This is book three of Scalzi's Interdepency and much like the first one in the series, I picked up the book and pretty much read it straight through, with a couple pauses to, oh, you know, work and sleep. In reality, after reading Redshirts, I wanted to keep reading Scalzi, despite having several books going already. That's the way it is sometimes.

So, a few things about this book.

1. Scalzi is taking notes from George R. R. Martin, and I don't like it. I had to read that Martin-esque part over again three, maybe four times, skip to the end, come back, read it again, and, did I mention I don't like it because I'm sure I did. Sure, yes, good plot point, nice foreshadowing, interesting twist, and I don't like it.

2. There is likely a reason the name Kiva and the name Kitt are so fucking similar that you can't fucking help but fucking notice the fucking similarity. You can guess which character's storyline I enjoyed reading the fucking most. And no, my mother does not fucking talk that way, thankfully.

3. I absolutely love how many times in this book in particular, a character would stop and, while being upset at something another character said, recognize that the shit thing that came from the other character (words, gestures, advice, the like) was actually fair. Authors often have verbal tics, words or phrases repeated so frequently in a book that they stand out. I don't recall any of Scalzi's other tics offhand, but this one stood out. I liked it. I rather wish more people were able to separate the message from the messenger and appreciate the feedback being given.

So, basic plot: recognition of the end of the current implementation of human civilization, some political maneuvering, many assassinations, a few foreshadowings, a broken heart, and the good guys win in the end.

The series is a fun read and worth reading, a good science-fiction recommendation. Be unsurprised if you throw this book across the room at some point about 3/4 of the way through, then scurry over to pick it back up so that you can finish it.

Senia Fundapellonan was not wrong about Kiva; Kiva was extremely self-interested. Senia thought that was neither good nor bad, but Kiva was of a different mind about that. She thought it was pretty much the only way to be in a universe that didn’t care about anyone’s life one way or another, and in a civilization that was designed to keep the rich as rich as possible and the poor from actively starving so they wouldn’t think to rise up and behead the rich. An uncaring universe and a fundamentally static civilization would smother anyone who didn’t keep themselves and their own concerns front and center.
Page 42

Rules are rules, Robinette said, and dubbed her “Karen.”
Page 61

Marce did not flatter himself into thinking this advantage was a result of his own native ability. There were dozens if not hundreds of Flow physicists more naturally talented than he was,
Page 76

“What I feel is that there is a pattern,” Marce said. “Not a pattern, exactly. But something not random about it, either.”
Page 79

Because people love their patterns.

“I’m not suggesting anything,” Rachela said. “I will note that humans are not great at thinking over the long term, and we were no exception to that. Neither are you, for that matter.”
Page 90

“The families who aren’t here are … sympathetic to your aims. They just want to see which way the wind blows before they commit.”

Nadashe snorted at this. “In other words, they’re cowards.”

“They might say they’re hedging sensibly,” Proster suggested.
Page 93

The second reason was that the ruling class of the Interdependency, favoring financial and social stability over having the lumpenproletariat trying to rip their heads from their necks at every opportunity, opted to have the Interdependency’s baseline standard of living one where no one starved, or was without shelter, or died of easily preventable diseases or went bankrupt if they had a heart attack or lost a job, or both.
Page 103

Everyone knew what was coming. Some even prepared and planned. But at the end of it, everyone assumed that something or someone would come along to save the civilization that they lived in and could not conceive of actually disappearing. Something or someone would come along to save them. They would be saved, along with everyone else. It was a nice thought. It wasn’t true. At the very least, not yet.
Page 112

They both came away from the meeting feeling like they had manipulated the other precisely, which meant it was a good meeting.
Page 141

"I will say it was a disaster of my own making, which is why I could see it coming from a long way off.”

“If you could see it coming, why couldn’t you avoid it?”

“Because some choices you make, you can’t come back from,” Chenevert said. “And very early on in my reign, when I was pompous and foolish, I made several of those sorts of choices. In rapid succession. Everything proceeded from there."
Page 147

“Looking back on your life and knowing how much better you could have been is never a great feeling."
Page 148

“It’s not a great idea to be too in love with your own cleverness.”

“What are you, my mother?”

“If I were your mother, I’d use the word ‘fuck’ more often.”

