and data stored in their machines. This lets them learn from the late pilots, passing on messages and strategies, until they’re ultimately ready to revolt.
This is another one that I think could be a cool longer work, where perhaps there’s a more solid protagonist, instead of a fairly floaty, general recounting of what’s happening. The narration is a little distant for something that’s thematically so much about closeness.
I did enjoy it, though.

“The Rainbow Ghosts” by Violet Allen
Sci-fi - m/f (trans masc and trans femme protagonists)
3.5/5

Owen and Andrea are on the run. Andrea has a mutation that, when she gets angry or upset, turns her into a massive creature made of plants and tentacles, causing devastation to everything around her. Owen, using his connection to the mech XLR-8 Titan, intends to protect her against everyone who wants to come after her, even his previous teammates.

My thoughts, mild spoilers:

This is a pretty good one! In terms of mecha stories, I like one that also directly gets to be a kaiju story. I also like it as a love story between Andrea and Owen, though not a fully happy or easy one. I enjoyed that their relationship was complex, and felt very real. Yes, they’re in the midst of a truly life and death situation, constantly fleeing, avoiding anything (like phones) that could be used to track them… but they both also make stupid, petty, frustrating decisions. People under constant stress do make terrible choices sometimes, or they do get snappy and resentful. In comparison to some of the stories that leave me feeling like there wasn’t enough time to get a feeling of the characters, I felt like I had a pretty good sense of the ones here, even if parts of the past before they were on the run are vague.
(I also do genuinely like the two as “two gays so profoundly, shamelessly gay that they accidentally wound up straight again…” because that makes me laugh.)

“Mortality Signal” by Brendan Williams-Childs
Sci-fi - m/m
4/5

Nathan is assigned to a new, experimental program in the military, remotely piloting a drone via physical movement. He answers all the surveys about his mental health, his feelings about the work, the way he knows they want him to answer. He meets Tom, a retired solider, while on leave from base. The two strike up a relationship, but it soon becomes clear that Nathan’s work is having a much more serious impact on him than he’s been willing to admit.

My thoughts, some spoilers:

I enjoyed this one, though it’s admittedly a bit of a downer!
It’s another one that’s very much about trauma, and about the dehumanization of the military, the ways in which both targets of military action and the soldiers performing those actions are treated as disposable things, the way those effects last and linger.
This story did feel more grounded than a lot of the ones in this collection, and I don’t think that I’m just saying that because it’s set relatively local to me.

“The Technoyeshiva of Boston” by Esther Alter
Sci-fi, dystopia - background f/f, nonbinary side character
4/5

Students of the Technoyeshiva of Boston meet to discuss and argue moral positions. At home, Devorah and the other tenants of the building are suddenly being pushed out by impossible rent increases, with their compliance ensured by the robotic enforcers the police use. Working together with her rabbi and a fellow student, they have plans for one of the robots, to make it something that will protect them instead.

My brief thoughts, spoilers:

Turning one of those Boston Dynamics robot “dogs” into a golem to protect the people being unfairly targeted is delightful. I don’t have much more that I can say about it.

“Dance with a Devil” by Even Han
Sci-fi - arguably f/f
4/5

A mech, called “Bright Star,” contemplates her own records of her encounters with the Devil, an enemy mech who had done the unthinkable: existing without a bonded pilot.

My thoughts, spoilers:

I really like the conception of the mechs in this, and how they’re controlled. It’s basically a forced/compelled/installed religious experience, where they treat the bond with their pilot as this holy calling. Any mistakes or mission failures create a sense of soul-deep guilt and basically sin, and meeting with their chief technician provides absolution so that they can go on another mission.
Hence why the enemy mech is “the Devil,” who provides an idea of freedom unthinkable to the protagonist, the idea of an existence that doesn’t have that sort of bonded, hierarchical relationship.
I liked it!

“A Sword Between the Stars” by G.M. Paniccia
Sci-fi - trans masc protagonist
3.5/5

L6, a clone, has spent as long as he can creating and improving his Colossus, a mech he will use to fight in the Alterion. There, pilots battle against kaiju in the arena. The fights are to the death, but if a pilot can beat the monster they’re pitted against, they will win the title of Dragonkiller, and the chance to go out to space to protect their station from the monsters of the void.

My thoughts:

*I read L6 as being trans masc, as they mention a hysterectomy and getting microbladed facial hair… but a nonbinary reading could probably also be argued for.
I liked this one! Very much a classic coliseum story and setting, ported very successfully and interestingly to a sci-fi setting. I appreciate L6’s plans and the ways in which he outsmarts his competition in the arena.
It’s interesting as a story where the opportunity to fight is presented as righteous, where so many of the stories are about warfare and being a soldier or a weapon, but are quite distinctly anti-military. (Understandable, given the genre/theme and general sensibilities of the now.) The conflict in this case is presented as a chance to protect from monsters, rather than conquest, but it’s still a different feeling than most of the stories in the collection. And yet, there’s still that element of dehumanization: L6 is literally a clone, but all of them are treated as disposable: fighting to the death for entertainment, in scenarios that are basically considered unwinnable (L6 is aware that no clones from their station have ever won in the arena.) The reward is just… to go fight more (though this provides an escape from apparently otherwise miserable menial labor.)
It makes for an interesting contrast within the story and as a story within the collection.

