mrissa | Network

Time to review some more books.

• The Paris Match by Kate Clayborn: Soon after Layla arrives in Paris ahead of her ex-husband’s sister’s wedding, she discovers that Emily is having doubts about getting married. The only other person who knows this information, other than the bridal couple, is the best man, Griffin. Layla’s initial interactions with him haven’t been amicable but they agree to work together to support Emily and Michael during the week of pre-wedding festivities. Griffin is determined to ensure that the wedding proceeds as planned. Layla just wants Emily to be able to focus on her relationship so that she can make a decision without being distracted by stress or drama.

This is obviously the set-up for a romance between Layla and Griffin, but I was most interested in all the mysteries. ( Why did Layla get divorced? What’s the story behind Griffin’s burn scars? Would the wedding go ahead? )

• Promise Me Sunshine by Cara Bastone: Lenny’s latest baby-sitting gig in New York is looking after a seven year old Ainsley. Ainsley’s grumpy uncle who lives upstairs is instantly suspicious of Lenny. After Miles confronts her, Lenny ends up confiding in him – that outside of her work, she is a mess, because she’s grieving for her childhood best friend and avoiding going home to the apartment they shared together.

Miles has lost close family members and is currently struggling to connect with his sister and his niece. He suggests that he and Lenny help each other.

When I first read the blurb, I thought this arrangement sounded contrived but in context – Miles has already observed Lenny in several situations and found out that she’s yet to do anything on her “Live Again” list before he comes out with his awkward and not fully coherent proposal – it felt believable. ( This book is like a warm hug. *gets distracted rereading* )

• Call Me Maybe by Cara Bastone: This revolves around phone calls between Vera, who is desperate to fix an issue with her business website before she attends an expo, and Cal, who answers when Vera contacts her website hosting service for customer support. Parts of the story are told through pure dialogue.

I had downloaded the Kindle sample some time ago, probably after I read Ready or Not, and it hadn’t grabbed me. While reading Promise Me Sunshine a few weeks earlier had certainly given me increased confidence in Bastone’s storytelling, I don’t remember finding the first few chapters of this any more compelling the second time round.

I think it was just more that I was in the mood for contemporary romance but not in the mood for making decisions and this was just there, in my Kindle app. Well, the sample was there, I did have to take steps to buy the rest of the book but somehow that still seemed like less effort than finding something else to read.

Not a very rational decision, considering that I thought the book would be vaguely okay at best. But I mention this because I actually ended up liking it! ( “But the best parts of the internet don’t usually trend. They’re the little moments. When you can find someone who feels the exact same way about something as you do. Or someone makes a joke that perfectly hits your funny bone. It can really make the world less lonely.” )

• Sweet Talk by Cara Bastone: The sequel to Call Me Maybe begins with Vera’s brother, Eliot, who is struggling with insomnia, sending a late-night message to the wrong number. Eliot has dyslexia, which possibly explains why he accidentally clicked on the wrong contact in his phone and definitely explains why the name he clicked on is an unidentifiable typo.

The recipient of his message knows who Eliot is but is reluctant to confirm her own identity. However, she’s a night owl and she is happy to have someone to talk to at this hour.

I thought the name of the game was going to be how to get out of this conversation with my pride still intact. But no. The name of the game is now chatting with a cute guy in the middle of the night without being the one to accidentally end the conversation first.

Like Call Me Maybe, parts of this are told through pure dialogue.

I enjoyed this story even more than the first one! I liked the mysteries – What led to Eliot’s insomnia? What is Jessie struggling with? Why doesn’t she want to tell him who she is? Also, this is a very sweet, very supportive romance.

• Sounds Like Love by Ashley Poston: Joni, a successful songwriter, is visiting her family for the summer when her parents announce that they are planning on selling the family’s music hall business. She also discovers that she has a telepathic connection with another musician.

