Tag: 2022 Retrospective Page 1 of 4

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

The tunnel is about 20 feet long. Or 7 meters. Man, being an American scientist sucks sometimes. You think in random, unpredictable units based on what situation you’re in.

…I don’t want to be in some other part of the ship if something interesting happens.

Just as I’m thinking that, something interesting happens.

Knock-knock-knock.

No, that’s not creepy at all. Being in a spaceship twelve light-years from home and having someone knock on the door is totally normal.

It’s a simple idea, but also stupid. Thing is, when stupid ideas work, they become genius ideas. We’ll see which way this one falls.

I cross my arms and slump into my pilot’s seat. There’s no gravity to properly slump with, so I have to make a conscious effort to push myself into the seat. I’m pouting, darn it, and I intend to do it right.

Chasing Embers by James Bennett

“I have seen your world, little beast. I have drunk of its terror and hope. Humans fear the darkness that gave them birth and harness the light to outshine the stars. They build machines that cough with smoke and poison the very air. They suck up the blood of the earth and pour filth into the seas. They speak boldly of freedom and peace and think they can buy them with war. Money is their temple and greed their god. They stand in defiance of all that is real, turning magic into myth, myth into Remnants, choosing to live in a cold dead dream.”

The Debt Collector by Steven Max Russo

“You’re a good egg too, Gabby,” he said, smiling awkwardly. They each picked up their beers and clinked glasses. Just a little scrambled, he thought.

Nugget’s Tenth Life by Adam Holcombe

Brother yowled and turned to race down the buidling, but Nugget was made of sterner stuff (that stuff being the brilliant stupidity of youthfulness).

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

They say hunting monsters will turn you into one. That isn’t what’s happening now. Sometimes to kill a dragon, you have to remember that you breathe fire too. This isn’t a becoming: it’s a revealing. Ive been a monster all along.

“May your life be long and easy.”

It’s a common blessing out here, but I’ve never dissected it before, Why are we, who are so unhappy, fixated on long lives? What is the point? An easy life isn’t a blessing. Easy doesn’t mean happy. Ale doesn’t mean anything at all. Sometimes the path to an easy life makes you miserable. The only person I’ve ever heard value happiness is the former empress. She named her second son happy, hoping it would be true. She knew the cost of an easy life, and the uselessness of a long one. She had both. She wished neither for her child, only that he a some point be happy. Was he? Was anyone?

She smiles, less like she thinks I’m funny and more like she wanted prove she knows how.

…that’s what a sister is: a piece of yourself you can finally love, because it’s in someone else.

I’d love to stay. Forcing Dell into small talk is fun because she so bad at it with me. It’s like she’s being asked to communicate with a child or snake—something that is either boring or dangerous, with no in-between.

It burns, but that’s too simple a term. It burns like opening your eyes in the light burns, like being born probably burns. It doesn’t feel like my body is responding to a foreign substance, but like the substance is awakening cells usually dormant.

Death can be senseless, but life never is.

I told Esther before that nothing was inevitable, but that was before I felt so helpless to change absolutely anything at all.

An Inheritance of Magic by Benedict Jacka

I’ve always liked London at night. The noise and bustle of the day fades away, and in the quiet you can feel the presence of the city. It has its own nature, kind of like its own essentia—old, layered, and complex, man-made construction on top of millennia- old earth. Generation after generation of people, with the plants and animals of old Britain living with them side by side. It’s neat and chaotic and ancient and sprawling, and it’s my home.

It wouldn’t be the first time I’d broken the rules, but I’ve always had an instinctive feeling that there’s a difference between breaking the rules and doing something wrong.

How to Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley

Daphne raised her hand. Nobody noticed. Daphne stood up, her hand still raised. They still ignored her. Daphne did not like being ignored, in the early days of her career, she’d been overlooked on account of her sex, talked over and patronized by a series of self-important, untalented little misogynists. So much had improved in the intervening years, and she was glad to see that a couple of the Councilors at the meeting were female. But now, she was being ignored because of her age, she appeared to have jumped out of the frying pan of sexism and into the fire of ageism–the final frontier of -isms.

(Image by DaModernDaVinci from Pixabay)

I was certain that I’d get this posted in the first week of the month, and here we are on the last day of the month. Organization has not been my friend in September.

Mortal Coil by Derek Landy

“They say sarcasm is the lowest form of wit,” Valkyrie said.

China glanced at her. “They’ve obviously never met me.”

“Stairs,” Valkyrie said, disappointed.

“Not just ordinary stairs,” Skulduggery told her as he led the way down. “Magic stairs.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes.”

She followed him into the darkness. “How are they magic?”

“They just are.”

“In what way?”

“In a magicky way.”

She glared at the back of his head. “They aren’t magic at all, are they?”