“Ten Lies From a Silenced Monster” by Ann LeBlanc
Fantasy, some horror elements - f/f
4/5

The protagonist is bonded to a strider, a mechanical construct given power by the proper sigils and the ‘godstone,’ mined from the body of a dead god. She becomes a revolutionary, rebelling against the God-King, but her methods favor destruction of their enemies over peace. She helps to create a process by which those who bond with striders can become functionally immortal, their souls staying bonded to their constructs even after death. The hero—a woman chosen to act as prophesied champion of the God-King—and the protagonist are locked in a repeated battle, on opposite sides, yet drawn to each other, and unwilling to fully end the other.

My thoughts, some spoilers:

I enjoyed this one, but it is one that definitely falls to the tragedy side.

This one does an excellent job of setting tone. The protagonist’s narration is just absolutely dripping bitterness, and I got the sense of that even before the story reaches a point to explain why she would feel that way. (And oh boy, is it an earned feeling…)

The story has some horror elements, too. The godstone itself, which is apparently a dangerously polluting, but valuable substance is horror in itself. The descriptions of the bloodsilk worms (and the bloodsilk factories…) makes me squirm, even when it’s not really dwelt on.

While we don’t get to see a whole lot of the protagonist and hero’s relationship, the glimpses we do get are good (“Oh shit, that’s hot” being the protagonist’s last thought in one of their lives was maybe a bit silly for the rest of the story, but it did make me laugh.) But it is also very heartbreaking, with the protagonist knowing that the hero is being used, and the hero never quite being able to believe that, all the way to the end.

“The Fox’s Heart” by Josie Kallo
Fantasy (fairy tale elements) - m/m
4.5/5

Elijah sneaks into the Kingwood, a magical forest populated entirely by intricate constructs; trees and animals of metal and glass and fine clockwork, all created to please the King. He wants to find the fox, the most prized of all the forest’s constructs, the most difficult game for the King to hunt. Most of the creations are powered by the souls of the creatures they appear to be, but the fox is different… it used to have the heart and soul of a man.

My thoughts, minor spoilers:

This was in my top three favorite stories in the collection!

It does very much feel like a fairy tale, which I mean in a complimentary way. I love good fairy tales, and this incorporates a lot of the things that I expect out of them. Magic and love, but also tragedy and horror, a lot of it very fully blended together. The Kingwood sounds amazingly beautiful, but it’s also horrific in practice.

I find myself not really knowing what to say!

“On Castus” by Bastian Hart
Sci-fi - polycule of various configurations
3/5

Within the massive Centurion mech, the crew has truly bonded, to each other and to the mech as a whole. They have also defined their own mission, offering refuge over destruction. When a new commanding officer is assigned, with his own designs on how the mech and its occupants should be run, the existing crew will offer him a choice… but they are not going to sacrifice their bonds or mission.

My brief thoughts, vague spoilers:

This one did take me a couple reads to feel like I quite understood it, but I’ll say that’s more user error than anything else. I struggled to picture things well, and it led to me being confused.

That said, I like the mech in this, that it’s a massive, destructive thing, large enough to house at least its 100-person crew. The narrator talks about the fear of what was being destroyed beneath it when it walks.

And of course, always sympathetic to a group deciding to do good instead of bad with the power they’ve been given… while being willing to go to any lengths needed to protect that choice.

“If Black was Green and Flourescent” (sic) by A.P. Thayer
Sci-fi - ambiguous relationship; I think m/m, but it seems open to interpretation
2.5/5

The protagonist’s lover has been reactivated for service. The protagonist does their best to make sure their partner’s mech is in the best possible working order to keep them safe, no matter how much they don’t want them to go.

My thoughts:

“Fluorescent” is spelled correctly in the text of the story, but not the title, and it drives me crazy.

This story is fine. The feeling of wanting to support and help and protect someone you love, when what you really want is for them to not do the thing at all is certainly a decent emotional hook.

Sometimes I like ambiguity in terms of characters, but other times it doesn’t really work for me, and that’s unfortunately more where this one fell for me. (This is sort of how I feel about the prevalence of “y/n” or “readerfic” in fic spaces… it feels like the first-person narration combined with minimal description of the narrator is intended to let you sort of slide into the perspective… but that’s so emphatically not what I want! I will happily get into the head of a narrator, but I want them to feel substantial!)
There’ve been a few other ambiguous (in terms of gender/sexuality/appearance) narrators in this anthology, and perhaps this story simply suffered for coming after the point where I was already a little burnt out on them. They do have a goal and some strong emotions, they just didn’t feel quite distinguished enough for me to find them individually compelling or memorable.

