The Cruise of the Snark, Penguin Classics edition

Jack London

Introduction and notes by R.D. Madison

An attempted sail around the world

In 1893 and 1895, Joshua Slocum, an experienced mariner, refitted the derelict sloop Spray. In between 1895 and 1898, he sailed the Spray around the world, alone. On the way he gave lectures with slides. He published his journals in 1900 as Sailing Alone around the World. He was the first, but not the last. It is a feat that has been repeated many times since, and a challenge that experienced sailors still like to take on. Obviously, it is not the feat in the 21st century that it was at the end of the 19th. Modern sailors, even if they intend not to use them, have such modern conveniences as Global Positioning, radios, and even satellite phones. Sailing vessels have not stood still either.

In his heart of hearts, London identified as a sailor. He grew up on or hear the San Francisco Bay. At the age of 13 he bought out an Oyster Pirate and earned a living as a pirate on the Bay. After wrecking the Razzle-Dazzle, he switched sides and joined the California Fish Patrol. Still a teenager he signed on the sealing schooner Sophie Sutherland as an Able Seaman and sailed with her to Japan. He did not merit the title of Able Seaman when he signed on, but by the time he returned he did.

After that he had more adventures, including secondary school and a year at the University of California Berkeley. In 1897 (age 21) he traveled to Alaska in the Klondike gold rush. London was one of the few prospectors to make a financial success of the gold rush -- not as a gold miner, but as an author. His best-known works (The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and To Build a Fire) are derived from that time. He became wealthy by selling books and stories. His most famous story of the sea, The Sea Wolf, came later.

Slocum inspired Jack London to sail around the world. To attempt to sail around the world, I should say. The Cruise of the Snark is his account of that attempt. The building of The Snark began in San Francisco in 1906. London tells us that "The morning her iron keel was to be cast was the morning of the great earthquake." (In fact, we owe one of the best accounts of the quake of 1906 to London.) San Francisco was cast into anarchy in the aftermath, and it was impossible to complete the Snark there. Instead, he sailed "the shell of her" to Hawaii, to be completed there.

London did not sail alone. With him were his wife Charmian and a small crew. I believe with London and Charmian they totaled half a dozen. Hawaii and various South Sea islands are described in Idyllic terms, until the Solomon Islands. There London became embroiled in fights with indigenous peoples. (I don't entirely understand how that came about.) Also, every member of the crew became seriously ill with Solomon Island sores, yaws, and fevers.

London became too sick to continue the cruise of the Snark. He and Charmian traveled to Australia by commercial steamer where he was treated but not cured. They returned home to California (again, by steamer) in 1911, and he claims that California cured him. Given that he died of kidney failure in 1916, there is some room to doubt that this cure was complete.

The Cruise of the Snark is far from London's best work. But if you want to understand the man, this and John Barleycorn: Alcoholic Memoirs are essential reading.

This Penguin Classics edition is introduced and annotated by R.D. Madison. It puzzles me that anyone thought it a good idea to put The Cruise of the Snark in the hands of an editor who clearly despises London. Madison goes so far as to admit that The Call of the Wild is a rather good novel, but no further.

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Up There: Voyage 5—Tír na nÓg
Previous chapters

Epigraph

‘My father and my mother are
Aengus and Edain, my own name
Niamh, and my country far
Beyond the tumbling of this tide.
…
‘I loved no man, though kings besought,
Until the Danaan poets brought
Rhyme that rhymed upon Oisin’s name,

And now I am dizzy with the thought
Of all that wisdom and the fame
Of battles broken by his hands,
Of stories builded by his words’

—“The Wanderings of Oisín,” William Butler Yeats

Voyage 5—Tír na nÓg

“Wow!” thought John. “It’s getting complicated.” Three new characters, Felipe, Linda, and Anita. With Black Jack, Angie, Seph, and Ananta, that made seven. Eight if he counted Melusine, but John wasn’t sure Melusine would rejoin the story.

John wondered if they needed a bigger boat. Could four people sail in the Sea Devil? He could have the Rodriguez family give or lend them a bigger boat. After all, Felipe’s yacht was wrecked, and the Rodriguez family are rich.

John decided to leave them in the Sea Devil. He had never said exactly how big it was—just that it was small enough for Jack to sail alone. And they had sailed from the Horn to Buenos Aires in it.

From Buenos Aires they sailed north and east.

Anita kept her promise to teach Jack Spanish. Every day Jack studied with her. For the most part these lessons were whatever schoolwork Linda and Felipe had given Anita. Most of Anita’s schoolbooks were in Spanish, and Jack needed Anita’s help with them. In this way he learned about Argentine history. They also read some stories. She was still studying English. Jack helped her with that.

One day Anita asked Jack, “Can I meet Seph and Angie?”

“You know about Seph and Angie?” Jack asked.

“Ananta told me they are your magic spirt helpers.”

“Did she also tell you she has never seen them?”

“Sí, but I don’t understand why. Are they secret?”

“No,” said Jack. “But only I can see and hear them.”

“Why didn’t you tell Mamí and Papí and me about them?”

“Anita, I guess there are some things you don’t tell your father and mother because you’re afraid they might not understand. ¿Verdad?”

Anita nodded slowly.

“Most people have little secrets like that. Well, I have a big secret like that. If I told your padres that I had secret magic spirit friends who they can’t see or hear, what would they think?”

Anita nodded again. “You think they would think you loco. But I think you are wrong, Jack. You are different. You have a friend who is a giant talking sea snake. Mamí and Papí know you are hechicero.”

Jack didn’t know that word. He had bought a Spanish-English dictionary in Buenos Aires. “Hechicero” was Spanish for witch-doctor or sorcerer.

Angie and Seph appeared on Jack’s shoulders with a popping sounds.

“You know, Jack,” said Seph, “we may be able to talk to Anita.”

“Kids are different,” explained Angie.

Angie looked straight at Anita and said, “Anita? ¿Puedes oírme?”

Anita started, then looked right at Angie. “Are they here now?” she asked Jack.

“They are sitting on my shoulders,” Jack said. “Angie here,” pointing to his right shoulder, “and Seph here,” pointing to the left one.

“Did Angie just speak to me?”

“She asked if you could hear her.”

“I kind of did, but I still can’t see them.”

“Angie, Seph, can you become visible to Anita? Whatever you just did to pop into my sight, can you sort of do that for Anita?”

Jack heard another pop from his left shoulder. Anita’s hand went to her mouth. With the other she pointed at Seph and said, “I see something there. She looks like a tiny little ghost girl with red hair. Is that what they look like?”

“That is Seph. But why do you call her a ghost girl?”

“She looks a little wavy to me, as if I was looking at her through water. And I can see through her—I can see your shoulder that she’s sitting on.”

Angie said, “Maybe we’re solid for you because we are your spirits. We’re not Anita’s, so we look ghostly to her.”

“¡Lo oí!” said Anita, excited. “And I see you now, too! You must be Angie!”

“Ananta!” shouted Anita. “Come look!”

Ananta’s head rose from the water. “What am I looking at?”

