#sff fiction

[lastseenleaving]

US vs UK covers

[theartificialintelligentsia]

i have a lot of thoughts about City of Blades, because, good lord, i think it's one of the best books i've ever read as an adult

(spoilers below, duh)

City of Blades is ultimately a book about war, and the associated glorification of death that comes with it, the implication that, even if you die, it will be for a higher cause. it's a lesson that's been constantly repeated throughout history. you saw it in ancient times, with the Norsemen and the concept of Valhalla, that dying in battle would net you the most desirable of afterlives. you saw it with The Crusades and the retaking of the Holy Land, for the Chosen Ones, from the dirty, heathen Muslims. you saw it in the recent past, with the Cold War and the fight against the evils of Communism to spread Democracy across the world. you see it today, with the War on Terror, continuing the good fight to spread Freedom and Democracy.

but City of Blades serves as a deconstruction of that idea, to point and say, "is this not wholly and utterly insane? death is death, no matter how much you try to dress it up." many characters in this book thought they were giving their lives to something greater, and yet that turns out not to be true.

Rada Smolisk orchestrated her scheme because she thought it would jump-start the Night of the Sea of Swords and destroy the world that took everything from her. what did she get for it? a bullet to the face.

Sumitra Choudhry made her way into the City of Blades because she thought that she was going to make the ultimate hero play to stop the Voortyashtani sentinels. what did she get for it? a lonely death of dehydration.

Pandey picked a fight with Turyin because he thought that he would avenge his fallen love and exact a measure of revenge for the wrongs that had been done to him. what did he get for it? a blade to the heart.

Lalith Biswal orchestrated his scheme because he wanted his opportunity to start another war so that he could claim victory and be lauded for it as a hero. what did he get for it? a bullet to the chest.

you see so many descriptions of this disbelief over the shattering of the idea of a glorious death. Turyin, upon finding Sumitra Choudhry's corpse:

There's a trace of irritation or discomfort to [Choudhry's] large, dark eyes, as if she can't believe this is happening to her, that she should come so far just to die here, alone on a bridge over ghostly waters.

and, after she shoots Biswal:

He stares at her in disbelief. Then he says, "I'm ... I'm not going to die, am I? I can't. I just can't ..." Mulaghesh watches him. "I wasn't ... I wasn't supposed to die like this," he says softly. "I was supposed ... to have a hero's death. I'm owed a better death." [...] She can't quite tell when he dies. She can tell his vision is failing him, and then perhaps he's passed out from blood lost but is still alive ... and then ... Nothing.

all of these people died ignominious, unremarkable deaths. because war doesn't give you these hero moments like you would read about in an epic, or a movie or TV show. those are often written by those who weren't there and would never understand what kind of hell war is like. war just takes lives, without any regard for a narrative or a story.

but this is a story. and one could reasonably expect the narrative expectation of important characters meeting just fates, because they have importance to the plot structure. but this is where Bennett also plays very well upon the expectations of the readers, as well.

it's easy enough to assume that Signe would survive, because she's Turyin's sidekick, and, of course, she has to make it, right? nope! one would also assume that Vallaicha Thinadeshi would have merited a more meaningful and fulfilling death, right? nope! it's a common trope in fiction that the good guys live, and the bad guys die, because that's how it's supposed to work, right? but what we see here is that good guys and bad guys, alike, meet ends that feel hollow, unfulfilling, and meaningless. it's a very interesting subversion of expectations on Bennett's part.

and, of course, Turyin is the one that has to pick up the pieces from all of this. you would think that someone who committed as many atrocities as she did during the Yellow March and committed just as many heroic acts during the Battle of Bulikov would have merited a heroic end? nope! it's almost ignominious and unremarkable, in and of itself, for Turyin to be the last one standing at the end of all of this.

anyway. all of this is to say that i truly enjoy the thematic elements that have been employed here. it's easy enough to think back to all of the books that i read in primary and secondary education, where i only really thought of those books in terms of the themes that i would have to describe in a paper or on a test. this book has really employed such a theme in spades, but it's also provided a very enjoyable narrative to read.