I do like the ending choice that the narrator does make.

“The Ganymede Blues” by e rathke
Sci-fi - f/f
4.5/5

Brigitte and Helene (once known as Matilde) meet on Mars, but they’ve met before, and they’ll meet again. Both are from the colony on Ganymede, before it was destroyed. Both are unique: Brigitte experiences her memory non-linearly, remembering aspects of her future before they happen; Helene’s eidetic memory means she remembers absolutely everything that has ever happened to her. The two spend some time together, both with their own complex memories of each other, even knowing it can’t last forever.

My thoughts:

I really loved this one, too!

I just found the different ways each character has of relating to their memory, and what that means for them, very interesting. It was a really fun concept. (Remembering everything forever and remembering things before they happen both do seem like uniquely terrible experiences, even if only one really happens.)

This is another one that’s a tragedy of sorts, though most of it is off-page as something that Brigitte knows will happen. The time span of the story itself is mostly good, just with the bittersweet knowledge that it won’t last.

It’s also another one that references Musk in the architecture on Mars. On the one hand… yeah, it’s good setting. On the other, ugh, I want him to be gone forever, not immortalized, even in shitty ways.

“An Extraplanetary Capsule Lands in a Bog in Winter” by RJ Theodore
Sci-fi, with some fantasy and horror elements - arguably nb/f
4/5

Albite comes to Earth with one primary mission: to bond with a earth-native individual as a pilot, and then use this bond to help restore the planet’s environment and do as much as possible to bring about peace and scientific understanding. When they land, they struggle to find a human to bond with… eventually finding Ruby. Ruby has been dead for a very long time, the vengeful, angry ghost of a murdered woman. She becomes Albite’s pilot, despite having no desire to see the planet helped or saved.

My thoughts, spoilers:

This is another one that I really enjoyed. Unlike some of the others, this is one of the more hopeful entries!

I sort of thought that the story might go a kind of comedic route when it started (like having Albite bond with a crocodile in the swamp or something,) but I’m really glad it didn’t. I really like the idea of something initiating a bonding with a ghost, in some ways the inverse of a more “typical” haunting.

Ruby’s anger is extremely understandable, and has obviously only been growing since her murder, and it’s heartbreaking to have that be the wall that Albite hits, when their initial purpose is to create a bond with someone. (But Albite also has no time limit, and can be persistent in their desire to make a connection.)

I can see this being very compelling in a longer format, perhaps something that explored more of a push-pull or conflict between Albite’s and Ruby’s feelings and motivations. As it is, Albite is aware of Ruby’s desire for vengeance, but it doesn’t seem to have any impact on their mission, beyond that they have to do it alone rather than with her as a partner.

“This Dying Beast That Lies Between Us” by Petra Skelton
Sci-fi - slight f/nb
3.5/5

In the cockpit of her mostly-destroyed ship, Fimi waits for probable death, as the war rages on. Near the remains of her own mech, she sees the wreck of another: one that was the most feared of enemies, a pilot who’d turned traitor, who’d become a hero to the resistance that Fimi has been drafted to fight against.

My brief thoughts:

This one is pretty good, and another that definitely works best I think as a very short snapshot. The imagery (two mechs reduced to space junk, drifting together, sharp contrast between the sides of the conflict they’re on but also how they’re treated as individuals…) I think is very striking, but could easily be diluted or lose some of that impact in a longer work. (Not that a longer work couldn’t be a good exploration for the same characters, but I think it would feel very different.)

I’d love to be able to see this one as an animated short, where some of that visual contrast could really be highlighted.

“The Demolition of Trucko Brahe” by Charles Payseur
Sci-fi - past m/m, nonbinary side character
3/5

As kids, Tucker and a few of his friends were drafted into an interplanetary war when they were chosen by vehicular mechs. Years later, in a peacetime where they no longer have to fight, they find outlets for their skills. For Tucker’s partner, Trucko Brahe, that outlet is demolition derbies: Trucko’s goal being the first to make it through 100 races.

My thoughts, spoilers:

I couldn’t quite get into this one all the way, but I’m willing to say that’s my own failure. It’s sort of a… Transformers and Animorphs and Voltron crossover, about twelve year old kids getting chosen to participate in a galactic war to defend earth, partnering with mechs that have truck-themed philosopher pun names—Copernicrash, Galileadfoot—that can also combine Voltron-style. Underneath the silly premise is a very serious story, about kids and warfare and growing up, what feels like a fun and important adventure at twelve becoming a source of horror and trauma when they don’t all survive, or are left with serious mental and physical scars. Then the mingled relief and betrayal of winning the war, but being punished as combatants as part of the new Peace they helped to secure, and being pushed into “normal” lives they’re unprepared for.
I think this one did a good job of alternating between Trucko and Tucker’s final race and Tucker’s flashbacks to the war they were a part of. It unfolded really well to provide a sense of both the “where we are” and the “how we got here.”
I like weird premises being played straight, and the genuine horror of war that series like Animorphs ended up exploring is one of my favorite things about that type of story. I’m not entirely sure why this one didn’t work as well for me, and I think that it may just be down to All Of That having to happen in just a few pages. The story did so pretty well, but it was still a lot to do in such a short period, and it was a bit of an uphill fight against the silliness to appreciate the juxtaposition of the silliness and the horror. Then again, I would probably not have been willing to commit to the premise in a longer format.