“It’s a perfectly good word.”

“Sure,” Senia said. “Maybe not as every other word that comes out of your mouth, though.”

“I don’t even hear myself saying it, half the fucking time.”
Page 159

“Did lying ever backfire for you?”

“Personally or as emperox?”

“Either. Both.”

“Of course,” Rachela said.

“Telling the truth also backfired for me at times as well, in the times where it might have been kinder, easier or more politic to lie. Lies do not in themselves lead to poor outcomes, nor does truth in every circumstance lead to good ones. As with so many things, context matters.”
Page 174

"Do you know what I plan to do with my body once I am dead?”

“I do not, Countess.”

“Neither do I. I’ll be dead and I won’t give a shit.
Page 206

Marce and Cardenia might perhaps one day mess up their relationship—people did that, and Marce didn’t delude himself that just because he loved Cardenia it didn’t mean he wouldn’t aggravate the crap out of her sometimes—but they would do it from a state that would encourage constancy and reconciliation as a baseline. Marce was pretty sure he could work with that: every day a new day to start again, building a life together.
Page 266

“Here it is: I want your support. I want your house’s support.”

“I’m not my house. You’ll have to talk to my mother about that.”

“I did. One of my representatives did, anyway.”

“Yeah? How did that go?”

“She said that we could all fuck ourselves with a rented dick. The same rented dick.”

“That’s my mom,” Kiva said.
Page 277

Laughed out loud on that one.

Okay, yes, I know that I have said, on numerous occasions, if Scalzi writes it, I will read it. That is just the way it is, no arguing.

Except I hadn't read this book. I had actively chosen not to read this book. Why? Because the reviews said it diverged from the classic science fiction that Scalzi is known for, and if I wanted to read not-science-fiction Scalzi, I'll read his blog. So, I skipped it.

All the way until Rob commented that it was the perfect brain candy and he hadn't laughed this hard in a while (who knows if that while is more than I day, I don't, because getting Rob to laugh is a goal of every conversation), and I have already read it wait I haven't well I should. So, as soon as I was done with The Gates of Fire (which I recommended to Rob), I started Redshirts.

Is not classic Scalzi science fiction.

Is amusing.

Yes, the Redshirt phenomenon from Star Trek is the title of the book, and yes, the characters figure this out, but there are more absurdities in the plot, resulting in an internally-consistent and thoroughly-absurd plot twist (time travel back to the authors) that is the cause for the original fanboy uproar that kept me from reading the book. It wasn't so bad. I enjoyed how all the pieced tied up nicely at the end.

Worth reading if you're a Scalzi fan, or a quirky science-fiction fan.

Dahl paused a moment before answering. “Do you know how the rich are different than you or me?” he asked Duvall.

“You mean, besides having more money,” Duvall said.

“Yeah,” Dahl said.

“No,” Duvall said.

“What makes them different—the smart ones, anyway—is that they have a very good sense of why people want to be near them. Whether it’s because they want to be friends, which is not about proximity to money and access and power, or if they want to be part of an entourage, which is. Make sense?”
Page 14

Hester looked at Hanson admiringly. “I didn’t think you were that cynical,” Hester said.

Hanson shrugged again. “When you’re the heir to the third largest fortune in the history of the universe, you learn to question people’s motivations,” he said.
Page 62

“Sure, I’ll baby-sit him until he passes out,” Dahl said.

“Man, I owe you a blowjob,” Duvall said.

“What?” Dahl said.

“What?” Hester said.

“Sorry,” Duvall said. “In ground forces, when someone does you a favor you tell them you owe them a sex act. If it’s a little thing, it’s a handjob. Medium, blowjob. Big favor, you owe them a fuck. Force of habit. It’s just an expression.”

“Got it,” Dahl said.

“No actual blowjob forthcoming,” Duvall said. “To be clear.”

“It’s the thought that counts,” Dahl said.
Page 68

I read this and, yes, starting laughing out loud. I'm sure this isn't Caltech specific, but this is an actual conversation I have had.

"But they don’t know why. You do.”

“Maybe I do,” Jenkins said. “But why would it matter?”

