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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

This sounds like a really cool sci-fi idea: a language model that is special-purpose, cheap and energy efficient and not connected to the internet so it can be built into household appliances. It might be the positive "residue" of an AI bubble crash.
But will those household appliance companies do it? They'd have to let go of their internet connected fridges and data collection. Maybe it'll be the FOSS and 3d-printing community who does it.

You see a detective on the TV and he’s interviewing all the suspects asking them what they were doing on the night of the murder a month ago last Tuesday night.
And on the TV, the suspects all know. Right away.
If you asked me ten years ago though, I’d have had barely any clue. If you’re lucky it’d have been something planned in my calendar but mostly, dunno. Watching TV maybe? No idea what show. Was that a night I was in the pub?
As we all get older this problem increases I’m told. Eventually full on senility sets in.
But what if you have already built the habit to record what you’re doing? To be able to look back and revise and review how you spent your days? An external aid as a crutch to your own forgetful brain’s cortex?
So I started this Exocortex Log over a decade ago and now I can answer: Ten years ago on Tuesday I was having dinner with the guitarist from my band and his girlfriend and they burned the pudding.
The app has been half finished and barely able to even record let alone review for most of that time, but now it’s ready enough that someone else might use it too if they want.
Try it out: #lifeLog #app #memoryAid

Eagles' Jalen Hurts charged with interception, lost fumble on wild triple-turnover play https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6874501/2025/12/08/jalen-hurts-eagles-chargers-mnf-interception-fumble/

Odighizuwa, Williams Power Dallas Defense in MNF Win https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/dallas-cowboys/news/odighizuwa-williams-power-dallas-defense/230bc138698e1118afbf5a5a

After the building fire, Hong Kong summoned AFP, FT, NYT, AP, Bloomberg, and WSJ journalists, telling them to avoid "trouble making", and arrested a commentator (Committee to Protect Journalists)
https://cpj.org/2025/12/hong-kong-arre

Hong Kong arrests commentator, summons international media over deadly fire - Committee to Protect Journalists
Updated on December 8, 2025 2:31 AM EST New York, December 8, 2025—Chinese and Hong Kong authorities must immediately stop harassing journalists, release news commentator Wong Kwok-ngon, and allow the media to freely cover the city’s most deadly fire in decades, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday. In a rare move, Beijing’s national security arm...

Series D, Episode 02 - Power
TARRANT: [Disbelieving] Telekinesis?
ORAC: The power to move objects at a distance using only the mind-
DAYNA: [Cutting him off] Yes, we know what it means.
https://blake.torpidity.net/m/402/445 B7B2

'That's my dude': Bijan Robinson talks connection with LeBron after 'MNF' win over Bills https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/46594875/bijan-robinson-lebron-james-atlanta-falcons-big-monday-night

Day 18: Mark Oshiro
Having just learned that Oshiro is nonbinary, they're an instant include on this list. In veering extremely heavily towards YA, and losing a spot that would have gone to an absolutely legendary mangaka, anime writer, or feminist philosopher, but "Anger is A Gift" and "Each of us a Desert" are just that good, and I'm trying to steer a bit towards towards lesser-known authors I respect.
I already mentioned "Anger is a Gift" above, but to recap, it's a painful, vivid, and beautifully honest story of queer love, loss, and protest against an oppressive system. CW for racist police murder, intergenerational trauma, and police brutality against highschool students. It's a book a lot of Americans could benefit from reading right now, and while it's fiction, it's not fantasy or sci-fi. Besides the themes and politics, the writing is just really solid, with delicate characterization and tight-plotted developments that are beautifully paced.
To me "Each of us a Desert" is maybe even more beautiful, and Oshiro leaps into a magnificent fantasy world that's richly original in its desolation, dark history, lonely characters, and mythical magic. Particularly the clearly-not-just-superscription but ambiguously-important/powerful magical elements of Oshiro's worldbuilding are a rare contrast to the usual magic-is-real-here's-how-it-works fare, and pulling that off a all as they do is a testament to their craft. The prose is wonderful, probably especially so if you speak Spanish, but I enjoyed it immensely despite only knowing a few words here and there. The rich interiority of the characters, their conflicts both with each other and within themselves, and the juxtaposition of all that against origins in cult-like ignorance allows for the delivery of a lot of wisdom and complex truths.
Between these two books, so different and yet each so powerful, Oshiro has demonstrated incredible craft and also a wide range of styles, so I'm definitely excited to read more of their work and to recommend them to others.
I'm also glad to have finally put a nonbinary author on this list; the others I had in mind won't make it at this point because there's too much genre overlap, although I'll include them in my didn't-make-it list at the end. I've now got just 2 slots left and have counted up 14 more authors that absolutely need to be mentioned, so we'll see what happens.
#20AuthorsNoMen