I was intrigued by the telepathy, and some of the bits about songwriting. I was also interested in seeing Joni dealing with her mother’s early-onset dementia diagnosis and her feelings about change. However, something about the North Carolina beach town setting didn’t feel quite real to me and I couldn’t pinpoint what it was – nor why it was bothering me. ( ‘Gigi darted her eyes between the two of us. I could just imagine the thoughts running through her head. The AO3 tags. I would never hear the end of this. I could already tell.’ )

dr_drang_feed

Posted by Dr. Drang

https://leancrew.com/all-this/2026/07/old-icons/

There’s been a lot of talk lately about Mac application icons and “squircle jail.” Inspired by this post from Paul Kafasis on the Rogue Amoeba blog,¹ many Mac-adjacent people have taken up his cause to “Free the Icons.”

I agree, but Apple’s 50th anniversary has gotten me thinking a lot lately about the early days of the Mac, so it’s only natural that my mind shifted to the highly constrained icons Mac applications had back then.

In those days, icons were 32×32 pixel images, and every pixel was either black or white. The classic original Mac application icons were the ones for MacWrite and MacPaint.²

MacWrite and MacPaint

You can see that Apple liked the idea of app icons being a tilted rectangle with some image inside the rectangle to indicate what the app did. The hand was Apple’s way of telling you that this icon was for doing things, and the rectangle was tilted to match the orientation of the hand. (If you were left-handed, this was just another injustice inflicted on you by a cruel right-handed world.)

Document icons were typically upright rectangles with dog-eared corners and similar designs inside the rectangle—no hands because documents don’t do anything. But we’re not here to talk about document icons.

Other Apple app icons that fit this pattern were the ones for MacDraw and HyperCard:

MacDraw and HyperCard

The HyperCard icon was a bit of a departure, in that it had a stack of rectangles, but the idea was the same. There was no image on the top card of the stack, probably because there wasn’t enough room.

Many of the complaints about squircle jail are about the loss of icon elements that “stick out” from the rest of the design. As you can see, this idea was there from the very start; the hands stick out from the tilted rectangles.

Most other software publishers followed Apple’s lead. Here are the icons for Aldus PageMaker and QuarkXPress:

PageMaker and Quark XPress

Aldus had a slightly different idea for what the hand should look like.

It’s important to recall that the Mac didn’t have a Dock back then. You launched an app by finding its icon on your disk and double-clicking.³ The icon always had the name of the app underneath it, which was good. If you had both PageMaker and XPress, I imagine it would be easy to confuse such similar icons in a Dock.

The folks at THINK took a slightly different approach for their Pascal editor/compiler. They kept the idea of hands, but because nobody programs with a pencil, they put two hands on a keyboard and showed them generating a flowchart:

THINK Pascal

Other publishers abandoned either the hands or the tilted rectangle or both. As people got more used to working with Macs, these clues for what’s an app and what isn’t became unnecessary, and icon design became less constrained. Even Apple gave up on them for utilities like Disk First Aid and Font/DA Mover:

Disk First Aid and FontDA Mover

And there was, of course, my favorite Apple icon of this era, the one for ResEdit:

ResEdit

This is what old-timers mean when they talk about Apple and whimsy.

As opposed to his wonderful personal blog, One Foot Tsunami. ↩
All of the icon images in this post are screenshots taken from an Infinite Mac session. ↩
Yes, you could also launch an app by double-clicking on the icon of one of its documents. But I told you we’re not here to talk about document icons. ↩

https://leancrew.com/all-this/2026/07/old-icons/

questionable_content_feed

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5868

metafilter_feed

Posted by subdee

https://www.metafilter.com/213745/Graham-Platner-is-a-bad-dude-and-data-shows-hes-a-bad-candidate-too

G Elliot Morris: Democrats now have an opportunity to nominate someone less troubled who polls better. Will they waste it? And from Common Dreams:"If Graham's stepping away, I am very, very interested and think I'm the best person to replace him," said Troy Jackson, the former Maine Senate president.

Graham Platner previously on metafilter: https://www.metafilter.com/213499/Graham-Platner-and-the-Class-Politics-of-Impunity https://www.metafilter.com/212662/Graham-Platner-Receipts

https://www.metafilter.com/213745/Graham-Platner-is-a-bad-dude-and-data-shows-hes-a-bad-candidate-too

ysabetwordsmith

This is today's freebie. It was inspired by a prompt from

gs_silva. It also fills the "Ambiguous Situation" square in my 6-1-26 card for the Hazbin Hotel Fest. This poem belongs to the series Schrodinger's Heroes.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

rocky41_7

Flinging myself into the sun over Chaghan's death and its impact on Esen and Baoxiang.

