Categories
Playlist

Playlist of the Month: May 2025

At one point I did some data visualization of my playlists; it’d be interesting to do that again at the end of this year, because I’m sure there’ll be some Trends visible there. As per the new norm, you can listen to the whole playlist here.

Oklahoma Smokeshow – Zach Bryan on Summertime Blues – EP

Towers – Zach Bryan on The Great American Bar Scene

Hotel Bible – Max McNown on Night Diving

i Am A Mountain – Coldplay on Moon Music (Full Moon Edition)

Medusa – Cameron Whitcomb on Medusa – Single

Drunk Again – Aidan Canfield on Rivertown – EP

Blue Jean Baby – Zach Bryan on Blue Jean Baby – Single

Heartbreaker – Hayden Blount on Heartbreaker – Single

Sagittarius – TROY on Sagittarius – Single

Rattlesnake – Jack Van Cleaf & Zach Bryan on JVC

Domini Lost – IcoS on Domini Lost – Single

Alien Cowboy – Gordi on Like Plasticine

to the wilder (from “DEATH STRANDING 2 : ON THE BEACH” Soundtrack) – Woodkid on to the wilder (from “DEATH STRANDING 2 : ON THE BEACH” Soundtrack) – Single

Options – Cameron Whitcomb on Clean Country 2025

Everything Is Peaceful Love – Bon Iver on SABLE, fABLE

Well, Me 2 – Pardyalone on FUHLK MUSIC VOL. 1 – Single

GFU – Landon Smith on GFU – Single

93 – flora cash on i’m not okay – Single

Azalea Place – Max McNown on Night Diving

DELUSIONAL. – Kesha on .

There’s A Rhythmn – Bon Iver on SABLE, fABLE

Canadian – Billy Raffoul on Canadian – Single

YIPPEE-KI-YAY. – Kesha on .

Since I Fell – Aidan Canfield on Since I Fell – Single

St. Helens Alpenglow – Max McNown on St. Helens Alpenglow – Single

If Only I Could Wait (feat. Danielle Haim) – Bon Iver on SABLE, fABLE

Alright Now – Hayden Calnin on Alright Now – Single

No Idol (ruff cut) – N4MESM on No Idol (ruff cut)1

Hexie Mountains – Orville Peck on Bronco

Virgo – TROY on Virgo – Single

From – Bon Iver on SABLE, fABLE

Breeze – Lonely in the Rain on Breeze – Single

Waterfall – Elderbrook & Ahmed Spins on Waterfall – Single

Flicker – Yoste on Flicker – Single

High Dive – Emmit Fenn on High Dive – Single

When We Was – MÒZÂMBÎQÚE & Vertefeuille on When We Was

Maze – Donbor on Solace – EP

Slave Shift (demo) – N4MESM on Slave Shift (demo)2

Something Beautiful and Bright – SYML on Nobody Lives Here

I’ll Be There – Bon Iver on SABLE, fABLE

CONTAR – JC Reyes & Ozuna on CONTAR – Single

Stars Fading In Constellation – HurricaneTurtle on Stars In Constellation – Single3

Follows You – Michael Marcagi on Midwest Kid – EP

Sincerely, Your Son – Waylon Wyatt on Sincerely, Your Son – Single4

Angel – Kai Bosch on Angel – Single

Heat Ignited – Tep No on Heat Ignited – Single

Remember Me – Duce on Remember Me – Single

Take Me Away (Stripped) – Noah Brigden on Take Me Away (Stripped) – Single

Sweet Fruit – Erin LeCount on I Am Digital, I Am Divine – EP

Silence Underneath – Luke Beling on This Parlor Trick Life

Northern Thunder – Zach Bryan on The Great American Bar Scene

  1. I need to update the artist name here, he’s changed it again. ↩
  2. M’s really validating my instinct to have local copies of things. ↩
  3. I’m used to HurricaneTurtle being instrumental/synthwave type stuff, so hearing singing really caught me off guard at first. ↩
  4. filed under “oof, ouch, my bones” ↩
Categories
Review

“Mars Express”

I finished this movie and had to just… go for a walk. Same vibe as “sitting with it,” but it left me wanting to get some air and see some trees.