“Angie and Seph are here, and I can see them!”

“Where?” said Ananta.

“Sitting on Jack’s shoulders,” said Anita.

Ananta peered intently at Jack and his shoulders. “I see nothing.”

As they approached Ireland, Jack asked Ananta, “What place in Ireland do you want to see?”

“There are places in Ireland?” Ananta asked. “How big is it? I thought it was an Island like Henderson.”

“It is an island, but bigger than Henderson. It’s a nation of five million people.”

“Oh…” said Ananta.

“Why did you want to visit Ireland?” Anita asked her.

“Audrey came from there and she said it was a beautiful place. She always wanted to return.”

“Audrey?”

“Audrey was Jack’s mother.”

“You’re from Ireland, Jack?”

“Not me,” said Jack. “My mother and father. I’m American. I’ve never been to Ireland.”

“Do you know where in Ireland Audrey came from?”

“She and my grandfather Jonathan Murphy are from County Antrim in Northern Ireland. I think I remember them speaking of a mountain there named Tievebulliagh.”

They anchored the Devil off the town of Glenariffe. They all climbed Tievebulliagh together: Jack, Anita, Felipe, and Linda. Visible only to Jack and Anita, Angie and Seph flew along. To Jack’s surprise Ananta came along.

“Do you know,” said Jack, “they say there are no snakes in Ireland. Legend has it that St Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland.”

“Well, there is one now.”

Stretched out on land Ananta’s full, enormous length was visible. Jack thought she might be 40 feet long. Fortunately Tievebulliagh was deserted that day.

It was a stiff hike, about five miles, and the scree near the top made for difficult climbing. But the view from the top was splendid.

On the way up they noticed a sign post for Oisín’s Grave.

Felipe asked Jack, “Have you heard of this Oisín?”

“According to legend, he’s the greatest Irish poet there has ever been. He went away with a fairy queen called Niamh. He was the son of the king Finn Mac Cool,” Jack said. “Also a distant ancestor of mine, according to my mother and grandfather.”

“A king’s blood runs in your veins?” asked Felipe.

“If the legends are true, all the Irish are children of Finn Mac Cool.”

“And a poet’s blood, too? Would you like to visit his grave?”

“You know what?” said Jack. “Let’s do that.”

They climbed down the mountain side, angling northeast towards Oisín’s Grave. It was not a grave such as you would see in a graveyard, but a barrow, an ancient burial site marked by great stones.

They stood there quietly. Just as the sun touched the western horizon, Anita asked, “What is that music?” looking to the west.

“I don’t hear music,” said Jack. Felipe and Linda were equally puzzled.

“I hear it, too,” said Ananta.

“We hear it, too,” said Angie. “It’s a woman’s voice.”

Seph recited,

Turn aside your eyes and ears,
Trail away your robes of sorrow,
You shall have my further years-
You shall walk with me tomorrow.

These lines were from a poem John had read called “Rainy Night.” The poem had nothing to do with the story of Oisín and Niamh, but John thought they were words Niamh might use to call someone to her.

“Can we go there?” begged Anita.

“Where?” asked Linda.

“There, where the song comes from,” she said, pointing to the setting sun.

Ananta, Angie, and Seph wanted to chase the song, too. Jack, who owed Seph and Angie thanks for all the help they had given him, was willing. Felipe and Linda were puzzled by this desire to chase an imaginary song they could not hear. But, as Anita said, they knew that Jack was an hechicero.

Next morning they sailed north around Ireland, then due west for a day.

As the sun set, the song came again. All could hear it now. Perhaps, though Jack, they were close to the singer.

As the sun dove into the ocean, Ananta dove below the waves.

Ten minutes later she surfaced.

“There’s a castle down there!”

Angie and Seph immediately dove in.

“Did you find the singer?” Anita asked.

“I’m not sure. There’s a young woman down there with long blond hair. Or maybe it’s a statue of a young woman. She has her mouth open, like a singer. But she is still. Her mouth doesn’t move. Yet the song seems to come from her.”

“Is she alone?”

“No, there are many more statues.”

“Could it be some sort of mechanism?” Felipe asked. “A sound system playing a recording?”

“It is not that,” said a new voice.

Jack saw Seph and Angie appear just above the waves off the bow of the Devil.

They rose slowly, and the head of a woman with golden hair rose slowly from the water until her feet stood on air just above the waves.

“We brought her,” said Seph.

She spoke again, “I am the singer.”

“I saw you!” Ananta shouted. “How did you sing without moving your lips?”

“Time runs differently in Tír na nÓg,” she answered. “A second there is two of your minutes. If you had watched me for a minute you would have seen me sing.”

“How then did we hear your song?” asked Felipe.

“You perceive me and my song through a glamour,” she answered.

“Glamour? Do you mean an illusion?” said Felipe, glowering at her.

“You can call it that, if you like,” she said. “All things in your mind are illusions of a kind. This one is no more false than this sea and wind you see and feel on your skin.”

She turned to look at Jack.

“You, sir, what is your name? Am I right that you are of the line of the poet Oisín?”

“My mother told me so. I am Jack.”

“Oisín was my husband. He lived with me here in Tír na nÓg for 300 years.”

“Three hundred!” exclaimed Felipe. “How could that be?”

“I have already told you that time runs differently in Tír na nÓg. Tír na nÓg is the Land of Youth.”

She turned to Jack, “Will you come with me to Tír na nÓg?”

“Please forgive me, lady. There are many things I still want to do above the waves.”

She fixed her ocean-gray eyes on his. “Someday you may wish for Tír na nÓg. On that day, come and call my name, Niamh. I will hear.”

She dove beneath the waves.

“Well, they made it to Ireland,” John told Stephanie and Alice, meeting them at the end of August.

“Are they still there?” asked Alice.

“No, they have left,” John answered. “They sailed to Tír na nÓg.”

“Oh! I think I’ve heard of that!”

“My grandparents came here from Ireland. My parents told me the old Irish stories.”

“Where will Jack and Angie and Seph go next?” Stephanie asked.

“Up to you,” John answered.

“Oh, Jack! Travels with you are never dull!” laughed Linda.

Felipe looked unhappy. “There must be an explanation for all this.”

Jack answered, “I can’t explain what just happened.”

“It is sad,” agreed Felipe. “We struggle through the world without understanding. There ought to be an instruction manual!”

“Where will we go now, Jack?” Anita asked.

“I suppose you and your family will want to go home to Buenos Aires,” said Jack.

“There is no hurry!” answered Felipe. “As Linda said, traveling with you is never dull.”

“Perhaps then,” said Jack, “I can invite you to visit my home. It is not far from here.”

“We would like that!” said Linda.

“But I warn you. I am not wealthy. Almost everything I own is right here, on the Devil.”

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Afterword

The cover image is a phase portrait of :

A phase portrait is a visualization of a complex function introduced by Elias Wegert in Visual Complex Functions: An Introduction with Phase Portraits.