“Not really.”

“So he has no head.”

“Thats usually what headless means.”

“No head at all?”

“You’re really not getting the whole headless thing are you?”

“What about you?” he asked, his words not much more than a mumble. “Regrets?”

“Many,” Skulduggery said.

Tesseract’s breath rattled in his chest. “That’s the good thing about living. You get to make up for past mistakes.”

“Or make brand-new ones.”

“Zombies were an accident–much like champagne and penicillin, but much less welcome.”

“What a burden it must have been. You’re very brave for facing it alone.”

“Thank you,” she mumbled.

“Amazingly, astonishingly stupid, but brave.”

She cracked a smile. “Yeah.”

“Very foolish, is what I’m getting at.”

“I can see that.”

“This, basically. Just thick. Dumb as a bag of hammers. Not too bright there, Valkyrie.”

“You can really stop complimenting me now.”

“It might be a trap,” she said, speaking softly.

“Unlikely,” he whispered, traps are usually enticing.

“It might be a very rubbish trap.”

“Always a possibility.”

“I am neither a grinch nor a grouch. I like Christmas as much as the next person. So long as the next person is as unsentimental as I am.”

“I don’t want to threaten you in your own home,” Skulduggery said, “so if you’d like to step outside, I can threaten you there.”

Blood Reunion by JCM Berne

“I’m—I have no idea how to respond to that. I’m sure I’ll think of something in the shower, three days from now.”

“I will wait for that eagerly.”

Ben reached over and patted the younger man’s knee. “You’re usually the one putting your life at risk for the sake of others, aren’t you? Not used to the turnaround.”

“It’s not the same, though. I don’t usually face certain-death to help other people. At most, it’s certain-pain. Maybe even certain-discomfort.”

“A certainly-torn-shirt.”

“Can you explain to me why it’s so difficult?”

“I doubt it.”

“Can you try? Use words you might use to explain to a monkey? A well-intentioned but slightly brain-damaged monkey that is hanging around your lab, asking annoying questions?”

“So… space penicillin?”

“You do realize that just putting the word ‘space’ in front of another word doesn’t magically create a new, fancier version of the thing you’re thinking of, don’t you?”

“I don’t know. I thought it did. Space ship. Space prostitute.”

“Wei Li, you sound more skeptical than usual. And your skepticism is usually sharp enough to cut through atoms or the fabric of spacetime.”

Fool Moon by Jim Butcher

I was sitting there, sipping ale and thinking dark thoughts when the door opened again. I didn’t look up, occupied as I was with brooding, a famous pasttime of wizards everywhere.

Okay, Harry, I told myself. Keep calm. Do not panic. All you have to do is to hold them here until the cops get here, and then you can bleed to death in peace. Or get to a doctor. Whichever hurts less.

There’s more magic in a baby’s first giggle than in any firestorm a wizard can conjure up, and don’t let anyone tell you any different.

Alone. It’s one of those small words that means entirely too much. Like fear. Or trust.

Bard Tidings by Paul Regnie

Stumpy Jake manned the bar, eternally filling and cleaning glasses of ale and mead. Contrary to rumors, Jake did not have a wooden leg. But for some reason he enjoyed the nickname and did nothing to dispel the myth. In fact, he attached a wooden block to his heel so he’d make a clomping sound when he walked across the floor. He thought it added character to his establishment.

Panacea by Alex Robins

War is not a game. It is a penance. A price to pay for failure. The last possible solution when there are no other options. Do not wish for it. Do not strive for it. Victory is ephemeral. Death is eternal.”

Most people believed that war was the worst of humanity’s sins, for it could never create, only destroy. But Elena knew that wasn’t quite true. War excelled in creating many things: poverty and famine. Sickness and disease. Orphans and widows.

“…as luck would have it, hair-brained plans are my forte.”

Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch

Murder investigations start with the victim because usually in the first instance that’s all you’ve got. The study of the victim 1s called victimology because everything sounds better with an ology tacked on the end. To make sure that you make a proper fist of this, the police have developed the world’s most useless mnemonic: 5 x WH & H. Otherwise known as Who? What? Where? When? Why? & How? Next time you watch a real murder investigation on the TV and you see a group of serious-looking detectives standing around talking, remember that what they’re actually dome is trying to work out what sodding order the mnemonic is supposed to go in. Once they’ve sorted that out, the exhausted officers will retire to the nearest watering hole for a drink and a bit of a breather.

Every male in the world thinks he’s an excellent driver. Every copper who’s ever had to pick an eyeball out of a puddle knows that most of them are kidding themselves.

Just about every council estate I know has a set of communal rooms. There’s something about stacking people up in egg boxes that makes architects and town planners believe that having a set of communal rooms will compensate for not having a garden or, in some designs, enough room to swing a cat. Perhaps they fondly imagine that the denizens of the estate will spontaneously gather for colorful proletarian festivals and cat-swinging contests.

