Reviews of the books I've read

Okay, whatever you do, do not read this book. The writing of this book is so verbose, so desperately in need of an editor, so as to be nearly unreadable. Couple that with the location of the book, Silicon Valley, and the somewhat accurate portrayal of the places in Silicon Valley, of the stunningly stupid ideas that get funded, of the pervasive sense of entitlement, and of the vulgar pursuit of winning the IPO jackpot instead of actually building something meaningful, and you have a book that just screams crap.

Did I mention the verbosity?

Yeah, well the editing is worse. If you want to experience this book, listen to it on audiobook. At three times speed. Keep the pain as short as possible.

I was exporting some of the parts I thought might be worth quoting, and gave up. I just don't like this book. Moazam didn't either. I was on a road trip for 40 hours, I was a captive audience. Moazam wasn't. He couldn't finish it. Not recommended.

Upon it, an image of numerous foggy, craggy acres was rendered. “Do you recognize this terrain?” Dr. Phillips inquired. To the untrained eye, it might have been a region of the Scottish Highlands, or the maritime reaches of Oregon, or a temperate sector of Alaska.
Page 19

There, with plenty of smart, attractive women on hand, Mitchell’s like a kid in a candy store. A penniless, ravenous kid. One who can look all he wants, but that’s it. Or maybe “a meat-loving vegan at a cookout” maps better, because his hunger is principled, and self-imposed (and also, more primal than a grumpy sweet tooth). The thing is, Mitchell has essentially opted out of romance. It’s a long story.
Page 21

“Yes, they’ll say that,” Kuba agrees. “And they won’t be entirely wrong. Cynical. But not wrong. Because the tech itself could be used for practically anything, good or bad. It’s as value neutral as a smartphone. Or a computer.”
Page 27

But the biggest-paying advertiser, brand manager, and spin doctor will ultimately be us, the Phluttr user base. There are gold mines to extract from our desperate urge to be heard!
Page 31

You see, Fortune’s a bitch with a great sense of humor...
Page 37

Of course, all companies make hiring boo-boos. But when the true greats make them really early on, some real knuckleheads can get moronically rich. This effect produces plenty of accidental tech millionaires. Some accidental gazillionaires, too—but only a smattering of Pugwashes, and the man is rather famous. Some take his exquisite luck almost personally. Not merely those who worked far harder for far lesser bonanzai (although to be clear, those folks’re plenty pissed). But also those who are even richer still through their own godsends of timing, genetics, or happenstance, and have since fetishized a vision of the industry as an immaculate meritocracy. Those who fancy that they earned every dime of their tech fortunes through talent, toil, and daring (which is almost everyone who has one) regard any whiff of the lottery (Pugwash, for instance) as a PR liability.
Page 37

Because certain problems are completely resistant to increased rumination. But things are different for a diplomat who has spent years engaged in Russian-American relations. Not because he knows more facts and figures, because that stuff’s available to all of us via Google, now. But because his framework includes lots of intuition. Educated guesses. Vague rules of thumb that have just kind of worked over the years—that sort of thing.
Page 40

“Precisely. And by mastering Synthetic Biology and Nanotechnology, it will likewise be functionally omnipotent! As such, it could preclude the creation of any subsequent ‘me-too’ Super AI as easily as a Harvard Trained Biochemist could stop a helpless bacterium from reproducing in a petri dish!”
Page 50

Grown-up that he is, Mitchell can get a bit homesick when the chips are down, the weather’s blandly OK-ish for the bazillionth day in a row, and he’s gone yet another month without meeting a single fellow hockey fan. Even a lot homesick.
Page 51

Just as you rarely see something that’s perfectly blue in nature, unadulterated joy seems to be rare in human minds. More likely, we’ll see nine or ten happy motes, with other things mixed in.
Page 55

Fear comes in lots of flavors, but they’re all a mix of sadness and surprise, often with a dash of anger. Another example is indignation. That’s lots of anger, and a bit of surprise, with some sadness mixed in. And also, some happiness. Which makes sense when you consider that some folks really seem
Page 55

to enjoy being offended!
Page 55

And if you tried to heed every photon, sound wave, and nerve ending that you can access at once, you wouldn’t really be aware of any of it.” “You’re saying I’d be functionally unconscious.” “Exactly! Which is why you’re not currently registering the color of the ninth cookbook from the far left of the fourth shelf over my shoulder. You’re perceiving it. But you’re not heeding it.
Page 58

When he wasn’t incredibly bummed (rare, but it also happened)! Or, unbelievably pissed off (rarer still, but also happened)! His psyche was all binge and no purge—hammering either the gas or the brakes at all times!!!
Page 93

Man, talk about how I react.

“Is that Phluttr’s release about… Norway, is it?” Mitchell guesses. He’s been meaning to look it up himself.

“Iceland,” Kuba says, holding out the computer.

