Always an Adventure

Also me: Stan never believed Gideon was an actual psychic—even though he knew supernatural things were possible, and even though everyone in Gravity Falls was against him, Stan always insisted he absolutely knew Gideon was a fraud.  Why was he so certain?

Gideon always called him “Stanford.” 

These I got because I enjoyed A Plague of Demons so I wanted to check out more of Laumer's work...but mainly because of the Wayne Barlowe covers. (I've also ordered a Barlowe cover copy of Plague, but it hasn't arrived yet.)

I've been meaning to check out the Lensman series for like ever. I went for this set because it had the coolest covers, and won it in a grueling auction. (I think there was only one other bidder. I ended up paying like fifteen bucks.)

Mesklin is a really cool worldbuilding concept, so I got some Hal Clement. This set actually had two different editions of Ocean on Top, so I will be donating the one with the lamer cover to my grandmother's used book store. (I've ended up with a lot of duplicate copies of books to donate, actually...)

I'd never heard of Elizabeth Moon and got these totally on a whim, and now I've gotta get Sporting Chance and Once a Hero to have the complete Familias Regnant series.

And as you can see it is not like instant death, they too are just animals and they are often just gently curious about the presence of humans! But people who study and dive with sharks will tell you you're safe as long as you stay calm and know what you're doing. The world's leading professional night divers and experts on these squids, specifically??? Stress in every interview and article and paper they write in that you simply do not fuck around with these squids. They know what they're doing and they still all have at least one story of being attacked, in some cases having to be hospitalized. Considering just how rarely anybody puts themselves in the pitch dark nighttime ocean on purpose, let alone during a squid feeding frenzy, it sounds like they're quite a bit more likely to consider you potential food than other marine predators. We also don't know how many fatal attacks might have ever happened, because what humboldt squid like to do with large prey is just drag it away into the darkness forever. The two worst attacks ever proven involved two or three squid at a time latching on to a diver (in BOTH cases they were professionals and knew the risk!) and jetting straight downward with enough force that both divers suffered injury from the sudden pressure change alone, including burst eardrums, nearly passed out and they probably would have died if they hadn't broken free. In general, people who die drowning in the dark open ocean are either never found, or they're found in pieces picked over by enough scavengers that the precise cause of death can only be narrowed down to "the sea." But now you know ONE of "the sea's" possible murder weapons :)

There's a short section on Humboldt squid in Wikipedia's entry for Cephalopod attacks on humans:

And if you can get past some of Animal Planet's hokey presentation style, this video includes a bit of interview with one of those professional experts who still got nearly squidded from existence:

There is of course some debate about all this, with some arguing that all proven documented attacks occurred on people with reflective diving equipment, which they say the squid must have mistaken for the shine of fish. However, there are lots and lots of people who have to fish around these squids to survive, who do not have access to that kind of equipment, and also have a consensus that if you fall in the water when big squids are out hunting you might disappear without a trace or perhaps just get your head bitten open. With many modern science guys agreeing with this sentiment, this is one case where the "they're just misunderstood sea friends" crowd is kind of outnumbered. The sea at night is theirs and not ours is all. It's not ours during the day either but since we are neither marine nor nocturnal animals we are double fools in the eyes of the squids, which by the way are these eyes:

No for real:

Also because I can't reblog every addition together:

Cicada sketches by Vincent van Gogh.