For a terrifying moment I thought he was going to hug me, but fortunately we both remembered we were English just time. Still, it was a close call.

Ways and Truths and Lives by Matt Edwards

“That’s an interesting way to look at it, I guess.”

“Well, that’s the secret, James.”

“What?”

“Looking at things,” Cynthia said with her eyes momentarily fixed on James. “Looking at things differently. Looking at things under a different light Looking at things from the light.” Her eyes bounced around the room at various objects.

“But what’s it the secret to?”

Cynthia paused to take a sip of coffee before answering. “Everything.”

Zero Stars Do Not Recommend by M.J. Wassmer

He had a softness about him, like a favorite armchair come to life.

His eyes protruded from their sockets like someone was squeezing the sides of his head, and goodness, his breath was less than fresh. That was one thing they didn’t touh on in post-apocalyptic movies. Human beings turn rank in a matter of days. We don’t keep well.

They sound like wasps. That was the best way Dan could think of to describe the bullets, like wasps shooting past his ear. Pissed off wasps. Wasps on a mission to finish some wasp-related business.

Mara gasped again. She was a great gasper. If Fitzgerald wrote a book about her, it’d be titled, The Great Gaspy, because there was something very haunting about a Mara gasp, something bone-chilling.

Never underestimate the fragility of a man’s ego, especially one wearing camouflage pants.

The car ride immediately following an argument is always awkward. And it turns out that’s especially true if the argument is concluded by someone being pummeled over the head with a snow globe.

(Image by DaModernDaVinci from Pixabay)

I’m a little late with this, but I’m away from my keyboard for a few days this week, and needed something to fill the space, you know?

Dark Age by Pierce Brown

But the measure of a man is not the fear he sows in his enemies. It is the hope he gives his friends.

I knew war was dreadful, but I did not expect to fear it. How can anyone not, when death is just a blind giant with scissors?

Pure of Heart by Danielle Parker

“What would Sherlock do?” She rolled her eyes at her thought, and opened the door wide enough to slip inside. “Probably not go into a dark house looking for a werewolf.”

Chaos Choreography by Seanan McGuire

Our family tree was more of a bush. But it was a really stubborn bush, like a blackberry bramble. We stuck together, even when we didn’t like each other very much, and we refused to be uprooted.

Every time I started to feel like I had a handle on something, however insignificant, it got pulled right out from underneath me. There was probably a moral in that somewhere. If I ever found out what it was, I was going to knock its teeth right down its metaphorical throat.

Not Prepared by Author

You’ve gone from this awkward guy who had no idea what he was doing to… a slightly less awkward guy who still doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he’s doing a good job anyway.

Eternity Fund by Liz Monument

‘How come you know everything about everybody?’ I hissed.

Rosie shrugged. ‘My memory is enhanced so I never forget a face or a voice. Plus, I’m programmed not to reveal anything inappropriate. I guess that makes me a safe confidante.’

‘Programmed? You mean… you’re not real?’

‘Oh, Miss Green,’ Rosie smiled indulgently, ‘you are funny. Half the people here think you aren’t real.’

The desire for the truth runs through humanity like a thrombosed vein.

Eye of the Sh*t Storm by Jackson Ford

He’s not actually very good at being muscle. I’ve watched him try and fight people, and it’s like watching a drunk try to dance the macarena. But he does an excellent job of looking scary. He’s doing it now as he stands behind Annie’s chair, scowling the scowliest scowl that anyone has ever scowled.

Before long, the guards and the two meth cooks are bound and gagged, thanks to a roll of duct tape Africa pulled from his jacket. Of course he has duct tape. If I suddenly needed, I don’t know, a printout of the Declaration of Independence, I’m pretty sure I’d find one in Africa’s inside pocket, along with coins in ten currencies and a signed copy of Prince’s last album.

I would like it noted for the record that I, too, start running. The problem is, my legs are very short, and my addiction to salted caramel ice cream makes it hard for me to compete in a foot race.

This is the problem with lies. You can’t just tell them and be done. You have to keep them alive, keep feeding them, so they don’t feed on you. And the problem with that is the myriad smaller lies that spring up to keep the big one alive.

I didn’t exactly expect plush couches and complimentary fruit bowls, but I also didn’t expect Robert and his friends to hang out in a movie cliché. You know the ones I’m talking about, where the bad guys always have their lair in a warehouse filled with hanging chains and flickering lights and grimy, unwashed corridors? Well, the Legends clearly saw those movies and thought, Hey, we should get some of that action!

Barking for Business by E.N. Crane

I had an aversion to iced tea as it was not coffee. It did, however, have caffeine which was sometimes worth sucking up the leaf water. It was no bean water, but it was theoretically better than nothing.