The night before Chaghan's death, Baoxiang and Chaghan have a really awful fight, where Chaghan draws his blade on Baoxiang (who is unarmed); whether or not he would have actually killed Baoxiang if Esen hadn't intervened is unclear. (Chapter 12)

Esen found himself without anything to say. Up until this moment he had truly believed that if Baoxiang would just try, he could still be the son Chaghan wanted. But now he knew it had always been impossible.

As if reading his mind, Baoxiang said simply, "See?"

The next day, after the hunt, when Baoxiang is refused a horse on his father's orders, they fight again (Chapter 12):

Lord Wang met his eyes, pale and defiant. "So am I to find out by happenstance, from the servants, that my own father has disowned me?"

Chaghan said coldly, "Your father? I thought I had made it clear that you've lost any right you had to use that name. Would that my sister had died before getting you! Get out of my sight! Get out!"

Yet, seconds later, when Chaghan is in danger (Chapter 12):

"Father!" Lord Wang's voice was shrill with horror as he threw himself lengthwise into the dirt at the edge, heedless of his silks...He saw the two reaching hands grasp. The cords in Lord Wang's neck stood out with the effort as he shouted, "General, help!"

Even after these two horrific fights they've had, even after years of Chaghan making it clear he regrets adopting Baoxiang and the thousands of implicit and explicit ways he's told Baoxiang he thinks he's worthless, Baoxiang still sees Chaghan as his father. When Chaghan is in danger, even immediately after Chaghan has publicly disowned him, Baoxiang does not hesitate for a second to rush to Chaghan's aid.

Yet as Esen looks at Baoxiang in the aftermath of this event, of their father's death, his mind almost immediately turns to suspecting Baoxiang let Chaghan die. Yes, Ouyang had sowed the seeds of that thought, but Esen is the one willing to believe, almost immediately, that Baoxiang let this happen on purpose.

When they return to Anfeng for Chaghan's funeral, Esen bars Baoxiang from attending. (Chapter 15)

He [Esen] strode to the doors and flung them open, stepping out into the diffuse brightness of the hot pearl sky. The empty courtyard echoed with the memory of those hundreds of people in white. But today there was only one figure there. From a distance Wang Baoxiang's elaborate white drapery and drained face had all the humanity of a carved piece of jade.

On the day of his father's funeral, Baoxiang stands alone outside in the courtyard because Esen will not allow him to attend the ceremony, because Esen has already become so wholly convinced that Baoxiang let their father die.

The first time Esen and Baoxiang speak after this incident, Esen makes the following observation. This occurs as Esen sits at his father's desk for the first time, trying to get a grip on running the household he now heads (chapter 15):

His [Baoxiang's] fine-boned Manji features seemed more prominent, and there were shadows under his eyes. Under his familiar brittle smirk, there was something as pale and secretive as a mushroom.

The very first thing he does in their first post-Chaghan confrontation is to highlight Baoxiang's foreignness. His otherness. Esen is full-blooded Mongol. Baoxiang is not. Esen doesn't even think of him as Nanren, but as Manji. Barbarian. And in this moment, when Esen regards him full-on for the first time since suspecting him of killing their father, he thinks Baoxiang's foreign features are "more prominent."

Of course, they fight (chapter 15):

Esen slammed back his chair. "You dare speak of him to me!"

"Why?" asked Baoxiang, advancing. His voice rose. "Why can't I speak of our father? Do tell, is there something you think I did?"

...

"I don't admit anything! I don't need to! You've already made up your mind." Baoxiang grabbed the desk and held on..."No matter what I say, no matter what I do, both of you would think the worst of me. You slander me with ill thoughts I've never had--no, not even when he had me on my knees, and was cursing my very existence. You think I murdered him!"

It's a brutal, ugly, honest fight that's really gutting to read (kudos to SPC). It's not just that Esen suspects Baoxiang might have done it--it's that, as Baoxiang said, he's already decided Baoxiang did it. Without speaking to Baoxiang, without really considering any other option, he almost immediately reached for and settled on "Baoxiang killed our father out of resentment." It's how quick and willing Esen was--like Chaghan--to believe the worst of Baoxiang. He begins the entire encounter, as noted above, by mentally clocking that Baoxiang isn't like him or Chaghan. He's different. He's foreign. He's secretive.

