Who knows? Nobody told me.

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb #2)

Disorienting. Unhinged. Revelatory. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ 4.5/5

This was my second read, and this time I tried immersive reading, following along in the text while listening to the audiobook. I usually save audio for non-fiction, and my earlier attempts at fiction on audio never stuck. But the Locked Tomb is a mind-fuck, so I figured reading and listening at once might help, a bit like sitting in class while a teacher walks you through the hard material. It worked. The series carries enough real, low-frequency words, as well as the usual invented sci-fi and fantasy ones, that hearing and seeing it together made the whole thing more pleasurable.

As for the book itself, every Locked Tomb instalment is disorienting, and Harrow the Ninth is the most disorienting of the lot. Muir opens up the world-building, but she hands it to you through Harrow, who has misplaced her mind. Did she do it to herself? Probably. But is someone else meddling too? Probably. Everyone around her can tell something is off, and part of the tension is that you cannot work out whether they understand why, or how, or whether they even care to sort it out. If you keep reading you'll get answers. Mostly.

We also learn a great deal more about the emperor undying, and it is unclear whether anyone actually likes him. The lyctors have been alive for so long that being thoroughly over it, all of it, makes perfect sense. But do they have any fucks left to fix the universe?

Anyway, I think everyone should go on a wild ride at least once in their life, and Muir lets you take this one from your reading chair.

Start: 2022-11-21 Finish: 2022-12-27

I recently finished Lifespan by David Sinclair, a Harvard scientist who argues that aging is not an inevitability but a disease, and one he thinks we can treat. It was a good excuse to dust off half-remembered lessons from biology and chemistry class, and Sinclair, writing with journalist Matthew LaPlante, does the thing most scientist-authors cannot. He keeps the science accessible without draining the story out of it.

The idea that stuck with me is not the lab work, though. It is what a longer life would do to how we live it. Sinclair is careful, and correct, that curing aging is not the same as immortality. But even a few extra healthy decades would change us. For older folks it might be a second chance, time to right some wrongs, take more chances, go on that adventure before it is too late. For younger ones I am less sure it is a gift. Knowing you have decades to spare can breed complacency, and a little scarcity of time is part of what keeps us turned on and careful about how we spend it.

I also kept thinking about Scythe by Neal Shusterman, my favourite book. It imagines humanity a few centuries after technology all but cured aging and death, where people can reset their bodies to their twenties and the dead are revived, and the quiet cost is a comfortable, stagnant world where a lot of people have lost the sense that life is going anywhere. Sinclair mostly skips that question. Cure aging and you still have to solve meaning.

One fair warning for the scientist in you: he is light on counter-evidence, and some researchers have pushed back hard on his claims about reversing aging. But airtight proof is not why you pick up books like these. You read these books for the hope, and hope and looking forward are powerful motivators, so I would not keep it only for the science-curious. It is a big-idea read for anyone willing to sit with a big what-if.

Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries #6)

Uneasy alliance. Sleuth. Whammy. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4/5

Most of the Murderbot Diaries can be read as standalones, and I adore that about them. There is real character growth, so you are best off reading them mostly in order, but as a fantasy reader weaned on doorstoppers and tales of epic proportions, it is liberating to pick up something short and mostly self-contained. In and out before an epic has finished introducing its cast.

Anyway. Enough about me, more about the book. Except, I have spent so many hours inside Murderbot's head that I have started to wonder whether it would like me back. Would I make the cut, or would I just be another squishy human it rescues while sighing? Darn. That was about me again.

I recently finished Network Effect (Martha Wells), and the thing that stuck with me is not the plot. It is the voice. I only clocked this time around that most of the Murderbot Diaries are narrated after the fact. Murderbot is recounting what already happened, which means it gets to editorialize, undercut its own feelings, and skip ahead whenever a moment gets too sincere. That is such a human thing to do. We do not hand our vulnerability to just anyone. Being seen can feel like giving away a bit of your power.

