Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
Book 22 of 2025: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Like the first, it’s cute, but that’s about it. I really think I’d have enjoyed it more if I’d read it when we were both much younger. Not that it’s bad or juvenile, just that it’s, well, lightly humorous fantasy from 1980, and its not going to appeal to me as a 51 year old in 2025 the same way it might have as a tween/teen in the ‘80s.
Colors and speckles and eggs, oh my!
We got sucked into the reality tripe of Million Dollar Secret. It’s ridiculous, many of these people are horrible, and it’s keeping us entertained.
_using underscores_ to add italics adds italics as <em> tags rather than <i> tags, but since I’m often marking up book titles, <em> is the incorrect tag to be using), but until/unless I decide to go another way, this looks like a good tool to know about.Book 21 of 2025: ⭐️⭐️ 2003 Hugo Best Novel
A portal is accidentally opened between our Earth and a parallel Earth, where Neanderthals became the dominant human species, bringing one Neanderthal scientist over to our world. Some amusing moments as the scientist comes to grips with the oddities of our world when compared to his. However, I was quite thrown off by the introductions of the two primary female characters: one, in order to dive into water for a rescue attempt, strips down to her underwear, pausing to reflect that she wished she hadn’t donned such a lacy pair that morning; the other is raped at knifepoint. After finishing the book, I have only the vaguest ideas of what either character looked like; one is blonde and beautiful, the other more average. That got the book off on poor footing, and I never really warmed up to it after that. Not what I’ve come to expect from these more recent Hugo winners, and I won’t be continuing on with this series.
Book 20 of 2025: Clarkesworld Issue 223 edited by Neil Clarke: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
My favorite this month was “Still Water” by Zhang Ran, translated by Jay Zhang.
From a conversation with a friend, one of my all-time favorite Bizarro comics, clipped and saved back when I was in high school.
Guillaume Lethuillier: The Myst Graph: A New Perspective on Myst: “Upon reflection, Myst has long been more analogous to a graph than a traditional linear game, owing to the relative freedom it affords players. This is particularly evident in its first release (Macintosh, 1993), which was composed of interconnected HyperCard cards. It is now literally one. Here is Myst as a graph.”
Jessica Bennett at The Cut: If Hetero Relationships Are So Bad, Why Do Women Go Back for More? A new straight-studies course treats male-female partnerships as the real deviance.: “‘In this class, we’re going to flip the script,’ she went on. ‘It’s going to be a place where we worry about straight people. Where we feel sympathy for straight people. We are going to be allies to straight people.'”
Nilay Patel at The Verge: Best printer 2025: just buy a Brother laser printer, the winner is clear, middle finger in the air: “This is the third year in a row that I’ve published a story recommending you just stop thinking about printers and buy whatever random Brother laser printer is on sale, and nothing has happened in the miserably user-hostile printer industry to change my recommendation in that time.”
Sarah Jones at the Intelligencer: Then They Came for People With Disabilities The right-wing effort to roll back civil rights finds a new target.: “Though the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act had bipartisan support and were signed by Republican presidents, it’s hard to imagine Trump signing either piece of legislation. A more ruthless strain of conservatism always percolated within the party, and now it dominates and threatens the protections that Cone, and Lomax, and so many others once fought to win. At risk is the concept of civil rights itself.”
Shelly Brisbin at Six Colors: Twenty Thousand Hertz Dives Deep Into Apple Accessibility History: “The latest episode of the Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast takes a stab at telling Apple’s accessibility story through sound—not only the sound of a host and his interview subjects, but the way Macs and iPhones sound when they speak to people who use their accessibility features.”
Watts Martin: What makes an app feel “right” on the Mac?: “So it’s possible that the right question—at least for me—isn’t ‘is this app using a native UI toolkit,’ it’s ‘is this app a good Mac citizen.’ In other words, does it embrace long-standing Mac conventions?”
Seattle Worldcon 2025: 2025 Hugo Award Finalists: “Seattle Worldcon 2025, the 83rd World Science Fiction Convention, is delighted to announce the finalists for the 2025 Hugo Awards, Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book, and Astounding Award for Best New Writer.”
You can only get so much from a one-minute teaser, but hey! First glimpse of season three!
Okay, sure, first impressions are pretty good, and we have two strong seasons to build off of, so I’m inclined to trust them.
But….
We’ll find out this summer.
