Finished reading: The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook by Matt Dinniman 📚

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.

Finished reading: Carl’s Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman 📚

This series is so much fun. And I recommend checking out the audiobook.

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: Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman 📚

Well this was a whole lot of fun.

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: Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach 📚

Read this book

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 📚

Finished reading: Foster by Claire Keegan 📚

Finished reading: Tentacle by Rita Indiana 📚

Finished reading: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré 📚

Wranglers' Canyon/Crash Walker by Andy Seven 📚

from Wranglers' Canyon

How can one learn the meaning of virtue if one hasn’t committed acts to make the devil proud?

I’m too smart to be good and too dumb to be evil.

Nature looks right pretty in a painting, but when you’re all along in its presence you realize it’s the boss and can do whatever it damn well pleases, and that includes killing you. With no regrets.

Money don’t recognize family or friends much

Justice must be served, whether the people want it or not, and it never fails to surpise me how little people really care for it when it’s their friend who’s the guilty party.

Folks with memories that short were eventually going to march to their doom.

from Crash Walker

he cockily slumped into the posture of one who was entitled to his surroundings.

Finished reading: Wranglers' Canyon/Crash Walker by Andy Seven 📚

A punk novel twofer that starts with a surreal western then repurposes some names for a paranoid 60s Hollywood conspiracy plot.

Finished reading: The Masters of Atlantis by Charles Portis 📚