Bryan Alexander > Recent Status Updates

Please tell me this gets better?
Right now it's a slog. Arrogant, entitled protagonists who are neither sympathetic nor interesting. An sf setting without any science fiction. A dumb plot.
I can't believe the author of the fine Lady Astronaut series wrote this.

"It was over that empty expanse the vampire fled, first billowing smoke like a diesel engine and then erupting into flame as the sun cracked the horizon.

The vampire ran directly for his house and launched itself at the opening to the crawlspace under the porch steps. Oily smoke eeled up through the wooden planks and dissipated into the lightening sky."

Really mad at this book. Amazingly shallow.
Opening idea of teen suicide plague is powerful - then it just stops.
Second 1/2 of book is civil war fantasy, very implausible.
Religious plot is hard to parse. Openly religious, w/ "Prophet" (named Paul), calls to God, some fantasy-ish manifestations, but zero content, no rules, myths, etc.
Almost done and regretting reading it.

Excellent thus far.
Favorite wry passage: "I leave it to the reader to imagine how a precocious, all-knowing goat might narrate the history of disease transmission in the Neolithic." (104)

Odd book. Not what I expected. Big heaps of police procedural bolted onto space opera through a Canterbury Tales framework.
Two interesting ideas:
1) Blending a post-scarcity economics w/mandatory gender fluidity
2) Using cheap teleportation to clean up industrial civilization.

Why the name Haifa?

"Okwu was happiest around human beings when it was menacingly looming." 134

I am a fucking asymmetric criminal startup. I got limited expertise in criminal strategic warfare. I hotdesk and I outsource and I franchise but what I mostly have is a core concept, forward momentum and the unassailable fact that I’m crazier than a fibreglass hairball. I don’t give a shit for territory. I don’t care if the world burns. I’m a rapidly escalating nuclear temporary autonomous zone.

(73)

Heh heh heh.

Nearly done, and find myself reading parts out loud to my family. What a heartbreaking trove of human truth.

Oh, this is disappointing. After a quick opening flourish about biological possibilities, we shift to endless recaps of simplified versions of bits of cultural history.

Honestly, this is a bit of a slog. Maybe I'm burned out on zombies*, but this is pretty familiar stuff.

*Yes, they're called "hungries" instead of zombies. They work the same.

Just hit one of the famous lines from American history.
Asked to retreat, a Marine commander snarls back, "Retreat? Hell, we just got here!"

Just hit one of the famous lines from American history.
Asked to retreat, a Marine commander snarls back, "Retreat? Hell, we just got here!"

Posting weekly chapter notes to my blog, under this tag.

Page 110 now: https://bryanalexander.org/2017/05/29...

Posting weekly chapter notes to my blog, under this tag.

Page 110 now: https://bryanalexander.org/2017/05/29...

Posting weekly chapter notes to my blog, under this tag.

Delightful grasp on primary and secondary sources so far.

A very dark, depressing book, all about a terrifying, relentless, and joyless dystopia.

I don't mean the north country. I mean the world of men.

Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube is only partly about learning how to live in very cold area. It is primarily about the heroine surviving sexual threats.

Galicia itself begins with two surprising A-H successes at the Battles of Kraśnik and Komarów.
Then the Battle of Gnila Lipa and
Battle_of_Rawa happen.

Quick notes:
First 1/2 of the book isn't about the Battle for Galicia. Instead it is excellent background on how the Austro-Hungarian empire got to that point. Schindler sketches out the complex political arrangements as of 1914, then assesses the very flawed military (actually militaries).

85% through, and enjoying it very much. An Irish murderer's story, with more than a trace of Dostoevsky.

Halfway through, a few notes:
1) Based on Kelly's earlier presentations on key verbs. This fleshes them out
2) Seriously underplays gaming! Is that because K's a longtime Mac fan?
3) Very optimistic. Too much so when it comes to companies.

A fun book so far, very engaging. Although I guessed several developments early on (that opening chapter needs to go) I'm impressed at Clines' ability to draw me in.
Good job setting out lots of details early on, many of which appear neutral, but which become important in later chapters.
I'm enjoying the weird detective protagonist, whose gimmick is fun.


PS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8TUw... .

Excellent so far. A nice sense of dread quietly implanted, then gradually ramped up.
Telling a story about lost silent film and the history of Canadian cinema sounds like a stretch, but it works for me as a movie fanatic.

Heartbreaking, beautiful, terrifying.