Carl B. Latro

Chosen One Jennifer Mazdan would prefer to let destiny's call go through to voice mail.

Unquenchable Fire (Unquenchable Fire, volume 1) by Rachel Pollack

A selfless act of heroism costs a homeless NEET his life. Waking in an unfamiliar world, he resolves to do better in his next incarnation.

Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation, volume 1 by Rifujin Na Magonote

When it comes to governing a generation ship, do you prefer the Watsonian or Doylist strategy?

Two Plot-Friendly Approaches to Generation Ships

Just as I was closing my house manager shift last night, an important door lost an integral part. So, I was late getting home.

Today, get in, door not fixed. I get to make sure it is used judiciously.

During the early part of the evening shift, someone on campus, concerned that there was someone on campus pretending to be a cop, decided that the best course of action was to dress entirely in black, including mask, then approach random people to warn them there was a fake cop on campus. This did not instill calm but the campus cops dealt with it.

As I was waiting to go home, I thought I could smell skunk. Asked my HM about it. It seems someone managed to anger the local skunk enough to get sprayed. Not me!

A crop blight offers the British a chance to apply to the UK the same pragmatic measures they used during famines in Ireland and Bengal.

The Death of Grass by John Christopher

Six works new to me. Three are SF, two fantasy and Fiyah is a mix. At least two of the novels are series. Interesting that SF is such a large fraction. Is SF making a comeback?

Books Received, May 2 — May 8

Shin Haewon's family falls far short of haughty aristocrat Yu Seojun's very reasonable standards, as he is gracious enough to explain to Haewon. How cruel that fate compels extended proximity between Haewon and Seojun.

Behind Five Willows by June Hur

Humans discover ancient and extremely enigmatic alien relics around the Solar System. On inventing plot-enabling As Fast As Light starships (PEAFAL), humans determine pretty much any system old enough has relics from the Whoever They Were (WTW). The WTW showeed up in the early Proterozoic, did their thing for 300 million years--although not on Earth, as far as anyoe can tell--and then vanished seemingly overnight for reasons that at as yet unclear.

They seem to have been interested in smaller terrestrial worlds, many of which now have life forms whose last common ancestor was six billion years ago. So probably they were xenoforming worlds? But apparently only barren worlds, for some reason. Also, if they used the PEAFAL drive, there's absolutely no evidence of it.

Age is one reason why the WTW are very enigmatic. 2.5 billion years of radiation and micrometeorites has turned all their artificial stuff into scrap. Sometimes, into subtle chemical traces in regolith. Nobody has ever reverse-engineered WTW relics into something novel to us. In fact, nobody is sure what the WTW even looked like (there are a couple of candidate remains of things that might have had big brain analogues). So, they make a nice Rorschach test for scientists to project their issues onto.

Added later:

Opinions on the WTW vary from "they were nigh-gods" to "they weren't actually intelligent at all" to "they are a Satanic plot."

PEAFAL ships interact with the interstellar medium (ISM) in ways that piss off astronomers specializing in the ISM. PEAFAL wakes could be detected at galactic distance but no non-human wakes are visible. The deal with the ISM means the longer the journey, the more likely it terminates in an energetic event somewhere in deep space. Effectively, this means there's a 1% chance per light year traversed of an unplanned terminal energetic event, which can be reduced somewhat by sending ships in pairs: one (presumably automated) trail blazer and one survivor. This is just annoying for robot probes but is an inhibiting factor for crewed starship recruitment.

PEAFAL ships are sufficiently expensive nobody builds huge ones. As well, nobody knows how to make closed cycle life support systems (LSS): the longest anyone has gone before an isolated ISS fell over and died is 20 years. Efforts to establish colonies on other planets have been very educational.

A mother's determination allows her son to finally meet his long-lost father.

Tripoint (Company Wars, volume 6) by C J Cherryh

This all-new Critical Kit Solos Bundle presents Be Like a Cat, Be Like a Crow, and other one- and two-player tabletop roleplaying games from designer Tim Roberts at UK games publisher Critical Kit Ltd.

Bundle of Holding: Critical Kit Solos