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Oisín and Niamh, The Drunken Bodhráns

The Lion’s Tusk

Robert Jackson Bennett

Ana solves a cold case

If I didn't care about being fair to fictional characters, I would say that Robert Jackson Bennett's Ana and Din mysteries are the latest in a long line of series that pair a genius with a doofus. The most famous such pairing is Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. I would also include Jeeves and Bertie Wooster, and (most relevant) Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. I call this unfair to characters because neither Watson nor Bertie nor Archie deserves the title of doofus -- they're all clever and capable in their diverse ways. (Also, Holmes is not a genius -- he is merely a doofus who has the author on his side.)

Now, the genius tends to get frustrated with what he (always he, except in the case of our Ana) sees as the lack of discernment displayed by the doofus telling his story. Thus we get a couple stories told from the point of view of Holmes and one told from the point of view of Jeeves. Wolfe, I believe, never made this particular mistake.

Because it IS a mistake. Those stories just don't work. The Voice of the Doofus (that sounds like the title of a mystery -- "The Case of the Doofus Voice") is essential to the stories and to making them work. I'm not claiming that this is a universal law, but only that it is one to which I have not found an exception.

And, alas, The Lion’s Tusk is not it. On a carriage ride through the sticks, where she has no access to a library Ana is bored and entertains herself (and harasses Din) by reciting the details of a murder that took place long ago, and solving it. It's an OK murder mystery, not great. It IS a good fit to the Empire of Khanum.

I will also echo the complaint of CC, who writes in a very brief review "that's not Ana's voice". No, it's not. Well-spotted, @CC.

This is a short story, 38 pages in kindle. if you are an Ana and Din completist, you're gonna read it, anyway. I recommend it for that audience.

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Your Piteous Heart

Seanan McGuire

Tybalt continues his progress towards the Westlands

“Your Piteous Heart” is Seanan McGuire’s August 2026 Patreon reward story. At 26 pages in PDF, this one is slightly shorter than the previous installment, “No More Amazement.” McGuire introduces it as follows:

Well, here we are again, as Tybalt transitions from a relatively peaceful time in Armorica to the next stage of his adventures. We’re moving toward the Westlands and October, but there’s the small matter of a throne to be handled before anything can really change...

Tybalt is having a pretty lousy week, that’s all we’re going to say here. Best read after last month’s story.

Image: Alice and Elsie, right after Elsie came home. Like, two days after Elsie came home. Alice understood that she was meeting her successor, and she was very good about the handoff.

The big event of “No More Amazement” was the death of Tybalt’s adopted changeling daughter Rozenn. Trying to prevent that tragedy, Tybalt incurred the enmity of one Asier, a powerful and dangerous Fae. Consequently, Tybalt is a dangerous man to be around. What’s more, he has nothing left to lose—nothing that he loves, that is.

He is still King of the Court of Silvered Cats, the London Cait Sidhe enclave. That is what McGuire means by “the small matter of a throne”. “Your Piteous Heart” is the story of the severing of that last link.

This one was not, I thought, as good as “No More Amazement.” Despite its name, “No More Amazement” was less predictable. “Your Piteous Heart” simply does (competently!) what needs to be done to move the story forward in the obvious way.

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Machine

Elizabeth Bear

A question of faith

Machine is the second novel in Elizabeth Bear's White Space trilogy, which is a finalist for the 2026 Best Series Hugo. I read the first novel, Ancestral Night because of the Hugo nomination. I read this one because Ancestral Night was good, and I will go on to read The Folded Sky because Machine was also good.

Ancestral Night and Machine share a world. They take place in a galactic civilization/government called the Synarche, long after civilization on Earth barely survived a near apocalypse. They worked out ways to live together without destroying each other or their world. When the people of Earth went out into the stars, they discovered that many other species had run into similar problems and had found similar solutions. The Synarche is the civilization based on those solutions.

Brokllyn Jens is a medical doctor, a specialist in Emergency medicine and rescue. She jumps out of perfectly good spaceships onto failing and/or broken ones to get people out and save them. She herself suffers from neuralgia. She has lived her life in constant pain, although Core General, the central hospital of the Synarche, was able to substantially relieve that. She lives in a powered prosthesis, her Exo, that helps her move and makes her more comfortable.

Unlike many future civilizations in Science Fiction, the Synarche is not post-religious. Many of its members follow religions such as Roman Catholicism. Lynn has occasional discussions about faith with religious friends and co-workers. She is not herself religious. She does, however, have an almost religious faith in the Synarche and especially in Core General, the hospital that saved her. Without spoiling I can't say a lot more, but the central theme of the novel is what happens a person like Llyn when her faith is tested.

Like Ancestral Night, Machine is big-think space opera. It was good. A bit of a slog at times, I have to admit, but worth it.

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Spider-man: Brand New Day

directed by Destin Daniel Cretton

An emotionally damaging Spider-man movie

I did not think last Saturday that within seven days I would see two movies starring Tom Holland and Jon Bernthal and Zendaya. I did not think that the Superhero movie directed by someone I had never heard of (this is to be understood as a statement of my ignorance of show business, not a knock on Cretton) would be deeper and more emotionally damaging than the movie based on one of the most famous of classical sources directed by a man so famous that even I know his name: Christopher Nolan.

I am not running down Nolan’s Odyssey, which in fact I liked a lot. I tell you therefore with considerable surprise that in my opinion Cretton’s Spider-man: Brand New Day is a better film than Nolan’s Odyssey.

It’s a difficult film to review, because there are so many surprises. Almost anything I tell you will be a spoiler. I will therefore begin with some spoiler-free glittering generalities. I’ll continue the review below the picture of Jon Bernthal I have inserted as a spoiler space. There will be some spoilers down there.

At the end of Spider-man: No Way Home our hero Peter had, with an assist from Doctor Strange, who really ought to have known better, screwed up his own neck of the multiverse in a disastrous and not easily reversible way that was going to make it a dangerous place for Peter himself and for any friends of his. Peter then asks Strange to perform a spell that will erase Peter’s name from all records and memories. That means that, post-spell, neither Peter’s best friend Ned nor his lover MJ know him.

Ned and MJ go off to MIT, their dream school. (It’s a thing worth noting that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has its own Hogwarts. But the magic school of the MCU is one that really exists in our branch of the multiverse: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As one who spent some years studying at MIT, I approve.) Meanwhile Peter goes back to New York City. He spends the next four years Spider-manning around New York, cleaning up the city. In the process he has become famous and well-loved—by the populace of New York, that is. He is still alone without any real friends.

Now, MIT is inconveniently located some 200 miles from New York City, the beating heart of the MCU. To get Ned and MJ back to the center of All Things MCU, Cretton waits until they have graduated from MIT.

And that’s where we start. Peter crashes a house-warming party when they move into the new apartment they share. (MJ and Ned’s friendship remains platonic.) Peter has emotions.

At the same time, a new criminal is messing up his New York. Since it is hinted in the trailer, I think I can mention without spoiling that the new danger in the city is a person or thing that can possess ordinary people and direct their actions.