“You realize you’re about to physically hand me a digital article,” Mitchell points out, “and how very odd that is. Are you sure you don’t just want to print it and fax it to me?”

“I want to see your reaction to this in person.
Page 114

This cracked me up.

This is book two of the FIonavar Tapestry.

As with the first book, I bought and read the book for the first time in high school. Each time I read this book, this series, I pull a different lesson and a different focus from the book. I do not love these books any less each reading.

I had a number of notes with this latest reading, but I lost them when my phone locked and I couldn't recover the data. I recall this book has a lot more adventure in it than the previous book, more hand-wringing, and more difficult to read parts. I still love and appreciate how Kay doesn't hit the reader over the head with explanations and elaborations. He leaves parts unsaid, he lets the reader feel the losses, he gives us space to grieve, to be surprised, to puzzle, and to accept. It's this style of writing that draws me to Kay's writing again and again.

When I started reading this series again, I was worried that the magic of the books was worn with time. I was wrong. They are still incredible. I strongly recommend this series.

After Parable of the Sower, I don't know, I think I was expecting some sort of feel-good book as a follow up.

This is not a feel-good follow up.

Instead, this is a dystopian nightmare that, well, let's be frank here, is completely and totally plausible given the state of the U.S. federal government these days. I do not know how we will last four years with the liar and incompetent existing in the executive office.

Anyway, this book just screams "holy crap" given its parallels to today's politiics. The brother parts, and the lack of resolution at the end of the book (nope, didn't give anything away there) just screams "holy crap" given its parallels to my family situation.

As difficult as I found the last book to read, this one was more difficult and more worth reading because of the discomfort.

All things change, but all things need not change in all ways.
Page 46

Earthseed is Olamina’s contribution to what she feels should be a species-wide effort to evade, or at least to lengthen the specialize-grow-die evolutionary cycle that humanity faces, that every species faces.
Page 46

A woman who expresses her opinions, “nags,” disobeys her husband, or otherwise “tramples her womanhood” and “acts like a man,” might have her head shaved, her forehead branded, her tongue cut out, or, worst case, she might be stoned to death or burned.
Page 50

She and Harry may be the most loyal, least religious people in the community, but there are times when people need religion more than they need anything else — even people like Zahra and Harry.
Page 60

Page 63

Edwards said, “The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire.” You’re worthless. God hates you. All you deserve is pain and death.
Page 63

That's something from Jonathan Edwards' 1741 sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” To which I point out, again, the purpose of organized religion isn't to save, it is to create and maintain power over other people. This hell that he speaks of is a creation of man.

We say “God is Change,” but the truth is, we fear change as much as anyone does. We talk about changes at Gathering to ease our fears, to desensitize ourselves and to consider consequences.
Page 68

That might be the kindest gesture they could manage — to turn their backs and not join the mob. Others, whether we thought of them as friends or not, would be all too willing to join the mob and to stomp us and rob us if stomping and robbing became a test of courage or a test of loyalty to country, religion, or race.
Page 69

“People will think whatever they like,” I said. “It’s our job to show by our behavior that we’re not thieves, and we’re not fools. We’ve got a good reputation so far. People know we don’t steal. They know better than to steal from us."
Page 69

Bankole isn’t the only one of us who doesn’t see the possibility of doing anything he hasn’t seen done by others. And… although Bankole would never say this, I suspect that somewhere inside himself, he believes that large, important things are done only by powerful people in high positions far away from here. Therefore, what we do is, by definition, small and unimportant.
Page 71

She can be shaking with fear, but she still does what she thinks she should do.
Page 72

“I wish we could just hide here and stay out of everything else. I know we can’t, but I wish.… It’s been so good here.”
Page 72

“It means that Change is the one unavoidable, irresistible, ongoing reality of the universe. To us, that makes it the most powerful reality, and just another word for God.”
Page 75

Things won’t get back to what he calls normal. We’ll settle into some new norm someday — for a while.
Page 75

The idea seems to be, “If it’s in a book, maybe it’s true,” or even, “If it’s in a book, it must be true.”
Page 76

We say education is the most direct pathway to God. For now, it’s enough to say that verse just means that flattering or begging God isn’t useful. Learn what God does. Learn to shape that to your needs. Learn to use it, or at least, learn to adapt to it so that you won’t get squashed by it. That’s useful.”
Page 76

"Praying does work. Praying is a very effective way of talking to yourself, of talking yourself into things, of focusing your attention on whatever it is you want to do. It can give you a feeling of control and help you to stretch yourself beyond what you thought were your limits.”
Page 76

It doesn't, however, call down The Will of God™, nor does it affect anything outside of you. There is no magic juice your prayers affect. All of the changes you see in human society are done by people.