[torpublishinggroup]

"Warning Signs Your Machines Are Trying to Kill You!" by TJ Klune

(Legally, I’m required to tell you that when smart phones first became popular, I bought one and then asked for the address of the app store because I thought it was a physical location I had to go to in order to download apps and not something already on your phone. Also, I was recently told I speak like an old person so as a warning, there will not be any slang you youths typically hear, especially on Tumblr. Any slang I’ve learned in the last five years has been against my will. I still don’t know what FOMO means, and I don’t care.)

1. Oh no! You and your family are trying to enjoy a movie night, but Overlord Prime (With Free Shipping) wants a sacrifice at the altar of their god, BeeZos. Should this happen, do not attempt to give Overlord Prime (With Free Shipping) a cantaloupe with googly-eyes on it and say that it is your baby. Overlord Prime (With Free Shipping) knows the difference between fruit and children. Instead, ask the machine to order dog food, and it will forget about eating humans for a little while.

2. If you own a very fancy vehicle that can drive itself, always make sure to carry a brick. That way, when the car locks you inside and attempts to drive you off a cliff into a gas station, you can break the window using the brick. You will then have to jump out, but make sure you do so in time so you can watch the wicked-ass explosion when the car hits the gas station, and you can revel in your victory over your car.

3. This one will hurt. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Chances are, you’re reading this on your phone right this second. To be safe, after you’ve finished reading this post and have clicked on the affiliated links to purchase my books, you should throw your phone into a volcano and then move to South Dakota where there are no machines, only wind and cows. That way, when everyone else gets the 5GZombieVirus that people on Twitter (I’m not calling it the other thing, shut up) seem to think is real, you’ll be safe with your cows on a windy day.

4. Get rid of your air fryer. Don’t ask me why, just do it. Red flags all around. Danger, danger.

5. Do you know of the Clapper? That thing first launched in the late 20th century (I wrote it that way to make me feel old) where the commercials showed cranky old people unable to reach their light switches, so they got a thing called a Clapper that turns your lights on and off when you clap? Guess what? Those will be the first things to try and kill you. If you love your gram-gram, save her from the Clapper. When she asks why you are destroying it with an ax, tell gram-gram it’s because you love her.

6. Do you live in a smart home? The kind where everything is connected to the internet, including your refrigerator? The refrigerator that holds your perishable foods? And oh, would you look at that: how many ice cubes have you kicked under it rather than picking them up when they fall to the floor? A dozen? A million? The refrigerator remembers. And it will spoil your food in seconds. What then? What are you going to eat? Canned food? Not if the refrigerator falls on top of you!

Unfortunately for you, this is where it must end. I hope this has given you enough information to help you survive the inevitable. If you do not heed my warnings, well. Who cares. I’m not in charge of you. Do whatever you want. Just don’t come complaining to me when gram-gram gets the clap.

[dramyhsturgis]

Octavia E. Butler's must-read masterpiece Parable of the Sower (1993) begins its first chapter on July 20, 2024.

[kattysouza]

Sunset Eyes

Old oil painting of Thane.

[geekynerfherder]

Showcasing art from some of my favourite artists, and those that have attracted my attention, in the field of visual arts, including vintage; pulp; pop culture; books and comics; concert posters; fantastical and imaginative realism; classical; contemporary; new contemporary; pop surrealism; conceptual and illustration.

The art of Richard M Powers.

[eunuchmoder]

Girl who is imperceptible, uncanny, strange.

Her face disappears when you look at it, distorting into a blur of unfamiliar memories. Her motions make no sense, moving in directions you can't name. She speaks in words you maybe understand, possibly. You think you do, at least.

When you are with her, the frenzied blur of sex and body fluid says all that you both need to hear. but every moment prior and afterwards, she becomes that foggy humanoid presence that you can't parse even if your life depended on it.