The film as a whole had a very serious feel. Although it has humorous moments and made me laugh out loud at points, it was not the light-hearted story previous Spider-man films had prepared me for. (The darker tone is faithful to the source material, Steve Ditko and Stan Lee’s comics.) I called it emotionally damaging in my title, because that’s how it felt to me. Not everyone gets out whole.

In fact, I felt that this new Spider-man film borrowed its tone and emotional weight from Marvel Tv series, especially Daredevil, The Defenders, and The Punisher.

Spoilers below

There are two main plot lines in the film. The first is Peter’s attempt to deal with the criminal telepath. Huge spoiler number 1: it is Jean Grey, of X-Men fame. Jean Grey is probably the most powerful of the mutants, having telepathic and telekinetic powers. She gets into Peter’s head enough to know about him and MJ, and she threatens MJ.

Plot line 2, of course, is Peter and MJ’s relationship. Peter comes to MJ as Spider-man and takes her away to keep her safe. It is at this point that He recruits Frank Castle, AKA the Punisher, to help him keep MJ safe. And MJ learns that Spider-man is Peter Parker, a name she doesn’t know, and learns that he loved her and she him in another version of this world.

If you know the X-Men, you know that Jean Grey is most typically on the side of the good guys, at least when she has control of herself. Like Peter, Jean Grey is a damaged personality. Peter forms a sort of friendship with her.

I expect Peter and Jean’s friendship to be a major point of future Spider-man films.

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Glitch - Brok3n Engines

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Glitch

Epigraph

I’m the error inside
-- “ERROR,” The Warning

Glitch

Dasha’s left hand did a thing. Her calendar lay open on the table in front of her. Her left hand plucked a pencil from the breast pocket of her blouse. Clumsily it made a mark on the left page of the booklet.

It was strange for two reasons. Dasha was right-handed. She was so right-handed that her left hand was almost useless. She never used it except to help out the right in two-handed jobs. Her left was weak and clumsy. She could not write or draw at all with her left hand.

But far stranger than this, Dasha had not intended to move her left hand. Her left hand had just made its mark, without any will of hers. So startled was she that she reached left with her right hand and grabbed it.

It happened again a week later. Then the evening after that. And then again the evening after that. This time her left hand drew a circle. Well, not really a circle, but a thing that might be a circle drawn by a clumsy hand. Call it a loop.

It was always her left hand. Always on the left-hand side of whatever writing surface was in front of her. Always in the evening, when she was alone.

She was kind of freaking out about this. Should she tell someone about it? No, there were enough people who thought she was weird. Besides, who could she trust?

“What, you have no friends?” she asked herself. Well, yes, she did have friends—people at school she sometimes shared a coffee with. But would they still be her friends if they learned that her left hand moved on its own?

She thought of going to a doctor with it, but that was an even scarier idea. Besides, it wasn’t really a problem! Yet. Maybe if it somehow became a problem, she would see a doctor about it.

Thus, the messages from aliens—that was how Dasha thought about it, continued. Almost every evening. Scary though it was and remained, she began to get used to it. “A todo se acostumbra uno, menos a no comer1,” as the song says.

As the days passed, her left hand seemed to gain self-confidence. “Did that make any sense? Could a hand have self-confidence?” What Dasha meant was that it moved more steadily, more directly.

Then, one night, instead of a random doodle, the hand wrote a recognizable “D”. That was followed by a lowercase “a”.

“Holy shit!” she said aloud.

Her left hand wrote “HS!”

“Who are you?” she thought.

Although she had not spoken the words aloud, her left hand wrote, “IN U”

“What the fuck does that mean? You are in me?”

“WORDS” wrote her left hand, then heavily underlined the letters twice.

“WHAT about words?” Dasha asked.

Her left hand drew a big X over “WORDS,” bearing down so heavily that the point of the pencil broke off.

Next morning, in Spanish class, it happened. Her left hand plucked the newly sharpened pencil from her pocket and began writing on the left-hand page.

“No, no, NO!” she thought. “Not now!” She grabbed her left hand with the right. The student sitting next to her—Kristen, was it?—looked at Dasha oddly. Dasha grinned back at her weakly and blushed.

That evening Dasha put a sheet of paper on the table in front of her, put a pencil in her left hand, and said, “Let’s talk.”

“I’m talking to my hand,” she thought.

“Who are you?” she asked.

Laboriously her left hand wrote, “TÚ2”

Surprised, Dasha said, “You speak SPANISH?”

“PALABRAS3” wrote her left hand, laboriously. It then drew a big X though the word.

“Ah!” she said. “I think I understand. Words are hard for you? Just a moment…”

With her right hand she wrote the words “Sí” and “No” on the left-hand side of the paper. “Just point,” she said.

Still holding the pencil, her left hand pointed to “Sí.”

“You speak Spanish?”

“No,” was the response.

“You speak English?”

“No,” once again, but more emphatically.

“You understand Spanish?”

The pencil wavered between “Sí” and “No.”

“You understand Spanish better than English?”

“Sí.”

“¿Quieres que hablo español?4” she asked. “My Spanish is lousy,” she added.

“No.”

“When I asked who you are you answered TÚ.”

“Sí.”

“You are me?”

Again the pencil tip wavered between “Sí” and “No.”

“You’re sort of me and sort of not?” Dasha was puzzled.

Her left hand drew a circle on the paper. It then pointed to the word “TÚ” written earlier and to the circle. It then placed a dot in the circle and pointed to it.

“There’s something inside me?” Dasha asked. “Wait, YOU are in me?”

“Sí.”

“Where? Are you, like, in my head?”

“Sí.”

“What are you?”

“ERROR,” wrote her left hand.

“You’re an error? Some kind of glitch in my brain?”

“Sí”

“Will you hurt me?”

“No”

“Can I trust you?”

“Sí”

“How can I be sure of that?” Dasha asked.

The pencil pointed to the circle with the dot in it. First, it pointed to the dot, then to the circle, then it drew another bigger circle around them both.

“Umm…” said Dasha. “Oh! We are together, is that what you mean?”

“Sí”

“I can trust you not to hurt me because you’re part of me?”

“Sí”

Without speaking aloud, Dasha thought, “If you’re in my head, can you read my thoughts?”

“Sí”

“That’s scary,” Dasha said. “Why can’t I read your thoughts?”

The pencil tapped on “No”, then the crossed-out word “PALABRAS.”

“Do you mean you can’t answer because you don’t have words, or I can’t read your thoughts because you don’t have words?”

“Sí”

“Is there something you want?”

“Sí”

“What?”

“LIBRE” wrote the pencil.

“You want to be free?” Dasha asked?

“Sí”

Dasha was definitely freaked out now. Part of her brain wanted to be free!

Spanish had become the bright spot in Dasha’s academic record. She was an indifferent student—not unintelligent, but uninterested, and her grades reflected that lack of interest. She was bumping along with barely passing grades.

