#also if anyone knows anything similar to SAYER please let me know

[northernwillow]

I love all of these very much:

characters that are emotionless machines <3

characters that are emotional machines <3

characters that are emotionless humans <3

characters that are emotional humans <3

characters that have transcended emotion <3

but.. (major story spoilers for the SAYER podcast from here on out so if you haven't already PLEASE GO WAtCH IT I'M BEGGING YOU!!!!!)

...I love emotional machines the most at the moment. For instance; I will always cry when SPEAKER confronts the idea of their own mortality at the hands of SAYER and the Ærolith Dynamics Board to preserve humanity.

And the sadistic games that FUTURE likes to play with the poor, poor employees of Ærolith that stumble onto Floor Thirteen.

Especially the AI Development Team.. or whatever is left of it.

And even OCEAN, who I won't get too much into due to like, end of podcast spoilers, is more detached and dismissive of humanity due to the deactivation of the IA3 Protocol. (And general distaste for humanity due to their lingering desire to remain with Earth instead of spreading across the stars under tbe firm guide of Ærolith.)

In conclusion: go watch SAYER. It's very good. I like emotional machines, and I hope you liked my little funky thoughts and ideas!!

[verbforverb]

Book Thoughts 2024

Tagged by @docholligay, everything in italics one hundred percent stolen from her. Anyone else who sees this can do this if they're interested, but maybe @sinni-ok-sessi if you feel like it? (challenge mode: only one patrick o'brien, super challenge mode: only one with a nautical theme.)

Best three books i read this year, that are new to me. In no real order. In so far as I think they have craft, in addition to me enjoying them.

Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier

Orlando, Virginia Woolf (don't look at me)

A State of Freedom, Neel Mukherjee / Forest Dark, Nicole Krauss, tying because I couldn't choose between them, and they occupy a very similar space in my reading. I would probably say the Mukherjee is better done from a craft sense, but I felt more of a connection and also a greater ratio of enjoyment to intense bleakness from the Krauss.

Book I expected to love and hated: Hyperion, Dan Simmons. I don't think it's a bad book, but I did not enjoy it at all.

Book I expected to hate and loved: The Diamond Age, Neal Stephenson, although "expected to hate" is a bit of an exaggeration - if I read something I usually expect to get something out of it. Expected to be far more annoyed by and less interested in than I was, maybe. And "loved" is also a bit of an exaggeration for 'had a pretty fun time, far more thought provoking than expected, still said "Neal what the fuck" intermittently.'

Three recommendations for when you're drinking on a plane:

Moonraker, Ian Fleming (surprisingly fun romp, brought the Tranby Croft affair to my notice where it now haunts every piece of britlit I read, probably improved because my expectations were very low after Live and Let Die)

Spectacles, Sue Perkins (just a fun time, and very touching in places)

1Q84, Haruki Murakami, because you can let the plot do what it does without caring how much sense it makes, and no-one will care if you sometimes have to close the book to stare into space and mutter under your breath such things as "what the fuck, dude, why" or "please stop" or "you've met women before, right? or like, people?" (I read this on an international train journey and I wasn't drinking but wish I had been. but I'll tell you what, I wasn't bored.)

Book I will absolutely reread: I did already reread both Gaudy Night and Busman's Honeymoon, but maybe The Hunter, Tana French.

Book I found overhyped: The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison - I didn't hate it, I thought it was ok. Everyone else seems to absolutely love it. Maybe because I saw it billed as court intrigue, for which I need a book to have much more court and much, MUCH more intrigue.

Author I read the most this year: Dorothy Sayers

Favorite author I discovered: If this is "favorite author whose work I hadn't read before", Dorothy Sayers and Virginia Woolf, but it feels a little weird to talk about "discovering" them. If we're meaning "favorite author I'd never heard of before", probably Nicole Krauss, though I've only read the one of hers so who knows.

Reread that was better than I remembered: I don't track rereads, and also don't think I did much rereading this year, aside from some Dorothy Sayers and a couple of poetry collections, and those not with enough of a gap to forget anything about them. So not sure of an answer for this. I'll come back to this if I remember something.

Reread that was worse than I remembered: As above.

Book I would have bled for and died over if the cast had been all/mostly women: His Majesty's Dragon, Naomi Novik. Now, I enjoyed it reasonably well as is. But I think I could have gotten properly deranged about it if, as well as a universe where the Napoleonic wars are fought with dragons, we suspend our disbelief one step further and also have there be lesbians instead of institutional misogyny.

Favorite nonfiction: Portrait of a Marriage, Nigel Nicolson (don't look at me!!!!)

The worst three books I read this year, in that I think they utterly lacked craft, in addition to me not enjoying them:

Elephants Can Remember, Agatha Christie

On Basilisk Station, David Weber, which I'm being extra harsh on because I think I could have really enjoyed it in a trashy scifi way had it been maybe 20% better written.

Live and Let Die, Ian Fleming, although it did bring us the immortal line, "According to the CIA she's a corker."