Firstly, the movie is gorgeous. I don’t know enough about animation styles to say anything in detail, I’d kinda just say “anime, but the realistic style?” and call it good. But the setting, all the backdrops, the stylings of the technology, it’s all absolutely beautiful. For that alone, I’d say it’s worth watching.

I will mention, though, that it’s a fairly violent film. The opening scene is the shockingly brutal murder of a college student, and the pace of death stays pretty high. (And, from here, the pace of spoilers will also increase; you’ve been warned.)

The thing that struck me, for the majority of the film, was how many of the story beats felt the same as I, Robot—the film adaptation, that is. Rule 1 of robots: you can’t harm humans. There’s one megacorporation that makes all the robots. Protagonist doesn’t like robots because of a traumatic incident in their past where the robots Did A Bad. Hell, there’s even a “self-driving car on the highway turns into a big fight” scene!1 And, for all those similarities, I absolutely didn’t mind; I was quite happy, going into the final act of the movie, to call it “I, Robot, but done better and prettier,” and was waiting for the big reveal that the Bad Guy was just a pawn of the ominous giant meat-computer-thing in his office.

I am, in fact, delighted to say that I fell for the red herring. The meat computer was just a meat computer! The villain was capitalism all along! France, this movie is a work of art, and I thank you for it.

But what really had me needing a walk to contemplate was the ending. It wasn’t a happy ending. It was the quick death of the protagonist, and the long denouement of the guy who’d been set up as The Supporting Character all along getting some form of closure. I fell for the red herring again! I wasn’t even right about who the main character was!

An absolute delight of a film. I loved it, I’m likely to watch it again. It still does feel like “I, Robot done right,” but even more so. It isn’t the same plot rehashed, it’s the same vibe from the book, restated with how we feel about technology now. Go watch it.

  1. Which is, by the by, one of the visually striking parts that’s still lodged in my mind. A highway through the middle of a cliffside, already a powerful aesthetic decision; the high speed chase with a missile, absolutely excellent; the replacement of airbags with quick-setting foam, and the way the road lit up to indicate a lane closure, just a cool concept. Using the immobilizing-but-bulletproof foam to turn a gunfight into a tense, suspenseful wait while yet another robot arrives to spray it away? Absolutely delightful. ↩
Categories
Review

“The Deep and Shining Dark”

Juliet Kemp

This is one of those books that makes me think about hard versus soft magic systems. A hard magic system has strict rules; an extension of the laws of physics. Soft magic systems are a lot looser; the rules are “whatever the plot requires them to be.” Pros and cons to either.

In this case, we have a pretty soft magic system; the only real rule seems to be that you need blood to control magic. With the exception of Marek, a city whose founders negotiated a deal with an angel, and it came to live there, interceding between the people that raw magic, making it a much safer affair overall. And, in true “wisdom of the ancients” style, they were very clever about it, and the deal included things like “you can’t use magic for politics” and “the angel has to keep the good of the city in mind.”

All of which worked quite well as backdrop for what is, essentially, a political intrigue. It may have taken a few hundred years, but no system works perfectly forever. Not without maintenance, at least. Once most people forget why and how the magic works, it gets easy to assume that it works that way because it works that way. You stop thinking about it. It becomes a norm.

But, eventually, someone comes along who doesn’t accept the norm. Who thinks, well, this rule seems breakable. Nobody’s actively enforcing it anymore.

I don’t think this book was meant to be quite as topical to politics as it felt, given that perspective, but it worked out well. Made for a very interesting read overall, and I can definitely recommend it. Check it out.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“Still the Sun”

Charlie N. Holmberg

Oh, this was a delight of a read. Sort of a slow burn overall, but it made it very effective at building up over time. By the halfway point I didn’t want to put it down, and at 4/5 of the way through I couldn’t. In a way, it’s a lot of filler, but it’s beautiful filler, and without the filler it’d be too quick. It’s the fun of digging through the filler to find the little pieces of the puzzle.