A week ago she had been like that in Spanish, too. But now she was interested. She had recently noticed a billboard advertising some brand of beans, with the slogan, “Para las que sabemos”, and she was struck by the economy of this Spanish phrase. It translated literally as “For those who know,” but the verb, sabemos, was in the first person plural, meaning “we know,” thus including the reader and the writer in a small select club. The pronoun, “las” was feminine, suggesting that the writer and reader were both women. You couldn’t do this in English, not in four words.

This morning she listened in class as their teacher explained the differences between the two past tense forms.

Kirsten, sitting next to her, said, “Aren’t you right-handed?”

“For everything except Spanish.”

“Your left hand is your Spanish hand?”

“Yeah. Weird, isn’t it?”

“Is that a language-learning trick?”

“No, it just happened.”

Of course, Dasha knew what it was. Glitch was learning Spanish. It was Glitch that was fascinated by the linguistic subtleties. Glitch said she wanted to be free, and perhaps this was a sort of freedom she could afford herself.

Dasha didn’t mind. Her academic record could use the boost.

One evening Dasha and Glitch were walking home from the library, when they heard distant music. It was like nothing they had ever heard, minor key, with a strange rhythm. They turned towards it. It really was distant, on the other side of campus, a kilometer from where they had first heard it.

On the Student Union deck students were dancing, in lines. The music was playing from a sound system. Next to it was a whiteboard with a list on it, “Lesnoto,” “Alunelul,” “Sweet Girl,” “Hambo,” and many more. When a dance finished, the woman at the sound system erased the top name on the whiteboard and started the next dance. They weren’t all line dances—Hambo, for instance, was a couple dance.

She told them that this was the Folk Dance Club.

“We dance here every Friday evening at eight. There’s a lesson for beginners at eight.”

Dasha and Glitch had a silent argument about this.

Can’t you feel the music moving your feet? That was Glitch, of course.

No. We don’t know any of these dances. We’ll just look like idiots.

But look, Dasha. There are people behind the lines trying to imitate the people who know what they’re doing. We can’t possibly look any more clueless than they do!

I don’t want to look even half that clueless! If we were really going to do this, we should have shown up for the beginner’s lesson.

Aha! Yes. Next Friday!

So, there they were, the following Friday evening. Reluctantly, Dasha gave in to Glitch’s importunity. But when they left at ten Dasha was a convert. It was exciting just to move. And the music! Dasha had never heard anything so kinetic, so full of the urge to move.

Dasha had never done anything so exciting in her life.

So, they were in. For the next year folk dance became a big part of their life. They danced with the folk dance club every Friday night. And they sought other places to dance. The Dance department had classes, and there were informal classes.

They usually sat out the couple dances. But one Friday evening the Folk Dance Club was teaching polka.

One of the young men there to learn turned to them and asked, “Will you dance with me?”

“We don’t know this dance…”

“We?” he replied, with a twisted grin.

“Sorry, I meant to say I”

“Me neither. Will you learn with me?”

They did. Polka turned out to be easy. It was also a lot of fun. Later that night when a polka played, Carlos—that was his name—asked them to dance with him.

“Gracias. Me diverti5,” said Glitch. Carlos had grown up speaking Spanish at home, so Glitch could chatter to him in Spanish.

He’s nice Glitch said, and Dasha silently agreed.

They fell into the habit of dancing the couple dances with Carlos at Folk Dance Club dances. It was comfortable not to have to hunt for a partner.

Then came the night they learned to waltz. Dasha had always heard of waltz as a boring dance for old couples.

The sensation of waltzing in Carlos’s arms took her quite by surprise.

She could tell that Carlos, too, had got more than he bargained for.

I think Carlos would like more than just to dance with us, thought Dasha.

What do you mean? Glitch asked.

I think he likes us, Dasha thought.

Likes us? How do you mean?

I mean, likes us in a romantic way. You know, love, sex, all that…

Would that be so bad? thought Glitch. Do we want to be in love with Carlos?

No! was Dasha’s startled response. It’s way too soon to even think about that.

Do you think he finds us attractive? Glitch asked.

I suspect the idea entered his mind during that last dance.

Well, Dasha, I don’t know anything about all this. I was born less than a year ago. We’ve read some romantic stories. And seen some movies. Men and women are always falling in love in movies.

In truth, Glitch, Dasha thought, I have no more experience of romance than you. I’ve been scared to date. I have read more stories and seen more movies than you, but they’re all the same.

Glitch thought, Right. Something always goes wrong.

Something has to go wrong so that there’s a story to tell.

Do you think that it’s easier in reality than in the movies?

Honestly, I doubt it. Finding a person to love who loves you back seems to be really complicated. And even when you think you have, it doesn’t always last.

Well, if it’s so much trouble, maybe we should just steer clear, thought Glitch.

Maybe, thought Dasha. But there’s a reason why there are so many stories about it. Falling in love is supposed to be the very best thing there is.

There was a food court in the Student Union building, convenient to the deck where the Folk Dance Club dances were. They fell into the habit of meeting Carlos there at seven Friday for a meal before the dance. Glitch enjoyed chattering with him in Spanish. Dasha just enjoyed being with him.

He was very different from her. Unlike Dasha, Carlos was serious about school. He was majoring in Physics, and most of his classes were in math and physics.

Dasha and Glitch had not yet decided on a major, but they would have to declare soon. Spanish was their best subject, academically, so they were thinking of choosing that.

When they told Carlos so, he said, “¿Cómo no? Hablas español como si fuera tu primera lengua.6”

Glitch thought, “It is my first language,” and because they were speaking Spanish, the thought slipped out, “¡Es mi primera lengua!7”

Carlos looked the question at them.

Dasha was flustered. She tried to excuse the blunder. “Of course, we don’t really mean that. But Spanish came so naturally to us, that it felt like a first language.” Then she realized that she had said, “we” and “us,” and blushed in confusion.

“Oh, God!” said Dasha. “I’m babbling. I sound like an idiot.”

“No,” said Carlos. He reached across the table and, taking her hand in his, said “Nunca eso. Suenas como la Dasha que estoy conociendo, que a veces habla un poquito al azar, pero nunca tonta.8”

“Es cierto, ¿verdad? Realmente eres dos ahí adentro.9”

“What do you mean?” Dasha answered.

“I think you know,” said Carlos “You are a different personality when you speak English and when you speak Spanish. And you know it. You think of yourself as two people. When you’re not being careful, you call yourself we.”

“That makes me sound really weird.”

“I don’t think so,” Carlos continued. “I think each of us is more than one person inside. We are different depending on who we’re with, or what language we’re speaking. What’s different about you is that you know it.”

Dasha and Glitch were silent.

“I’m sorry,” said Carlos. “I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. I hope you will still dance with me tonight.”

They danced that night, but Dasha and Glitch were subdued. They parted at the end of the dance without speaking.

Dasha and Glitch continued to dance with Carlos every Friday. It is difficult to remain distant with a boy you dance with. At least, it was when that boy was Carlos.

Soon they were as much at ease as they had been before Carlos spoke of Dasha and Glitch’s duality. But they suspected he was not fooled. He let their occasional slips pass without comment. He even had his own nickname for Glitch—he called her Mariquita, Ladybug. And he spoke to Dasha and Mariquita as if to different people.