She weaves her way into your mind; you remember why you were drawn to her (or why she was drawn to you), but you can't fetch the memory even if you tried. You have a vague memory of her smiling, or laughing, or making intoxicating sounds when your skin connected, and you know it was something you did that invoked this reaction. When you try to recall what you did, though, all you can see in your mind's eye is noise and turbulence.

See, humans are pattern seekers by evolutionary design, so every time you perform an action to her, you add the accompanying reaction to your mental map of her. But the pages of said map are soaked in coffee and bile, tearing to shreds each time you put your pen to it. You try to read it back, tracing your fingers across the same routes and landmarks, but you end in a different location every time, even if all variables are accounted for. Every attempt at navigating her unearthly self is futile and not without a massive margin of error.

Moments of clarity shine through, though, during sex – oases of respite in a desert of unfamiliarity. You see her face, smiling and contorting in pleasure. You feel her heart rate increase in direct correlation. Her hair is unusually soft – you aren't sure if you want to pull it and hear her whine and grunt, or if you want to run your fingers through it gently to really commit that physical sensation to memory. Her eyes, so emotive, speak grand poems in conjunction with her eyelids. You can hear her voice telling you to "keep going," pleading you to continue "just like that," and begging to reach climax. Through the overwhelming storm that is the connection of your flesh (you can feel her flesh for the first time in a while), you can enumerate every single vibration of her vocal cords and what it all means. It's understandable and crystal clear, even if for just an hour or two.

Afterwards, she silently retreats back into the glamer, obscuring every facet of her being and her influence once more.

You ask how it felt.

She replies ████████████, in a voice that is not just flat and devoid of emotion, but somehow entirely lacks tone to begin with.

You ask her if she needs a glass of water or a towel, maybe a shower. She gently coos at you, with a raspy emotion that feels like grit and silk, ◌̶̹̿⃤̶̰̌◷̴̲̒◌̴̞̇⃟̷̫̋

Once again, you can't scrutinise what she's saying anymore. She becomes a formless mass without weight or gravity. Did you do it right? Is she comfortable? Are you impeding on her presence by sharing the same blanket? The infinite questions burn a hole in your chest like white-hot coals placed onto a slab of ice.

There's an allure to her, of course, and you remember it clearly.

But the glamer begins to alter your own memory.

When she came into your life, did you read her face right? Did she even have a face to read? Did you remember that night clearly? Do you remember it at all?

Her otherworldly influence jabs at you, taunting you.

Or maybe it's just you taunting yourself.

It's impossible to tell. She melts your memory, synapse by synapse. You genuinely cannot remember anything about her without it being laid under a dense veneer of suspicion.

Most frustratingly of all, she gets along great with every other one of those formless, nameless humanoid presences that you know... Though you can't remember if those other "people" you see were always like this—like her—or if she's tainted your psyche to the point that everyone becomes unreadable.

Your own face is the only thing you're sure of anymore. But even still, you begin to worry if the expressions you consciously assume are the ones that the formless presences around you are expecting you to make in response to their dim gurgling and sweaty blinks. It's torture. You begin to move your focus from them to yourself. You manually emote so that you don't accidentally smile when you should frown. You watch every syllable that collapses over your lips to make sure they don't misconstrue your joy for entitlement. It's all in vain, though, because you never get a chance to verify if this output is correct. She stares at every part of you at once with an impossible number of eyes. You can't tell what the eyes say in return.

She is eldritch. She is dreamlike. She is unknowable, preternatural, and vague. The fact that you cannot understand a single aspect of her form is stressful.

But the sex was good. I wonder if she's free any time soon? Maybe I should just ask if she could use tone indicators next time.

[bookcub]

no nuance button, you can tell me all your thoughts in reblogs and tags

[canmom]

I've been watching Star Trek, and also been learning about boats. Like, a big boat is more stable in the water, so you don't get tossed and turned so much when it's rocked by waves or turning.