(Again, my kingdom for a copyeditor. Was the pun Copernicrash or Copernicrush?? Both work, but pick one! It’s a short story, names shouldn’t be too hard to keep consistent!)

“Heart Amongst the Heather” by R.J. Howell
Sci-fi
3.5/5

When a ship is ready to die, they must end their life back at their source: the ship-builders’ wombs. There, the ship will die, but will also birth a daughter ship, a new incarnation in a line of all that came before. When a pilot accompanies them, they may be able to bond with the newly created ship. Pilot Ezeri is accompanying the ship The Dawn Reliant on its death journey, spending the ship’s last few years attempting to integrate with it, in the hopes of being able to truly bond with the next incarnation. Then the ship intercepts a distress signal. Detouring for a rescue means they’ll never make it to their destination, but if Ezeri pushes to ignore the distress call against the ship’s wishes, then the integration is doomed to failure anyway.

My thoughts, some spoilers

I liked this one.

It’s a no-win situation for the protagonist, and I do feel their struggle. The worldbuilding of the ships and how they communicate is very interesting.

I feel like this one was actually slightly too long, which isn’t really my feeling about much out of the collection! I did definitely feel Ezeri’s struggle, realizing that they’ve gotten very close to what they most wanted, but have now lost it, no matter what they do, due to circumstances outside of their control. The tragedy feels very real and terrible! That said… their back and forth did feel a little bit too drawn out, even once it became clear there was no secret third option. It felt obvious to me which decision they would have to make, and while I could understand Ezeri not wanting to make it, eventually it dragged on a bit much for me.

“Neither Are You Free to Abandon It” by Izzy Wasserstein
Sci-fi, mild horror elements - trans femme protagonist
4/5

When a mech pilot is killed, they leave a “ghost” behind, which can be implanted into a new soldier in order to help transfer knowledge, prepare them, and keep them alive. Baldwin died before Jordan could ever have met her, but that doesn’t keep the ghost from talking to her and helping her to victory.

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this one! I really hope this author goes on to write and publish more; her novella These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart was also really good.

Many of the scenes are Jordan speaking with her therapist, which is a good setup to very naturally provide some exposition, both to explain the world and how Jordan’s experience differs.

I really like the end “realization” and end of the story itself, though I don’t want to spoil how it ends! It’s not really a twist or anything, but I will say that it worked well for me. It feels like a much more personal fulfillment of what the “ghosts” are intended to be.

“even the machines are eaten in the end” by C. M. Fields
Sci-fi - ambiguous relationship
4/5

Two consciousnesses find each other across the multiverse.

My thoughts, spoilers:

I enjoyed this one.

I’d say it’s a love story, one consciousness (a machine) reaching repeatedly through different universes to find its creator, a human who made it to fight against an AI technocracy that is taking over many of the universes. I am, possibly unsurprisingly, a sucker for that sort of “soulmates seeking each other in every different universe” story, so.

I will say that I had to read this one a couple times to feel like I quite grasped it and was able to piece the narrative together. Very possibly reader error. (It’s short enough that it wasn’t a hardship to reread.)

“A Polymorphism Named Home” by Sharang Biswas
Sci-fi, poetry
3/5

The difficulty of answering “Where are you from?”

My brief thoughts:

Another thing that’s a very real experience (this time, the complexity of answering what people think of as a simple question, when it really has so many possible answers) and the frustration of how poorly they seem to understand that complexity, but ported to a sci-fi universe.

“Mycomecha” by Autumn [Redacted]
Sci-fi, role play game
3/5

*For this story, there is just a note from the publisher that the formatting of Mycomecha could not successfully be ported to ebook format. They ask you to reach out by email to get a .pdf copy. I did reach out, and they sent it to me the next day!

Mycomecha is a single player role-play game, with a lot of flexibility in setting, which follows a few different set plot points to create unique stories. You design your character and the world setting, and then what sorts of factions would be allied or antagonistic toward them.

You are a “Blessed Infected,” a lifeform infected by a fungus that will colonize and encase your form; due to the creation or discovery of “infection stabilizers,” you are able to survive and in some cases control aspects of this process. Blessed Infected are often used as soldiers, and you are part of a large-scale conflict. Much of the rest is up to your own designs and the randomized elements of the game.

My thoughts:

To be completely fair, I did not play a game. (It’s estimated to take several hours, and I have not had the time to do that!) I did read through the rules and scenarios and the examples given of how the gameplay could go.

I love the premise! Add mycological anything to just about any situation, and I’ll probably be into it. :) Also, “mycomecha” is very fun to say out loud.