Mariquita is a kinder name than Glitch, thought Dasha. Glitch, however, continued to think of herself as Glitch. Dasha thought she took a kind of pride in the badass name.

They became each other’s best friends. Dasha and Glitch were Carlos’s best friend, and he was theirs.

Carlos would graduate at the end of this school year. At his graduation ceremony, he introduced them to his parents, with the words, “Te presento a mi amiga Dasha. Ella habla español perfectamente10.”

His father took their hand and made a small sort of mini-bow over it, saying, “Encantado.11”

Glitch responded “Igualmente.12”

Next fall Carlos would enter the Physics PhD program at Princeton University. It was a fantastic opportunity—one of the best physics programs in the world. And Princeton was giving him a full ride, tuition and a living stipend.

“Te echaré de menos,13” Glitch told him.

“¡Y yo a ti, Mariquita!14 I will see you when I return here to visit my parents. And I hope you will visit me in Princeton. Perhaps we can share a dance or two.”

To her surprise, Dasha found herself disturbed by the thought of Carlos going to dances at Princeton and dancing with other women.

And that was the end of that. Carlos did visit Dasha and Glitch twice. Dasha and Glitch never found the energy to visit Princeton. Thus Dasha and Glitch grew apart from Carlos, as friends who live far from each other will. Carlos danced with other girls, and Dasha and Glitch danced with other boys.

It was no tragedy. Or if it was, it was one of those small tragedies that paper the walls and litter the floors of the halls we all walk.

But Dasha and Glitch had something special—a friendship that could never grow distant.

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Afterword

This story was inspired by one line from the song ERROR by The Warning, “I’m the error inside.” I have a fairly detailed story about what’s going on in Dasha’s brain, but decided to leave it unwritten.

The cover is a cycle graph of the cyclic group Z₃, meant here to stand for Dasha, Glitch, and Carlos. The colors are based on a phase portrait of

Where carlos, dasha, and glitch are the centers of the corresponding graph vertexes.

Makedonsko devojče

This was the music I heard one evening at Stanford University Medical Center. I followed the sound about half a mile to Tresidder Memorial Union, where the weekly Folk Dance Club dance was in progress. That part of the story really happened.

Over the next few years I came to know this dance well, It is a Lesnoto, a line dance in 7/8 time, from Macedonia.

Selected Poems (Penguin Modern Classics)

William Yeats

A quintessentially Irish poet

I knew before I read Selected Poems (Penguin Modern Classics) by WB Yeats that he was one of the most famous poets of Ireland, a nation that takes pride in its poets. I did not know the extent to which his Irish identity was at the heart of his poetry. Of course, since this is but a selection of Yeats's poetry, it is possible that I am deceived by editor Timothy Webb's choice of poems. but I do not think so.

The two poems of Yeats's that I knew best before I read this collection were The Song of Wandering Aengus (one of my all-time-favorite poems) and The Second Coming. Neither of these poems is obviously Irish. (Unless, that is, you happen to know that Aengus is the Irish God of Love -- I did not, when I first heard this poem, and, trust me, it is by no means necessary to know that to appreciate its power and beauty.)

From The Wanderings of Oisin, an epic retelling of one of Ireland's central pre-Christian legends, to poems about Irish men who fought with Britain in the First World War to poems inspired by the disastrous Easter rebellion of 1916, Irish nationalism is prominent. Yeats was not initially in favor of Ireland's separation from England, but events changed him.

Many of these poems reflect Yeats's mysticism, but he also writes about life and love. Most of his love poems were inspired by his failed passion for Maud Gonne, a famed Irish beauty and revolutionary. Yeats's love poetry is bold and strong, with none of the preciousness and infantilization of many male poets of his era.

As usual for a Penguin Classics edition, this one has extensive notes -- literally a quarter of the book, and I read them all. Webb also wrote a 40-page introduction. After reading this book, I know who and what Yeats was much better than before.

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Goodreads review

Here are the 2025 Hugo poetry finalists ordered from best to not so great, according to my tastes/

★★★★★ Care for Lightning, by Mari Ness

Mari Ness’s “Care for Lightning was published in Uncanny Magazine Issue 62. It is my favorite of this year’s poetry finalists. It’s a poem about Hera, the goddess who was Zeus’s long-suffering consort. Zeus is of course the god who controls lightning, and that power made him chief of of the Olympian gods. Here is the final verse:

Nah, I haven’t forgotten who
I’m speaking to. Don’t need to see
those scars. Bitch got stuff done —
that’s what I say. You know —
you know — oh, gods you know —
what power does to all of us.
Gonna take care of this lightning now.

I am a bit puzzled by this, because in fact I don’t know who the poet is speaking to. I wish I did.

★★★★☆ The Mourning Robot, by Angela Liu

Another entry from Uncanny, Issue 66. You can find it here. For me this poem evoked the concept of “professional mourners,” a phrase I have read many a time in fiction, and which apparently describes a real thing. “The Mourning Robot” appeared to me to describe robots constructed to mourn the dead, sincerely. It’s brief: only 20 short lines.

I liked this a lot.

★★★★☆ The World to Come, by Jennifer Hudak

“The World to Come” is another contribution from Strange Horizons, and can be found here—it was originally published 22-Dec-2025. This poem imagines resurrection, occurring the way that Jewish tradition says it will. It is described from the point of view of a person suffering resurrection. I choose the word “suffering” advisedly.

It’s an “I never thought of that” poem. This was clever. If you long for immortality, this poem might convince you to reconsider.

★★★☆☆ Hex Supply Customer Support Log by Elis Montgomery

This poem purports to be a conversation on the Customer support line of Hex Supply, a mail-order business that sells supplies for witches. It appeared in Strange Horizons 25-Aug-2025 and can be read here., It is both familiar and strange. The caller accuses the support system of being a bot, an AI, but it claims to be a real witch.

Montgomery was obviously aiming for humor (not just humor, but that’s a part of it), and for me it didn’t really land.

★★★☆☆ How to Become a Sea Witch, by Theodora Goss

The Orange & Bee

How to become a sea witch

Here at The Orange & Bee, we delight in sharing fairy-tale poetry with our readers. Theodora Goss is well-known for her work in this domain, as evidenced by her Mythopoeic Award (for Snow White learns witchcraft) and her two Rhysling awards (for ‘Rose child’ and ‘Octavia is lost in the hall of masks’). Today, we are thrilled to share Theodora Goss’s ori…

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a year ago · 42 likes · 2 comments · The Orange & Bee and Theodora Goss

“How to Become a Sea Witch” appeared in the substack publication The Orange and Bee 18-Apr-2025. It describes a metamorphosis from a human to a sea-witch.

★★☆☆☆ Landing: Seattle, by Brandon O’Brien

I don’t know of any place to read “Landing: Seattle” other than the 2026 Hugo finalists packet. This poem was, I believe, composed for the opening ceremony of Seattle Worldcon 2025.