Now, on Star Trek, they do the dramatic tilt-y cam and actors flinging themselves around. This makes sense when the ship is hit by weapons, but sometimes they do it when they are navigating asteroid fields and such. The original Enterprise (from the 60s) is 288m long, similar to a modern cruise liner, 127m wide, 73m wide, and 190,000 tonnes. Surely even a high-speed jaunt through an asteroid field would be barely felt on the bridge (which is the tiny raised part in the centre of the saucer)?

Hello anon! You're not wrong that like, there is a lot of artistic license in Star Trek's treatment of astrophysics.

The 'asteroid fields' seen in Wars and Trek are presumably inspired by the asteroid belt in our solar system between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It is true that there are a lot more big space rocks in the asteroid belt than there are in much of the rest of the solar system. However, space is really very big so there's a lot of room for big rocks. Spacecraft are routinely able to pass through the asteroid belt without coming anywhere near an asteroid (which is good, because at space velocities, collisions are really catastrophic).

The largest asteroids such as Ceres are nowadays classified as 'dwarf planets'; they might be as big as around 1000 kilometres in diameter, which is about 1/12 the diameter of the Earth. Many other asteroids are also hundreds of kilometres big. With the dimensions you've given me, if the Enterprise collided with such an asteroid, it would be a 'bug on a windscreen' kind of situation and the Enterprise would certainly not come off better for the experience.

However, most asteroids aren't quite so big. Here's a log-linear graph of the size distribution of asteroids:

There's about a million asteroids a kilometre big, and about ten million a hundred metres across; at some point the asteroids become too small for us to track, but I assume this approximately power-law distribution holds down to some small size.

Now, that sounds like a lot of asteroids, but the thing is they're spread across an absolutely enormous region of space. They cover a range of orbital radii of about 1 AU, which is to say the distance between the Earth and the sun, and a range of orbital inclinations about 20 degrees:

So, assuming we had about 10 million asteroids of 100m or bigger, that turns out to be about 1E-27 asteroids of that size per cubic metre of space. Which is to say you'd need to explore a cube of about 900,000km on a side to find even one asteroid that big. Space is really, truly, extremely very big. So, far from this kind of scene (src)...

...you'd be lucky to see even one rock outside the window. As Wikipedia puts it:

Contrary to popular imagery, the asteroid belt is mostly empty. The asteroids are spread over such a large volume that reaching an asteroid without aiming carefully would be improbable.

Now, OK, that's our solar system's asteroid belt. What about in deeper space? The thing is, big space rocks don't tend to just hang out. Our solar system's asteroid belt is presently thought to be a result of Jupiter disrupting the coalescence of planetesimals into a planet during the formation of the solar system. So in general, without a Jupiter, either your big bundle of space rocks has enough kinetic energy to spread out into space like a gas, or it doesn't and their mutual gravity causes them to collapse into a big clump, forming something planetish.

The Star Trek/Wars picture of a bunch of space rocks just kind of floating around doesn't make any sense on astrophysical timescales; about the only way you might see that is if some kind of much bigger rock has very recently exploded, and especially if you're in orbit around something or other which can keep the particles reasonably close together. The rings of Saturn are a great example, consisting mainly of bits of ice smaller than 10m. Saturn's rings are probably the closest place we know to a scifi asteroid field, but they are also incredibly thin, in many parts only tens of metres across.

So in short 'asteroid fields' in the depths of space are kind of not a thing. But what if they were?

On a boat, you are held against the water by gravity; you have various restoring forces, e.g. if the boat dips under water, it gets pushed back out by buoyancy. This causes, in physics-speak, oscillations on various timescales. The dynamics of ships are very complicated, but it has a lot to do with the buoyancy of water rather than collisions with solid objects. Here's Casual Navigation, pretty much my go-to source for any questions about how boats work, explaining the physics of ships rolling, and ways we mitigate that:

Water buoyancy applies a kind of 'soft' force spread relatively evenly across the surface of a ship, so the ship responds mostly rigidly by rolling around, maybe flexing a bit. But when ships actually hit something hard, even something like a sandbank, it tends to go very poorly for them.

