novel

This Is How You Lose The Time War

Book Notes Instead of being asleep at 11:11 on 21 September 2019, kitt created this:

Oh, this is such a lovely book.

Based on the title, we know it is a book dealing with time travel (else why have a time war?). There's the briefest of adjustments in the beginning with the world building, and then we see that while the book is science fiction with two sides having agents who skip through time lines adjusting a world here, changing an action there, in order to shape the future into each side's desired outcome, and then we arrive at the heart of the tale, which is a love story.

The ending of the book is so beautiful that one wants to (and should) immediately flip back to the beginning of the book and read it again, pick up the details missed in the first reading, understand where the threads twist and cross. The different elements of history woven into the story make the story that much more beautiful.

Thoroughly enjoyed the book. Strongly recommended.

But wars are dense with causes and effects, calculations and strange attractors, and all the more so are wars in time. One spared life might be worth more to the other side than all the blood that stained Red’s hands today. A fugitive becomes a queen or a scientist or, worse, a poet. Or her child does, or a smuggler she trades jackets with in some distant spaceport. And all this blood for nothing.
Page 2

Killing gets easier with practice, in mechanics and technique. Having killed never does, for Red. Her fellow agents do not feel the same, or they hide it better.
Page 3

"If train A leaves Toronto at six p.m. travelling east at one hundred kilometres per hour, and train B leaves Ottawa at seven p.m. travelling west at one hundred twenty kilometres per hour, when will they cross?”
Page 25

The Chain

Book Notes Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 11:08 on 19 September 2019

Again, for the 100th+ time, I need to write down why a book is on my to-read pile. Where was this one recommended? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'd guess Book Riot or micro.blog.

Anyway, the basic premise is that there is a chain of kidnapped children. Once a child has been kidnapped, she / he will be returned only if a ransom is paid and the ransomee kidnaps another child and repeats the instructions, inflicts the same mental anguish, on the next family. While the kidnapped person is nearly always a child, according to the rules, the loved one to be kidnapped could be an adult. In reality you can count on a mother's love for her child FAR MORE than a partner's love for their partner, so children are "better" targets to keep the chain going.

The psychological thriller part of the idea is the progression of victim to perpetrator, that to save one's child, one must inflict the same pain on another family. The book does an okay job of conveying the mental torture of how awful this would be, to have a belief about yourself, that you are a good person who would never do these things, and yet, here you are, doing these exact horrible things. There is absolutely no good way through what would be an absolutely horrible situation, if this were real. The mental scars would be around for a long, long time, which the second half of the book tries to portray, also doing an okay job.

That none of it leaked, despite going on for six years in a relatively small area (New England) strains the reader's suspension disbelief, unless said reader realizes that, eh, there is a lot of random shit that happens to good people, and no reason that people on the other side of the world / country / state would necessarily know about it. 50+ kidnapped kids a year, ehhhhhh, could happen.

All Systems Red

Book Notes kitt decided around 16:13 on 15 September 2019 to publish this:

This is book 1 in the MurderBot Diaries, and it is a fun read. I've had it in my to-read pile for a long while now, arriving there from a recommendation on microblog.

I found the book particularly amusing in that Murderbot, who is a construct with mechanical (robot) and organic (human) parts fused together to have essentially a controllable super-human, thoroughly reminded me of an acquaintance I have. Said acquaintance is very literal, doesn't give a shit about most things, is straight-forward about nearly everything, and really just wants to be left alone.

Kinda like the Murderbot.

In this first of the series, we have world building, where we understand what the Murderbot is, learn a bit about its history (it went haywire and killed a crew), and come to understand the broad strokes of its personality. It is hard not to sympathize with the Murderbot, even as it is, well, a Murderbot.

Love Wells' writing, and am eagerly anticipating reading the next three books in the series. Strongly recommended (bonus: it's a fast read).