My favorite moment, and this will be a spoiler, is reading the very careful, analytical description of an artifact of the Ancients, and saying to myself “it’s a sundial. Obviously it’s a sundial. How have you not figured this out?” And then we get to see this lovely analytic mind of the viewpoint protagonist answer that question: why would you know what a sundial is on a planet that isn’t rotating? Would you look at that, the title makes sense.

As I said, an absolute delight to read. The protagonist is building something, and I get that seem feeling of building towards something as I try to piece together the mysteries. Give it a read.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“A Feast for Flies”

Leigh Harlen

This was chaotic and fun to read; it did a pretty good job of capturing the feeling of being in over your head, one normal person trying not to be squished by the movements of the movers and shakers of the world. A mind-reader, forced to work for the police, hating her job but legally not allowed to leave it. Bea, the support dog, was a fun concept—there’s a passing reference to people with less sci-fi reasons for needing a support animal getting by with robots, but here, the disability is “can constantly hear the thoughts and feelings of people around her,” and being in contact with the dog (or through the conductive leash) dampens all of that.

The mind reading was done fairly well, I thought, and just different enough in the details that it felt interesting but still easy to follow. A fun, quick read; check it out.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“Little Nothing”

Dee Holloway

I didn’t quite click with this one. The closest I got was with the “little nothings,” the small pieces of magic, and even there, I wanted it to be a bit more. I want magic that actually feels like magic, not magic that feels like someone believing in themselves by telling a story in their head that it’s magic. The biggest ‘little nothing,’ as it’s referred to, that appears in this book is someone getting themselves untied… and the way they do that spell is to spend an hour slowly fidgeting with the rope until the motion and them bleeding on the rope from the sores on their wrists loosen it enough that they can pull the knot the rest of the way undone. The spellwork is simultaneously treated as “enough of a threat that they have to be tied down so they can’t move their hands” and also “basically a form of self-affirmation” and it just bugged me.

Complaints about magic aside, it was an interesting read—I’ve never been much for Civil War-era stuff, so the perspective of people loyal to the Union, living in Florida, in the lead-up to the actual declaration of the Confederacy, was a new perspective to me. Worth it for that, I suppose, though the concept of “what if Florida had carnivorous swimming horses in addition to the alligators” was a bit more fun of a twist. Check it out.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Playlist

Playlist of the Month: April 2025

Back to sharing links and doing a bit of annotation this time, but still a short playlist. Listen to the whole thing here, or see my lightly-annotated track list:

Oklahoma Smokeshow – Zach Bryan on Summertime Blues – EP

Towers – Zach Bryan on The Great American Bar Scene

Hotel Bible – Max McNown on Night Diving

i Am A Mountain – Coldplay on Moon Music (Full Moon Edition)

Medusa – Cameron Whitcomb on Medusa – Single

Drunk Again – Aidan Canfield on Rivertown – EP

Old Neptune, He’s Roaring – Brian Sauvé on Hearth Songs

Wake Me up (Country Version) – Cooper Alan & Aloe Blacc on Wake Me up (Country Version) – Single

Blue Jean Baby – Zach Bryan on Blue Jean Baby – Single

Heartbreaker – Hayden Blount on Heartbreaker – Single

Ordinary – Alex Warren on Ordinary – Single

Trauma Kid – Majik on Trauma Kid – Single1

SOTTOMARINI – Mahmood on SOTTOMARINI – Single

Street Level – Jon Bryant on Street Level – Single

Have to Know – Daniel Leggs on Have to Know – Single

Sagittarius – TROY on Sagittarius – Single

Rattlesnake – Jack Van Cleaf & Zach Bryan on JVC

Domini Lost – IcoS on Domini Lost – Single

Alien Cowboy – Gordi on Like Plasticine

to the wilder (from “DEATH STRANDING 2 : ON THE BEACH” Soundtrack) – Woodkid on to the wilder (from “DEATH STRANDING 2 : ON THE BEACH” Soundtrack) – Single

Bad Cameo – James Blake & Lil Yachty on Bad Cameo

Options – Cameron Whitcomb on Clean Country 2025

AWARDS SEASON – Bon Iver on SABLE, fABLE

Everything Is Peaceful Love – Bon Iver on SABLE, fABLE

Like I Do – Dylan Gossett on Like I Do – Single

Well, Me 2 – Pardyalone on FUHLK MUSIC VOL. 1 – Single

GFU – Landon Smith on GFU – Single

93 – flora cash on i’m not okay – Single2

Azalea Place – Max McNown on Night Diving

Missing Man – James Blake & Lil Yachty on Bad Cameo

DELUSIONAL. – Kesha on .