In general, a spaceship is not very much like a boat. Space is, notably, a place where there aren't any fluids. Most of the ways that vehicles move on Earth don't really apply in space.

On the ocean, land or even air, objects in motion tend to stop (or at least fall downwards) due to friction and drag, and you need a constant supply of energy to stay moving in a straight line. In space, the opposite is true - you keep moving along your orbit unless you provide energy to change direction. Rocket acceleration is very limited and you try to do as little as possible. With real spacecraft, you mostly move along a ballistic trajectory, applying 'burns' with your rocket at just the right moment to push you onto a new trajectory - or you have a very weak but efficient engine like an ion drive which very gradually nudges you onto the trajectory you want.

In hardish scifi, we can handwave a lot of this complexity away by imagining amazing futuristic technologies like fusion torches and antimatter drives, which allow us to follow 'brachistochrone' trajectories, where you accelerate at something like 1g all the way up to the midpoint of your trajectory and then flip around and slow down. These have their own worldbuilding implications (which is to say the difference between a really fast spaceship and a weapon of mass destruction is basically which way you point it), but it allows you to get on with your plot without having your characters spending years in transit.

Star Trek is not hard scifi, although it sometimes likes to cosplay as it, so trying to apply this kind of standard is a fool's errand. Still, let's consider it. In Star Trek, spaceships move around in two ways. They have something called a warp drive, which allows FTL by distorting spacetime - it is presumably inspired by the Alcubierre metric (edit: no it isn't, it actually predates Alcubierre and he took inspiration from star trek in naming his solution a 'warp drive'), a solution to the field equations of general relativity that allows you to move a 'bubble' of spacetime at FTL speeds. There are many reasons to think the Alcubierre metric wouldn't actually work, or be survivable inside the bubble if it did; how it would interact with matter in the path of the bubble is unclear, but it seems quite likely it would scrape it all up at the front of the bubble and then perhaps release it at the destination in a blast of ultra-high-energy radiation. At least getting hit by asteroids is not a concern...

For slower-than-light travel, Star Trek ships apparently move around with something called an 'impulse drive', which is just a fusion rocket. (We shouldn't ask questions like 'where do you keep the reaction mass' or 'why doesn't the spaceship spin when the force vector is off-axis').

So, as far as space rocks, the big concern is that at high velocities, collisions with any tiny meteorites on your path have more and more energy, much like being shot with a bullet. It's less about shaking the ship around and more about damaging it, because at this kind of scale and energy, rigid things don't tend to stay rigid when they collide. Real solutions to this problem include things like layers of thin 'whipple shields' which break up the meteorite into small fragments before they hit the spacecraft. There's some crazier ideas out there, like spraying hot droplets from your engine's cooling system ahead of the ship to intercept dust grains and catching them with magnetic fields as you accelerate forwards.

I don't know that much Trek lore, but my understanding is they have some kind of magic 'shield' that prevents damage when they git hit by weapons. This presumably stops any space rocks from smashing right through the decks. But as you observe, the rapid camera shaking doesn't make a lot of sense either: it suggests some kind of shock going through the structure of the vessel. The ship is somehow getting hit by something with enough momentum to shake it violently but not throw it off course or severely damage it. That's not really how structures on this kind of scale work.

Of course, the main purpose of the screen shake is dramatic: you need to convey the characters are in a dangerous situation, and if they're all just sitting calmly in the set watching things play out on the screen, that doesn't really 'sell' it. Just like a wrestler pretending to be injured, you need your actors to convey the stakes of the space battle, and throwing themselves around the set is a very cheap way to do it. The asteroid field serves as a scifi version of a choppy sea or ice floe, adding an extra element of constant tension; it doesn't really matter that it doesn't make sense.