“Because if you don’t know why something is the way it is, then you don’t know anything about it at all,” Dahl said. “All the tricks and superstitions aren’t going to do a damn bit of good if you don’t know the reason for them. The conditions could change and then you’re screwed.”
Page 87

Hanson said. “When you’re nuts, your reasoning is consistent with your own internal logic, but it’s internal logic, which doesn’t make any sort of sense outside your own head.” He pointed at Jenkins. “His logic is external and reasonable enough.”
Page 96

“In retrospect, the plan has significant logistical issues,” Finn admitted. “On the other hand, it worked. You can’t argue with success.”

“Sure you can,” Dahl said, “when it’s based on stupidity.”
Page 120

Also known as a Bold Play™ in ultimate.

“Yes, and I have training dealing with deep, existential questions,” Dahl said. “The way I’m dealing with it right now is this: I don’t care whether I really exist or don’t, whether I’m real or fictional. What I want right now is to be the person who decides my own fate. That’s something I can work on. It’s what I’m working on now.”
Page 159

I never understood writer’s block before this. You’re a writer and you suddenly can’t write because your girlfriend broke up with you? Shit, dude, that’s the perfect time to write. It’s not like you’re doing anything else with your nights. Having a hard time coming up with the next scene? Have something explode. You’re done.
Page 228

You don’t win by getting through all your life not having done anything.
Page 284

“E, don’t you ever wonder about how your life could have been different?” Samantha asks, changing the subject slightly. “Don’t you ever wonder, if things just happened a little differently, you might have a different job, or different husband, or different children? Do you think you would have been happier? And if you could see that other life, how would it make you feel?”
Page 292

“Did you want to make a confession?” Father Neil asks. Samantha giggles despite herself.

“I don’t think I could confess to you with a straight face,” she says.

“This is the problem of coming to a priest you used to date in high school,” Father Neil says.

“You weren’t a priest then,” Samantha notes.
Page 299

SAMANTHA WASN'T THE ONLY ONE GIGGLING AT THIS. Take note, Paul. <grins>

This book was recommended in a recent Ryan Holiday's book-reading newsletter. He had read the book 14 years ago, recently reread it, and was impressed with all the nuances of the book. Along with The Road, I picked up the book from the library. Related: I'm pretty sure that I read the Reading List emails faster than most people on the list, as the books Holiday recommends are usually available when I look for them, and have a backlog of holds about a week later. Is amusing to me.

The book is the telling of the Battle of Thermopylae, more commonly known in today's culture as the battle that the 300 Spartans held off thousands of Persian invaders. Now, I am REALLY not a fan of historical fiction, to the point where I might say the movie is better I dislike historical fiction so much, but, well, this causes me to reconsider my stance. The book is written in third person, and not third person omniscient, which means we see the characters' actions, but don't hear their thoughts. I suspect this is why I enjoyed it, it was a story that didn't go too far.

The basic plot of the book is, well, the Battle of Thermopylae. That story has been told many times, in many mediums. I found the surrounding elements of the book engaging. Pressfield gives us many lessons of Stoicism in the book, while wrapping them into the story, without the dryness of a textbook or the boredom of a lecture. He gives us

The parts that I appreciated the most were the elements of reality in the book. The Spartans were well trained, seeming superhuman, but they were still human. They felt despair. They felt misery. They felt heartache and pain. Pressfield gives us these, tells us about them, and shows us how habits and training and acknowledgement and acceptance all work towards becoming the people we want to be. He shows us that being a warrior was a job, and that includes embracing the suck, as Rob told me was a Marine saying. We also read about the camaraderie of the warriors, how adversity binds us, and how there a moments when we become more than just ourselves.

I also appreciated the campfire philosophy sessions, and, well, let's be real, all the shit talk.

As much as Holiday recommended this book, I strongly recommend it, too. Great book. Way worth reading.