"Once he’s made everyone who isn’t like him sound evil, then he can blame them for problems he knows they didn’t cause. That’s easier than trying to fix the problems.”
Page 77

Human competitiveness and territoriality were often at the root of particularly horrible fashions in oppression. We human beings seem always to have found it comforting to have someone to took down on — a bottom level of fellow creatures who are very vulnerable, but who can somehow be blamed and punished for all or any troubles. We need this lowest class as much as we need equals to team with and to compete against and superiors to look to for direction and help.
Page 80

Life is getting better, but that won’t stop a war if politicians and business people decide it’s to their advantage to have one.
Page 82

We’re becoming more and more isolated as a people. We’re sliding into undirected negative change, and what’s worse, we’re getting used to it. All too often, we shape ourselves and our futures in such stupid ways.
Page 86

“You can’t change everything in your life all at once. You just can’t.”

“You can,” I said. “We both have. It hurts. It’s terrible. But you can do it.”
Page 115

“I suspect it’s a human characteristic not to know when you’re well off,” I said.

He glanced at me sidewise. “Oh, it is,” he said. “I see it every day.”
Page 140

I moved against him, but managed not to say anything. I hate to hear him always talking about dying.
Page 142

But an unpleasant thing should be done quickly if it must be done at all.
Page 149

When she wasn’t sure, she found ways to avoid fighting or go along with her opponents until they tripped themselves up or put themselves in a position for her to trip them up.
Page 154

In small communities, she believed, people are more accountable to one another. Serious misbehavior is harder to get away with, harder even to begin when everyone who sees you knows who you are, where you live, who your family is, and whether you have any business doing what you’re doing.
Page 171

“This is like nothing we’ve faced before.” Bankole’s shoulders slumped, and he sighed. “I don’t know that this country has ever had a leader as bad as Jarret or as bad as Jarret might turn out to be: Keep that in mind."
Page 178

Replace "Jarret" with Cheetoh, and you pretty much have the fictional world realized here and now.

"We need to become the adult species that the Destiny can help us become! If we’re to be anything other than smooth dinosaurs who evolve, specialize, and die, we need the stars. When we have no difficult, long-term purpose to strive toward, we fight each other. We destroy ourselves. We have these chaotic, apocalyptic periods of murderous craziness.”
Page 179

“That’s where faith comes in, I guess. It always comes sooner or later into every belief system."
Page 180

After a moment, I decided I was where I wanted to be. If I had to cry on someone’s shoulders, well, his were big and broad.
Page 182

Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.
Page 183

The younger girls cried and quarreled and complained. The rest of us sat silent most of the time. We had all been through one kind of hell or another. We had all survived enough to know that crying, complaining, and quarreling did no good. We might forget that in time, but not yet.
Page 201

Much blood was shed, but little was accomplished. The war began in anger, bitterness, and envy at nations who appeared to be on their way up just as our country seemed to be on a downward slide.
Page 244

Oh, look!

An Expanse book! (And another book with a title that I confuse for another title, this one I read as "Strange Days" the entire time, until I wrote this review.)

OF COURSE I'm going to read it.

Okay, maybe not. I read this one because it was an Expanse book, knowing it might not have Holden in the plot. It didn't. I didn't find the main character particularly compelling, so this book took me a little longer to read than the Holden books do, even though it's a novella instead of a full novel.

The book is an on-the-ground, back story on one of the planets through the Ring. It left more questions than it exposed with the characters and dialogue, which might be the point of it, as a lead-in into the next book.

At this point, if not a hard-core, I'm-going-to-read-everything-Expanse fan, skip this one.

Her mother said that honey was better than molasses, but there weren’t any bees on Laconia. Cara had only ever seen pictures of them, and based on those, she didn’t like honey at all.
Location: 87

I giggled at this when I read it. Small children often don't like foods just because they are different from what they know. Except that adults do this, too, and spend a large amount of effort justifying why they don't like something, when, in reality, they don't know enough to know they don't like said something.

The focus of the family spotlight had moved past her. Momma bird was over. She couldn’t put her thumb on why that bothered her.
Location: 154

One of the hardest things about death is that life goes on.

She wondered if the windowless room was like being on a spaceship. Months or years without ever once going outside or hearing the rain tapping into puddles or being able to get away from Xan and her parents. Never being alone. Never feeling the sunlight on her face. Nothing changing. Nothing new. It sounded awful.
Location: 301

Oh, wow, yes, that would be awful, never having Alone Time.

She wondered if the dogs would want to be captured and studied. She thought not, and they’d already done more for her than the soldiers ever had.
Location: 468

Who is good and who is bad is often based on which perspective you see first. Not always, as some whos and many acts are simply evil. Excepting the obvious of those, who helped you, who talked with you first, who you interacted with last, these influence which side you end up on quite a bit.

“Because I hate feeling powerless,” he said. “I hate being reminded that the universe is so much bigger than I am. And that I can’t always protect people.”
Location: 542

The strangest thing was how normal they sounded. How much grief sounded like regular life.
Location: 581

Again, one of the hardest things about death is that life goes on.