“All right,” she said, and looked at me for what objectively I knew was 2.4 seconds and subjectively about twenty excruciating minutes.
Page 22

It was a low-stress group, they didn’t argue much or antagonize each other for fun, and were fairly restful to be around, as long as they didn’t try to talk or interact with me in any way.
Page 30

I also checked to make sure both the big hopper and the little hopper had their full complement of emergency supplies. I packed them in there myself days ago, but I was mainly checking to make sure the humans hadn’t done anything stupid with them since the last time I checked.
Page 34

Knife

Book Notes Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 14:14 on 11 September 2019

So, apparently my count is off and this is book 12 of the Harry Hole series. Reading most of the reviews, only one gave away the major plot point (there's always one major murder to be solved or serial killer to be caught), even though the jacket blurb gives away the major plot once you know what it is, so, yeah, skipping that detail.

So, uh, I'll say, there's a murder, Harry is a suspect, he's cleared, he goes to track down the murderer.

What is terribly brilliant about the book is how so many details from previous books, some returning characters, and some half-answered questions all cascade into this one's plot. The pieces all fit together, leaving the reader to go, "Huh."

And the actual murderer?

Did. Not. See. That. Coming.

As much as I disliked the first book that I read in the series (which I read out of order), I really like these last few Harry Hole books. I'm unsure if the book could be read stand-alone, tbh. That said, if you're a fan, of course read this one, HF read this one. If you're not a fan, become one, start at book one, The Bat.

Harry had seen it in other cases, the way that someone left behind struggled with grief as if it were an enemy, an irritating nuisance that needed to be cajoled and tricked. And one way of doing that was to downplay the loss, to discredit the dead.
Location: 766

Dark Matter

Book Notes Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 14:45 on 28 August 2019

I bought this when it first released, and left it on my shelf for when the time came that I would want to read it. As in, read an actual book, and not an electronic book. The time came, and I enjoyed reading this book. I'd argue that Pines, the first book of the Wayward Pines trilogy, is a better first book than this one, but this one is still an entertaining book to read.

The plot starts out with the kidnapping of the quantum physics professor Jason Dessen, who finds himself in an alternate timeline, and his journey back to his own timeline, his own family.

While one could argue the book is an object lesson about not messing with timelines if every decision ripples out in cascading, compounding changes in the multi-verse, I'm pretty sure that's not what Blake is attempting with the book. A better take would be a reflection about how one can following that slippery slope provided by circumstances to do actions they would never even consider without fate's push, or even an existential look at how one decides one has had a good (or good-enough) life.

It's a fun read, if unnecessarily and unsuccessfully angsty at time. If you're a Blake fan, worth reading. If you're not, wait for the next two books, as it is a trilogy. I don't think I'll be reading the other two.

The Punch Escrow

Book Notes Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 09:52 on 14 August 2019

Okay, this review is going to be one giant spoiler. If you have not read the book, and plan on reading the book, don't read on.

Stop now.

Stooooooop.

Stop.

Okay then, years ago, likely a couple decades at this point, I read a science-fiction short story about teleportation. An alien race arrived at Earth with this nifty teleportation technology, and is willing to give us this technology, interface with us, grant us the use of this amazing technology, but they will still control it and maintain it. I vaguely recall the aliens looked like dinosaurs or reptiles, and the teleportation unit had some human that operated it. Both of these recollections may be wrong, but they might be accurate, unsure.

Anyway, the teleportation worked by duplicating the object being teleported. The object (yes, including a human) would exist in the origination and the destination points at the same time. When the copy was deemed complete, the original would be destroyed. This was one of the rules the aliens laid down: that only one copy can exist, the other must be destroyed. Breaking this rule meant the technology would be revoked, and humans would lose it. This loss would include losing the ease of visiting stars, losing instant (near instant, go with it) transportation, losing access to untold riches and cultures and other technology.

Humans were not willing to lose this technology.

From an individual being teleported's perspective, you go to sleep and wake up at the destination. WOW how amazing!

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