She was trying to dispatch the child that might be growing inside her. “She thinks she has given offense to the god Hymen,” Bruxieus explained to me when I broke in upon her one day and she chased me with curses and a hail of stones. “She fears that she may never be a man’s wife now but only a slave or a whore. I have tried to tell her this is foolishness, but she will not hear it, coming from a man.”
Page: 54

This was the first and only time I saw Bruxieus truly, physically angry. He seized me by both shoulders and shook me violently, commanding me to face him. “Listen to me, boy. Only gods and heroes can be brave in isolation. A man may call upon courage only one way, in the ranks with his brothers-in-arms, the line of his tribe and his city. Most piteous of all states under heaven is that of a man alone, bereft of the gods of his home and his polis. A man without a city is not a man. He is a shadow, a shell, a joke and a mockery. That is what you have become now, my poor Xeo. No one may expect valor from one cast out alone, cut off from the gods of his home.”
Page: 69

I curled contorted in Diomache’s arms, with Bruxieus’ bulk enwrapping us both for warmth. I called out again and again to the gods but received no whisper in reply. They had abandoned us, it was clear, now that we no longer possessed ourselves or were possessed by our polis.
Page: 70

The roar multiplied threefold, then five, and ten, as the enemy rear ranks and flankers picked the clamor up and contributed their own bluster and bronze-banging. Soon the entire fifty-four hundred were bellowing the war cry. Their commander thrust his spear forward and the mass surged behind him into the advance. The Spartans had neither moved nor made a sound. They waited patiently in their scarlet-cloaked ranks, neither grim nor rigid, but speaking quietly to each other words of encouragement and cheer, securing the final preparation for actions they had rehearsed hundreds of times in training and performed dozens and scores more in battle.
Page: 154

Once, at home when I was a child, Bruxieus and I had helped our neighbor Pierion relocate three of his stacked wooden beehives. As we jockeyed the stack into place upon its new stand, someone’s foot slipped. The stacked hives dropped. From within those stoppered confines yet clutched in our hands arose such an alarum, neither shriek nor cry, growl nor roar, but a thrum from the netherworld, a vibration of rage and murder that ascended not from brain or heart, but from the cells, the atoms of the massed poleis within the hives.
Page: 159

They did not strip the bodies of the slain, as the soldiers of any other city would eagerly and gloatingly do, nor did they erect trophies of vainglory and conceit from the arms of the vanquished. Their austere thank-offering was a single cock, worth less than an obol, not because they disrespected the gods, but because they held them in awe and deemed it dishonorable to overexpress their mortal joy in this triumph that heaven had granted them.
Page: 168

“Let those we spared this day stand beside us in line of battle on that day when we teach the Persian once and for all what valor free men can bring to bear against slaves, no matter how vast their numbers or how fiercely they are driven on by their child-king’s whip.”
Page: 178

Dekton was the first person I had ever met, man or boy, who had absolutely no fear of the gods. He didn’t hate them as some do, or mock their antics as I had heard the impious freethinkers did in Athens and Corinth. Dekton didn’t grant their existence at all. There were no gods, it was as simple as that. This struck me with a kind of awe. I kept watch, waiting for him to be felled by some hideous blow of heaven.
Page: 187

“I saw Dienekes first from behind. Just his bare shoulders and the back of his head. I knew in an instant that I would love him and only him all my life.”
Page: 289

“At last he turned. He was wrestling another boy. Even then, Xeo, Dienekes was unhandsome. You could hardly believe he was his brother’s brother. But to my eyes he appeared eueidestatos, the soul of beauty. The gods could not have crafted a face more open or touching to my heart.
Page: 289

“The gods make us love whom we will not,” the lady declared, “and disrequite whom we will. They slay those who should live and spare those who deserve to die. They give with one hand and take with the other, answerable only to their own unknowable laws.”
Page: 291

“Men’s pain is lightly borne and swiftly over. Our wounds are of the flesh, which is nothing; women’s is of the heart—sorrow unending, far more bitter to bear.”
Page: 294

Nothing fires the warrior’s heart more with courage than to find himself and his comrades at the point of annihilation, at the brink of being routed and overrun, and then to dredge not
Page: 359

merely from one’s own bowels or guts but from one’s own discipline and training the presence of mind not to panic, not to yield to the possession of despair, but instead to complete those homely acts of order which Dienekes had ever declared the supreme accomplishment of the warrior: to perform the commonplace under far-from-commonplace conditions. Not only to achieve this for oneself alone, as Achilles or the solo champions of yore, but to do it as part of a unit, to feel about oneself one’s brothers-in-arms, in an instance like this of chaos and disorder, comrades whom one doesn’t even know, with whom one has never trained; to feel them filling the spaces alongside him, from spear side and shield side, fore and rear, to behold one’s comrades likewise rallying, not in a frenzy of mad possession-driven abandon, but with order and self-composure, each man knowing his role and rising to it, drawing strength from him as he draws it from them; the warrior in these moments finds himself lifted as if by the hand of a god. He cannot tell where his being leaves off and that of the comrade beside him begins. In that moment the phalanx forms a unity so dense and all-divining that it performs not merely at the level of a machine or engine of war but, surpassing that, to the state of a single organism, a beast of one blood and heart.
Page: 359