Night on Earth was bright. That’s what they said. Their moon shone like a kind of second, crappy sun. Cities were big enough to drown out the stars with their extra glow.
Location: 616

Second, crappy sun. *snort*

Cara dropped to her knees and threw her arms around the dog, hugging the strange, too-solid flesh close to her. It was warm against her cheek, and rough. It smelled like cardamom and soil. It went still, like it wasn’t sure what do with her affection and joy, and it stayed still until she released it.
Location: 646

This scene reminded me of Bella, and of Chase. Both of those dogs were/are incredibly tolerant of my snuggling them.

There wasn’t a perfect answer, but she didn’t need a perfect one. Good enough was good enough. Making her way home was harder than leaving had been, which made some sense to her. Going away from a point, there were any number of paths, and all of them were right. Going back to the point, most paths were wrong.
Location: 700

A copy of this book was sitting on the nightstand of Melissa's guest bedroom. I knew vaguely about this book, knew it was a classic, and had never read it. So, I picked it up and read it, what with my mission to read the books I should have read decades ago or some such.

Suffice it to say, HAD I read this book in high school or college, my life would have been a lot different. I would have moved to New York, instead of staying in Los Angeles, after college. I am uncertain what jobs I might have had, but aerospace and computers would not have been in my future, I wouldn't think.

But, I didn't read this until this summer, and here we are, a have-read book about New York City somewhat around the turn of the last century (hoo boy, are we really nearly a fifth of the way through this century already?), when one's imaginings about how things were is better than how they actually were, and I'm minimizing how stressful living in New York City might have been.

I can see why this book is a classic. I enjoyed reading it.

The airshaft was a horrible invention. Even with the windows tightly sealed, it served as a sounding box and you could hear everybody's business.
Page 83

Oh, to be a Chinaman, wished Francie, and have such a pretty toy to count on; oh, to eat all the lichee nuts she wanted and to know the mystery of the iron that was ever hot and yet never stood on a stove. Oh, to paint those symbols with a slight brush and a quick turn of the wrist and to make a clear black mark as fragile as a piece of a butterfly wing! That was the mystery of the Orient in Brooklyn.
Page 87

SCHOOL days were eagerly anticipated by Francie. She wanted all of the things that she thought came with school.
Page 91

What's free about it, they reasoned when the law forces you to educate your children and then endangers their lives to get them into school? Weeping mothers brought bawling children to the health center for inoculation. They carried on as though bringing their innocents to the slaughter. The children screamed hysterically at the first sight of the needle and their mothers, waiting in the anteroom, threw their shawls over their heads and keened loudly as if wailing for the dead.
Page 91

"Papa's at Headquarters waiting for a job. He won't be home all day. You're big enough to go alone. Besides, it won't hurt."
Page 91

Sending a six year old kid off to the doctors alone. Different world.

The doctor was a Harvard man, interning at the neighborhood hospital. Once a week, he was obligated to put in a few hours at one of the free clinics. He was going into a smart practice in Boston when his internship was over. Adopting the phraseology of the neighborhood, he referred to his Brooklyn internship as going through Purgatory when he wrote to his socially prominent fiancée in Boston.
Page 92

A person who pulls himself up from a low environment via the boot-strap route has two choices. Having risen above his environment, he can forget it; or, he can rise above it and never forget it and keep compassion and understanding in his heart for those he has left behind him in the cruel up climb. The nurse had chosen the forgetting way. Yet, as she stood there, she knew that years later she would be haunted by the sorrow in the face of that starveling child and that she would wish bitterly that she had said a comforting word then and done something towards the saving of her immortal soul. She had the knowledge that she was small but she lacked the courage to be otherwise.
Page 93

This explanation satisfied Francie because she had never been able to tell her left hand from her right. She ate, and drew pictures with her left hand. Katie was always correcting her and transferring the chalk or the needle from her left hand to her right.
Page 93

He taught them good music without letting them know it was good. He set his own words to the great classics and gave them simple names like "Lullaby" and "Serenade" and "Street Song" and "Song for a Sunshine Day." Their baby voices shrilled out in Handel's "Largo" and they knew it merely by the title of "Hymn." Little boys whistled part of Dvorak's New World Symphony as they played marbles. When asked the name of the song, they'd rely "Oh, 'Going Home.' " They played potsy, humming "The Soldiers' Chorus" from Faust which they called "Glory."
Page 104

OH, magic hour when a child first knows it can read printed words!

For quite a while, Francie had been spelling out letters, sounding them and then putting the sounds together to mean a word. But one day, she looked at a page and the word "mouse" had instantaneous meaning. She looked at the word and the picture of a gray mouse scampered through her mind. She looked further and when she saw "horse," she heard him pawing the ground and saw the sun glint on his glossy coat. The word "running" hit her suddenly and she breathed hard as though running herself. The barrier between the individual sound of each letter and the whole meaning of the word was removed and the printed word meant a thing at one quick glance. She read a few pages rapidly and almost became ill with excitement. She wanted to shout it out. She could read! She could read!
Page 106

Indeed, Francie was the only one in her classroom whose parents were American-born. At the beginning of the term, Teacher called the roll and asked each child her lineage. The answers were typical.

