Zack > Recent Status Updates

Amazing how much reading you can get down when you’re 33hrs into a 38 hour travel day!

The balance between lighting, safety perception, and darkness could be a lot more nuanced, but a lot has changed around the discussions of violence in the last decade.

Close enough to the end that I think I can push through!

I think I’ve somehow picked up a Nicholas Sparks book.

Moving a little faster now. Definitely did not expect it to be so romancey.

And I don’t understand why they have never said the main character’s name.

Some animal cruelty, but that was expected from a book this old.

Boring and then throw in a gut punch of a guy selling his beloved horse because he’s totally broke.

Oof. This book is pretty boring, but I guess that’s the stuff of real cowboys. A little bit of ranch life and lots of pining for a woman.

Book is ten years old and author’s lament of the loss of darkness in cities feels a little ignorant and white male privilege. Keep thinking about the horrifically common fears women have walking at night and people of color using brightly lit gas stations for interactions with police.

Some progress this week! Gotta switch back to the iPad for reading this since I hit the road again.

“Burn the Ships” is a gutwrenching take on indigenous genocide by setting it in a more modern world with magic drawing comparisons to the Holocaust.

“The Freedom of the Shifting Sea” reworks some of the mermaid ideas with a sapphic predator slant.

“Three Variations on the Theme of Imperial Attire” is multiple tellings of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” taking shots at modern politics.

“The Virtue of Unfaithful Translations” is an excellent take on the usual “warlords fighting for supremacy” trope.

“Come Home to Atropos” is absolutely bonkers in its snark on race.

“The Fine Print” Patriarchy gonna patriarchy?

“unkind of mercy” was good, but was kinda forgettable.

Second story was too incomplete. Didn’t do much.

Third story is amazing!

First story was excellent. Looking at tourism colonialism through a sci-fi lens.

Yes! Ten week wait turned out to be six days.

Eeef I’m one of those people that’s had this book way past the due date, so I guess I’ll return it and put it on hold again.

Thought I could finish before Libby kicks me out. We’ll see what happens.

We’ll get there someday! Not a very complicated plot, so not much to forget between sessions.

So good! Writing has a lot of personality without it being all about the author.

Slowly getting there. This has become the book I read when I'm on planes or unable to sleep.

Gwenhwyfar sucks! It’s annoying to spend so much time with her. Teetering on DNF right now.

I’ve heard how iconic this book is for years, but have realized the Arthur saga just doesn’t do it for me. Read “Once and Future King” years ago and felt the same way. I will probably push through as I’m curious about Morgaine’s plot.

Spooky season!

It’s now going back and forth between very tame romance and an anti-egalitarian treatise.

Definitely as patriarchal as I was expecting. Was not expecting it to be a romance novel.

The Virginian seems to be the only one with an accent. A couple other characters are written with accents. I guess that was the style then and it’s obnoxious.

This book is the wildest slow-burn I have ever read. When people talk about a story being dream-like, they think they are talking about something else, but they are really talking about this book. Downside of its dreaminess is that I feel no compunction to move through it quickly.

I wish I hadn’t seen that one of the author’s worked as GRRM’s assistant. Now I keep seeing the parallels between “The Expanse” and “GoT,” mostly idea of using a *spoiler* subplot that may become the main plot, and that *spoiler* subplot isn’t usually seen in the book’s genre (space opera and fantasy/grimdark).

“Like destiny? Fate is a story people tell themselves so they can believe everything happens for a reason, that the whole awful world is fitted together like some perfect machine, with blood for oil and bones for brass. That every child locked in her cellar or girl chain to her loom is in her right in proper place.”