@tiotasram@kolektiva.social2025-10-13 06:16:23
Just finished "Beasts Made of Night" by Tochi Onyebuchi...
Indirect CW for fantasy police state violence.
So I very much enjoyed Onyebuchi's "Riot Baby," and when I grabbed this at the library, I was certain it would be excellent. But having finished it, I'm not sure I like it that much overall?
The first maybe third is excellent, including the world-building, which is fascinating. I feel like Onyebuchi must have played "Shadow of the Colossus" at some point. Onyebuchi certainly does know how to make me care for his characters.
Some spoilers from here on out...
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I felt like it stumbles towards the middle, with Bo's reactions neither making sense in the immediate context, nor in retrospect by the end when we've learned more. Things are a bit floaty in the middle with an unclear picture of what exactly is going on politics-wise and what the motivations are. Here I think there were some nuances that didn't make it to the page, or perhaps I'm just a bit thick and not getting stuff I should be? More is of course revealed by the end, but I still wasn't satisfied with the explanations of things. For example, (spoilers) I don't feel I understand clearly what kind of power the army of aki was supposed to represent within the city? Perhaps necessary to wield the threat of offensive inisisia use? In that case, a single scene somewhere of Izu's faction deploying that tactic would have been helpful I think.
Then towards the end, for me things really started to jumble, with unclear motivations, revelations that didn't feel well-paced or -structured, and a finale where both the action & collapsing concerns felt stilted and disjointed. Particularly the mechanics/ethics of the most important death that set the finale in motion bothered me, and the unexplained mechanism by which that led to what came next? I can read a couple of possible interesting morals into the whole denouement, but didn't feel that any of them were sufficiently explored. Especially if we're supposed to see some personal failing in the protagonist's actions, I don't think it's made clear enough what that is, since I feel his reasons to reject each faction are pretty solid, and if we're meant to either pity or abjure his indecision, I don't think the message lands clearly enough.
There *is* a sequel, which honestly I wasn't sure of after the last page, and which I now very interested in. Beasts is Onyebuchi's debut, which maybe makes sense of me feeling that Riot Baby didn't have the same plotting issues. It also maybe means that Onyebuchi couldn't be sure a sequel would make it to publication in terms of setting up the ending.
Overall I really enjoyed at least 80% of this, but was expecting even better (especially politically) given Onyebuchi's other work, and I didn't feel like I found it.
#AmReading
@Techmeme@techhub.social2026-01-11 16:15:31
Walmart to expand Wing, Alphabet's on-demand drone delivery service, to another 150 stores, bringing the total to 270 stores, covering ~10% of US population (Kirsten Korosec/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/11/wing-to-expand-drone…
@mcdanlj@social.makerforums.info2026-01-13 03:00:34
I bought a pair of 25' Intellitron stainless steel whip antennas from GigaParts while they were on sale ("two is one and one is none" and the second one tipped me me into "free shipping" making its marginal cost pretty low). On removing them from the packages, however, loose roll pins fell out, and the bases fell off the antennas. Both of them.
A roll pin is an inappropriate fastener to use to connect two concentric thin-walled tubes, so this is a design failure. And the roll pins are …
@cdarwin@c.im2026-01-11 17:34:02
Trump has been briefed in recent days on new options for
military strikes in Iran
as he considers following through on his threat to attack the country for cracking down on protesters,
according to multiple U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
Trump has not made a final decision,
but the officials said he was seriously considering authorizing a strike
in response to the Iranian regime’s efforts to suppress demonstrations
set off by widespread eco…
@ErikJonker@mastodon.social2026-01-12 15:15:55
"Strip away the rhetoric and what remains is simple: there is no military option that delivers what Trump has promised. The symbolic strike is too weak to matter. Decapitation risks installing a junta. The sustained campaign courts state collapse and regional conflagration"
https://time.com/7345293/…
@leftsidestory@mstdn.social2025-10-13 00:30:01
Moody Urbanity - Oracles III 🈳
情绪化城市 - 谕 III 🈳
📷 Nikon FE
🎞️ Ilford HP5 Plus 400, expired 1993
#filmphotography #Photography #blackandwhite
@tarah@infosec.exchange2026-01-11 14:41:04
It's always lovely to have the doubters get their asses academically kicked when it comes to Ada Lovelace's actual mathematical capabilities, but at the same time, I am so, so, so tired. Just so very tired. From an open access 2017 Historia Mathematica article debunking the idea that Lovelace was not a competent mathematician.
@benb@osintua.eu2026-01-11 21:39:55
ORESHNIK strikes for the SECOND time during the WAR – 🚀 this time CLOSER to NATO! #shorts: https://benborges.xyz/2026/01/11/oreshnik-strikes-for-the-second.html
@tiotasram@kolektiva.social2025-12-13 00:30:41
Just finished "The Raven Boys," a graphic novel adaptation of a novel by Maggie Stiefvater (adaptation written by Stephanie Williams and illustrated by Sas Milledge).
I haven't read the original novel, and because of that, this version felt way too dense, having to fit huge amounts of important details into not enough pages. The illustrations are gorgeous and the writing is fine; the setting and plot have some pretty interesting aspects... It's just too hard to follow a lot of the threads, or things we're supposed to care about aren't given the time/space to feel important.
The other thing that I didn't like: one of the central characters is rich, and we see this reflected in several ways, but we're clearly expected to ignore/excuse the class differences within the cast because he's a good guy. At this point in my life, I'm simply no longer interested in stories about good rich guys very much. It's become clear to me how in real life, we constantly get the perspectives of the rich, and rarely if ever hear the perspectives of the poor (same applies across racial and gender gradients, among others). Why then in fiction should I get more of the same, spending my mental bandwidth building empathy for yet another dilettante who somehow has a heart of gold? I'm tired of that.
#AmReading #ReadingNow
@tiotasram@kolektiva.social2025-10-13 07:16:11
Day 20: bell hooks.
Despite having decided to continue to 30, number 20 feels important, and hooks gets the spot in part because I haven't yet included a non-fiction feminist author, which feels like an obvious thing to include on such a list. The one category of author being bumped out of the first 20 here is anime writers, but I'll follow up with one of them, along with more academics and mangaka who I've been itching to include.
In any case, hooks is absolutely legendary as a feminist writer for good reason, and as a teacher I've especially appreciated her writing on pedagogy like "Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom" and "Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom". These have challenged me to teach at a higher level, and while I'm not sure I've completely succeeded, they're important to me. They also pair well with Paolo Friere's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed", but hooks always seems to be focused on very practical advice and it's incredibly direct in her writing, even though her advice isn't always straightforward to implement. In fact, that's one of the things I value about her writing: when the truth is complicated or the real work is messy interpersonal relationships that need to be negotiated with each student, she's not afraid to say so and give good advice for navigating those waters instead of trying to dispense simple-seeming platitudes or formulas for success that paper over the deeper issues. Her concern has always been truth, rather than simplicity or audience comfort and the popularity it might seem to entail, which I think is part of why her legacy endures so well.
#20AuthorsNoMen
#30AuthorsNoMen