There’s A Rhythmn – Bon Iver on SABLE, fABLE

Canadian – Billy Raffoul on Canadian – Single

i’m not okay – flora cash on i miss you – Single

DREAMBOY – Lil Nas X on DREAMBOY – Single

  1. I’m deeply sad to not have a link here; Majik appears to have pulled it from Apple Music, and his various social media accounts have vanished again. It was nice while it lasted.
    … he said, before going down a bit of a rabbit hole; there’s a new TikTok username, which links to a SoundCloud account with a couple tracks. Not the same sound as Majik, but still worth listening to. ↩
  2. This is the catchy one this month. ↩
Categories
Review

“Off-Time Jive”

A.Z. Louise

An interesting little story. Not long enough for me to really figure out the magic system in any detail, which was a bit of a bummer—I quite liked the idea of there being an Old School of magic and a New School of magic, and tying it together with race relations in the Jim Crow era sure did add an interesting twist. A surprisingly good ending, everything came together better than I was expecting. Worth the read, I think.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“Rabbits of the Apocalypse”

Benny Lawrence

I’m kinda amazed by how much I enjoyed this book, because it’s a hodgepodge of a bunch of things I really don’t like. It’s post-apocalyptic, for god’s sake! And not even a particularly hopeful post-apocalyptic, it’s a “and things are still getting worse!” post-apocalyptic. Gross.

I suppose what shone was the characters—I was interested in all of them, in their relationships. Which, again, kinda surprising, because they’re basically all terrible. Hell, one of the main characters in this spends a whole lot of time justifying their actions, and even towards the end where they’re starting to crack and admit that the Big Bad they work for is, in fact, not the good guys… they never address the fact that said Big Bad is a slave empire. Like, c’mon. Have some self-awareness.

I dunno, though. Like I said, I did enjoy reading it—fairly well-written, and the banter really brought a lot of joy to it. If you’re into… Fallout, but as a sapphic romance(?), and a little bit of X-Men, then this might be the book for you. Worth a shot, anyways.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“Salt & Broom”

Sharon Lynn Fisher

This book probably would’ve felt a bit more familiar and interesting I’ve actually read Jane Eyre, but as I haven’t, it took me a while to get used to the style of it. I nearly gave up about halfway through, in fact; I get the feeling that ‘regency romance’ as a genre isn’t for me. Still, this book managed to add in a fun supernatural mystery element, which I did enjoy; it twisted enough that I kept coming up with theories and then being proved wrong, though in a way I didn’t much mind. A fairly quick read, surprisingly light and fun, occasionally spooky, but overall enjoyable. Give it a go.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“Champion of the Scarlet Wolf, Book 2”

Ginn Hale

As promised, I went right into reading the second book.1 And I quite enjoyed it, though admittedly not as much as I did the first. I think part of my issue was that this seems to be an advance reader copy or something — not the final edition, is all. There’s a few clear errors that a final editing pass should’ve caught.2

That said, I did enjoy the read. I was worried that it was going to do the Syfy thing, and try to continue escalating, but it didn’t — the scope stayed “well, we’re all gonna die, but the world will go on.” Nice to have a sort of series-scale denouement like that, after the first book featured “well, we’re all gonna die, and then also this thing might end the world after that.”