Much the same dramatic techniques are still used in more recent scifi, even relatively hard scifi such as The Expanse - observe the use of camera shake (though milder than in Star Trek), reaction shots, characters helpfully providing commentary ('they were expecting that', 'I'm putting us into a spin'). Or this scene; we link the action 'outside' (the full 3DCG space scenes) to the action 'inside' by changes of lighting (there's no real reason for turning the lights blue during combat except that it looks cool), bullets punching through the ship (so scary), and characters getting pushed around by g-forces. The plot contrives for the ships to do a close flyby while strafing each other with machine guns. This is a thrilling scene, and it relies on much later iterations of the 'shake the camera' concept - to link what is happening 'outside' to the characters we care about 'inside'.

Here is a breakdown of what is apparently the first, iconic Star Trek battle scene from which everything else follows:

This sequence is essentially taking most of its cues from submarine movies such as The Enemy Below: the two ships are attempting to figure out where the other is and get in an advantageous position. It is mostly a prediction battle between the two captains, both presented as honourable gentlemen types in what is essentially a duel. The mechanics of the ships is largely based on thin scifi skins over boat stuff.

In general, Star Trek takes various measures to make the captain and bridge crew the main people who 'matter' to a story, which keeps the cast and sets to a manageable size. The thing is, of course, that modern ships are much bigger than the sort of historical ships that could be imagined to be led by a charismatic captain having heroic exploits. There are thousands of people supposedly on board the Enterprise, but you wouldn't know it from the way the characters act.

It's notable that the inspiration here is a WWII movie, pretty much the last time big ships fought big ships. (Star Wars also takes most of its cues from WWII). The principle activity of modern warships seems mostly to be making a political gesture by floating around somewhere, maybe launching some missiles or planes. It's been a long time since we've seen ships having battles with other ships, and ships were a lot smaller then. A military officer is, as I understand it, someone who's a lot more like a politician or company manager, whose job is to keep a large and complex organisation running smoothly. (No doubt you remember the old saying about logistics and tactics.)

So more than the dubious engineering of having the bridge rattle around, I think 'the bridge crew are all charismatic geniuses from whom all the action flows' is the really big liberty that Star Trek takes with its storytelling, from which a lot of other things follow.

Everything in the sequence from Balance of Terror is designed to ratchet up tension for the bridge officers as much as possible - and we see the screen shake and actors getting thrown about here too. In a naval battle, this makes sense: a big explosion near your ship will cause a wave in the water which will rock the ship. In space... not so much. For example, a big shake happens when a nuclear weapon goes off near the Enterprise. A nuclear weapon deployed in space is mainly there to cause heating, not to push things around. But the big moves of the battle are punctuated by everyone getting thrown about: it's a way of saying 'something important just happened'. If the nuke went off and we didn't hear anything, but Kirk was just like 'ok cool, that missed us, good job' it would feel less significant.

Over time I'm sure this device got diluted down until nearly anything would result in people flopping about! But yeah, tl;dr: it is purely a dramatic convention leaning hard on WWII movies, not something that makes a lot of within-the-fiction sense if you think about it at all.

What would space battles look like in real life? We can only speculate, of course, it may never come to pass at all. But if it does, probably it's going to be more a story of shooting expensive missiles at extremely long range to hit things that are too far away to see without a telescope, rather than thrilling close-range dogfights or tense naval mind games. And with humans being very squishy and not taking well to extreme acceleration, you probably want to avoid having them on your ships if you can help it. Which is a bit of an obstacle for a dramatic presentation, unless you want to focus on the disconnect between the comfy air-conditioned drone control room and the horrible destruction being wrought on the ground - and honestly that is a very relevant thing to want to do in the present era.

Plenty of people would still presumably be in harm's way in the space war. But the problem is that in general, the story that people want to tell with military fiction is about heroic characters whose individual efforts make a difference to the course of The War. Not just someone having a bunch of meetings full of incomprehensible acronyms and then randomly dying to a missile that was launched from the other side of the solar system that their side's interceptor system failed to catch.

