Jay Daze > Recent Status Updates

Part one ends with Nahri and Ali sailing up river to meet up with Ali's ma in magic world, and Dara more split with Manisheh as he lies to her, not mentioning he has seen Ali's sister N.

Light romance yearning and sorta triangle in this trilogy, actually a bit of star-crossed lovers light but not too pushed upon. More the question if these hatreds can ever be over-come or if they are structurally doomed. A sadly contemporary question.

Chapter 16 done. I wonder if Harriet will do herself in because the novel seems to posit she is cursed and doomed, no matter what her good intentions are towards Anthony Pennell. Such a terrible premise!

Nahir on the lam with Ali while Dara is the the enforcer for Manizheh. And Nahir has a Moses origin story with a woman making a deal with a madir (water being) to get her to safety from her burning village...

Sick day is good for reading! Out to visit Waabizh and son Joe Paulson. Learn Mitch's native name -- Mishkigaboo -- Strong Standing. Ah irony.

Joe's death and the fallout with Maureen and Layla. Gloria makes a stron showing. At first thought she was playing M & M but actually caring, maybe? Reed is going to be something bad by the end of the novel. Too many shivers! One note too loud, played to exhaustion!

When does an repeating image or idea become just too much? The shiver doesn't have a lot of varations which makes it tedious to me. But what do I know? I found 'so it goes' annoying as well. The question of whether fuck up Mitch Caddo can be a 'good guy' or 'one of the good ones' is interesting though. 'one of the good ones' out of the mouth of a white character like Joe Beck sounds bad though...

Mitch and Layla Beck, his unwillingness to commit and believe that he is worth loving.

All done except the notes, bibliography and annotations and...

the shiver

We dream of and in trees. Climbing and rocking. Sometimes falling.

Just holding on by my fingernails on scientific understanding, but wonderfully written and jammed packed with amazing insight to how wonderfully complex and mindblowingly interconnected trees are with all life on the planet. Challenging in the best way.

Love story between Mindy & Mork, of course, and some low key naughty harrassment of sexy Sam by teen presenting but 70 years plus dead Aunt Mary. Fun but not essential. Can say that about alot of Incryptid, but that ain't a complaint.

Done. The rest is a novella of the Mice. Will check if that is listed as a separate work. Enjoyed this way-station middle chapter in Antimony's adventure.

Luck siphon Antimony.

Big kiss as Sam the monkey man shows up. Personally I hope the whole corporate socerer training doesn't get dropped. This feels like a set-up book, but I am enjoying the set-up. This series weirdly gets a lot of passes from me. McGuire is doing something right, for me at least.

So far this is a dreary soap-opera melodrama with unpleasant shallow characters and a rascist supernatural/eugenics element of energy vampirism... I hate them all.

Lowryland has a magic section with a routewicth, a trainspotter and a socerer (wand guy) who wants to train her but it is the corporate cold bloodness which is the scary part. Oh and a guy got stabbed to death in the park. A GUEST - which is a no-no for Lowry policy.

Back in London and Harriet discovers that the Barroness' Red House is a dump.

See Asuka's worth as a survivor and not having leadership skills. Fuzzy still why anyone would sabotage and kill captain unless for the mission. And is this all one big simulation. Lot of sims in training and psychological fuckery that everyone lives in personal bubble universes that never allow them to be present, other than Asuka because of malfuncion with hers. Or was she taken off line so she could be better?

Curious what fuckery happened that got Asuka on board. And is she a sleeper sleeper agent for SME? Not aware of what she did? Prob not... But--

So far my money is on the AI hiding stuff under DAR the augmented reality and also positioning crew to die in blast, especially the Captain.

Asuka doesn't fit anywhere, is the Alternate not picked forthe crew and might be the best person to figure out if their is a saboteur in the generational Phoneix spaceship.

The unfortunate Umeko (spider woman) and more unfortunate Pablo and teens too...

Whoops but at 40%

Back in the USA Madison, Wis and having Robert Bullard and Margaret Healey as minders. Bullard is in particular and well drawn asshole. Now to infiltrate the circus posing as a circus girl who is posing as a Covenant opp killer but is actually a Cryptozoologist Price bad-ass...

Ethel died. Infant death is hard to handle see if it will be carried by Marryat.

Alright. At the bookstore in London and the infiltration begins. Also my money on her bagging the young dude that led her to the shop and is the old gruff dude's grandson... (Leo the grandson and Reginald Cunningham the old dude. And she is posing as Timpani Brown, a surviving daughter of a bunch of circus folk killed by a swarm of Apraxis wasps - wasps the size of kittens.)

The house always wins seems to be the rule, but Doctorow is proposing other rules and regs -- though does seem quite the uphill battle.

Now into the meat. How decisions made by government gave monopolistic companies the tools to make life shitty for us all. And if you are a corporation how can you NOT take advantage of these ways of screwing everyone over for a buck? Especially with no concequences?