We, the readers, were present at the moment of Chaghan's imperilment. We know that Baoxiang tried to save him, that in spite of Chaghan's abuse, he was desperate to bring him back to safety, but he failed. Esen, in absence of having seen it for himself, is ready to believe right off the bat that Baoxiang acted selfishly and viciously--and that, I think, is what really cuts him. That his own brother, probably the person he is closest to (which says a lot, given how little these two actually know each other...) is so quick to see the worst of his intentions.

Esen concludes this fight by disowning Baoxiang as Chaghan did days earlier (chapter 15):

Esen slammed his hands against the desk with such ferocity that it dealt a blow to Baoxiang and sent him stumbling...Esen heard the ugliness of his voice: it was his father's voice. "He was right about you. You're worthless. Worse than that: a curse. Rue the day this house took you in! Even if I have not the authority of the Great Khan, then at least my ancestors should witness the truth of my words in disowning your name. Get out!"

It takes Esen all of a handful of days to assume Chaghan's former relationship with Baoxiang. Where before he defended Baoxiang (not particularly zealously, but still) to Chaghan, now he echoes Chaghan's own words, the same words he knew had hurt Baoxiang so badly before.

It's crushing. We know they care about each other, we do. But in this time when they should be leaning together, to support each other in their grief, Chaghan's legacy has left them with this. Baoxiang at last is left with no allies, and Esen, although he doesn't know it, is left with no one to stand between him and Ouyang.

princessofgeeks

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torachan

1. My stomach felt almost as bad this morning when I woke up, but once I got going, I started to feel a lot better, and it wasn't like yesterday where I'd feel better for a while but then anything I ate would make me feel worse again. Not quite 100% but mostly back to normal.

2. There was another ant invasion this morning, though not nearly as bad as yesterday. I was worried that despite my precautions and clean up this morning, I might come home to more after work, since yesterday we had both been home during the day to monitor any scouts and keep things from snowballing, but with Carla out of town, there's no one to keep an eye out during the day. But the diatomaceous earth I put down this morning seems to have been enough and there were no ants in the kitchen this evening and only a couple in the dining room near where they had been coming in. So hopefully I won't wake up to ants again tomorrow.

3. When I first moved offices last year, the area I was in was the coldest in the whole building, but then they made some change and it was the warmest. It was tolerable for the winter and spring, but it's really bad now and I was just sweltering at my desk this afternoon. I put in a request to the facility maintenance department and they said they will get it looked at ASAP so fingers crossed they can get it to a more reasonable temperature.

4. Look at this sweetie girl.

princessofgeeks

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cyphomandra

How to fake it in society, KJ Charles
We breed lions: confronting Canada’s troubled hockey culture, Rick Westhead
The husbands, Holly Gramazio
Evil under the sun, Agatha Christie (re-read)
The ark
The Sittaford mystery, Agatha Christie
Till we have faces, CS Lewis

How to Fake it In Society, KJ Charles. Titus is a humble shopkeeper who makes paints for artists, who ends up marrying a wealthy woman on her deathbed in order to ensure that her relative (who may well have had something to do with there being a deathbed the first place) is disinherited; struggling with his sudden elevation, he is thrilled when Nicolas-Marc, Comte de Valois de la Motte, a fashionable French escaped aristocrat with a Mysterious Past offers to help him make his way in society. But Nico is a con man barely a step ahead of some very nasty gangsters, and while he hoped to salvage himself with Titus’ money, his new feelings for Titus make it impossible to admit the truth… This is fine. It’s competently put together and I like the paint details but something about this pairing didn’t quite fire for me, the ending tipped a little too far into farce complete with one too many pantomime villains, and basically I think KJ likes con artists and scammers a lot more than I do.

