Men call him father, liberator, warlord, Slave King, Reaper. But he feels a boy as he falls toward the war-torn planet, his armor red, his army vast, his heart heavy. It is the tenth year of war and the thirty-third of his life.
“Hey,” Watney said over the radio, “I've got an idea.”
“Of course you do,” Lewis said. “What do you got?”
“I could find something sharp in here and poke a hole in the glove of my EVA suit. I could use the escaping air as a thruster and fly my way to you. The source of thrust would be on my arm, so I'd be able to direct it pretty easily.”
“How does he come up with this shit?” Martinez interjected.
“Hmm,” Lewis said. “Could you get 42 meters per second that way?”
“No idea,” Watney said.
“I can't see you having any control if you did that,” Lewis said. “You'd be eyeballing the intercept and using a thrust vector you can barely control.”
“I admit it's fatally dangerous,” Watney said. “But consider this: I'd get to fly around like Iron Man.”
“We'll keep working on ideas,” Lewis said.
“Iron Man, Commander. Iron Man.”
― The Martian
“Of course you do,” Lewis said. “What do you got?”
“I could find something sharp in here and poke a hole in the glove of my EVA suit. I could use the escaping air as a thruster and fly my way to you. The source of thrust would be on my arm, so I'd be able to direct it pretty easily.”
“How does he come up with this shit?” Martinez interjected.
“Hmm,” Lewis said. “Could you get 42 meters per second that way?”
“No idea,” Watney said.
“I can't see you having any control if you did that,” Lewis said. “You'd be eyeballing the intercept and using a thrust vector you can barely control.”
“I admit it's fatally dangerous,” Watney said. “But consider this: I'd get to fly around like Iron Man.”
“We'll keep working on ideas,” Lewis said.
“Iron Man, Commander. Iron Man.”
― The Martian
“The most recent post was from yesterday —Christmas— and it was of the foosball table Shane had given him. No caption. He scrolled and found a photo of the exercise ball Shane had been balancing on in Ilya's gym. One of the latest puzzle Ilya had completed with Shane's dad. One of Ilya's loon tattoo.
One of the two plastic heart rings, together on Shane's dresser.
Shane realized that most or Ilya's posts were, in weird cryptic ways, about Shane. His entire account was like a secret diary of their relationship, full of inside jokes and little references that only Shane would understand.
And Shane hadn't even bothered to look at it before. Not really.
He looked now. He scrolled until his eyes were so blurry that he had to give up and sob into his hands instead. How could Shane have doubted for a second how fiercely Ilya loved him?”
― The Long Game
One of the two plastic heart rings, together on Shane's dresser.
Shane realized that most or Ilya's posts were, in weird cryptic ways, about Shane. His entire account was like a secret diary of their relationship, full of inside jokes and little references that only Shane would understand.
And Shane hadn't even bothered to look at it before. Not really.
He looked now. He scrolled until his eyes were so blurry that he had to give up and sob into his hands instead. How could Shane have doubted for a second how fiercely Ilya loved him?”
― The Long Game
“In a city where public executions,duels, fights, magical feuds, and strange events regularly punctuated the daily round, the inhabitants had brought the profession of interested bystander to a peak of perfection. They were, to a man, highly skilled gawpers.”
― The Color of Magic
― The Color of Magic
“I awoke to the oxygen alarm in my suit. A steady, obnoxious beeping that eventually roused me from a deep and profound desire to just fucking die.”
― The Martian
― The Martian
“I’ll give my dad credit; he never claimed it was to build character or teach me the value of hard work. “Snowblowers are expensive,” he used to say. “You’re free.”
― The Martian
― The Martian
Rebekah’s 2025 Year in Books
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