SPARE, p. 257

Self’s eyes have been glued to the page ever since Harry started spilling about his time in the British Army, his learning to fly Apaches in Helmand Province, and his killing TERRORISTS! Harry’s ghostwriter has managed a marvelous piece of alchemy — he’s turned the rowdy boy into a touchy-feely type. Every time the anniversary of his mum’s death comes around, Harry gets panic attacks. Harry may not be the intellectual heavyweight his Pa is, but he has something even better: his mum’s ability to wring tears from your eyes.

Here’s a description of a poached rhino in Kruger National Park:

There, I said.

Vultures.

We quickly descended.

Clouds of vultures took flight as we touched the ground.

We jumped out, saw frantic footprints in the dust, shell casings glinting in the sun. Blood everywhere. We followed the trail into the bush and found a huge white rhino. a gaping hole where her horn had been hacked. There were wounds all along her back. Fifteen craters, by my count.

Her six-month-old baby lay beside her, dead.

We pieced together what had happened. Poachers had shot the mother; she and her baby had run. The poachers chased them to this spot. The mother was still able to defend or shield her baby, so the poachers hacked her spine with axes, immobilizing her. While she was still alive, bleeding out, they’d taken her horn.

— Spare, p. 257

If tears aren’t spouting from your eyes at the MURDER of the mother rhino and her baby, you have no heart.

Stay tuned.

Haever’s Colvari Is Acting Pretty Shifty

A Colvari is a kind of bug-for-hire that can go through masses of data (gobbledy-gook) and snag the threads that are potentially useful to an employer. Haever, who’s a private investigator (he works for the equivalent of the CIA, in this future universe), doesn’t have much time to go through reams of data. Hence, the need for a Colvari. Oh, and Colvari are plural, because there is not one giant bug — a Colvari is masses of bugs, all writhing together in one ugly mass, constantly shifting, with a ‘translator’ box for a voice.

Haever has a secret meeting with his former boss who may (or may not) be selling him down the river, and when he gets back to his quarters, he senses immediately that something’s different about his Colvari.

“You’re a lot more businesslike than you used to be,” he commented quietly.

“We have undergone a partial reinstantiation,” Colvari confirmed.

“Do I get the old ‘you’ back? I kind of liked the way you were starting to talk.”

There was an odd pause, as though he’d said something in bad taste, but he couldn’t read anything in the way the Hiver stood. In the end they told him, “That won’t be possible, Agent Mundy. That version of ourself has been overwritten. These things are unavoidable. It is how they made us.”

— eyes of the void, p. 352

You will notice, dear blog readers, that self has been reading Eyes of the Void at a scorching pace, much more scorching than the pace she set while reading Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs. And that is because, in Eyes of the Void, self can’t believe she is halfway through the series, and Solace and Idris have yet to kiss.

How superficial of you, self! This is Adrian Tchaikovsky, not Georgette Heyer! Nevertheless.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

Landing on a Planet (Populated by Bugs)

The bugs in question are the Hanni, same creatures as the Vulture God’s crew member Kittering. The planet is a “dry world” named Ittring.

There are no landing pads. The control tower has a gravitic engine. You maneuver your spacecraft close enough to let “the invisible hands of docking control” latch onto the ship.

Then Solace, Kit and Kris walked gingerly down the ramp with nothing but a three-hundred metre drop through empty air beneath them.

— Eyes of the void, p.300

Further, because the writer is Adrian Tchaikovsky, and he is incapable of creating a universe without also describing each and every inhabitant’s life cycle, here’s the life cycle of the bugs (Hanni):

All Hanni were male, until they finally went home and settled down. Which consisted entirely of fertilizing the eggs of a female. They then became female themselves and laid their own eggs. After which they died.

— eyes of the void, p. 303

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Much excitement to come.

Sentence of the Day: Solace

She felt a spike of affection for him, angsty little spacer that he was.

— Eyes of the void, p. 180

IS Idris Telemmier an angsty little spacer? Yes, yes he is.

There isn’t as much action in Book 2 of The Final Architecture, but self still loves the universe and the characters Adrian Tchaikovsky has created.

Stay tuned.

