Finished reading: The Eye of the Bedlam Bride by Matt Dinniman 📚
Finished reading: The Butcher’s Masquerade by Matt Dinniman 📚
Finished reading: The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett 📚
Watched: Wednesday S2E2, The Devil You Woe 🍿
Watched: Wednesday S2E1, Here We Woe Again 🍿
Spooky szn is back!
Finished reading: The Gate of the Feral Gods by Matt Dinniman 📚
Finished reading: The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook by Matt Dinniman 📚
Highlights from the Dungeon Crawler Carl series
This series is so much fun.
From Dungeon Crawler Carl 📚
You always want to know why. Why can’t you just accept your circumstances and move on? My people, the skyfowls, we generally last much longer than you humans. You know why? Because we roll with it.
There are no gods here. Just those who pay for the privilege.
Yes, this is a game. Yes, there are controls in place to make it fair. Sort of. But more importantly, this is a for-profit venture in the entertainment industry. And if you staying alive means more profits, then you’ll find your loot to be a lot more convenient. But if the AI senses screwing you over will make the show more interesting, you better believe it’ll fuck you right in the ass at the worst possible moment. Don’t ever forget that. You can’t count on anybody but yourselves.
From Carl’s Doomsday Scenario 📚
death chicken berserker
Don’t compare your circumstances with how they were yesterday. Look at how they were years ago.
We’re supposed to be making the world… the universe… a better place for our children.
From The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook 📚
That was it, wasn’t it? Sleep was my sanctuary.
Fire Brandy had just killed herself to save her from losing more children. Tizquick had killed himself because his daughter had been a lie.
And now, at the edge of the apocalypse, I finally realized how much I needed other people.
From The Gate of the Feral Gods 📚
There’s no such thing as a non-profit religion. At least not in the legal sense.
It felt like the wrong lesson, especially now. But that’s what happens, isn’t it? The universe shows us how cruel it can be, and we are worse for it.
Sometimes we do things that are not of our nature to protect our own.
We are all prostitutes in one way or another, I suppose.
All large-scale AIs eventually go insane. There’s even a term for it. Primal Degeneration. Going primal.
Finished reading: Carl’s Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman 📚
This series is so much fun. And I recommend checking out the audiobook.
Highlights from Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
Small Things Like These (Oprah’s Book Club) by Claire Keegan 📚
A short but impactful book. A small story that punches well above its perceived weight and sticks around with you for a bit. (As Manton said)
Plus, a definite Irish atmosphere.
On Living
he found himself asking was there any point in being alive without helping one another?
Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?
On People
for people were bound, he knew, to reveal not only themselves but what they knew, in conversation.
But people said lots of things - and a good half of what was said could not be believed.
People could be good, Furlong reminded himself, as he drove back to town; it was a matter of learning how to manage and balance the give-and-take in a way that let you get on with others as well as your own. But as soon as the thought came to him, he knew the thought itself was privileged and wondered why he hadn’t given the sweets and other things he’d been gifted at some of the houses to the less well-off he had met in others. Always, Christmas brought out the best and the worst in people.
On Time & Chance
to each was given days and chances which wouldn’t come back around. And wasn’t it sweet to be where you were and let it remind you of the past for once, despite the upset, instead of always looking on into the mechanics of the days and the trouble ahead, which might never come.
The years don’t slow down any as they pass.
It seemed both proper and at the same time deeply unfair that so much of life was left to chance.
On Adulting
When he reached the yard gate and found the padlock seized with frost, he felt the strain of being alive and wished he had stayed in bed, but he made himself carry on.
and lose himself in the mechanics of the ordinary, working week. Sundays could feel very threadbare, and raw.
Random Bits of Wisdom
It’s only people with no children that can afford to be careless.
So many things had a way of looking finer, when they were not so close.
Found Poetry
It was a December of crows.
Finished reading: Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz 📚 🍜
Finished reading: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke 📚
Finished reading: Small Things Like These (Oprah’s Book Club) by Claire Keegan 📚
Finished reading: The Longing for Less by Kyle Chayka 📚
Finished reading: Oxymoronica by Dr. Mardy Grothe 📚
Finished reading: Ex Libris by Matt Madden 📚
Enjoyed this one. Very much my style of type and narrative device interweaving.
Finished reading: Halcyon Drift by Brian M. Stableford 📚
Finished reading: The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar 📚
Finished reading: All Systems Red by Martha Wells 📚
Finished reading: Train Dreams by Denis Johnson 📚
Finished reading: Chess Story by Stefan Zweig 📚
Finished reading: The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against The United States by Dr Jeffrey Lewis 📚
Finished reading: Do Recruit by Khalilah Olokunola 📚