I do think that the basic premise (being a mycomecha, being engaged in some sort of major conflict, different factions pitted against each other) can be taken in so many different, interesting directions.

I’m not completely sure that I understand all the mechanics of the gameplay itself. Some of the different stats seemed to be positive things, but then a lot of the “successful” actions or “wins” cause those numbers to drop? I’m sure that it would make more sense when actually playing and writing out my own numbers and following each step, but a few definitely confused me. I’m also not an expert at TTRPGs in general, or single-player text RPGs, so it’s possible it’s just inexperience and unfamiliarity that makes it seem confusing to me.

I don’t know if I’ll ever sit down to play through it, but it sounds fun, and if I do end up with an afternoon to kill, I may give it a go.

Overall, this was a good collection, and I’m glad to have read it, when it might not have been one I picked for myself. I found that a lot of my favorite stories were the ones that felt the most different (some of the ones that took it in a more fantasy direction rather than pure sci-fi, for instance.) I did find it interesting how many of the stories really did lean into very similar themes and plot elements. It’s not surprising that they did so (like I said at the start, there are a lot of fairly obvious ways in which queerness could intersect with mecha), it was just interesting to sometimes get what felt like iterations of similar ideas by different writers.

Most of the authors in the anthology were new to me, though a couple I’ve read before. (Charles Payseur was the series editor for the previous anthology that I read. Izzy Wasserstein wrote These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart, which was one of my favorite books from the queer storybundle.)



Again, Murderbot. Again, good covers.
Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells
Book 6 of The Murderbot Diaries (however, it is chronologically the 5th story, and I read them in chronological order this time)
2021
Science fiction - physical novella
4.5/5

Having rescued Dr. Mensah from GrayCris, Murderbot is now back on Preservation Station. The situation is complicated: Preservation’s laws and rights for citizens weren’t created with constructs in mind, and Station Security very much does not trust or want to have a SecUnit around. Then a human is murdered. In some stations that would be a regular occurrence, but that is not the case on Preservation, and a full investigation is launched. Murderbot gets pulled in to assist, despite everyone’s reluctance. Every new piece of information they uncover leads to more questions, and the single human’s murder could lead to far more if they can’t find the culprits.

My thoughts, some spoilers:

As with all the rest, I really enjoyed this one, which leaves me not entirely sure what to say!

I found I didn’t remember this one particularly well from my original read back when it came out, so I was really glad to have reread it now! I don’t know why I didn’t remember it terribly well! I am also glad to have gone with the chronological read this time around. (It’s really just this and Network Effect being swapped, plus the short stories.) I typically prefer to get everything chronologically, so it could just be that bias, but I do think it was a good choice.

Good things:
- One thing I really enjoy about The Murderbot Diaries is how even in very self-contained stories (and I think this book is the most self-contained so far) they still build in terms of character arcs. I like seeing Murderbot’s character evolve as it starts exploring more of what autonomy means for it, what it wants. (This is part of what I like about the chronological read.)
- It’s voice is still fantastic, of course. It is, if anything, even more snide and snarky here.
- The series as a whole repeatedly confronts issues of slavery, oppression, and exploitation, and that’s something very much at the forefront here. (And exploited human refugees contrast in interesting ways with Murderbot as an exploited being.)
- I love Murderbot’s one-sided beef. It continues with Gurathin (who Murderbot does not like, and insists it’s mutual.) Murderbot’s internal narration says that Gurathin only helps reluctantly, doesn’t want to come assist, wishes he could leave when things go badly… But from my perspective, it looks like Gurathin always comes to help as soon as Murderbot asks, and then he sticks around after things go sideways specifically to make sure Murderbot doesn’t end up getting blamed.
- Now there’s also (minor) one-sided beef with a bot named JollyBaby. And I love JollyBaby. Murderbot, however, hates that it’s called JollyBaby and that everyone treats this like a cute inside joke… and it especially seems to hate when JollyBaby jumps in to explain that yes, it is a joke! The whole thing is great.

Neutral:
- This is definitely the most self-contained of the stories, which is both a positive and negative to me. It’s very much a case story, with a bit less (though not no) connection to the overarching plot. I like what it does give us, like getting to see aspects of what Preservation’s culture is like, and the time relatively shortly after Murderbot’s catastrophic failure and rebuild. It is nice to also see Murderbot again in its element by choice. I recently saw someone mention that this was their favorite book in the series due to how contained it was, but for me I think I slightly prefer the ones that feel more connected.

I am very much looking forward to Network Effect which I remember being my favorite of the series, and I hope it holds up to what I recall.