So every time Murderbot is exasperated that it has a feeling, and then more depressed when it realizes it actually has to deal with the feeling, I recognized something. I think a lot of us do. Maybe the neurodivergent crowd most of all. Is that part of the reason Murderbot likes Dr. Mensah so much, that she creates a space that lets it (Murderbot) decide what and when to share?

Network Effect is the fifth book and the first full novel in the series, and it swept the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus. But the scale is not why I loved it. This is character-driven science fiction. It is for readers who like people and want a break from saving the galaxy from one more overpowered enemy. It is probably not for world-building completists, or plot-addicts who want a story of a hero conquering kingdoms in the name of [insert honourable reason]. (That is not a typo.)

It also left me thinking about consent. A SecUnit is not supposed to boss its clients around. When a client is about to wander into something with teeth, the SecUnit hauls them clear, then explains what is happening and asks them to please hold still and stop helping. Murderbot narrates this the way the rest of us narrate a group project, with visible suffering. When Murderbot hacks its own governor, it keeps that rule for the humans but finally claims it for itself too, deciding what to share and when, so others can no longer pull information or action out of it.

Early on in the series, it is clear that Murderbot is fond of the folks from Preservation. Is it because they treat consent as something to protect, which makes them the opposite of the Corporation Rim, where a SecUnit is just property?

Saga Vol. 7 by Brian K. Vaughan (art by Fiona Staples)

Futility. Grief. Displacement. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4/5

I am undone. This one wrecked me. Don't read it. It is too sad. And Prince Robot IV? Still the worst: a TV for a head and not one channel worth watching.

Percy Jackson et les Olympiens: La Mer des Monstres by Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson and the Olympians #2)

Les siens. Loyauté. Retrouvailles. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3/5

Cette fois, Percy repart en quête, sauf qu'elle n'est même pas la sienne, mais il s'y greffe à sa manière. Il faut dire que le camp n'a plus rien de rassurant. Ses frontières sont menacées, l'ombre de Cronos plane de nouveau, et entre les vieux amis et les nouveaux, personne n'a vraiment le cœur à la fête.

C'est dans ce climat tendu que le parcours de Tyson m'a le plus touchée, parce que sa présence force Percy à grandir et met en lumière ce qui le définit: une loyauté poussée à l'excès. Forcé de choisir, il sauverait ses amis avant le monde entier, et c'est sans doute ce trait qui le rapproche le plus de Tyson. Le tout baigne dans la mythologie grecque et, même si la mienne est pas mal rouillée, c'était le fun de revoir des personnages célèbres sous un nouveau jour.

Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To by David Sinclair

Optimistic. Ambitious. Provocative. ⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ 3.5/5

Lifespan by David Sinclair strikes a balance between science and storytelling that most experts miss. Too many rigorous authors land on one extreme, either too academic or too much narrative, and Sinclair threads the needle.

He does commit the usual sin of not engaging enough counter-evidence, so I would want to read the journal articles myself before buying his theories wholesale. (I am not going to. I do not have the hard science background to understand it). I listened to this as an audiobook over many months, so I cannot point to the one thing that stuck.

What I can say is that I am glad there are people out there chasing the secrets of lifespan. Science has already shielded us from accidental death and stretched life expectancy through surgery and medicine, so there is no reason to stop pushing. How do we make a healthy life even healthier?

Network Effect by Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries #5)

Acerbic. Remnants. Stride. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5/5

So far, Network Effect is my favourite Murderbot Diaries instalment after All Systems Red. The jump to a novel gave Wells room to dig into the threads the novellas only teased: the alien remnants, some backstory on the corporation rim, and the GrayCris conspiracy that had never been entirely explained. ART also makes a comeback. This time as a full co-star rather than a one-off, and it's sassy and brimming with moxie. Best of all, Murderbot keeps growing into its own thoughts and feelings, and watching its humans react to all of it adds another layer of humour. I did not see 2.0 or 3 coming, which was a lovely treat.