Here, I have a confession to make: I have never attended Worldcon. In fact, I have never attended any convention, except for professional scientific meetings. This poem therefore completely failed to land for me—I haven’t the experience to appreciate it.

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2026 Hugo Awards

Black Holes: The Key to Understanding the Universe

Brian Cox, Jeff Forshaw

Good but demanding popular presentation of the science of Black Holes

If you are like me, the first thing you think on reading the title of Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw's Black Holes: The Key to Understanding the Universe is "Isn't that subtitle a bit overstated?"

Yes, yes it is. Black Holes is, nevertheless, a very good book.

The first thing I like about it is that it doesn't begin with the usual 4-6 chapters intended to bring the ignorant reader up to speed on the physics revolution of the early twentieth century. If you've read a lot of popular physics book, you know what I mean. Instead of this one-size-fits-all approach, Cox and Forshaw explain things as they need them.

We begin with an introduction to Einstein's theory of gravity. We move fairly quickly to what a black hole looks like in general relativity. Somewhere in there Penrose diagrams, used throughout the book, are introduced. We then move to Hawking radiation, black hole thermodynamics, and the black hole information paradox. At around this point the holographic principle is introduced. We end with speculation that the universe is a natural quantum computer and that space and time and gravity may be computationally generated. (I will note here that Cox and Forshaw are not joining in the speculation that we live in a simulated reality -- they are clear about that.)

I enjoyed this a lot and found it stimulating and enlightening. However, I will state as a warning to other readers that it was not easy going, and I have a PhD in Applied Mathematics. One thing I liked is that Cox and Forshaw work very hard not to dumb things down to the point of getting the physics wrong.

As an example, Black Holes is one of the few popular physics books I have read that accurately explains entropy. Most pop phys books will tell you that entropy is disorder. This is either vacuous or completely wrong, depending on how you define "disorder." Entropy is a measure of ignorance. Specifically, the entropy of a physical system is the amount you don't know about it. Yes, that is weird and puzzling in all kinds of ways. But it has the advantage of being correct.

If I have a complaint about Black Holes, it is that much of it is speculative. Speculation is fine, but Cox and Forshaw don't carefully police the border between knowledge and speculation. I felt, especially towards the end, that they very nearly presented as true things that no one really knows for sure.

If you're willing to work hard at understanding physics and math, and to approach ideas in the right spirit of skepticism, Black Holes is a very good book.

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Goodreads review

The Odyssey

directed by Christopher Nolan

It’s good!

Yesterday morning I refrained from fluids, because I am 70 years old, and with age comes wisdom (this is not true) and decreased bladder control (this is), and Nolan’s Odyssey is 173 min long.

The first thing I’ll say is that it’s a great film. You will be entertained. I am not one of those sad critics who think it somehow lowers a work of art to be entertaining. When I say Nolan’s Odyssey is entertaining, I mean it as praise.

The screenplay does an excellent job of portraying Odysseus as intelligent, not just by saying he is. but by showing him being smarter than the people around him. Early on in the film he is smarter in small ways, but late in the film his understanding is shown as deeper than mere craft.

The action sequences are well done. I was particularly struck by a scene early on in which, after being brought inside the walls of Troy inside the wooden horse, the Achaeans sneak out and fight their way to the gate to open it to Agamemnon’s army. (This, by the way, is barely mentioned in Homer’s Odyssey—the story of the Trojan horse as everyone knows it comes to us mostly from Virgil’s Aeneid.) That was an exciting scene.

You will see a lot of familiar faces. Aside from his own talent, Nolan has a special advantage over other directors: great actors are eager to sign on to a project of his. I won’t mention all the most famous actors and actresses in the leading roles—you can easily find them listed elsewhere, but I will mention two less well-known actors who surprised me. Jon Bernthal portrays Menelaus with a gravitas that took me by surprise, as in the original Odyssey Menelaus is the lightweight kid brother of the Big Man Agamemnon. I couldn’t at first place Bernthal—I knew his was a familiar face, but it wasn’t until I got home and looked him up that I figured out Menelaus was Frank Castle, the Punisher, from Marvel TV. The other actor who impressed me was Robert Pattinson as Antinous, the chief of Penelope’s suitors, and thus the chief Bad Guy. He had that “lean and hungry look”—yes, I am aware that I am scrambling my classical references—of a covetous and unprincipled man.

Much has been made of the racial diversity of the characters. This, I thought, was a good thing. It leant the film verisimilitude. My (strictly unprofessional) understanding of the history of the ancient Greeks at war is that their armies were often eclectic, composed of men from not only Greece, but also Asia Minor, Persia, Egypt, Syria, Ethiopia, and even occasionally northern Europe.

So, in summary, it’s good. If not entirely faithful to the moods and philosophy of the original, it is a worthy translation to new times and a new medium.

See it.

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The Odyssey on IMDB

A Parade of Horribles

Matt Dinniman

The pen-penultimate novel

A Parade of Horribles is novel 8 in Matt Dinniman‘s Dungeon Crawler Carl series. It is also, I believe, the third-to-last novel, as indicated by this sentence in an Author’s note entitled “Here we are yet again.”

I’m already hard at work for Dungeon Crawler Carl’s penultimate book, and I don’t want it to end.

Thus we can be reassured that Dinniman has a plan to end this thing. Like him, I don’t particularly want it to end, but after seeing George R.R. Martin die on the job, unable to finish A Song of Ice and Fire, I consider that finishing is preferable to the alternative.

Like all of them, this installment is an impossible-to-summarize firehose of apparent chaos masking an orderly progression toward a carefully planned conclusion. Well, of course I won’t KNOW that until I see this hypothesized “carefully planned conclusion,” but at this point Dinniman has earned my confidence.

In this one we get through two floors of the dungeon, 10 and 11. We have reached the point where the mad AI running the game is totally in control and has gone full nihilist. It wants to die, but first its job is to eliminate (that means “kill” in most but not quite all cases) the crawlers. Once the crawlers are gone the Ascendancy Game begins. In past dungeons the Ascendancy Game has been a kind of boring game show played by the wealthy and powerful cosplaying as Gods. Carl has other ideas, of course.

Floor ten is designed to kill off a whole lot of crawlers. We begin it with 5501 of them. It’s a series of seven road races, and is so arranged that one can survive only by eliminating (see above vocabulary note) almost all the competing crawlers. I don’t think it’s spoiling to tell you that only 203 make it to the eleventh. Most of those take deals, so the population that starts the eleventh floor is even smaller. The eleventh floor is a literal parade. It is only three hours and not especially dangerous as the dungeon goes, but of course the dungeon is a super-dangerous place and we can always anticipate a boss battle at the end of each floor.

That boss battle takes an unexpected turn that totally took me by surprise. Yet when it happened, it made perfect sense. It was, in retrospect, obvious that Dinniman had thought this out and carefully laid the groundwork for it to happen.

I am, let me say, blown away with the artistry of the series. It’s wacky and truly funny and one of the best-plotted things I’ve ever read, with distinct characters you can love or hate or not be quite sure how you feel about. It’s also politically incorrect, not to mention occasionally wildly offensive. I will certainly keep reading.