"I'm Polish-American. My father was born in Warsaw."
"Irish-American. Me fayther and mither were born in County Cork."
When Nolan was called, Francie answered proudly: "I'm an American."
"I know you're American," said the easily exasperated teacher. "But what's your nationality?" "American!" insisted Francie even more proudly.
"Will you tell me what your parents are or do I have to send you to the principal?"
"My parents are American. They were born in Brooklyn."

All the children turned around to look at a little girl whose parents had not come from the old country. And when Teacher said, "Brooklyn? Hm. I guess that makes you American, all right," Francie was proud and happy. How wonderful was Brooklyn, she thought, when just being born there automatically made you an American!
Page 108

The parents were too American, too aware of the rights granted them by their Constitution to accept injustices meekly. They could not be bulldozed and exploited as could the immigrants and the second generation Americans.
Page 111

It was a good thing that she got herself into this other school. It showed her that there were other worlds beside the world she had been born into and that these other worlds were not unattainable.
Page 112

When the great day came, she was reluctant to set them off. It was better to have them than to use them
Page 113

Francie, in company with other little girls, roamed the streets carrying a bit of white chalk. She went about drawing a large quick cross on the back of each coated figure that came by. The children performed the ritual without meaning. The symbol was remembered but the reason forgotten. It may have been something that had survived from the middle ages when houses and probably individuals were so marked to indicate where plague had struck.
Page 113

You had tickets but you thought you could be smart and get something you weren't entitled to. When people gamble, they think only of winning. They never think of losing. Remember this: Someone has to lose and it's just as apt to be you as the other fellow. If you learn this lesson by giving up a strip of tickets, you're paying cheap for the education."
Page 116

"I'll tell you why," broke in mama. "They want to keep tabs on who's voting and how. They know when each man's due at the polls and God help him if he doesn't show up to vote for Mattie."

"Women don't know anything about politics," said Johnny lighting up Mattie's cigar.
Page 119

"What's free about it if you have to pay?" asked Francie.
"It's free in this way: If you have the money you're allowed to ride in them no matter who you are. In the old countries, certain people aren't free to ride in them, even if they have the money."

"Wouldn't it be more of a free country," persisted Francie, "if we could ride in them free?"

"No."
"Why?"
"Because that would be Socialism," concluded Johnny triumphantly, "arid we don't want that over here."

"Why?"


"Because we got Democracy and that's the best thing there is," clinched Johnny.
Page 122

As Teacher talked, a great trouble left Francie. Lately, she had been Oven to exaggerating things. She did not report happenings truthfully, but gave them color, excitement and dramatic twists. Katie was annoyed at this tendency and kept warning Francie to tell the plain truth and to stop romancing. But Francie just couldn't tell the plain undecorated truth. She had to put something to it.

Although Katie had this same flair for coloring an incident and Johnny himself lived in a half-dream world, yet they tried to squelch these things in their child. Maybe they had a good reason. Maybe they knew their own gift of imagination colored too rosily the poverty and brutality of their lives and made them able to endure it. Perhaps Katie thought that if they did not have this faculty, they would be clearer-minded; see things as they really were, and seeing them loathe them and somehow find a way to make them better.

Francie always remembered what that kind teacher told her. "You know, Francie, a lot of people would think that these stories that you're making up all the time were terrible lies because they are not the truth as people see the truth. In the future, when something comes up, you tell exactly how it happened but write down for yourself the way you think it should have happened. Tell the truth and write the story. Then you won't get mixed up."

It was the best advice Francie ever got. Truth and fancy were so mixed up in her mind-as they are in the mind of every lonely child-that she didn't know which was which. But Teacher made these two things clear to her. From that time on, she wrote little stories about things she saw and felt and did. In time, she got so that she was able to speak the truth with but a slight and instinctive coloring of the facts.

Francie was ten years old when she first found an outlet in writing. What she wrote was of little consequence. What was important was that the attempt to write stories kept her straight on the dividing line between truth and fiction.
If she had not found this outlet in writing, she might have grown up to be a tremendous liar
Page 126

"Intolerance," she wrote, pressing down hard on the pencil, "is a thing that causes war, pogroms, crucifixions, lynchings, and makes people cruel to little children and to each other. It is responsible for most of the viciousness, violence, terror and heart and soul breaking of the world."