The Bullet that Missed by Richard Osman

The second date was, if anything, even better than the first. They have been to Brighton to watch a Polish film. Donna hadn’t realized there were Polish films, though obviously there must be. In a country that size, someone is going to make a film once in a while.

Joyce finally cracks. “So where are we off to, then?”

“To meet an old friend of mine,” says Elizabeth. “Viktor.”

“We used to have a milkman called Victor,” says Joyce. “Any chance it’s the same Victor?”

“Very possible. Was your milkman also the head of the Leningrad KGB in the eighties?”

“Different Victor,” says Joyce, “Though they finish milk-round, very early, don’t they? So perhaps he was doing two jobs?”

“It’s the people, in the end, isn’t it?…It’s always the people, You can move halfway around the world to find your perfect life, move to Australia if you like, but it always comes down to the people you meet.”

(Image by DaModernDaVinci from Pixabay)

Real Tigers by Mick Herron

“And I thought he was one of your cleverer boys.”

“Mind like a razor,” Lamb agreed. “Disposable.”

“Have you got a gun?”

“No.”

“What if they have?”

“Your concern is touching. I’ll be all right.”

“But what if …?”

Lamb leaned through Ho’s open window. “What if they come after you? With guns?”

“…Yes.”

“You’ll be fine. Getting shot’s like falling off a log. It doesn’t take practice.”

A Necromancer Called Gam Gam by Adam Holcombe

“Inexperience does not always mean ineptitude.”

…for the first time in days, she felt the cold chill of dread and depression leave her as she returned the hug. She wept with Gam Gam, but this was different somehow. Not the screaming pain she had felt, but something warmer. Tears she didn’t mind shedding.

The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith

He experienced one of those moments of simultaneous confusion and clarity that belong to the drunk and the desperate.

The idea of suggesting that Strike stop lying to the women in his life occurred only to be dismissed, on the basis that the resolutions to stop smoking, lose weight and exercise were enough personal improvement to be getting on with.

He was starting to feel like a truffle pig trying to do its job in a room full of incense, dead fish and strong cheese.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

What is the point of bad dates if not to have amusing anecdotes for your friends?

The Fall of the House of Ussher is a decent primer on what not to do with children.

“Infinite Jest is a masterpiece,” Harvey had said.

“Infinite Jest is an endurance contest. You manage to get through it and you have no choice but to say you like it. Otherwise, you have to deal with the fact that you just wasted weeks of your life,” A.J. had countered. “Style, no substance, my friend.”

People tell boring lies about politics, God, and love. You know everything you need to know about a person from the answer to the question, What is your favorite book?

The words you can’t find, you borrow.

We read to know we’re not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone.

If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? by Alan Alda

Ignorance was my ally as long as it was backed up by curiosity. Ignorance without curiosity is not so good, but with curiosity it was the clear water through which I could see the coins at the bottom of the fountain.

Aristotle is often quoted as saying that a story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. That’s true, but I don’t think that’s the whole story. After all, a dead cat has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Bad Influence by Alison Gaylin

…I’ve used the Internet only for work and for the purchasing of shoes—an approach I believed could lead to world peace if more people shared it.

Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide by Rupert Holmes

“If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like a duck, but has an alibi, it’s not a duck.”

“No accomplices. Ever. Show me two individuals who commit a murder, and I’ll show you one individual who’ll make a deal with the District Attorney to implicate the other. In fact, I’ll show you two individuals willing to do that.”

The Worst Man by Jon Rance

It’s easier to keep doing the same thing over and over, even though I know it isn’t good for me, than to try something new. I’ve never been good at thinking outside of the box. When it comes to drinking and love, I’m firmly in the box, where I stubbornly remain unhappy and unfulfilled.

‘Sounds perfect. Nothing better than a proper old-fashioned pub.’

‘You haven’t seen it yet,’ I say, as we reach the pub and stand outside. ‘Here it is, The Crown.’

‘Looks nice enough.’

‘And it is. Literally just nice enough not to be closed for serious health violations.’

… I was at home marking some awful essays and I needed some fresh air. Can you believe that one of my pupils wrote that World War One was a minor conflict in the early part of the nineteenth century?’

‘Really? That’s terrible. I blame the teachers.’

‘Me too,’

I arrive home from work on the Friday before my birthday weekend to a surprise abduction. I suppose all abductions are essentially a surprise. You don’t tend to sit down with your abductors prior to your abduction and plan everything out. Surprise is indeed a crucial element when abducting someone, and I’m certainly surprised by mine.

Random Sh*t Flying Through the Air by Jackson Ford

What can I say—police chases and murder plots and stand- offs with black ops teams have a way of bringing coworkers together.

