8/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Philip K. Dick Award Nominee
Entertaining far-future adventure with genetically engineered animal/human hybrids, AIs bonded to human hosts and used as weapons, and schemes spanning tens of thousands of years.
Happy Birthday
As we took a walk around the neighborhood today, Prairie and I noticed a couple of “Happy Birthday” balloons stuck in a tree. Since that’s not a good thing, after we finished our walk, we grabbed the extension pole we use to replace ceiling lightbulbs and went back to see if we could get the balloons down.
The pole was just a few inches short of what it needed to be, but with a little somewhat goofy jumping around and a lot of tries, I was eventually able to snag the balloons and bring them down without letting them escape.
We planned on tying them outside our place and leaving a note in the neighborhood Facebook group so that if they belonged to anyone local, they could have them back, and if they were still around in a day or so, we’d trash them.
But as we were walking home, I noticed that the balloons were tied to a baggie with a folded up piece of paper inside. Wondering if it was a note, we opened it up.
“Happy birthday baby,” it began. “I still can’t believe you are gone. You would have been 72 years old.” And it continued on, a very sweet love letter from a woman to her husband on his birthday.
Once we realized what it was, we decided we needed to do something. We didn’t want to just re-release the balloons, since that’s not very environmentally friendly. So instead, we made a donation to the World Wildlife Fund (based on something in the letter indicating that environmental causes were important to this couple) and burned the letter in our fireplace, so her words could continue their journey onward.
It was a really unexpected and sweet little thing to have happen to us today. I hope the author and her husband had a good life, and that she continues to enjoy her life until she sees him again.
📚 Bug by Giacomo Sartori, translated by Frederika Randall
7/2022 – ⭐️⭐️ Philip K. Dick Award Nominee
Unfortunately, this one just did not work for me. The main character is a 10-year-old deaf (and, I believe, possibly autistic) child, and it’s narrated in a first-person, nearly stream-of-consciousness style, which (in-universe) is the child dictating in sign language to a caretaker who translates what he says. In actuality, the book was originally written in Italian, and has been translated to English. So there are multiple levels of abstraction and translation, and I’m at a loss as to how much of the final writing style and choices were the character’s, an artifact of the in-universe translation from sign language, the author’s, an artifact of the real-world translation from Italian, or some combination of all of those. The end result was that I just didn’t enjoy it.
🎥 Agatha and the Truth of Murder
Agatha and the Truth of Murder: ⭐️⭐️⭐️: An entertaining “what if” exploring what might have happened when Agatha Christie disappeared for eleven days. In this, she finds herself playing the part of one of her own detectives, trying to solve a murder…or two.
📚 Defekt by Nino Cipri
6/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Darker and weirder than Finna, complete with elements of body horror, but just as fun to read, and still with the same optimistic current to it. Liked this one a lot; a strong start to this year’s PKD lineup.
Original Audio? Commentary? Why Not Both?
I’m watching the new 4K restoration of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and one of the nice things about this release is that not only are there commentaries, but there are subtitles for the commentaries (this is a very rare thing, unfortunately). So I can watch the movie with the original audio, but pop on the subtitles for one of the commentary tracks to read that as I watch.
At which point Prairie looks at me and says, “Oh my god, you’re such a nerd.”
Yup.
🖖
📚 Finna by Nino Cipri
5/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Navigating working with someone after breaking up with them is hard enough. Doing that while also navigating a multidimensional IKEA isn’t easier…but can be surprisingly helpful. A quick, funny, and fun read.
Meatloaf Again?
Content warning: Morbid, dark humor.
Seems the Weber grill company sends out regular “recipe of the week” emails, which I’m sure are pre-written and pre-scheduled and just go out automatically.
Today’s was for BBQ meatloaf.
They had to apologize.
“Meatloaf again?”
Also: I honestly did not know until today that Meat Loaf was a vaccine-denying Trumpublican and (at least according to a lot of online scuttlebut) very likely, and unsurprisingly, died of Covid-related complications.
I can simultaneously be disappointed at the death of a long-time favorite musician, be disappointed that he got sucked into MAGAland, and think that it’s his own damn fault for dying that way — which makes it even more disappointing, because it’s quite likely that it was preventable.
PKD Award 📚 Nominees
This year’s stack of Philip K. Dick Award nominees have arrived! (Actually, nominees plus one — Finna is the precursor to Defekt, and I don’t like starting in the middle of a series.) As usual, this looks like a strong selection of books; of note for me is Far From the Light of Heaven, as this is Tade Thompson’s second time as a nominee, and I enjoyed all of his Wormwood trilogy, the third book of which was the earlier nominated work.
Time to get reading! (And if you’re interested, I’ve created a PKD reading challenge on StoryGraph that you’re welcome to join!)
📚 Unlocking the Magic edited by Vivian Caethe
4/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️
An anthology of people living with mental illnesses and magic. Not the old tropes of magic being a sign or cause, but magic as a tool to help cope with the struggles. Definitely some dark moments, but overall, a thread of hope runs through all of the stories.