We breed lions: confronting Canada’s troubled hockey culture, Rick Westhead. Solid, painful documentation of the casualties of Canada’s approach to (men’s) hockey, from juniors to professionals, emphasising the gate-keepers who could (but don’t) change their approach. Pretty awful subject material, with all the sexual assault, misogyny, bullying, homophobia and hazing that you’d expect; it’s about culture, and about those who enforce it, but also those who chose to look away or not look deeper, and how much damage reverberates through the system.

The husbands, Holly Gramazio. Lauren, single, is met one night at the door of her flat by her (previously unknown) husband Michael. When he pops up to the attic to change a lightbulb, another husband comes back down; and, every time Lauren gets one up into the attic, she gets another one back, while with each new husband her own life and those of her close friends also change. It’s a great set-up and it rattles along (what if one of the husbands is awful? What if they move away from the flat?) for the first half before running off the rails a bit in the second. Lauren meets a husband to whom the same thing is happening (also, unlike Lauren, he’s about 50:50 whether he ends up with husbands or wives), which was great, but then things go wrong with a husband Lauren loses whom she wanted to keep, and in response Lauren does some pretty terrible things and it’s hard to know how terrible the author thinks they are. I see the author is a game designer, but the book is pitched as “how to choose when there are so many options” dating app rom com rather than “if I treat other people as NPCs how can I do this ethically, especially if I can just reset everything”, which is what I would have liked her to explore more.

Evil under the sun, Agatha Christie
The Sittaford mystery, Agatha Christie

Evil is Poirot staying in a sunny seaside house in Devon when the alluring Arlena, who is having an affair with another woman’s husband, gets herself strangled, and Sittaford is a standalone murder in a snowstorm that took place at the exact time as a group of related people were having a seance and the table spelled out MURDER and the name of the victim. I liked the ideas behind the solution of Evil while not finding them entirely convincing; Sittaford is solider in that respect, but neither are top-tier.

The ark, Haruo Yuki (trans. Jim Rion, who does the Uketsu books). A group of friends exploring the wilderness find a strange abandoned bunker; when they go down into it, an earthquake traps them. The only way out would require one of them to stay behind and face certain death. Helpfully, someone then commits murder; if they can work out who it was, they can force that person to stay behind, although this assumes a) they cooperate and b) whoever it is stops killing more people…

I did like the atmosphere in this, although it could have done with more pace and a lot less “we’re being murdered so let’s split up and go to places individually”. The characters aren’t that well-developed, but there is at least depth to some of them, and the final twist is satisfyingly dark.

Till We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis One of those books I’ve always meant to read but never got around to before (I think I first read about it in Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin, which means it’s been at least 30 years of good intentions. The Cupid and Psyche myth, retold from Orual’s (Psyche’s older half-sister) point of view, with and gosh Orual is a fascinating protagonist, flawed and believable, and a product of her society even when she breaks from it (I note that Joy Davidman was at the very least the first reader on this and at most a co-author). The way Orual’s realisation of how her (selfish) love for others has hurt them reverberates.

chazzbanner

I thought thought surely my ac was going bad. It was blowing coolish air, not very vigorously, but I had it on from 3:30 yesterday to after 12 today, and my room temp was still high.

About an hour ago I realized I had turned the button the wrong way. Ye gads!

-

celli

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rogueslayer452

Asked by

blackcatofmisery: If you could pitch your ideal series, what would it be about?

Again, this is something I'm not quite sure how to answer by not having specific details or even a fully formed idea of what my ideal series would be about. Sorry this was lackluster of a response to your question. :(

Asked by

verdande_mi: What film/series reboot that didn't happen do you wish had gotten a proper chance?

Well, as I keep saying, I'm tired of reboots. We've been living in this age of rebooting/remaking everything underneath the sun that if there was something that I had initially wished had been rebooted, I'm glad that it wasn't because it most likely wouldn't live up to expectations or further expand upon the original and just be another disappointing cheap cash grab. Although I will say, while I was indifferent towards it, I'm bummed about the BTVS sequel reboot, New Sunnydale, if only because the circumstances of how it was axed before it even got the chance to air makes me incredibly bitter and upset on behalf of SMG and the rest of the new cast who were excited and hyped up for it. Would it have been good? Hard to say without having seen anything, but it deserved to at least have that chance.