OK, private jets are awesome. This plane is bigger than my apartment. And it’s way more comfortable: buttery leather seats, muted silver accents, tables that I’m pretty sure are real wood. Also a full bar, with some seriously good whiskey stacked behind it. Forget being a chef. Hell, forget being a government agent. I should try find work as a German tech billionaire.

It’s hard going. And not just beauce of the terrain. I can’t stop thinking about [spoiler]. Replaying what happened over and over and over. Trying to find an angle, a way to make it come out different. But it’s like the ending of Game of Thrones. You can wish as much as you want, but it will still suck, and it will suck for all eternity.

Killing Me by Michelle Gagnon

“But first, Marcie and I are taking you out to see the real Vegas. Locals only stuff.”

“Wow, that’s tempting,” I said, even though in my experience, “locals only” usually involved some sort of harm to animals, followed by throwing up in a Dairy Queen parking lot.

Worse traveling companions than Grace must exist. I could’ve been stuck with a gassy dog, teething baby, or car full of mimes. But two hours into the drive I probably would’ve welcomed all three.

Cutthroat Cupcakes by Cate Lawley

My gut didn’t like this guy. It also wasn’t doing somersaults and pointing at him as the murderer— but an intuitive organ can only do so much, and that likely exceeded reasonable expectations of it.

That feeling you get when you’ve been on a transatlantic flight, when your seat neighbor coughed the entire flight and the flight attendant spilled a drink on you because some idiot tried to pass her in the aisle at the exact moment she was handing you your drink? As if your skin is covered in a layer of filth and germs and a stickiness that cannot be wiped away? That’s how I felt after one lingering look from Hector.

(Image by DaModernDaVinci from Pixabay)

I was shocked as I put this together that I only had one selection from The Winter of Frankie Machine, but all the other bits only work in context (and you might argue the same of this one). At the same time, I assure you I exercised restraint with both Russo and Harrow (and, yes, I typed that Russow and Harro initially).

The Winter of Frankie Machine by Don Winslow

He finds the boat, the Becky Lynn. The name tells the story—two guys finally get their wives’ permission to buy a boat together and name it after both wives so they don’t get jealous. Not of each other, of the boat.

Which never works, Frank thinks.

Women and boats mix like…

Women and boats.

Straight Man by Richard Russo

I couldn’t understand her failure to grasp what was happening. It was my opinion, then and now, that two people who love each other need not necessarily have the same dreams and aspirations, but they damn well ought to share the same nightmares.

One of the nice things about our marriage, at least to my way of thinking, is that my wife and I no longer have to argue everything through. We each know what the other will say, and so the saying becomes an unnecessary formality. No doubt some marriage counselor would explain to us that our problem is a failure to communicate. But to my way of thinking, we’ve worked long and hard to achieve this silence, Lily’s and mine, so fraught with understanding.

The student newspaper contains a lot more humor, though most of it is unintentional. Except for the front page (news) and the back page(sports), the campus rag contains little but Letters to the Editor, which I scan first for allusions to myself and next for unusual content. Which in the current climate is any subject other than the Unholy Trinity of insensitivity, sexism, and bigotry, which the self-righteous (though not always literate) letter writers want their readers to know they’re against. As a group they seem to believe that high moral indignation offsets, and indeed outweighs, all deficiencies of punctuation, spelling, grammar, logic, and style. In support of this notion, there’s only the entire culture.

There’s no bad side of the tracks in Railton, also no good side. The rule is, the closer you get to the tracks, the worse.

You may not believe me, but I’ve always liked you, Hank. You’re like a character in a good book–almost real, you know?

The world is divided between kids who grew up wanting be their parents and those like us, who grow up wanting anything but. Neither group ever succeeds.

Perhaps no man should possess the key to his wife’s affections, what makes and keeps him worthy in her eyes. That would be like gaining unauthorized access to God’s grace, we would not use such knowledge wisely.

The Rhythm of Time by Questlove with S.A. Cosby

Kasia spun around on her work stool to face him. There was tape on the bridge of her glasses, but they weren’t broken. Kasia called it an affectation.

Sunbolt by Intisar Khanani

“Justice served with a side of pineapple. That’s what I’m here for.”

“Do you ever worry about anything?” I ask him, dropping into a chair. I eye the table sadly. It has been cleared and no further refreshments have been set out.

“My next bottle of wine,” Kenta says with mock seriousness. “When I’ll meet my heart’s companion.”

I snort. “Aren’t they the same thing?”

I slam against the wall, collapsing in a heap on the floor. Now would be a good time to black out, I think groggily. But I don’t.

The Manifestor Prophecy by Angie Thomas

Dad hates books about magic. He calls them “fabricated tales written for profit.” Technically, all fiction books are fabricated tales written for profit, but I let the dude have his moments.