Kris Almier, Idris’s Dueling Lawyer

Love her. Maybe second only to Myrmidon Solace.

Wait, what about Olli Timmo, feisty captain of the Vulture God? Self loves her, too!

Whatever. This series has some really kick-ass women characters. Adrian Tchaikovsky better not off any of them in Book 3.

Ishmael Commercial Courts: Lawyers’ Duel between Kris and Mortin, an ignorant lout

Mortin took the initiative then, very direct, much like his advocacy style. She gave ground, hyper-aware of the space she had to work with. She was grinning, she realized. Also bad form but she couldn’t help it. She hated dueling, right up until the moment she actually found herself doing it.

— Eyes of the void, p. 58

Summer 2022: Reads

So far this summer, self has read 13 books.

Six of those were Dr. Ruth Galloway mysteries (Thank you, Elly Griffiths!)

Two were Gone novels.

One was Becky Chambers’s latest, a continuation of her Wayfarers series.

One was biography (self’s current read, Steve Jobs)

She read Where the Crawdads Sing because of the movie (which she still hasn’t seen)

Fan of . . . Space Opera, Fantasy, and Dr. Ruth Galloway Mysteries

For this challenge — The Fan of . . . Challenge hosted by Jez Braithwaite — self didn’t want to just say Books. Sure, she spends most of her time reading, but she wanted to specify that she gravitates towards certain types of books, depending on her mood.

This year, she’s definitely into space opera (Shards of Earth), fantasy (The Mermaid and the Bear), and Elly Griffiths’ Dr. Ruth Galloway mystery series.

Sentence of the Day (Also: Spoiler Alert!)

You’re barreling along on p. 380 of an Adrian Tchaikovsky novel and you’re feeling it, really feeling it, swept along by the dense prose and the unspace and the intense flashbacks to what happened on Berenhof, when . . .

OLLI: “Son of a bitch, I knew it!”

And Solace sends the message.

NOOOO! Airlock her now, Olli!

Self can’t even.

Stay tuned.

Havaer, the Government Man

Self is so glad that she has Shards of Earth to keep her mind off the unspeakable tragedy that is Renegade SCOTUS. Anyhoo, it’s doing double-time duty this weekend, and self has just been barreling along.

She’s now in a Havaer section, and it is pretty much generic hard-boiled detective stuff. Though Havaer is far from her favorite character, the dialogue has a certain Raymond Chandler vibe. Havaer has been interviewing a witness, a lawyer named Thrennikos who’s been contacted by Idris sidekick Kit (a beautiful lawyer; self hates Kit for having had such wonderful adventures with Idris while poor Solace, Idris’s close friend, was stuck on an all-woman ship and put into cryogenic sleep for, off and on, 40 years).

Thrennikos: Officer, these are my new clients, representing the Broken Harvest Society. They share your interest in my earlier visitors. And in anyone asking questions about them.

Havaer: And the currency your new clients are paying you is . . . ?

Thrennikos: Not skinning me and wearing me like a cloak, yes.

Threnniko’s New Client: Government man, my name is Heremon, herald of The Unspeakable Aklu, the Razor and the Hook.

BWAH HA HAAAAA!

What follows is a torture scene. Dammit, Adrian Tchaikovsky, why do you have to make even the torture scenes so full of balletic blood splatter and beautifully articulated flayed organs?

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

Mesmon the Tothiat

Self has a favorite character. She won’t reveal who it is just yet, but now self is vested. She’ll only read Book 2 of The Final Architecture if her favorite survives Book 1.

Fight Scene, Deep Space, p, 208:

• She got a hand on his helmet and wrenched at it, yanking his head to one side. He stuck a boot to the wall behind her and used that purchase where her neck met her shoulder. Stupid infantile move, except she felt it, and her armour’s stress warnings redoubled. She felt the first worm of worry creep in through the cracks. She could see he’d hit her so hard he’d broken his own wrist, the hand bent at a crippled angle. Even as she registered his injury, the joint snapped back into place, the damage repairing itself before her eyes. Through the rents in his mangled gloves she saw skin seal and bones realign even as he came in to hit her again.

So Mesmon can never be killed? No matter how many holes you put in him, he’ll be back? Uh-oh.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.