3 Weeks - 20
May. 21st, 2025 08:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
esteefee
Today I had a bowl of cornflakes for breakfast, my first in a long time, and I realized I slice up my banana the exact same way my pops did: diagonal cuts so the slices fall off the knife instead of sticking to it. I don't remember deciding to adopt his method. But there you go.
How do you slice your banana? Are there other tricks you picked up from parents or friends unconsciously?
A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett
May. 21st, 2025 04:01 pmlightreadsA Drop of Corruption
4/5. Sequel in this fantasy biopunk Holmes & Watson universe.
One of the more successful sequels I’ve read in a long time, in the sense that this accomplishes the task of really blowing up and blowing out the world. I continue to be only middling interested in these characters (and also continue to be puzzled about why this series is first person, aside from the obvious stylistic nod). But the construction of this empire, whose people’s bodies and minds are modified in ways beyond our understanding by methods beyond their understanding, all while the leviathans come ever closer to breaking down the sea walls, is incredibly interesting to me.
I think this book is not as successful in its project of talking about kings and power structures by blood in general. It does that, but our protagonist is not really clocking the implications for his own life as an imperial subject, so it doesn’t quite come together the way intended. The first person gets in the way there, specifically, given our protagonist is not, shall we say, a political or philosophical thinker.
Still, I am way more interested in this now than I was after the first book.
Content notes: Body modification and body horror, threats of infection/contamination.
4/5. Sequel in this fantasy biopunk Holmes & Watson universe.
One of the more successful sequels I’ve read in a long time, in the sense that this accomplishes the task of really blowing up and blowing out the world. I continue to be only middling interested in these characters (and also continue to be puzzled about why this series is first person, aside from the obvious stylistic nod). But the construction of this empire, whose people’s bodies and minds are modified in ways beyond our understanding by methods beyond their understanding, all while the leviathans come ever closer to breaking down the sea walls, is incredibly interesting to me.
I think this book is not as successful in its project of talking about kings and power structures by blood in general. It does that, but our protagonist is not really clocking the implications for his own life as an imperial subject, so it doesn’t quite come together the way intended. The first person gets in the way there, specifically, given our protagonist is not, shall we say, a political or philosophical thinker.
Still, I am way more interested in this now than I was after the first book.
Content notes: Body modification and body horror, threats of infection/contamination.