The other thing this reminded me of was Diana Wynne Jones. It had that same kind of “slow build right up until everything comes together at once” feeling; in the same way that I spend the first half of the book going “I dunno, I don’t think this is really capturing me as much as I’d like it to…” and then suddenly I’m forgetting to eat because I can’t put the book down that long. It wound up being fun, and tying up some of the remaining threads from the first book pretty well, so I appreciated that. A good read! Start with Book 1, but then give it a go.3

  1. At some point in the book I thought “is there going to be a third?” and found out that this is, in fact, the fourth book in the series — evidently a great deal of the Mysterious Backstory I’d been piecing together as I read was just the events of the first two books. Whoops, guess I was reading on challenge mode. That said, I think it held up quite well as its own little duology! ↩
  2. And I mean obvious stuff like a word that was meant to be replaced still being there. The subtler things, like a character’s name being spelled differently, are harder to notice if you haven’t just read the first one. And, presumably, particularly if you didn’t spend every appearance by that character in the first book thinking about “her name isn’t ‘Fleur’ like from Harry Potter, it’s ‘Fluer’” so that it suddenly becoming ‘Fleur’ really stands out. ↩
  3. This is an Amazon affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I prefer Bookshop affiliate links to Amazon when possible, but in this case, the book wasn’t available there, so it’ll have to do. ↩
Categories
Playlist

Playlist of the Month: March 2025

No links or annotations this time around; as with last month, I’ve spent the majority of March being too ill to really engage with music as much as I’d like. You can listen to the whole playlist here.

Sad Girls (feat. Rema) – Clean Bandit & French The Kid on Sad Girls (feat. Rema) – Single

Oklahoma Smokeshow – Zach Bryan on Summertime Blues – EP

Towers – Zach Bryan on The Great American Bar Scene

Hotel Bible – Max McNown on Night Diving

i Am A Mountain – Coldplay on Moon Music (Full Moon Edition)

Medusa – Cameron Whitcomb on Medusa – Single

Bears & Wolves – Lilith Max on Bears & Wolves – Single

Drunk Again – Aidan Canfield on Rivertown – EP

Old Neptune, He’s Roaring – Brian Sauvé on Hearth Songs

Wake Me up (Country Version) – Cooper Alan & Aloe Blacc on Wake Me up (Country Version) – Single

TRANS AM – Jeremiah Kane on TRANS AM – Single

Blue Jean Baby – Zach Bryan on Blue Jean Baby – Single

Heartbreaker – Hayden Blount on Heartbreaker – Single

ONANON – Killen. on ONANON – Single

Silver Spoon – Erin LeCount on Silver Spoon – Single

Clockwork – Masked Wolf on The Devil Wears Prada but God Wears Gucci

22s – KOKO, Nina Chuba & Dillistone on 22s – Single

Dear Me (From The Original Documentary “Diane Warren: Relentless”) – Kesha on Dear Me (From The Original Documentary “Diane Warren: Relentless”) – Single

Ordinary – Alex Warren on Ordinary – Single

Trauma Kid – Majik on Trauma Kid – Single

Opportunity – MÒZÂMBÎQÚE & Vertefeuille on When We Was

SOTTOMARINI – Mahmood on SOTTOMARINI – Single

In Your Eyes – Korine on In Your Eyes – Single

Too Young To Be Jaded – Tep No on Catharsis – EP

Street Level – Jon Bryant on Street Level – Single

Seraph – Lilith Max on Seraph – Single

Have to Know – Daniel Leggs on Have to Know – Single

Bittersweet (feat. Rosie Darling) – Audien & Shallou on Bittersweet (feat. Rosie Darling) – Single

Sagittarius – TROY on Sagittarius – Single

Love Is an Ocean – The Midnight on Love Is an Ocean – Single

Missyouso – Mascolo on Missyouso – Single

See How It Ends – Anderholm on See How It Ends – Single

Rattlesnake (feat. Zach Bryan) – Jack Van Cleaf & Zach Bryan on JVC

Summer of Love (Vip Edit) – James Carter, Leony & Sam Fischer on Summer of Love (Vip Edit) – Single

Domini Lost – IcoS on Domini Lost – Single

Alien Cowboy – Gordi on Like Plasticine

Anhedonia – Korine on Anhedonia – Single

To the wilder (from “DEATH STRANDING 2 : ON THE BEACH” Soundtrack) – Woodkid on To the wilder (from “DEATH STRANDING 2 : ON THE BEACH” Soundtrack) – Single