This Bird Has Flown by Susanna Hoffs

So what if the lyrics were a bit on the nose. Isn’t that the great thing about songs? They give voice to thoughts, and feelings, and urges one might hesitate to reveal some other way.

“Have you ever noticed that there are way more sad love songs than happy love songs?” I said after a silence.
“No,” she signed, ” but I’ve done a tally. I suspect you’re right though.”
Which might explain why I haven’t come up with anything great yet song-wise. But I am trying. I’m beginning to think happiness as an emotion is an anathema to song writing.

Did I just use “anathema” correctly? It’s one of those words that can suddenly feel wrong. Like “pulchritude.”

“Music is a conspiracy. It’s a conspiracy to commit beauty.” — Jose Antonio Abreu

To calm myself, I imagined my future creative life in Oxford with Tom, my very own Rochester. Except not rich. Or arrogant. Or twice my age.

“Life is but a dream. Except it’s a lucid dream and you’ve got the oars… Okay, so maybe you’re in some tiny, wooden rowboat in the middle of a great, big ocean. But you can still steer the thing. You can go anywhere, do anything.”

The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

“Oh.” Juniper feels the hot flare in the line between them, fierce and defiant. Is that what mother’s love is like?a thing with teeth?

“What, like fate?” It’s the first thing Agnes has said since they stepped outside, and both her sisters flinch from the venom of it. “Like destiny?” Fate is a story people tell themselves so they can believe everything happens for a reason, that the whole awful world is fitted together like some perfect machine, with blood for oil and bones for brass. That every child locked in her cellar or girl chained to her loom is in her right and proper place.

She doesn’t much care for fate.

An officer arrives twice a day to hang a pail of something whitish and congealed inside her cell. Grits, Juniper thinks, or the aggrieved ghost a grit might leave behind if it was murdered in cold blood.

It hurts even to think it. They came back for me. She feels something snap in her chest, as if her heart is a broken bone poorly set, which has to break again before it can heal right.

The problem with saving someone, Bella thinks, is that they so often refuse to remain saved. They careen back out into the perilous world, inviting every danger and calamity, quite careless of the labor it took to rescue them in the first place.

That evening Miss Lee feeds them a cabbage-and-ham stew which Juniper doubts has done more than meet a ham once in passing.

She thinks how very tiresome it is to love and be loved. She can even risk her life properly, because it no longer belongs solely to her.

Questland by Carrie Vaughn

She chuckled nervously. “Yeah, I suppose we all like to think we’ll be Captain America, but most of us are just on the street trying to dodge falling buildings.”

“Why not be Captain America?” I said, too tired to be angry but too annoyed to keep my mouth shut. “He was just a guy on the street, at the start.”

Iron Gold by Pierce Brown

A new wound can take a body. Opening an old one can claim a soul.

“It is my duty as a free man to read so I’m not blind being lead around by my nose.”

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, or a hell of heaven.

I feel like a kid who wished for a lizard and woke up to a dragon sitting on the lawn.

“I know it may be impossible to believe now, when everything is dark and broken, but you will survive this pain, little one. Pain is a memory. You will live and you will struggle and you will find joy. And you will remember your family from this breath to your dying days, because love does not fade. Love is the stars, and its light carries on long after death.”

(Image by DaModernDaVinci from Pixabay)

One thing I’ve learned lately is that if I don’t get this done right away at the beginning of the month, it slips away from me. Good to know, I guess, eh? On with these lines from my February reads…

The Hero Interviews by Andi Ewington

It’s worth noting that ‘success’ in the adventuring business is usually measured by whether you’re still breathing after completing an adventure. Those who aren’t successful typically wind up dead.

“My father taught me that you always get out of life what you put into it. If you’re only paying a Dwarf in crumbs, then you’re only going to end up with a pissed- off Dwarf who is still hungry.”

Balstaff: … I just hoped someone would come to my rescue before I froze to death— or worse.”

Me: “What’s worse than freezing to death?”

Balstaff: “Being eaten alive by hungry Snow Wolves.”

Danger is just death’s distant cousin once removed— many an adventurer has fallen foul of it.”

Bad Memory by Jim Cliff

“Discretion is my middle name,” I said. “It’s a shame it doesn’t fit on my business cards.”

The dealer button moved around to me and I picked up the cards and gave them a shuffle. The six of us fitted around Scott’s kitchen table so long as everyone breathed in and nobody minded the odd elbow in the ribs.

Her glasses were designer – I could tell because the designer’s name was discreetly embossed on the frame. Her suit didn’t have any names on it, but I figured clothes designers were just more humble

“You’re lucky you caught me in a good mood. I just got a hole in one on the 17th. What is it?”

