Status Updates From The Iron Garden Sutra (The ...

There's going to be a sequel? But this felt self-contained enough

“They’re engineers. They’re barely human.”

👁️👄👁️

I wasn't feeling this budding romance at first but putting them in a life or death situation is making me change my mind 🤔

“...Some of Eli’s blood pushed past his lips, and the metallic taste of it sent Iris’s empty stomach into a spasm.”

🤢

‘“Well, perhaps the Nicaea is learning how to communicate with us. Think about it: The language of her passengers would be outdated, and we wouldn’t be able to understand her mother tongue.”

“So, the ship is learning the language by listening to us?”

Iris prayed for Yan to take this leap of faith with him. “No, the ship is learning it from absorbing us into itself.”’

Bruh 👁️👄👁️

“Working his hand farther inside, Iris pushed the intestines away to grab hold of and detach the liver. The organ lay heavy in his open palms, nearly black with iron. Bleak light from shattered panels shimmered across the slick surface, playing along Iris’s blood-stained fingers....”

So gross

“...In his younger days, Iris would frequently forget that it was VIFAI who spoke to him and not a rogue thought of his own. Through the years, their mannerisms diverged, as did their voices, and Iris learned to identify the other who was sharing in his mind. He could no longer remember what it had been like to be alone.”

This is creepy af

“It wasn’t death that bothered Iris, it was the dying. How soon would his own last breath fill a silent room with parting rasps ? How soon would he too search for useless words that only amounted to more grief and confusion to those remaining? Well, at least he didn’t need to worry about that last part.”

Damn this is depressing

“Yan sounded like the sort of person who, as a jubilant child, cut frogs open to see what made them hop.”

👁️👄👁️

“Iris rarely thought of VIFAI as alive, as sentient, apart from himself. He struggled to remember a time when the electronic voice wasn’t whispering in his ear, when the construct wasn’t a comforting pressure against Iris’s own ego. Yet, VIFAI undeniably was alive and separate. It had a sense of humour. It felt pain, of this Iris was sure...”

AI psychosis

“The ancient bones threatened to turn to dust as Iris ran a hand along them. In their unyielding drive for survival, vines had pried the ribcage open, each individual rib splayed like the great wings of a bird. Brilliant, purple flowers sprouted from the wide-open mouth—the wisteria had wrapped itself around the spine and pushed its way through the eye sockets....”

Gothic + sci-fi?

‘Yan scoffed. “What do you know of respect, Vessel? You are a charlatan at best, the lot of you. You dress the dead up and say a few words, and then you leave. What do you know about the consequence of death, about its hold on everyone left behind? What good do you even do?”’

Damn bro chill

A group of people living on a generation ship overgrown with plants? 🚀🪴

“...VIFAI said with a playful tickle, an electrical nudge of laughter at Iris’s brain stem.”

Ew what 👁️👄👁️

Reading slump! Reading slump! Reading slump!

I’m not sure I’m ready for a Smart Book so soon after Onyx Storm.