Categories
Review

“Champion of the Scarlet Wolf, Book 1”

Ginn Hale

I had so much more fun reading this than I expected to. A great deal of giving me exactly what I wanted in the most fun way possible. So much mysterious backstory to piece together! Two missing princes! Quests within quests. A character whose two intertwined emotional arcs are “working through internalized homophobia” and “dealing with PTSD that they’ve spent a lifetime ignoring.” And a truly wonderful “the audience knows but the character doesn’t” scene featuring a shapeshifter who’d been stuck in animal form, and a man in the midst of a severe fever waking up to a twink in his bed wearing nothing but the collar he’d hand-made for the dog he rescued a couple weeks ago. Exactly as hilarious a reveal as I wanted that to be. Absolutely perfect.

The magic system here feels cobbled together out of various other things—there’s hints of Tolkein-style “the magic is going out of the world,” but it feels more like a “… because we’ve deliberately forgotten how to do the really big stuff” in a way that makes the world feel like it has lots and lots of history to dig into. The magic users all at least a little bit know about the other types of magic, some kind of passing familiarity, but there are, indeed, at least three distinct styles that we see. And it feels like they all fit together, like they’re all expressions of the same fundamental thing—reminiscent of the Thirteenth Child series, in that way.1

An absolute delight of a read; I’m about to dive into the second book, because things aren’t neatly tied up at all here at the end, and I’m excited to find out where it goes. Check it out!2

  1. Having just gone to look for a link, it would seem that I’ve never written up a review of those books… so I suppose I now have an excuse to do a reread. ↩
  2. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“The Witch’s Lens”

Luanne G. Smith

This held up reasonably well as a story, and had some fun little twists to it. The hidden backstory got revealed at just the right pace, and really changed the tone of the latter half of the book, which I quite enjoyed. There was a bit more ‘monster movie’ to it prior to that, which doesn’t tend to be my favorite, but the action-adventure of it outweighed that long enough to carry me to the end.

The magic system was interesting; there were places where it felt like a hard magic system, but overall, I think it’s really a soft magic system, which contains the occasional regional hard magic system. The presence of a djinn with a wildly different set of powers, including “oh, I actually don’t care about the macguffin, that’s just, like, a normal thing for my people” felt a bit hilarious, honestly. The whole dramatic fight, a large part of World War I coming down to the negotiation about this rarity… and the representative from the middle east is like “oh, I thought you had something interesting to discuss after all this. Peace.” and just up and leaves. Excellent.

The only issue I had with the book was that it was trying to do the “normal people don’t know about magic” thing, but couldn’t actually decide on what level that was a thing. Like, everyone acknowledges superstition and the existence of hedgewitches… but the fact that the government is employing magic users for purposes of war is a deep secret that must be kept from the normals? It’s inconsistent with itself.

That said, since the book is almost entirely the magic users amongst other magic users, it’s not too much in your face, so it’s okay to read past it. Overall, a fun read; check it out.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“Managing Humans”

Michael Lopp

This was an interesting read — it absolutely feels like each of the many chapters is a blog post that got repurposed into being a book chapter, in large part because that’s what it is; this is Rands in Repose, The Book. A few bits of this I felt like I was skimming past—I don’t have any interest in writing a CV right now, thanks—but a lot of it I at least jotted a couple notes on. I may not be a manager, but having a better idea of how management works can’t be a bad thing.

Compared to my other forays into the ‘management book’ genre, I found this more approachable. Lopp does a better job of establishing his bona fides, both as Someone Who Works In Tech, and as someone who’s got the same sort of internet brain I do.1 He’s part of the old guard of bloggers. His writing is, in a word, approachable to my inarguably-a-nerd self.

So, overall, a good read; the book club discussion ought to be interesting, as well. I look forward to finding out how many other folks read the glossary all the way through—it was, in fact, worth it. Check it out.2

  1. He calls it NADD, which works well enough. ↩
  2. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