This is a good, fairly simple cover.
The Fever King by Victoria Lee
Book 1 of the Feverwake duology
2019
Science fiction/Fantasy (subgenres: dystopian, alternate history, young adult) - m/m - ebook novel
4/5

In 2120, one of the major threats to the world is a virus. It’s spread rapidly over the last hundred years, maintaining a 90% fatality rate. The one in ten who survive the fever wake as “witchings,” people with the ability to utilize magic.
Noam Alvarez, the son of undocumented refugees, survives the virus after an outbreak in the slums. It’s a shock when his presenting power of technopathy gets him enrolled in Level IV, a military training unit intended to cultivate future leaders. It’s an even greater shock when Defense Minister Calix Lehrer takes Noam on as a private pupil.
Lehrer is over 100 years old, one of the very first witchings, something that made him subject to horrific torture and experimentation by the government of the then-United States. He became a revolutionary and war hero after his rescue, even being crowned king of the newly-formed nation of Carolinia within the former United States, though he abdicated the kingship in favor of a broader government.
Noam wants to use his new power and status to help the refugees, a goal that Lehrer says he supports. Lehrer claims his hands have been tied by the anti-immigrant Chancellor Sacha, but that he has a plan to change things.
Noam also gets entangled with fellow Level IV cadet, Dara, Lehrer’s adopted son and protege. Dara insists the power struggle between Lehrer and Sacha is far more complicated that Noam understands. Regardless, it is clear the conflict is only going to escalate and grow more dangerous. Possibly for all of them.

Too many of my thoughts, spoilers, some content warnings:

I really enjoyed this one, especially compared to the previous YA that I read (despite how long it took me to read it.)

This definitely feels like it’s on the mature end of YA, which is my preference. It was also my preference when I was the Young Adult being targeted by the category; I hated feeling talked down to by something that seemed to have been “dumbed down” for that YA audience, and this did not give me that vibe. I think with fairly few tweaks it could be aimed fully at an adult audience.
That said, this does deal with some pretty heavy subjects: oppression and abuse of refugees, child abuse, the suicide of a parent (past), having to be the caretaker for a parent, death by illness (including children), underage drinking (including relying on it as a coping mechanism), and while there is no explicit sex in the book, there is a teenage character who is sexually abused by an adult. While I think the book handled all of the above in ways I found appropriate for a YA audience, I know that sometimes adult readers actually have a harder time with some of these things, especially when the characters are young.

Good things:
- The story felt very complex (as is probably obvious by how short my summary isn’t), but it didn’t ever stray into feeling convoluted. Lots of things happen, but they all matter to the story. There are a lot of plots and subplots and different relationships between all the characters, but for the most part all of those things work together within the story, and do a lot to make the characters feel more realistic. While at the beginning, some information seemed overwhelming, it all began to make a lot more sense as I got further into the story, in a way I found satisfying.
- I liked that politically, there were no good guys. So, so often the “complex situation” is set up where there’s a clearly good side to choose… but that really wasn’t the case, here. Lehrer isn’t the perfect heroic figure he wants Noam to believe he is, but that doesn’t mean that Sacha is a tragically maligned secret good guy. He is terrible! We have someone who means well in Brennan, but he is frustratingly ineffective in a way that feels painfully familiar. Noam and Dara and the other kids are for the most part at least well-meaning, but there aren’t any good adults in the room to turn to.
- The politics in general feel extremely relevant. Many of the same issues—the marginalization of immigrants and refugees, especially—were certainly a major thing in 2019 as well, but only feel more so now. Though woof at publishing a book in 2019 about a highly contagious virus that destabilizes the world in the late 2010s…
- The magic system is cool. The presenting power (the initial power someone who survives the virus shows) is generally based on something they personally have knowledge of. Because Noam is skilled with computers and is a hacker, his technopathy presents as a heightened form of that. Someone with a good understanding of physics may be predisposed to telekinesis. Someone with excellent knowledge of anatomy and physiology might develop healing. This also means that learning and understanding more subjects can lead to the ability to do more magically.
- Epistolary sections, my beloved. Periodically we get little interludes of newspaper clippings, personal letters, transcripts of video recordings, etc. about Lehrer. I like the flavor that this gives, and the glimpses into the historical context (things that happened back in 2018, for instance.) There are also good story details about the sources for the pieces, like things saying that a particular letter was stolen from Lehrer’s office or some such. It’s also interesting because it means that sometimes the reader gets information that the main character doesn’t have, and you can start putting things together before he does.
- Fridge horror! This is a bit more SPOILERY, so skip the next little bit if you want to avoid that…
But even when it becomes fairly clear that Lehrer is up to some shit, learning the extent makes him SCARY, haha. Looking back at all the “reasonable” little jumps that Noam made… “forget everything he just told you.” AAAAAAA,
[Okay, more spoilery bit is over.]

