Eh, it's been about a month... procrastination update time.
Recently Read:
For We Are Many (Book 2 in the Bobiverse trilogy, Dennis E. Taylor, humor/SF, in paperback): Formerly a computer geek/sci-fi nerd, Bob was frozen after death - only to find himself uploaded as an AI replicant, complete with personality and memories, by a future theocratic nation, charged with "manning" a self-replicating deep space probe seeking habitable worlds. Since then, he's discovered sentient alien life, helped mediate a temporary truce on a war-devastated Earth, helped establish interstellar colonies, confronted a remnant rival AI probe while salvaging another... and found evidence of a hostile, hivelike entity dubbed the Other that treats star systems as locusts treat crops.
The various Bobs continue their various missions, complicated as human colonization becomes a reality - and runs up against planets readily adapting to the new kid (a.k.a meat source) on the block. New evidence suggests that the Others may be a more pressing threat than originally anticipated, meaning the Bobs now must consider contact as not just possible, but increasingly probable. And the passing years (and further replication) cause them to wonder just what they are becoming, as they move further away from their human origins.
With the same sense-of-wonder feel as the first book, For We Are Many picks up the threads left from the first volume and adds a few more. Once in a while, keeping track of the various Bobs got a little confusing, but it sorted easy enough as I pushed ahead. They thought they'd come to grips with their new status as essentially immortal entities, but watching living friends age and die brings home the reality in ways they hadn't anticipated. Meanwhile, the Others step into play, revealing a coldly alien heart behind their predatory behavior - one that is inherently incompatible with coexistence. It looks to be an exciting ride in Book 3... which I'll have to order now, I suppose. Dang it. (Been burned too many times by tanking series to order them all at once...)
The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery, children's fantasy, on Kindle): A pilot relates a remarkable encounter with a strange boy in the desert. The self-styled prince claims to have come from a planet little larger than a house, adventuring through various worlds before coming to Earth, and learning important lessons about life on the way.
This is a book that's probably best read as child, not a grown-up. The prose has some nice imagery and turns of phrase, but feels rather ephemeral, wandering from encounter to encounter, sometimes before the central lesson felt at all complete - all with little followthrough. On a side note, while purchased for the Kindle, I could only view it on my Nook tablet; there needs to be some manner of advisory on files that can't be viewed on an eReader, dang it.
I Kill Giants (Joe Kelly, illustrations by JM Ken Niimura, teen? fantasy/graphic novel/horror, on Nook via Hoopla): The girl Barbara isn't like her peers. While they gab about fashion or boys, she reads gaming manuals... not just to play, but for information. She wants info on the monsters she sees everywhere - monsters that all hint at the coming of a giant. If she can slay that giant, then maybe she can save the one person who truly matters in her life...
Apparently, there's a movie coming out based on this. Unless they do some major changes, it's going to be a very dark, somewhat twisted, surreal tale with only the faintest gleams of hope. Barbara seems to be downright insane for much of the tale, and the reader is left in the dark as to why: it's unclear whether she's been gifted with special sight or whether she's hallucinating, but it is clear that Something Terrible is happening in her home, something she's using the monsters, not to mention some odd rituals, to cope with. Barbara is even drawn with animal ears most of the time, a hint at her growing delusions and disconnection from reality. Eventually, it becomes clear what's going on. (Potential Spoiler - not everything is necessarily a hallucination.) She makes for an abrasive, sometimes repellent character, though behind that is a harrowing story of the desperate measures a girl will go to when her world is falling apart.
Currently Reading:
I'm still picking through Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man. Somewhat depressing, as every descriptor he uses for flawed, ignorance-based systems of government describes modern DC almost verbatim. Difficult to read for long stretches.
Between books, otherwise...