I resisted the urge to say ‘it’s when the ball goes in the hole on the first hit, but that’s not important right now’ and asked my question.

The Silk Empress by Josepf Matulich

“So, that’s what air pirates really look like.” They resembled none of the flamboyant descriptions of the penny dreadfuls he’d grown up on. He’d expected striped pants, velvet coats, and satin sashes. This group looked the type to rob pig herds on the way to Newcastle.

His mother would have approved of his lack of possessions, a sign of spiritual freedom. He tried to feel in his heart the way she did, but he would have still have preferred to have had a few more books.

He hurt. His right leg felt to be filled with blades and broken glass. One of his arms ached to the bones from shoulder to fingertips; he couldn’t feel or move the other. A slow catalogue of all his injuries actually made him chuckle. I should be happy to hurt so much, he thought. You don’t feel anything when you’re dead.

With the long guns they carried, seven of them could shoot Algie as he engaged the eighth. He had been shot once already this year, and he’d like to keep it that way at least until Christmas.

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

Alan Conway’s home was a couple of Framlingham and it would’ve been almost impossible to find without Sat-Nav. I’ve lived my whole life in a city roads actually go somewhere, because frankly they can’t afford not to.

You’d have thought that after twenty years editing Murder Mysteries I’d have noticed when I found myself in the middle of one.

It had all come to me at Paddington Station. The extraordinary moment that all of them must have felt–Poirot, Holmes, Whimsey, Marple, Morse–but which their authors had never fully explained. What was it like for them? A slow process, like constructing a jigsaw? Or did it come in a rush, one last turn in a toy kaleidoscope, when all the colors and shapes tumbled and twisted into each other forming a recognizable image?

Finley Donovan Jumps the Gun by Elle Cosimano

My phone vibrated again as I reached for the keyboard.

Vero: I hope you remembered gloves….

I dug my mittens from the pockets of my coat and drew them on, wishing I’d been prepared with something a little more Temperance Brennan and less Bernie Sanders.

A Man Named Doll by Jonathan Ames

“A child’s portion of Don Julio,” I said.

I always order alcohol that way–stole it from an old mentor, a cop long dead. But he used it for food because he had diverticulitis. I use it for alcohol because I’m Irish. But that’s not entirely ture. I’m also half Jewish. On my mother’s side. I’m half Jew, half Mick, all ish.

We both stared at the little hip of ice on his desk, at $289,000 worth of sparkling carbon. Which up close, under a microscope, looked like a palace.

It was bumper to bumper, thousands of cars jammed together, going nowhere and somewhere, reaching speeds as high as five miles per hour, ten if we were lucky; and even with the recent rain, the white smog, which we live in all the time, was especially thick,and you would never know that just a few miles to the east the whole valley basin was ringed by beautiful mountains, the San Gabirels.

But they were obscured by the white filth, and it’s old news, of course, but we are forced in this modern life, to always hold two ideas in our mind at once: one, the natural world is beautiful, and two, we are destroying it.

The Foundling, the Heist, and the Volcano by K.R.R. Lockhaven

“Why did you bury the treasure?” Azure asked.

Wakeman looked to her with an extremely confused expression. Even Mr. Threepbrush, who was usually over- the- top respectful, looked at her like she had just said the stupidest thing he’d ever heard.

“Uh… cause that’s what one does with treasure.” Wakeman couldn’t keep the condescension from his voice.

“Aye, Captain,” Mr. Threepbrush added, “what other choice did he have?”

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

Steel is power. Money is power. But of all the things in all the worlds, words are power.

I learn more when I make mistakes, so long as they don’t kill me.

Pocket Apocalypse by Seanan McGuire

Airplanes: essentially buses that fly, and hence have the potential to drop out of the sky at any moment, spreading your insides—which will no doubt become your outsides sometime during the collision—across whatever you happen to have been flying over. Since we were flying mostly over ocean, I was sure the sharks would appreciate our sacrifice.

“Family matters more than anything else in this world, Family doesn’t have to love you. Family doesn’t even have to like you. But when you need them, family has to have your back.”

Broken by Don Winslow

Behavior that was cute when you were in your twenties becomes aggravating in your thirties, pathetic in your forties and tragic in your fifties.

“father” and “mother” are verbs before they’re nouns.

(Image by DaModernDaVinci from Pixabay)

Since high school, I’ve collected quotations like philatelists collect tiny bits of paper. In every book I read I scratch out copies of far too many quotations for me to use in my posts. Last year, I was inspired by Witty and Sarcastic Book Club’s annual Quotables: Words that Stuck with Me post, but there’s no way that I could just do an annual version, it’d be far too long.

So, I started a monthly (usually) version. They’re likely my favorite posts each month (at least in the top 3 in any given month). I don’t know how many of my readers dig these, but I do, so they’re sticking around.

