Zack > Recent Status Updates

“Those thrice-damned boot-licking shit-witches!”

Nice

“Well, of course. The gods rain shit and fire on mere mortals.”

First off, I love that the series title is “Chronicles of the Bitch Queen,” but my copy says “Wolf Queen” on it.

That scene in Crystal is brutal.

Why all this hype around “Rivers of London” so suddenly? New book release soon?

Yes!! An Olaus Murie appearance!

The administrative history aspects are starting to wear on me. I wish all these proposals discussed had a nice map showing where they would have gone and what roads were actually built. There is a great one of these in the book for Mt Rainier.

Grimdark Redwall, here we come.

Avery is still annoying. Starting to throw some real Zeb is the manic pixie dream girl who’s purpose to pull Avery out of his obnoxiousness vibes.

There isn’t enough funding until there is enough. Contractors don’t follow the rules. NPS and Bureau of Public Roads butt heads. Roads can’t be built fast enough for public demand. That’s about all this chapter is about.

I’m so close to throwing this onto DNF. I know it’s a classic, but I’m just not feeling it. It’s not the language so much as it just DRAGS.

Finally getting to the “Golden Age of Road Building.” Should be more individual park stuff and hopefully more pictures (these super dense pages are getting to me).

Summary makes it feel like the city will feel like a character in itself and I’m just not feeling it that strongly.

Also, feels like a smattering of a few other books I’ve read recently; “A Desolation Called Peace,” “Bone Shard Daughter,” and “The City We Became.”

This book is a grind, but it’s also a coffee table book without many photos.

It is a great history of the national parks. Isn’t as much of a “rah rah the parks are so amazing” history, but more about the politics of getting things through Congress and putting park politics in context of overall politics and culture.

I know Yosemite as a park is older than Yellowstone, but much emphasis is placed on Yellowstone. This book really shows that so much of the national park culture started in Yosemite during those state park years.

Now that we are on the parks, it is much more interesting.

Fascinating that Olmsted laid out the ideas that would become the operating philosophy for national park roads when consulting on Yosemite in the mid-1860’s, but was ignored.

This book is “Courage the Cowardly Dog.” With the added idea that Muriel and Eustace may have actually know the entire time what monsters lurked around them.

I know I’m trying to work through books I own. I threw this one on my library holds ages ago and had forgotten about it.

“It is hard to swear when sex is not dirty and blasphemy does not exist.”

Oh man. I get it! National parks roads weren't just inspired by, but were actually grew out of the city park recreational carriage road culture. And, I get it, and I also don't get it, but to spend that much time on "sublimity." Finally made it to the parks themselves, we'll see if things pick up.

Introduction starting so high with ideas on roads being an integral part of the public use versus preservation debate in national parks, ideas on roads as historic resources themselves, ideas on the structured landscapes of national parks and the relation to roads. And then it goes into the history of royal gardens and pleasure carriages. Ugh.

I love that this political philosophy masquerading as science fiction also calls toilets “shitstools.”

It was so good! … for about 50 pages.

It’s perpetually on the cusp of “getting good.” The book isn’t very long, so I’ll probably stick it out.

Let's see how worth it is is push through after book two was such a bummer, as in I didn't like it.

Hm that flashback would have been a great book in some prequel series. I feel like we’ll never hear from any of those characters again, so what was the point?

SK talks about how beautiful Susan is and “greater men than Hart Thorin might have given away kingdoms for,” but he only ever seems to describe her hair and her bust. She’s sixteen. Thinking back on it, most women seem to only be described on hair, chest, and are they fat or skinny.

Just killed a dog for apparently no reason. Same kids were cutting the tails off of dogs earlier in the book.

These descriptions of sex between a 14 year old and a 16 year old are pretty graphic for the age of these kids. Even if the 14 year old boy has already had sex once and it was with a prostitute. Even if the 16 year old girl is scheduled to be deflowered by a gross old man within weeks or less at this point.