In addition to this, I also think that the Tomb Raider 2018 movie with Alicia Vikander should have gotten its franchise, as it was based around the 2013 reboot games. It was already greenlit for a sequel and ready to go, but then the pandemic hit and whatever contract deadline that was supposed to be met was missed and so it was silently cancelled. I thought the movie was fantastic, and I was yearning for more, and we deserved more, dammit.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Namie Amuro - Free

primeideal

Had some health issues (not super dangerous, but needed urgent attention), then took some time off to recuperate. Hinges on this physical laptop are dying so I'll probably want to get it replaced soon (and maybe a different OS, depending on how prevalent the spread of LLM garbage is). Going out of town for a long weekend soon and will not be bringing the janky laptop. Everything's fine, just a little behind on keyboard-requiring things, so there might be a slight backlog of reviews/etc. to catch up on in a week or so, maybe.

Watching the Biggest Fireworks Show of All Time (TM) interspersed with natural lightning definitely brought that line from Quatrevingt-Treize about "Nature says to humankind, 'Behold my work, and yours'" to mind.

metafilter_feed

Posted by Dawn Trask-Dontell

https://www.metafilter.com/213744/DrSeuss-At-the-Mountains-of-Madness

Dr.Seuss At the Mountains of Madness read-along on YouTube [22m]. Unearthly horror for children. BONUS: H.P. Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu for Beginner Readers [14m].

https://www.metafilter.com/213744/DrSeuss-At-the-Mountains-of-Madness

musesfool

I meant to post last night but I could barely keep my eyes open so I went to bed early (and missed a super rare Mets comeback in Atlanta!) and slept for 10 glorious hours! I felt great at work today, and got some stuff done, and made some suggestions about the September board meeting agenda that I am sure the CEO and the Chair will not like, but they wanted to get radical and also not overrun the meeting time by 45 minutes again, and I offered a good way to do it to my boss. We'll see if anyone bites.

I am off tomorrow for the dentist - it should just be a cleaning (though I am braced to hear I need yet another crown) but I am always so tired when it's over. And my team meeting on Tuesday got cancelled so I am tempted to take next Tuesday off since I'm already off Wednesday (my birthday), Thursday, and Friday of next week. My boss was like, sure! but I'm still thinking about it.

I thought I had something else to post about but I can't remember... oh right, I finally watched Project Hail Mary the other night. I enjoyed it but it was too long. And there was not enough Eva Stratt, who was the best thing in the movie.

*

Current Mood: okay
Current Music: Mets vs Royals on tv

lotesse

Start clean-slated (659 words) by lotesse
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Jumanji (1995)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Alan Parrish/Sarah Whittle
Characters: Sarah Whittle (Jumanji), Alan Parrish
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Growing Up Together, Childhood Sweethearts, Childhood Trauma, Time Travel
Summary:

All she has to do is wait for their future to unfold, and unfold herself into the person she was always meant to be.

ysabetwordsmith

... is repeating itself. This post compares Washington, D.C. with occupied Berlin from the perspective of someone who's seen both.

Never forget.

Current Mood: busy

muccamukk

(I was fucking around on my phone for the last few hours, while Kaylee slept on her blanket. The second I got my laptop out, Kaylee came over and started to purr aggressively next to me. You can't be on my lap right now, baby.)

These are probably going to be brief, as my memory isn't that strong six months later.

Searching for Serafim: The Life and Legacy of Serafim "Joe" Fortes by Ruby Smith Díaz
(Local author, read before she gave a talk for Black History Month.)

Short biography and a poem about a Caribbean Black man working as a lifeguard in Vancouver, BC, in the early 20th century. The records of Serafim Fortes are pretty slight, and almost all from the perspective of white people—who treated him as a sort of mascot, and talked about how great he was despite his race—so Smith Díaz is mostly reading against the grain of the historical record, and speculating lot. I normally do not like history books that include this much speculation, however, Smith Díaz is very clear about when and why she's filling in ideas, and I think it works in this context. It introduced me to Marie-Claire Graham's concept of "speculative archiving" as a way of dealing with gaps in the record created by historical violence, which this book is more or less an example of. I appreciated that Smith Díaz did not shy away from or excuse records of Fortes behaving poorly. Very much worth a read as a local history, and as an example of navigating a fragmented and racist archive.