Here are the lines from December that really stuck with me.

Radio Radio by Ian Shane

Yeah, there’s no question. This woman thinks that I am a moron. The sad thing about that is that I’ve been presenting her with plenty of evidence that I am. I’ve gone from being “interesting charming guy” to Boo Radley in less than six seconds. I’ve lost my focus and my home court advantage. I need to get my cool back in short order.

The Twist of a Knife by Anthony Horowitz

“Moxham was strikingly beautiful, the sort of place that turns up in jigsaw puzzles or Harry Potter films.”

Sacrifices by Jamie Schultz

He chambered a round.

“For ghosts?” Karyn asked.

“I ain’t willing to rule out bullets just on principle alone. They might work, and I got nothing else.”

“Plus, it makes you feel better.”

“That, too.”

“If I live through this, you’re a lifesaver,” she said to Bobby.

“You sure this is a good idea?” Nail asked.

Anna gave him a bland look. “It’s been months since we were in the same area code as a good idea. This is just what we’re stuck with.”

Secrets Typed in Blood by Stephen Spotswood

Want to see a prosecutor salivate? Had them a slam-dunk case that’ll generate good press for everyone who touches it.

To ensure that, I’d slipped out to use the facilities and, instead of powdering my nose, placed calls to The Times, The Associated Press, and the New York City Office of Reuters. I decided to save Time Magazine for the morning, they were a weekly after all, and could wait.

My boss rolled her eyes. Well, really just one eye, the false one remained more or less glaring at me.

In the kind of stories that Holly wrote, someone was always having a shock and the blood drains from their face. I’d never seen it happen in real life, not until that moment. In a blink, our client’s face went the sickly pale of cabbage and corpses.

“It’s possible,” she said. “Though it would be rather imprudent.”

“Three murders under his belt? I don’t think our guy is the prudent type.”

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

“Well, I suppose one could see how you could see that. Only if you don’t know what a monster looks like, of course.”

What does a monster look like? Jam asked.

Her mother focused on her, cupping her cheek in a chalky hand. “Monsters don’t look like anything, doux-doux. That’s the whole point. That’s the whole problem.”

“Angels aren’t pretty pictures in old holy books, just like monsters aren’t ugly pictures. It’s all just people, doing hard things or doing bad things. But is all just people, our people.”

Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire

There’s something to be said for keeping your friends around you when things get bad. It may not be good for their life expectancies, but it’s sure as hell easier on the heart.

When you decide to be the immovable object standing in front of the unstoppable force, you’d better pray that you’re right about being immovable, and they’re wrong about being unstoppable.

Scattered Showers by Rainbow Rowell

Kindred Spirits

Elena couldn’t remember the first time she saw a Star Wars movie . . . in the same way she couldn’t remember the first time she saw her parents. Star Wars had just always been there. There was a stuffed Chewbacca in her crib.

The original trilogy were her dad’s favorite movies—he practically knew them by heart—so when Elena was little, like four or five, she’d say they were her favorite movies, too. Because she wanted to be just like him.

And then, as she got older, the movies started to actually sink in. Like, they went from something Elena could recite to something she could feel. She made them her own. And then she’d kept making them her own. However Elena changed or grew, Star Wars seemed to be there for her in a new way.

Winter Songs for Summer

Summer was curled into a ball on her dorm room floor.

Or as close as she could get to a ball.

She wasn’t one of those girls who could collapse into nothing. She was curled into more of a boomerang shape. A miserable boomerang.

She should probably move onto the bed, but it felt more pathetic to lie on the floor, and the floor was closer to her speakers.

She had a small, all-in-one stereo with a dual cassette player and a radio and a three-CD carousel. It was her prize possession; she’d saved up for six months to buy it.

In the old days, when Summer wanted to listen to one song over and over, she’d have to hit rewind on the tape deck and then guess when to stop. Or sometimes she’d make a tape with the same song dubbed over and over—that was time-consuming.

Now she could put in a CD and press repeat track, and listen to the same song infinitely without ever getting up—without ever having to shift out of her misery.

It had really revolutionized this breakup.

“Happy songs are the saddest thing to listen to when you’re unhappy,” the guy said matter-of-factly. “That’s just physics.”

“That’s not physics.”

“They break your heart because they make you think about the last time you were happy.” He took another bite. “Also, don’t argue with me about physics. I’m a physics major. What’s your major?”

“Secondary education.”

“Okay, I won’t argue with you about that.”

E.B. White on Dogs edited by Martha White

I like to read books on dog training. Being the owner of dachshunds, to me a book on dog discipline becomes a volume of inspired humor. Every sentence is a riot.

I can’t quite figure out why I am so busy all the time; it seems silly and is against my principles.

(Image by DaModernDaVinci from Pixabay)