The less good:
- While I like the magic system and some of the little historical bits that we get, as a whole I think the worldbuilding is a little weak. Things like… why does the virus not have a fucking name??
More broadly, I almost constantly forgot that we were supposed to be a hundred years in the future. It just never really feels like that’s the case. (Even trying to take into account the fall of the USA, and the destabilization that would cause.) There’s a little bit of advanced tech, but honestly even a lot of that is just stuff that’s at the upper end of the current day, and most of it feels very standard for now. Definitely not what I anticipate things are going to look like a full century from now. Social and cultural markers all feel about the same too, for example, bright teenagers reading mildly pretentious literature… but it’s the same things that a bright, mildly pretentious teen could be reading now.
Granted, and something I’ve acknowledged before, I do get that this can be tricky. You want to have cultural touchstones for your readers to recognize (“ah! That is a mildly pretentious but kind of cool teenager!”) and trying to “predict” what things will look like in a century can get very silly very fast. It’s hard to win… but this truly felt like it was set in 2019.
- Dara and Noam’s relationship jumps very suddenly from “mildly antagonistic” to “I guess we’re allies-if-not-friends.” I do actually think this makes more sense once we learn more about Dara, and can understand how and why he would go from “antagonistic indifference” to “ah shit, I need to protect this guy,” but as a reader, it does feel very sudden and like it came out of nowhere. I do genuinely like Dara and Noam’s relationship, and how it progressed from there, but that one particular step was jarring.
- A few of the side characters are just… there.
- The fade-to-black (or maybe more accurately, “skip a bit…”) sex scenes felt really awkward!
Despite the book not shying away from swearing at all, when it comes to the sex, there’s a lot of dancing around not using any inappropriate words, so it will say stuff like “a certain part of him was hard”, which feels SO MUCH WEIRDER than just saying his dick, lol. The sex scenes are not at all explicit, which is obviously fine, but I don’t think this did the smoothest job of skipping over the explicit parts.

This is book one of a duology, and it doesn’t end on a cliff-hanger, per se, and this did have a complete story arc. Still, there’s a whole lot that’s unresolved. I have added the second book to my wishlist, and plan to read it eventually!

I lovelovelove this cover! The religious imagery, the bloody hive frame, the empty face... Excellent.
The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling
2025
Horror/Fantasy (subgenre: supernatural, historical, religious, cannibalism) - f/f/f, some m/f - physical novel
4.5/5

The castle Aymar has been under siege for months, the final retreat of the king and as many of his people as it could hold. So far they have survived, waiting for rescue that seems increasingly unlikely, but as they begin to run out of food, they contemplate ‘solutions’ that would once have been unthinkable.
Phosyne, heretical ex-member of The Priory of the Constant Lady, created one miracle for Aymar already: magically purifying their water. Now the king demands she do the impossible again, to conjure food for the starving people.
Ser Voyne, a respected knight, has been little more than the king’s lapdog, though she tries to keep order within the castle. Finally she is given a task, even if it isn’t the one she wants: mind the witch Phosyne and ensure she is working on the demanded miracle.
Treila works as a servant in the castle, but once she was a lady. Then her family was disgraced, her father was put to death, and she and the rest of her family were exiled and left for dead, events which she blames Ser Voyne for.
Just as the situation in Aymar is poised to cross from desperate to despair, their salvation seems to arrive. The Constant Lady and her saints appear in the castle, offering magnificent, impossible feasts to the starving. Few are skeptical to start, though some like Phosyne and Treila believe something is deeply wrong. As the people in the keep descend from relief into utter depravity, starvation becomes the least of the dangers within Aymar’s walls.

My thoughts, some spoilers and content warnings:

I really enjoyed this! Apparently it is a bit of a divisive choice, and it is definitely a sort of “wouldn’t it be fucked up if…” book, haha.
This does come with a pretty hefty content warning for cannibalism and mutilation (often connected.) It could be better or worse, depending on your personal feelings, that the victims do not experience very much distress about it. There is a lot of coerced behavior and mind control.

The good:
- I love genre blends, and this is both horror and medieval-inspired fantasy. It is not a real historical setting, but it feels very historical, more so than a lot of fairly standard fantasy settings.
- The aesthetics and imagery in the book get an absolute A+ from me. It utilizes a lot of imagery of plenty or bounty tipping into rot and excess. Bees are an important religious symbol for the setting, and the combining of honey with blood and the overgrowth of a hive (along with the thematic connection of a hive/worker bees to concepts of human fealty and loyalty,) really worked for me.
- The themes of power and how it can be used to protect or to exploit (or both) is very omnipresent, whether that’s the power of kingship, religious faith, magical or supernatural gifts, physical strength, having information… This also extends to basically all the interactions between the three main characters, who have constantly shifting power dynamics between them. Definitely comes with some D/s overtones, and this may become my go-to example of “there’s no sex happening, but if there was, it’d be a lot less sexual than whatever they are doing.”
- The false saints are so creepy and terrifying! A lot of that comes from the juxtaposition of all the mind control and compelled murder and cannibalism being wrapped up in an otherworldly-beautiful and alluring package. It’s awful and excellent.
(A cursory look at some other reviews made it seem like some people disliked never getting a definite answer as to what the false saints were… but I don’t think it’s difficult to at least make a pretty solid guess. It’s kinda spoilery, though I’ll avoid the exact specifics, but… they have one specific weakness, and they also have one specific thing they try to get and that gives them power over someone when they succeed… The two specific things are very much tied to a certain type of folklore, and while this isn’t a real-world historical setting, it seems quite clear to me that these entities are the fictional-setting equivalent of [redacted.] I don’t think they had to be named as such.)

