I like sci-fi, superhero stuff, horror comics and more.
Mastodon: @mwshook@pdx.social
Blog: shook.rocks
All of my Calibre ebooks imported into Bookwyrm a bit haphazardly. The link below has my best list of books I've read, pre-Bookwyrm.
Screenshot of my reading list from Calibre, July 25, 2023
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Highly unusual After the Holocaust novel. In the far future, 20th century texts are preserved in a monastery, as "sacred …
Highly unusual After the Holocaust novel. In the far future, 20th century texts are preserved …
Wow. I feel like I need to pull up Google Calendar and set aside an hour or to so I can just think about this novel. As a lapsed Catholic, an approximate man of science, someone who peers at my own mortality quite closely every day, Canticle was grippingly relevant.
The 3-part story opens several centuries after a 20th century nuclear apocalypse, where monks in New Mexico are preserving Christianity, some science, and the mere written word. The plot spans out past the year 3000, but stays centered on the Abbey of St. Leibowitz.
The tightest rope binding me to Roman Catholicism, after family ties, was the sense of continuity in a human institution stretching back almost 2000 years. 3 out of my 4 grandparents were German Catholic so presumably I had ancestors saying the same prayers for a millenium or more.
In the book, the monks survive Flame Deluge …
Wow. I feel like I need to pull up Google Calendar and set aside an hour or to so I can just think about this novel. As a lapsed Catholic, an approximate man of science, someone who peers at my own mortality quite closely every day, Canticle was grippingly relevant.
The 3-part story opens several centuries after a 20th century nuclear apocalypse, where monks in New Mexico are preserving Christianity, some science, and the mere written word. The plot spans out past the year 3000, but stays centered on the Abbey of St. Leibowitz.
The tightest rope binding me to Roman Catholicism, after family ties, was the sense of continuity in a human institution stretching back almost 2000 years. 3 out of my 4 grandparents were German Catholic so presumably I had ancestors saying the same prayers for a millenium or more.
In the book, the monks survive Flame Deluge of the 1900s. They become "bookleggers," copying and recopying any surviving texts through the centuries. This is one of the reqsons communities of men leave human society and say the same prayers over and over. Monastic orders have ridden out the waves of wars, plagues, and the falls of empires. In the novel, they continue to do so after the Fallout devastates the planet.
The monastery, the church, civilization, none of these are presented as wholly good or wholly evil. Modern questions of science vs. church vs. state are presented but not answered. Like I said, I will need some time to think about this.
A race for survival among the stars... Humanity's last survivors escaped earth's ruins to find …
It's been way too long since I have had a novel grab me from the very first chapter. The plot spins out from a premise that never seems completely outlandish, where humans in suspension pods try to reestablish on a distant terraformed earth. The plot is somewhat like Battlestar Galactica, except there's only one Cylon and Earth is full of deadly arthropods.
The book is brilliantly structured, alternating between a human and a non-human protagonist. Spoiler: man was the true monster all along.
The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. …
It was interesting to see how a lot of interplanetary fiction tropes were present here in the 1950s.
In the end, I often find it hard to get behind these smiling roguish conman antiheroes. I still love Danny Ocean, but I'm not that thrilled with Flashman anymore, or even Malcolm Reynolds.
In any case, thanks to @charliejane@wandering.shop for the recommendation!
This book has split my brain open.
I have examined, handled, peered at countless human placentas. Moreso than any other internal organ. It's kind of weird. That baby made this alien thing?
There's a layer, as thin as can be, protecting this foreign embryo, halfway consisting of someone else, from the mother's immune system. That layer is made with a protein encoded by a gene from a virus.
Our ancestors stopped laying eggs because of DNA they picked up from a virus! HOLY FUCK! Why did I not know this? Why doesn't everybody know this?
Like any great science book, the knowledge it put in my brain is outweighed by the new questions I have.
Chapter 78: OMFGOL. This biology book has shifted from a personally terrifying horror to to the most suspenseful biomolecular archeology thriller ever written.
THE SYNCITIAL MEMBRANE OF THE PLACENTA IS CONSTRUCTED WITH A GENE FROM A RETROVIRUSES!!!! Mammals probably evolved because of incorporating viruses into our DNA!!!!! Humans are not what you think they are!!!!
I remember when I was a biology major in the late '90s, my professors tried to explain the controversy of 5 kingdoms vs 3 domains vs 3 ecological categories, etc. I think the science was recent enough that it wasn't yet clear how to teach it.
The same goes for the issue of antibiotic resistance and horizontal gene transfer. My teachers in med school knew about it, but I don't think they knew how to convey the implications. This is life-and-death stuff I would have liked to have a better handle on, even last summer as I personally battled multi-drug-resistant urosepsis.
From acclaimed archaeologist and bestselling author Eric Cline, a breathtaking account of how the collapse of an ancient civilized world …
From acclaimed archaeologist and bestselling author Eric Cline, a breathtaking account of how the collapse …
I've always been told that the Bronze Age Collapse was shrouded in mystery and then the lesson would move on to the Iron Age. This book does a great job peeling back those layers of mystery and letting us know about the surprisingly interlaced cultures and economies of the Mediterranean and Mesopotamian world.
Unsurprisingly, the best estimate of why trade networks and palaces suddenly disappeared would be multifactoral. The author explores all these factors along with the archeological evidence to support them. You can probably guess that the story can get dry at times, bogged down in artifacts and writing. But this book puts together an engaging story that has significant relevance for the present day.
An ancient society of witches and a hipster technological startup go war as the world …
Every word on every page builds this charming world that is frighteningly like our own. I have never read a couple so star-crossed as the mad scientist boy and the witch girl protagonists.
Is our world worth saving? Are we? Can there still be love as the planet falls apart?
This is the most heartwarming story about the apocalypse you'll ever read.
Thank you @charliejane@wandering.shop
An ancient society of witches and a hipster technological startup go war as the world from tearing itself. To further …
The city of Bulikov once wielded the powers of the gods to conquer the world, …
I just had trouble getting into it.
