monkinetic the blog

Grandpa: Are you kidding? Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles…

The Grandson: Doesn’t sound too bad. I’ll try to stay awake.

(from The Princess Bride of course, but applicable)

I stayed awake! 😂

I really enjoyed this whole series. Book 2 finds Kellen - magical outcast from his Jan’tep family - beginning to accept his new status as outlaw and trickster, while learning that there is a whole world outside the insular society he grew up in.

Kellen and his makeshift crew have defeated (most would say survived) a large number of assassins, bounty hunters, unnatural disasters, and his own persistently scheming Jan’tep family.

Now it seems there’s a… God out there he’s expected to deal with?

The last book in the 6-book Spellslinger series, which has been really fun.

Sebastian de Castell starts off another tale of magic and swordplay with The Traitor’s Blade. Falcio, Kest, and Brasti make a nice addition to the tradition started by Dumas’ Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. 😀

She’s 13, a brand new queen, and everyone is telling Kellen to kill her. But Kellen likes to make up his own mind, yeah?

Yeah, so that horrible curse Kellen lives with, that got him kicked out of his own family and society, and made the constant target of bounty-hunting magi? It’s even more complicated than he thought.

Sebastian de Castell keeps the interesting stories going of Kellen, the Jan’tep outcast and trickster, and the bizarre family that’s been forming around him.

Book #3 of the Swords and Fire series is typically fun and satisfying.

Jennifer Estep’s swords and magic Crown of Shards series is awfully fun.

Melissa Caruso’s story of magic and politics in a world of medieval city-states - started in The Tethered Mage - continues in The Defiant Heir.

Interesting characters and the story goes in some non-standard directions, so that’s kinda cool.

The conclusion to S. K. Dunstall’s excellent Linesman series.

Your whole society is based on magic, your dad is the head of the family and a powerful magi, your sister is a magical prodigy, and your magic just sputtered and died on the day of your magical trials.

Yeah, sucks to be you.

Wow, thanks to Idan Gazit for recommending Robert Jackson Bennett’s #scifi #fantasy novel Foundryside.

Every think programming is magic? IT IS. Ever wonder complain that your code is doing what you said instead of what you meant? BEWARE. Magic and technology, mystical hacking, sentient objects and the ancient and tormented souls that drive them…

You’re going to love it. Thanks Idan.

#reading #reading2020

Sort of Frankenstein mixed with Lovecraft… interesting but not a happy tale.

No one ever said elves are nice. Elves are bad.

#reading #reading2020 #fantasy

Another Discworld book I hadn’t read yet! Yes, a pyramid can be too big. And woe be to the cosmological architects who build it!

Yeah, on a Terry Pratchett tear; this was a new one to me and a lovely read. #reading #reading2020 #fantasy

Not much I can say about Terry Pratchett that hasn’t been said better already. A literary Wizard. (I’m re-reading the Discworld series because why the hell not) #reading #fantasy #reading2020

Picked up this omnibus edition of Beacon 23 by Hugh Howey (Wool, Sand). Apparently it was original released in serialized form, which would have been really fun to read.

What would life in a space lighthouse be like? Why would you need one? What if there were empathic alien dog/cat/lynx beasts? What if you could get a high from a gravity wave generator?

Read to find out. 😀

Yeah, I powered through this series due to #stayhomestaysafe, and happy I did. A really fun story, and enjoyed seeing many characters in theIo books introduced here in some more depth.

Between the two Io books and the three Tao books, I really want to read Io 3 (write faster, Wesley).

#scifi #reading #quasingwars

Book 2 of the Tao books by Wesley Chu. This series has gotten some guff due to The Lives of Tao being written as a National Novel Writing Month project, and perhaps I was more invested having read the Io books first, but dammit I really like these books.

Also, knowing that there was a third book in the queue, the ending of this one was a big WHAAaaa? (but it was worth it in book 3)

#scifi #reading #quasingwars

#reading #scifi #identity

Technology-enabled shared consciousness? Fascinating. Takes some interesting twists and turns, though the world the characters inhabit is somewhat under-developed. Would like to see more from the author.

“You are you”, and it took me until the just before the end to put the pieces together. Touches on #technology and #identity, #race and #racism, empathy, compassion, revenge, and a humdinger of an ending! #reading #scifi #reading2020

TL;DR: you still have mixed feelings about the protagonists. Very very good.

#reading #scifi #reading2020

Dual protagonists, bodied and unbodied, that will drive you crazy not knowing whether to love them, smack them, or hate them, with stakes both personal and global? What’s not to love? #reading #scifi #reading2020

Ok, and I JUST realized that this is set in the same universe as Chu’s “Lives of Tao” books, which I skipped, but now have to read. I am facepalming SO HARD. 🤦🏻‍♂️

The Outside, by Ada Hoffmann, is a mix of #scifi and Lovecraftian #horror (what with the unknowable entities that will melt your brain thing), fascinating in its techno-religious imagery. Check it out. #reading #reading2020

The Linesman books from S.K. Dunstall are so good. #reading #scifi #reading2020

I really like Tim Pratt’s Axiom series! #reading #scifi #reading2020

It’s not showing up on Elizabeth Warren’s site yet, but Axios is reporting that Warren is suspending her presidential campaign. I’m heartbroken – she was the smart, tough candidate that actually inspired me.

Senator Warren: Thank you for your leadership, your humility, your willingness to hold those in power accountable. You would have been an incredible president. Keep fighting for Americans and for what America should stand for.

(Image from Politico)

I’m sick to death of #oldwhitemen

The Best President Money Can’t Buy #warren2020

Being the curious sort, I wondered what it would take to generate #barcodes programmatically, and found this neat site. Here’s “monkinetic.blog” rendered as a Code 128 barcode:

Then I found a barcode package for #golang, so of course I’m trying to decide what on this site I could generate barcodes for…

Finished Emily Eternal by M.G. Wheaton #reading #reading2020 #scifi #artificialintelligence

Really interesting, compare/contrast “artificial intelligence” v. “artificial consciousness”, also human-AI smooches

#208: I wish couple who desperately take every means to conceive a child would realize that adoptions is a wonderful alternative. A child who becomes your child through adoptions completes a family. Just as when you commit to your souse or partner there are no biological ties, yet a family is formed. This child enters a family the same way! It is not blood and flesh that form a famaily, but the heart. -- Michele Johnson" class="at-xid-6a010534988cd3970b0120a5b36451970c" src="https://steveivy.typepad.com/.a/6a010534988cd3970b0120a5b36451970c-pi" title="The Way I See It #208"/>

Hehe. I went looking for information again this year on planting a winter lawn (something we have to do in Arizona since the Bermuda that survuves the summer heat can’t survive the cooler winter temps) and discovered that my weblog post from last year is the #2 result on Google for arizona winter lawn. Not that it helps, but it was funny.

Well, I am officially IM-less at work for the foreseeable future (and probably slightly beyond that). Our network guys are very security conscious and I don’t fault them for it. The AIM protocol has been closed on the firewall.

So, I’m back to email, which in true internet fashion, seems so… slow. ;-)

In the evenings from home, however, I’ll be on AIM, and probably #p2p-hackers as well. monkinetic or redmonk.