She read the words over aloud. They sounded like words that came in a can; the freshness was cooked out of them. She closed the book and put it away.
Page 145

Each time Joanna passed, her cheeks got pinker, her head went higher and her skirt flipped behind her more defiantly. She seemed to grow prettier and prouder as she walked. She stopped oftener than needed to adjust the baby's coverlet. She maddened the women by touching the baby's cheek and smiling tenderly at it. How dare she! How dare she, they thought, act as though she had a right to all that?
Page 146

Remember Joanna. Remember Joanna. Francie could never forget her. From that time on, remembering the stoning women, she hated women. She feared them for their devious ways, she mistrusted their instincts. She began to hate them for this disloyalty and their cruelty to each other. Of all the stone-throwers, not one had dared to speak a word for the girl for fear that she would be tarred with Joanna's brush. The passing man had been the only one who spoke with kindness in his voice.

Most women had the one thing in common: they had great pain when they gave birth to their children. This should make a bond that held them all together; it should make them love and protect each other against the man-world. But it was not so. It seemed like their great birth pains shrank their hearts and their souls. They stuck together for only one thing: to trample on some other woman ... whether it was by throwing stones or by mean gossip. It was the only kind of loyalty they seemed to have.

Men were different. They might hate each other but they stuck together against the world and against any woman who would ensnare one of them.
Page 150

June 22. Mama turned my mattress today and found my diary and read it. Everywhere I had the word drunk, she made me cross it out and write sick. It's lucky I didn't have anything against mama written down. If ever I have children I will not read their diaries as I believe that even a child is entitled to some privacy. If mama finds this again and reads it, I hope she will take the hint.
Page 155

The Dresden Files, book 15

This is the third of my three favorite Dresden Files books, along with Dead Beat, book 7, and Changes, book 12.

All three of these books have the common theme of Harry being reflective of his choices, of contemplation of his part is the larger scheme of things, and self-doubt without the self-immobilization that often accompanies self-doubt.

Also in this book, ADVENTURE!

And ACTION!

And romance! Okay, less this one, but still some of this one.

The twist at the end, the mystery of the why of the plot, is great. As is the double twist of Goodman Grey. I hope he comes back in future books.

One of the difficulties with the arc of Dresden, however, is that he keeps getting stronger. He was already in the top six wizards in terms of raw strength. With his training of Molly, he developed finesse. And with the alliance with Mab, he has the power. Where do you go from here? I don't know, but I'll keep reading. If only Butcher would keep writing them. It's been three years and he's off onto a different series.

Strongly recommended if you're a Dresden fan, this is one of the good books. I, of course, believe the series is worth reading, just get through the first couple books to really enjoy them.

“Scared that some bug-eyed freak is going to come calling and kill innocent people because they happen to be in my havoc radius.”
Page 28

You always fear what you don’t know, what you don’t understand, and the first step to having understanding of something is to know what to call it.
Location: 1,104

The dead don’t need justice. That’s for those of us who are left looking down at the remains.
Location: 2,311

"I can’t figure out where I could have . . . what else I might have done . . .” I swallowed. “I’m lost. I know every step I took to get here, and I’m still lost.”
Page 148

I understand this confusion. You make the best choices you can, with the information you have at the moment, and, after a while look up, not recognizing where you are or who you've become.

“That’s arrogance, Harry,” he said gently. “On a level so deep you don’t even realize it exists. And do you know why it’s there?”

“No?” I asked.

He smiled again. “Because you have set a higher standard for yourself. You think that because you have more power than others, you have to do more with it.”
Page 150

“The damned don’t care, Harry. The only way to go beyond redemption is to choose to take yourself there. The only way to do it is to stop caring.”
Page 150

“One ought not hire an expert and then ignore his opinion,”
Page 170

Indeed.

“Because... fear is a terrible, insidious thing, Waldo. It taints and stains everything it touches. If you let fear start driving some of your decisions, sooner or later, it will drive them all."
Location: 3,153

I would rather have faith in the people I care about than allow my fears to change them — in my own eyes, if nowhere else.
Location: 3,157

“You need to decide which side of the road you’re going to walk on,” she said gently. “Turn aside from your fears—or grab onto them and run with them. But you need to make the call. You keep trying to walk down the middle, you’re going to get yourself torn apart.”
Location: 3,163

“It’s about knowing yourself. About understanding why you make the choices you do. Once you know that, you know where to walk, too.”
Location: 3,166

“Things are not always as bad as they seem. Sometimes, the darkness only makes it easier to see the light.”
Location: 4,137

Focus on the task at hand, Harry. Sort the rest out when you have time. Yeah, sure. But isn’t that the kind of thinking that got me into this mess in the first place?
Location: 4,285

Doesn’t matter how pretty you are. What’s important is how pretty you feel. No one feels pretty when they hear “no” often enough.
Location: 4,751

“Complicated?” she asked. She shook her head. “It isn’t complicated. You just open up and let someone in. And whatever comes after that, you face it together.”
Location: 4,769

“Lava quod est sordium!”
Location: 5,042

“You think your power is what shapes the world you walk in. But that is an illusion. Your choices shape your world. You think your power will protect you from the consequences of those choices. But you are wrong. You create your own rewards. There is a Judge. There is Justice in this world. And one day you will receive what you have earned. Choose carefully.”
Location: 5,070

“The world always thinks that the destruction of a physical vessel is victory,”
Page 406

“Sometimes the bad guys win one.”