Everything Is Fine Here by Iryn Tushabe, narrated by Nneka Okoye
(Canada Reads Longlist, which I wish had been on the shortlist.)

A coming of age novel about a young woman in western Uganda, who discovers that her beloved older sister is a lesbian. One's reaction to that premise might be, "Oh no!" but this novel was not a tragedy about queer bashing, though the setting and my knowledge of Ugandan politics made it a tense read.

(I also felt that my ((at this point rather hazy)) knowledge of Ugandan geography, culture and food helped me a lot, including having been in the same places described in the book. There's a lot of cultural detail and non-English terms dropped in without explanation, so remembering what most things were saved me a lot of looking stuff up.)

But most of the novel is about a teenager trying to figure out both the world and herself, in a family with a lot of internal conflict and pressures. There's a few cases of sixteen-year-olds making poor choices, but for the most part the novel offers its characters a lot of grace. It's about discovering the world can be a lot bigger than you're told it is, and offering and receiving second chances. Really loved this one.

Witch King by Martha Wells, narrated by Eric Mok
(Reread before getting into the new one.)

I'm really glad I reread this, as I initially rushed through it to find out what happened, and as a result didn't remember several key plot points, which turned out to be essential to the second novel. There are a lot of moving parts!

Basically still love everyone in this band, and appreciate getting a novel about decentralising power, rather than building empires.

Queen Demon by Martha Wells, narrated by Eric Mok
Really enjoyed this one, also, though it ends in a more obvious cliffhanger than the first one, which stands more or less on its own.

Mostly just like the characters and enjoy spending time with them. It's again nice to see people struggling with the work of consensus building, interspersed with battle scenes, lol. I like Kai slowly coming out of his shell in the first timeline, and how much the characters have changed over the centuries between the flashbacks and present day. It really nicely both shows the long-range consequences, and builds up tension as the plots weave towards each other. Bit bummed out by some of the casualties along the way.

I hope we get the next one soon!

naomikritzer_feed

Posted by naomikritzer

https://naomikritzer.com/2026/07/07/primary-election-2026-mn-house-district-65b/

http://naomikritzer.com/?p=26121

This is a seat that represents parts of St. Paul and West St. Paul. It is currently held by Maria Isa Pérez-Vega, but she is running for Ramsey County Board instead, so the seat is open. On the primary ballot:

Sebastian Ellefson
Elena Mena

Sebastian Ellefson is the DFL-endorsed candidate. He’s a legal aid attorney. His endorsements include Daniel Suitor, a lawyer I know by way of Bluesky who has spent the last six months filing habeas challenges on behalf of detained immigrants. He’s a board member of the West Side Community Organization and he leads a Girl Scout troop. He sounds like a stand-up guy and a good neighbor.

Elena Mena has no website that I could find. I did find her personal Facebook, where she has a picture of a flower and “adventurous, explorer, rock climber, marine biologist, cloud connoisseur, lake babe, water protector” as her personal description. She did not reply to my e-mail asking if she wanted to tell me literally anything about herself and what she stands for.

I would vote for Sebastian Ellefson, actual candidate in this race!

This seems like a good year to fundraise for a trans nonprofit, so I’m fundraising this year for TIGERRS. I don’t have a Patreon, and a fundraiser lets me see in a tangible way that people value my work, which is really helpful as a motivator. (This project is a lot of work.)

I also have a new book! Obstetrix is about an obstetrician who gets kidnapped by a cult because they want someone on hand to deliver their babies; it’s a story about enduring, surviving, and not giving up. You can buy it anywhere fine books are sold, and Uncle Hugo’s, Moon Palace, and Dreamhaven all (probably) have signed copies. (I also signed copies at Next Chapter, and will be making my way to other bookstores as time allows!)

https://naomikritzer.com/2026/07/07/primary-election-2026-mn-house-district-65b/

http://naomikritzer.com/?p=26121

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mrissa

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July 2026

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Barnstorming on an Invisible Segway

The stories are made up, but the problems are real.

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Faulty Memory

Graham Platner is a bad dude — and data shows he's a bad candidate, too

Poem: "Its Weirdness Is Evident Without Comparison"

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Primary Election 2026: MN House, District 65B

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