Sad to see the news of Val Kilmer’s death. While he did a lot of good stuff over the years, my personal favorite is and has always been one of his earlier films, Real Genius.
As a too-smart-for-my-own-good kid (in many ways, the classic “nerd”: glasses, unruly curly hair, big gap in my teeth, played the violin, read constantly — mostly science fiction, got into computers really early, got beat up and shoved in lockers by bullies, etc.), Real Genius was foundational. It was the first (and is still one of the few) comedies I saw where the nerds were the heroes, and where their quirkiness, oddity, and intelligence was celebrated rather than mocked. (Revenge of the Nerds may purport to have nerds as its heroes, but it mocks, not celebrates.)
While I wasn’t genius level smart, of course, these were characters that I could identify with (in Mitch), aspire to be like (in Chris), see what to avoid (in Kent and Hathaway), and fall for (in Jordan). They saw the world in much the same way I did. Big and scary and intimidating, but also funny and intriguing and mysterious, and something to be explored and enjoyed. They accepted each other in all of their weirdness.
It has one of the most start-to-finish quotable scripts I’ve ever come across, and lines from it regularly pop into my mind. It’s one I never tire of watching, and I think I need to queue it up again sometime soon.
Some other times I’ve mentioned Real Genius here in the past:
Mitch: You know, um, something strange happened to me this morning…
Chris Knight: Was it a dream where you see yourself standing in sort of sun-god robes on a pyramid with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you?
Mitch: No…
Chris Knight: Why am I the only one who has that dream?Mitch: What are you doing?
Chris Knight: Self-realization. I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said, “… I drank what?”Chris Knight: So, if there’s anything I can do for you – or, more to the point, to you – just let me know.
Susan: Can you hammer a six-inch spike through a board with your penis?
Chris Knight: Not right now.
Susan: A girl’s gotta have her standards.Chris Knight: This? This is ice. This is what happens to water when it gets too cold. This? This is Kent. This is what happens to people when they get too sexually frustrated.
Kent: You’re all a bunch of degenerates.
Chris Knight: We are? What about that time I found you naked with that bowl of Jell-O?
Kent: You did not.
Chris Knight: This is true.
Kent: Look, it was hot and I was hungry, okay?Professor Hathaway: I want to see more of you around the lab.
Chris Knight: Fine. I’ll gain weight.Mitch: Did you know there’s a guy living in our closet?
Chris Knight: You’ve seen him too?
Mitch: Who is he?
Chris Knight: Hollyfeld.
Mitch: Why does he keep going into our closet?
Chris Knight: Why do you keep going into our closet?
Mitch: To get my clothes – but that’s not why he goes in there.
Chris Knight: Of course not, he’s twice your size – your clothes would never fit him.
Mitch: Yeah…
Chris Knight: Think before you ask these questions, Mitch. Twenty points higher than me? Thinks a big guy like that can wear his clothes?Dr. Dodd: Why is that toy on your head?
Chris Knight: Because if I wear it any place else, it chafes.Professor Hathaway: You still run?
Chris Knight: Only when chased.
Book 19 of 2025: Diplomatic Immunity by Lois McMaster Bujold: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Miles heads out to solve a diplomatic crisis that quickly becomes more of a crisis than expected (which, well, of course, that’s how it works, right?). Ties together a lot of threads and brings in long unseen characters from prior books in the series. I continue to be impressed with how consistently enjoyable this series is. Only a few books left before I’m done!
A foggy morning walk to explore the grounds of the resort was really nice.
Just the usual mindless evening stuff: NCIS: Origins, Drag Race All Stars, and Scrubs. Scrubs “My Musical” is still an excellent episode.
No links this week; too much of what I’ve read has been about the political idiocy, and, well, you can find those stories absolutely everywhere.
Book 18 of 2025: Polostan by Neal Stephenson: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
On the one hand, it’s basically all setup — it very much feels like Stephenson wrote another 1,000-plus page opus and the publisher cut it down into more manageable pieces. On the other, if you’re the type who enjoys Stephenson’s 1,000-page plus opuses, it’s captivating and engrossing setup, as he sets the stage with events in 1930s America and the Soviet Union, with his usual digressions and fixations on whatever minutiae have captured his fancy. Hopefully it won’t be too long between volumes, as it’s a minor pity that I can’t just read the full story in one go.