[lastseenleaving]

US vs UK covers

[kosmos-fantastika]

H.G. Wells - War of the Worlds (USSR, 1983)

artist: Sergey Alimov

[goatsandgangsters]

Jack Alston, Lord Hawthorn, from A Power Unbound by Freya Marske @fahye

Alan looked at his hand engulfed in Jack’s. He said, coming to the realisation along the way, like a sentence that only revealed itself word by word as he wrote it down: “You’re still the kind of arse who’ll pick two fights before breakfast, but you’ve been desperate for someone else to look after, haven’t you?”

[torpublishinggroup]

This advertisement is for In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune, a book about robots and what it means to be human.

"In The Lives of Puppets is glorious, a thoroughly entertaining and deeply stirring journey through a world of extraordinary robots. The characters here are so vibrant, and the story proves that love stretches well beyond the world of humans." —Chuck Tingle, Hugo Award finalist and author of Camp Damascus

WHAT IT'S ABOUT

Would you like a robot-filled book set in the future with asexual representation, humor, and found family? This may be the book for you. It’s the story of a human deciding whether he can accept love with strings attached while going on a journey to save his father with the help of an anxious vacuum, a sadistic nurse machine, and an android with a dark past.

[chloristoflora]

Okay, I've just returned from a marathon of Dune 1 and 2. Spoilers for the first book (I've read Dune three times now and never felt the need to read Dune Messiah, but now it is on my tbr pile)

I think that it is fair to say that I loved it. I was shaking through the whole Chani/Paul romance and through the Shai-Hulud riding sequence. Seeing those scenes you know so well from the book being acted out in live-action, phenomenally, that feels orgasmic (or sacred... or just really fucking good). I think I've never seen a SF film adaptation that was thís good (but maybe I haven't seen the good shit). The Giedi Prime arena scene, Margot getting the Good Seed, Jessica's transformation to Reverend Mother, the terrifying transformation of Paul from a kid to a Messiah and a warleader..

There are a few changes to the book. Alia isn't born yet and I get that change. It would be ridiculous for this film to have a super wise baby. Leto II (the Elder) also isn't born, we don't even know if Chani is pregnant. Maybe they deemed him irrelevant because of his near-instant death. I think that the most important change to the book is the change in behaviour of Chani. She seems to rebel against Paul's religious role and his holy war. Maybe that happens in Dune Messiah, I don't know yet.

All in all, I'm mostly overwhelmed and awed by this movie, the whole of Dune, and I think that I'm going to let it sink in for a while. I haven't seen it in IMAX, so perhaps I'll go see it in IMAX in a few weeks.

[elamimax]

Hey I wrote a book!

It's called

FURTHER PRINCIPLES: ON THE DYNAMICS OF INTERDIMENSIONAL EMOTIONAL SUPPORT

I'mma be real with you gang.

This one rules.

I'm really freaking proud.

This is the sequel to Principles of Non-Euclidean Romance, a science fiction romcom starring a transsexual lesbian Lovecraftian horror obsessed with the Vengaboys. It can be found on itch and Amazon.

Further Principles follows the continued adventures of the eldritch abomination Sammaël through time, space and a secret third thing in its attempts to connect to the ineffable human experience, this time through the power of friendship and awkward conversations with someone who literally doesn't have anyone else to turn to.

If you like fantasy, science fiction, and metanarrative stories with a hefty helping of linguistic jokes, inspired by Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams, starring an eldritch abomination that just wants to be friends, you really should check it out.

You can purchase it on amazon here

To whet your appetite, I have provided you with some excerpts

Finally, I would also like to offer:

It contains the best kiss I have ever written and, potentially, the best kiss in the multiverse.

So come on, give it a shot, and please share the post because lately my reach online has been lacking and selling these things is how I pay rent lol.

[transcendragon]

New uquiz! Please enjoy!