Status Updates From The Butcher of Anderson Sta...

“they used me. they made it about sending messages to everyone that you don’t fuck with earth, because look at the shit we’ll do just because you spaced an administrator on a nowhere station. they made me the poster boy for disproportional response. they made me a butcher.”

alright fred, calm down. no one’s “skull-fucking” anybody

Please don’t play with me like this.

Solid audiobook. Glad this was cut from the book but they still let us have the short story. Especially since parts of it did get flashbacks on the show.

‘Dawes took out a utility knife. Fred took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. He was ready for death. Dawes walked behind him. A fast pull across the neck and Fred could bleed out in four minutes. A stab in the kidney could take hours. Cut the cords that were tying his arms behind his back, and it could take years.’

I found this so sad and powerful..

It's good, though switching between an interrogation and flashbacks isn't a very interesting premise.

A really good understanding of the backstory of the Butcher of Anderson Station

Oh, not only is it 2% per page, but like the last 20% is actually a 'preview' of the first book's prologue, so it's even shorter than expected. Lol. I mean, it's not bad, but it's not really much of anything. Waste of money tbh

This is literally 2% per page and yet it's still taking me over a day to read it, lol. I'm being terrible about reading again...

Well, this is obviously very short. I guess it's both the Anderson Station story, and how Fred became part of the OPA. That's neat.

15 pages read in 23 min, via @leioapp (http://leio.co).

2nd read.

i need to understand when this is set i'm so confused

they bought all the short stories as library ebooks so i guess that's what I'm doing today

Fred leaves UN because they made him slaughter surrendering civilians solely to send a message about how ready Earth is with disproportionate response. He receives a Medal of Freedom, then gets captured by Anderson Dawes while trying to die. He joins the OPA to not waste his unique UN knowledge and training, to help the Belt.

Flashback Recap: Fred asked UN why he was ordered to attack, despite the fact he later found out the strike had surrendered. OPA miners had already been operating on unsurvivable amounts of life support and were told to cut back further unless they somehow worked harder. UN says they massacred to send a message about what will happen to future protesters.

“I LiKe HoW tHe ExPaNsE iSn’T ‘PoLiTiCaL’”

Flashback Recap: OPA had few weapons so they used grenades on UN forces, to keep them at distance and thinking the OPA was better equipped than reality. UN ordered response was to break the barricades with heavy artillery. Results damaged life support of whole surrounding civilian sectors, killing many.

3.5 stars

Done! Shorter than I thought...

I'll probably go ahead a read this short story and then finish Men at Arms, and then dive into Caliban's War (The Expanse #2). Pretty excited to continue the story of The Expanse as it's a fantastic sci-fi space series as of book 1.

The concussion rocket his marines had used to clear the corridor had burst them like overripe grapes. Fred’s vacuum-rated armor protected him from the smell of viscera, but it reported it to him as a slight increase in atmospheric methane levels. The stench of death reduced to a data point.

i
. mmml

"I know every action that was taken on the station."
"You're the one who asked what happened."
"No, I asked what happened to YOU."

Loving this! I'm happier than these doggies right now!

His command software flagged the fatality and sent a message to the appropriate squad leader to write a letter to the family. It was all very clean, very organized. Centuries of warfare in the electronic age had distilled it to this.

This gritty writing is so good, I can't turn away!

The next buddy read with my wonderful friend, Kayla, the Graceling Accountant! I wish us accountants had more time to read, but it's accrual world!

(Starting out the Accountant Buddy Read with a little math humor, VERY little!)

Recruitment

The negotiation team knew about it. This is all on OPCOM.

Fuck! They had surrendered, this was intentional.

Eleven hundred people with no air and no power

Oh, Anderson Dawes was your captor!