Personal

The stuff about me and my life. The “diary” side of blogging.

📚 Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre

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26/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1979 Hugo Best Novel

Neat tale of a woman traveling across a far-future post-apocalyptic earth, healing others with the help of her snakes while searching for an alien snake to assist her, and finding more people to help along the way. Adventuresome, but quiet, with some interesting hints at the wider world that go unanswered as the story unfolds. Really enjoyed the (somewhat groundbreaking at the time, apparently) feminist reworking of the hero’s journey, where conflict is solved by caring and healing rather than combat.

Michael holding Dreamsnake

A True Story That Sounds Made Up

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Prompted by someone on Twitter asking for “a true story from your life that sounds made up“, I posted this thread in response.

So: A few years back, I was chatting with my mom, and picked up the book she was reading: Butcher Baker, about Alaskan serial killer Robert Hansen. The book has a section of photos in the middle, and I flipped through them.

Hansen would pick up sex workers, hold them captive in his basement, then fly them out to remote locations to hunt and kill them. The book had a photo of his basement room, with a pole in the middle where he would keep them tied up, and taxidermy heads on the walls. I commented on how creepy the room was (I’ve never been a big fan of taxidermy in the first place), and mom just looks at me, and perfectly deadpan says, “Yeah, you never did like it down there.”

Robert Hansen lived just a few doors up the street from the priest of our church. We were good friends with our priest’s family; my brother and I would often play with their kids. And all of us kids would play with other neighborhood kids…including Hansen’s.

So, yeah, we’d occasionally end up at his house, and apparently in his basement room. Decorated with his hunting trophies. And apparently (though never while we were there), a captive sex worker before being flown out to her eventual demise.

I have other friends who also grew up on that street and knew Hansen and his family during his active years before he got caught. It’s a weird little bit of bonding among us.

Hansen was arrested in 1983, when I was ten, so all of this was when I was pretty young, and I don’t have any actual conscious memories of knowing him or his kids (or being in that room). But full points to my mom for the perfect deadpan info drop that day.

If you’re not familiar with Robert Hansen, here’s his page on Wikipedia. There was also a movie about him with John Cusack and Nick Cage, which is…well, it’s a movie. But it was filmed in Anchorage, so I had fun seeing my old stomping grounds in it.

One of my favorite things about trotting out this story is how all of my Lower 48 friends are pretty uniformly 😲, while all of my Alaska friends have various one- or two-degrees-of-separation stories about knowing Hansen or his family, or shopping at his bakery, or being on the PTA with him. Like, knowing a serial killer is just part of living in Alaska in the late ’70s/early ’80s; this is an entirely normal experience.

📚 Smut Peddler Presents: Sordid Past edited by Andrea Purcell

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25/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This latest in the Smut Peddler series of erotic comic anthologies continues the fine form of its predecessors: fun, cute, sweet, funny, sexy short tales of people getting it on in various combinations, with just as much plot as any self respecting porn needs (in other words, more than is commonly joked about, but not so much as to overwhelm the main event). As always, nicely inclusive of gender, sexuality, and body types, this collection sets all of its tales in historical ages, from just a few decades to hundreds of years ago.

Michael holding Sordid Past

📚 The Way the Future Was by Frederik Pohl

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21/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️

A look back at the beginnings of SF fandom through the eyes of one of the people in at the proverbial ground floor. In addition to becoming a noted SF author and editor, Pohl was also one of the group of people who founded much of fandom, including the Worldcon conventions (though he ended up being one of the group banned from the first Worldcon thanks to an early fandom clash…), and knew essentially (and quite possibly literally) all of the classic SF authors. If you’re at all interested in the early years of fandom, this is a fun and easy read covering his life and the fandom world from the 1920s through the mid-1970s.

Michael holding The Way the Future Was

📚 The Empty Chair by Diane Duane

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20/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️

A strong end to Duane’s Rihannsu series – though it does begin in media res, and as it has been years since I read the preceding book(s), it took me a bit to regain familiarity with some of the characters. Her take on the Romulans, while very different than that explored by the official canon, is very strong and well worth reading.

Michael holding The Empty Chair

📚 The Annals of the Heechee by Frederik Pohl

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19/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️

A little action, a lot of interesting playing with AIs and “machine-stored intelligences” generated from people when they die, allowing them to keep on going (a concept introduced in earlier books, but more thoroughly explored here). And, again, an unfortunate subplot involving sexualizing young girls (and in this case, for a little variety, adding a predilection for sexualized abuse as well); thankfully, nothing untoward ever actually happens and this is a relatively minor subplot, but the character’s appetites are made well known, and are an entirely unnecessary addition. The Heechee series has a lot of interesting stuff in it, I just wish Pohl hadn’t felt the need to keep putting these bits in as well.

Michael holding The Annals of the Heechee