Meh:
- Really the only consistent thing that bothered me was that I struggled to picture the layout of the castle/keep. The layout gets brought up a lot, often in context of how familiar with it characters are, but I struggled. There were multiple scenes where I was failing to really block it in my head, as to how characters got from point to point or how they could be viewing some event from their position. This could just be me failing to get a proper mental image from it, but I feel like a stronger idea of that layout would have improved the experience.
- As is often the danger with books that alternate between perspectives, I didn’t find all three perspectives equally engaging. Sometimes it did mean that I was a little unexcited to switch perspectives, but honestly, this was pretty minor. Even the character I struggled to connect with (Treila) was often doing very interesting things.

It was kind of nice to read a standalone novel! So much of what I’ve been reading has been parts of series (or at least duologies/trilogies.) I enjoy series, I enjoy ongoing story arcs, but sometimes it is nice to read something that’s just self-contained!

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Bonus short story:


A good cover.
“Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory” by Martha Wells
A Murderbot Diaries short story, set after Exit Strategy
2021
Science fiction - online short story
Published on Tor.com (now ReactorMag) here.
4/5

Ayda Mensah has been rescued after her abduction by GrayCris, thanks once again to SecUnit. Now returned to Preservation Station, she has to start answering questions about it and whether it can be trusted. Defending SecUnit is one of the easier things for her to do now; more difficult is feeling and believing that she’s truly safe.

My thoughts, only vague spoilers:

This is a short story set just after Exit Strategy, and we get Mensah’s point of view!

I like this. It’s interesting to get a fully external view of Murderbot. Mensah sorting through her own feelings about how constructs are treated (recognizing that she had previously believed the propaganda about them), the ways in which even Preservation’s progressive society has failed to fairly account for them or provide full protections. I am glad that it’s explicitly stated/acknowledged that SecUnits are truly enslaved.

I like the idea (again, a reoccurring theme) of media portrayal being important, with hopes to perhaps create a documentary series that Murderbot could be interviewed for, doing more to show what SecUnits are. (When Murderbot has been very aware all along of how SecUnits are portrayed in media.)

I also like Mensah’s coping (poorly) with her obvious PTSD. She doesn’t want to seek help for it, doesn’t really want to confront it, focuses a lot on how much worse others (like Murderbot) have it, but is so clearly struggling.

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Reading goals for 2026:
- Read 50 books (45/50)
- Read more genre classics (Tolkien, Le Guin, Pratchett) (6/x)
- Re/read The Murderbot Diaries (5/8)
- Read the 2025 Pride ebook bundle (8/14)
- Read some short story collections (3/x)

(I made all those numbers go up this month, ha.)

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I am currently reading five books:
- Network Effect by Martha Wells, the next Murderbot book
- Role Model by Rachel Reid
- Diavola by Jennifer Thorne, my co-read with Alex
- A House With Good Bones by T. Kingfisher, my first co-read with Taylor, but because I forgot to bring it with when we hung out together, we also started…
- Absolution by Jeff VanderMeer, my second co-read with Taylor

My plans for what to read next:
- The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin, the next Earthsea book
- System Collapse by Martha Wells, more Murderbot
- Fair’s Point by Melissa Scott, another from the Pride ebooks
- Platform Decay by Martha Wells, the most recent Murderbot
- Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones, the “free space” TBR that I picked for finishing Murderbot
- My next ebook side-read will probably be another Amazon short story collection

My TBR has hit 901 books, in part due to in fact getting the Tanith Lee humble bundle that I was contemplating last month.

I did say last month that I wasn't going to alter my TBR plans, even though I had given myself "permission" to do so. I changed my mind... a little bit. I am going to try to read more horror in October. It's kind of part of my "autumn devotional" that I do each year, where I try to mindfully experience the season, and kind of an attempt to enjoy spooky month during spooky month instead of several months ahead of time. I do read horror all year round, and will continue to do so, but I hope to read more of it during October.
Now, since I don't know where exactly I'll be in my TBR at that point, I can't actually put them on the list exactly... but once I get to the end of September, I'll put the TBR proper on pause, and promote some horror TBRs of choice. This does mean that there are a handful of things that I'm potentially postponing, since I also still want to finish my other goals for the year, but I think with a few adjustments that'll remain doable.
Currently, the ones I'm thinking of putting on the list to choose from are:
- Thirteen Storeys
- The Last House on Needless Street
- The Reformatory
- The Ritual
- Cold Eternity
- Our Share of Night
- Mister Magic
- When the Wolf Comes Home
That's almost certainly more than I'll be able to read in a month, but should give me some variety to choose between. :) I'll go back to my regularly planned TBR in November, and any unread from the October choices just get filtered back in. Looking forward to it!