P. Kirby > Recent Status Updates

"The progressives of the Stability Research group, regardless of their actual political practices, were certainly open to accusation of subersion for their embrace of 'dangerous' ideas like racial integration, civil rights, and equality for women."

"...in a 1994 study, estimate that Langley had employed 'several hundred' women as human computers. On the tail end of the research for Hidden Figures, I can now see how that number might top one thousand."

"I can put names to almost fifty black women who worked as computers, mathematician, engineers, or scientists at Langley....from 1943 through 1980, and my intuition is that twenty more names can be shaken loose from the archives with more research."

The visit to Sissix's homeworld is pretty much a big, steaming pile of info-dump. ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz.....

I love--LOVE--that Bridget believes it's all right for Val to kill Lord What-his-face (disemboweled, heh). I mean, too often romance heroines (and other females) get all goody-goody and whingy about the poor, poor rapist, murderer.

""What's in the box?"

"Oh," Val said as he mounted the black mare. "That. It's my heart--or what's left of it. She gave you my heart."

"He very much hoped that he might quickly stab Caire in the arm--or any other appropriately painful, but not actually fatal spot--and then hurry home to a hot pot of tea." :)

Well, something finally happened, but..it was pretty low key, no real sense of danger. I'm definitely the black sheep on the book. Just don't get all the love heaped on it.

Uh, when a bodice-ripper with a narcissist, sociopath hero is more interesting than a "rollicking" space adventure, you know said space adventure has failed. I'm gonna finish this...because. But, it's trying so hard to be Firefly and failing. ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz.

The hero/heroine dynamic is so fucked up and twisted...and I rather love it. Val is awful, but refreshingly, joyfully so.

This book, surprisingly, has a lot of heart. Which is odd, because it's gruesome, gory, and violent. But the story interjects a lot of decency.

I don't know why they call these "bodice rippers." More like stories about unfortunate men who haven't figured out how shirt buttons work. Man titty! Anyway, got this because of hero has been compared to Tom Hiddleston. Here we go....

So far the characters have had several meals, many conversations, gone shopping and even had alien sex/cuddling. But...nothing, I repeat nothing significant has happened. The characters are okay and distinctive, but there's no conflict, no sense of urgency. Lots of "day in the life" stuff. Meh.

"Weird" fiction is usually hit or miss with me, with a dominance of miss. This, thus far, is action packed and kinda fun. Even the cute kid in peril trick is working. The baby is tickling my few maternal heart strings. And what's up with the goat?

ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

Probably one of the more entertaining slow starts with heaps of exposition thrown in, but...this isn't engaging me as much as I expected. Characters are cute, distinctive and yet, just doesn't have that spark of...I don't know...something?

Kizzy's got this whole Kaylee vibe going on, doesn't she?

I'm nowhere near as bored as I expected to be, so, there's that. ;)

Good grief! I just noticed this thing is like 800 pages long! It's another Tor free ebook and they're usually free for a reason. Odds of me getting far in this?...worse than successfully navigating an asteroid belt.

Miles is totally the guy I would have glommed onto, both platonically and otherwise, when younger. I still sort of dig the asshole/genius type. OTOH, there's a sensible part of me that observes that these guys eventually turn on you. Still, as a fictional character, he's fun.

Stumbled on this on sale cheap, and bought it in part because of the cover. Really good, so far.

Fun, so far....

I like the protagonist, but my interest is lagging. The whole prove your worth via a beauty pageant thing isn't doing much for me.

Engaging, but sort of messy and disjoint. Writing sometimes seems to be trying too hard.

I get what the story is trying to do, but, honestly?...Julius's non-violent crusade is a tad unrealistic. And Marci is acting entirely too naive. Not quite TSTL, but...not smart either.

"For a moment, the pageant makes sense, and I get why my mom devotes half of her life to it and why most of the girls in this city dream of gowns and spotlights when the sky is heavy with stars." I get why a teen, even one as smart as Will, might feel this, and yet, it still seems ridiculous. Pageants, ugh!

Yeah, I'm a sucker for artistic angst.