one can rely on books

"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it." --Agent K

What are you currently reading?

Currently having a lot of trouble getting into Fonda Lee's Exo. I assume this is a temporary brain setback, since I adored her Jade City and Jade War, and even enjoyed Zeroboxer (MMA-in-space) pretty well. Might be the setup: the main character is a superpowered young member of the not-Gestapo for the aliens who've taken over Earth. He gets kidnapped by Earth-First-ers in short order and I expect he'll start sympathising with them pretty soon, but this is perhaps not the ideal read for me right after the Small Change books (see below).

What did you just finish reading?

First reread of Ha'penny and Half a Crown, Jo Walton's Small Change books 2 and 3. Farthing, the first, was very good and fairly grim. Ha'penny was quite good but even more grim. And Half a Crown... it's well-written, with an okay plot, and an ending that feels even more like a cop-out now than when I first read it a decade ago. Suspect these are not keepers: they read well but they don't really grab me, and my disappointment/irritation at Half a Crown taints my view of the whole set.

What do you think you'll read next?

Likely not Commonweal 5 as I seem to be on a print-books kick. Contenders include various space-opera from 2019, Gareth Hanrahan's The Shadow Saint which I've had kicking around since January, and maybe something YA and non-fascist.

Or I might do the comfort-read thing and pull out one of my multitude of RPG books that I've not yet read through.

again, wintry

It warmed up for awhile, and the snow all started melting. Turns out that multiple feet of snow causes quite a runoff. Everything's turned to mud.

Or it had, anyway. We got what I assume is one last snowdump this weekend, 10cm or so. It's gotten cold (sub-zero days) again and will stay that way all week. And I didn't think to crank the thermostat beforehand, so I've been freezing without noticing it the past few days.

Well this year April had a blizzard, just to show she did not care
And the new dead leaves they made the trees look like children with grey hair

I assume the ground has frozen back up out there. I'll venture out today to confirm. I need to take out the recycling anyway, clear clutter and open space.

To paraphrase the back copy of Grant Morrison's The Filth, this post contains the active ingredient METAPHOR. If you are allergic to METAPHOR, consult a doctor before consuming this post.