“Sometimes they seem to. But only for a time.”
Page 406

“How can you know that?”

“I can’t know,” he said, his face lighting with a sudden smile. “That’s why they call it faith, Harry. You’ll see.”
Page 406

Hope lets you do things you would otherwise never be able to do, gives strength when everything is darkest.
Page 426

“Belief in a story,” Uriel said, “of good confronting evil, of light overcoming darkness, of love transcending hate.” He tilted his head. “Isn’t that where all faith begins?”
Page 441

“Terrifying,” he said, smiling. “And for a little while . . . like being young again. Full of energy and expectation. It was amazing.”
Page 451

Sometimes you realize you’re standing at a crossroads. That there are two paths stretching out ahead of you, and you have to pick one of them.
Page 454

The Dresden Files, book 13

Okay, if you've been following along in all my Dresden Files reviews, you know that I've read these books numerous times. This particular reading is the rereading having reread all the books in order, unlike my usual rereading of picking up the books in the series I like and just rereading those. As a result of this re-read the whole series plan, I'm reading Dresden books that are part of the series, but not necessarily ones I'm really excited about reading.

Which is to say, Harry is in this odd state, the "Ghost" part of the title of the book, and has "not long" to make things right. Except it is hard for someone who is used to being in control, who is used to having power, who is used to brute-forcing his way through things, to actually have no control, no power, no forcing function.

And it makes things awkward. I don't feel Butcher actually conveys how the loss of power, vitality, life actually feels, however. Dresden is still Dresden, even without his ability to do, well, anything.

I enjoyed the book. If you're reading the series, keep going. It's still good, just not a great Dresden book.

I felt like I had when I was a kid, when I was full of energy and the need to expend it doing something enjoyable.
Location: 238

Tough to blame the kid. I’ve been a young man. Boobs are near the center of the universe, until you turn twenty-five or so. Which is also when young men’s auto insurance rates go down. This is not a coincidence.
Location: 1280

“Excalibur, Durendal, and Kusanagi, yes, yes,” Sir Stuart said, his tone a little impatient. “Of course I know the Swords of the Cross.
Location: 1358

Killing — or, more accurately, making the choice to kill — isn’t something we’re good at lately. Ending the life of another living creature used to be part of the daily routine. Chickens were beheaded by the average farm wife for dinner. Fish were likewise caught, cleaned, and prepared for a meal. Slaughtering pigs or cattle was a regular event, part of the turning of the seasons. Most people on earth — farmers — worked and lived every single day with lives they knew they were going to choose to end, eventually.

Killing’s messy. It’s frequently ugly. And if something goes wrong, it can be wretched, seeing another being in mortal agony, which means there’s a certain amount of pressure involved in the act. It isn’t easy, and that’s just considering farm animals.
Location: 2042

Unremarkable. Complacent.” His mouth twisted and his voice turned bitter. “Mediocre. Mediocrity is a terrible fate, Harry.”
Page 189

What do you do to make up for failing everyone in your life? How do you make it right? How do you apologize for hideous things you never intended to happen?
Location 3688

“We’ve all got choices,” I said calmly. “At the moment, yours are limited. You gonna play ball?”
Location: 3734

Every flat, open space had been covered in spray-painted graffiti, which I guess we’re supposed to call urban art now. Except art is about creating beauty. These paintings were territorial markers, the visual parallel to peeing on a tree. I’ve seen some gorgeous
Location: 3753

... nothing — something that had been a waste of the resources it had consumed. Something that had never had a choice in its own fate, never had a chance to be anything more.
Page 287

"Death should be a learning experience, after all, or what’s the point?”
Location: 4967

“Complicated. Think of your spirit-self as a seed. Your soul is the earth it grows in. You need both when you die. The way I’ve heard it . . . they sort of blend together to become something new. It’s a caterpillar-butterfly thing.”
Location: 5143

One mistake at the end of my life couldn’t erase all the times I had stood unmoved at the edge of the abyss and made snide remarks at its expense.
Page 380

Pain isn’t a lot of fun, at least not for most folks, but it is utterly unique to life. Pain—physical, emotional, and otherwise—is the shadow cast by everything you want out of life, the alternative to the result you were hoping for, and the inevitable creator of strength. From the pain of our failures we learn to be better, stronger, greater than what we were before. Pain is there to tell us when we’ve done something badly—it’s a teacher, a guide, one that is always there to both warn us of our limitations and challenge us to overcome them.
Page 412

badinage
Location: 6814

noun, humorous or witty conversation: cultured badinage about art and life.

This is book two of the Withern Rise series.