His Majesty, cognizant of the catastrophic consequence for the Greeks of this betrayal, may marvel at their response in assembly to the timely and fortuitous warning delivered by the noble Tyrrhastiadas. They didn’t believe him. They thought it was a trick. Such an irrational and self-deluding response may be understood only in the light not alone of the exhaustion and despair which had by that hour overwhelmed the allies’ hearts but by the corresponding exaltation and contempt of death, which are, like the mated faces of a coin, their obverse and concomitant.
Page: 419

There is a secret all warriors share, so private that none dare give it voice, save only to those mates drawn dearer than brothers by the shared ordeal of arms. This is the knowledge of the hundred acts of his own cowardice. The little things that no one sees. The comrade who fell and cried for aid. Did I pass him by? Choose my skin over his? That was my crime, of which I accuse myself in the tribunal of my heart and there condemn myself as guilty. All a man wants is to live. This before all: to cling to breath. To survive. Yet even this most primal of instincts, self-preservation, even this necessity of the blood shared by all beneath heaven, beasts as well as man, even this may be worn down by fatigue and excess of horror. A form of courage enters the heart which is not courage but despair and not despair but exaltation.
Page: 423

“When I first came to Lakedaemon and they called me ‘Suicide,’ I hated it. But in time I came to see its wisdom, unintentional as it was. For what can be more noble than to slay oneself? Not literally. Not with a blade in the guts. But to extinguish the selfish self within, that part which looks only to its own preservation, to save its own skin. That, I saw, was the victory you Spartans had gained over yourselves. That was the glue. It was what you had learned and it made me stay, to learn it too.
Page: 456

This book was recommended by Ryan Holiday in his June reading list. It sounded interesting, so I borrowed it from the library, read it, and here we are.

The struggle in this book is man against nature in a post-apocalyptic world which seems to be some sort of ecological disaster that blighted the world. Many scenes include ash and melted roads, along with the two main characters, a father and his son, covering their faces with masks so that they can breathe. The disaster is such that it appears there are very few people left, and the ability to grow crops or feed is pretty much gone. The remaining people are struggling to survive, which includes resorting to anything edible, including other people.

The journey of the father and son is to the ocean. They are moving along with a shopping cart, trying to survive. They appear to have been doing this together for six, eight, maybe ten years, since the boy was born, and the ocean is some level of salvation. Except it really isn't. It is more like "something to do that provides some level of meaning."

I can see where the book would be more emotional if, say, a parent is reading the book and is thinking of their child when reading it. I lack that perspective, so some aspects were perhaps lost on me. What wasn't lost on me was the portrayal of flowing empathy and refused kindness. The boy wants to help, the father knows they can't. The boy is angry the father refused to help some people, the father fears losing his son's love as the father chooses their survival. It's a hard choice, too willfully lose your humanity to keep a loved one alive.

The book is worth reading, but I'm not sure it would be one of my first books to recommend.

He pulled the boy closer. Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that. You forget some things, dont you? Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.
Page: 11

He mistrusted all of that. He said the right dreams for a man in peril were dreams of peril and all else was the call of languor and of death.
Page: 17

No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one’s heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes. So, he whispered to the sleeping boy. I have you.
Page: 56

I cant help you. They say that women dream of danger to those in their care and men of danger to themselves. But I dont dream at all. You say you cant? Then dont do it. That’s all.
Page: 59

A person who had no one would be well advised to cobble together some passable ghost. Breathe it into being and coax it along with words of love. Offer it each phantom crumb and shield it from harm with your body. As for me my only hope is for eternal nothingness and I hope it with all my heart.
Page: 59