I enjoyed the first book in the series about Alaric and Naia enough to continue reading. This one continues their story, with Naia adjusting to her new world, but never really giving up what she had, and Alaric loving the restoration of his world, but wracked with guilt.

However, instead of having pretty much parallel lives, with Alaric trying to dodge responsibility and his need to make things right, we are introduced to not another, or another, but FOUR alternative timelines, all of which could make one's head spin. Talk about a kid who keeps making mistakes.

And miscommunication. How easy it is for people to be unable to talk with each other, to assume the worst, and act upon those assumptions.

I'll read the last book, this one was good enough. If you're a fan of the first book, definitely keep reading.

The Dresden Files, book 12

I suspect I will have multiple reviews of this book before too long (where "too long" is a couple years, but not "too long" given this site is over 13 years old).

This is my second favorite Dresden book, after Dead Beat. Knowing this when I read it, I, again, tried to figure out what parts I like so much about this book. I'm unsure if I have all the reasons, but I believe Harry's vulnerability, his willingness to ask for help, the good pacing with the action, and the perfect, horrific climax are the major reasons why.

We learn of Harry's daughter in this book, no spoiler, we knew this from the ending of the previous book. Since Dresden was an orphan, being a good parent, being the parent he didn't have, would be incredibly important to Harry. Those emotions and needs we see in the book. Butcher does a good job with hiding just enough from the reader, and revealing other details, that the action pulls the reader along.

I didn't like the ending, but, well, that's to be expected, given the ending. There were following books, so I guess I'm okaaaaaaaaay with the ending now. First reading, not so much.

Of course, I recommend this book.

“Anxiety, anger, and agitation cloud the mind. That’s why the Worry Room is here.”
Page: 53

“You get yourself an apartment and your plumbing goes bad, he’ll still be there,” I said quietly. “Some guy breaks your heart, he’ll come over with ice cream. A lot of people never have a dad willing to do that stuff. Most of the time, it matters a hell of a lot more.”
Page: 101

Be wary of everyone. Even your protector.”
Page: 109

“Molly,” I said firmly. “You can’t plan for everything or you never get started in the first place. Get a move on. And don’t take any lip from the dog. He’s been uppity lately.”
Page: 116

sober. “Life is too short, Harry. And there’s nowhere near enough joy in it. If you find it, grab it. Before it’s gone.”
Page: 117

Hell, they’d even done that with me, and most of the Council thought that I was the next-best thing to Darth Vader. But at the end of the day, I think a lot of them secretly liked the idea of having Vader on the team when the monsters showed up. They didn’t love me, never would, and I didn’t need them to love me to fight beside them.
Page: 137

“I get it,” she said. “I do. Look. You care about her, okay. Maybe even loved her. Maybe she loved you. But it can’t be like that anymore.” She spread her hands and said, “As messed up as that is, it’s still the reality you have to live with. You can’t ignore it. You get close to her, and there’s no way for it to come out good, boss.”
Page: 170

There is no sensation to warn you when your soul turns black.
Page: 174

But there were some things I believed in. Some things I had faith in. And faith isn’t about perfect attendance to services, or how much money you put on the little plate. It isn’t about going skyclad to the Holy Rites, or meditating each day upon the divine. Faith is about what you do. It’s about aspiring to be better and nobler and kinder than you are. It’s about making sacrifices for the good of others—even when there’s not going to be anyone telling you what a hero you are.
Page: 202

Faith is about what you do. It’s about aspiring to be better and nobler and kinder than you are. It’s about making sacrifices for the good of others—even when there’s not going to be anyone telling you what a hero you are.
Page: 202

I could smell the warm scent of singed dust that always emerges from the vents the first time anyone turns on a heater after it’s been unneeded for a while.
Page: 223

“That’s the difficult part of being mortal. Of having choice. Much is hidden from you.”
Page: 229

She had shown me Maggie to make perfectly clear exactly what choice I was about to make. Certainly, it might influence my decision, but when a stark naked truth stares you in the face . . . shouldn’t it? I’m not sure it’s possible to manipulate someone with candor and truth. I think you call that enlightenment.
Page: 241

Death is the great equalizer. It doesn’t matter how you get there. Just when.
Page: 242

Paranoia is a survival trait when you run in my circles. It gives you something to do in your spare time, coming up with solutions to ridiculous problems that aren’t ever going to happen. Except when one of them does, at which point you feel way too vindicated.
Page: 259

No matter how bad things got, I didn’t think anything would ever truly faze him. He simply accepted the bad things that happened and soldiered on as best he could.
Page: 266

“Everything’s never in the open, son,” he responded. “There’re things we keep hidden from one another. Things we hide from ourselves. Things that are kept hidden from us. And things no one knows. You always learn the damnedest things at
Page: 424

Only so many blackhearted villains in the world, and they only get uppity on occasion. Stupid’s everywhere, every day.”
Page: 425