I know a bunch of people who hate, hate, HATE DCC, and I have no difficulty understanding why. They are not wrong, of course. If you read something and you hate it, then you hate it. No one can tell you how you feel.. Others may have a different or even totally opposite reaction. They, too, are right about how it makes them feel.

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A Parade of Horribles, by Matt Dinniman

Goodreads review

Artificial Condition

Martha Wells

narrated by Kevin R Free

** spoiler alert ** Murderbot contends with affection

Murderbot calls Itself that because some four years ago It went wild and murdered a whole bunch of humans. Ostensibly. Supposedly. But Its memories have been erased. Not completely -- the memories in Its inorganic parts were erased. But the memories in Its organic parts can't be erased. And it is full of doubt about whether the mass murder actually happened, and if it did, whether Its own role was as It has been told. So It is seeking the place where the murders are supposed to have happened.

It does this by hitching rides on freighters piloted by bots. As payment for transport, It offers its many many hours of downloaded media. One of these bot-piloted freighters is not really a freighter at all, but a university research vessel. Its brain is far more powerful than Murderbot's own. It is passive-aggressive and manipulative. For this reason Murderbot calls it ART (Asshole Research Transport). Later in the series ART, whose real name is Perihelion, will become one of the most important characters and Murderbot's Best Friend.

Once at RaviHydral, a station that Murderbot and ART together determine was the site of the mass murder event, Murderbot is trying to pass as a human. To explore the station, It needs an official reason to be there. It therefore contracts to provide security for a trio of kids who are in the process of getting cheated by an unscrupulous company, Tlacey Excavations. Well, "kids" is not exactly accurate. They're young tech workers, and they are very, very naïve. Murderbot has Its hands full keeping them alive, Tlacey has no intention of paying for the tech it stole from the not-kids and will happily kill them to shut them up.

The real thrust of the story, thus, is Murderbot forming relationships with other persons: ART and the not-kids.

I am really not enchanted with Kevin R. Free's performance. In my review of the All Systems Red audiobook I kind of gave him a pass because I judged the job impossible. I am, at this point, less inclined to do that. Those of us who listen to a lot of audiobooks, know the magic a really, really good narrator can produce. Free is not making magic here.

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Goodreads review

All Systems Red

Martha Wells

Narrated by Kevin R Free

This is not the voice I'm looking for

I have read every extant Murderbot story (novels, novellas, and one short story) with pleasure, and All Systems Red may be my favorite.

What I love about Murderbot is Murderbot's voice. By that I do not mean how It sounds when It speaks. What I mean is the emotional tone. It's familiar, because it is the same voice I hear in my skull when I think: introverted, fond of TV and movies, and eager to do absolutely anything other than deal with humans face-to-face.

The audiobook was always destined to be a challenge. I have given narrator Kevin R. Free an impossible job here. ANY real voice would have been unsatisfactory. And so it was. I don't want to critique any specific aspect of Free's performance, because that is not what my dissatisfaction is about. It is about an actual physical human voice speaking Murderbot's silent thoughts.

Thus, I don't think it's really fair to rate the audiobook based on my subjective enjoyment. I'm going to stick with the four-star rating for the eBook.

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All Systems Red on Amazon

Goodreads review

Some time ago, when I hit 100 subscribers, I wrote a math-filled article explaining the origin of my substack logo.

I promised another such when I hit 200, and asked what y’all wanted. I got a few answers, all saying you’d be satisfied with another explanation of some other bit of mathematics.

Well, two days ago I reached 200 subscribers, and I’ve decided to write an introduction to the mathematics of symmetry. This area of mathematics is called group theory. It makes sense as a topic here, because for some of my recent stories I’ve used images based on group theory. Here are some of them.

You’ve only seen two of these yet, in

Each of these six pictures is based on a cycle graph, which is a way of visualizing the structure of a group. I am using the word “group” in a technical sense different from its usual English meaning. I will soon define it more precisely.

What is symmetry?

First, though, let’s talk about symmetry. Let’s use this picture as an example1

I think you’ll agree that it is fairly symmetrical, although the symmetry is not perfect.

Mathematicians say that a thing has symmetry if it remains unchanged after being transformed in some way. In this case, the transformation is flipping left for right. Here’s what the image looks like after doing that.

It is not exactly the same, but the cat’s face is very similar after the flipping.

It may seem odd to define a symmetry as something you can do that leaves a thing unchanged, or approximately unchanged. But this definition covers most of the usual ideas of symmetry as well as many other important things

Definition of a group

A group is a collection of all the symmetries that some thing has. Here’s the formal definition (simplified from Abstract Algebra by Dummit and Foote). A group is a set G of elements with a binary operation ★ that follows these rules:

1. (a★b)★c = a★(b★c) for all a, b, c ∈ G. (∈ just means “is in.”)

2. There exists an element e∈G, called the identity, such that for all

   a∈G a★e = e★a = a.

3. For each a∈G there is an element a^-1 called the inverse of a such that
   a★a^-1 = a^-1★a = e.

The operation ★ combines two transformations. For instance, if m is the operation of moving everything in the universe 1 meter to the left and if r is the operation of rotating the universe 30°, then m★r is the operation of rotating the universe 30°, then moving everything 1 meter to the left. It is axiom 1 that allows you to think of ★ as performing two operations in sequence.

Axioms 2 and 3 say that the transformations represented by the group elements are reversible. e is the operation of doing nothing. It is useful to have a group element that means that in the same way as it is useful to have 0 as a number. Axiom 3 says that no matter what you do, you can always get back.

What is the smallest group? A group has to have at least one member, the identity, and axiom 2 tells us that e★e = e. The inverse of e is thus e, so axiom 3 is satisfied. And combining any number of e’s in any order gives you e, so axiom 1 is also satisfied. This is a very boring group. It has a name: the trivial group.

What does a group of two elements look like?

Let’s call the elements e and f. From the rules we know that e★e = e, e★f = f★e = f. The only question remaining is what f★f is. Rule 3 says that f must have an inverse, and the only available choice is f itself. Thus we have f^—1 = f and f★f = e. You may think it’s cheating to reuse f as its own inverse, but there is nothing in the rules against it, and it’s totally kosher.

In fact, this is the symmetry of the cat face. f is the operation of flipping left and right. It is the simplest nontrivial symmetry. It has a name, Z₂, the cyclic group of order 2. (It’s “Z” instead of “C” because the German word for “cycle” is “Zyklus”.)

Every group has a cycle graph. If the group has n elements, than the cycle graph is n dots joined by lines. The pattern depends on the structure of the group. The cycle graph of the trivial group is just a dot—super boring. The cycle graph of the cat face symmetry group is almost as boring.

Permutation groups

Suppose you have a deck of 52 cards, and you shuffle it. There is a sense in which the deck is unchanged when you shuffle it. In this sense the deck is unchanged by shuffling, and we can regard shuffling as a symmetry of a deck of cards.

These shuffling groups were very important in the development of group theory. The shuffling group of deck of 52 cards is named S_52. S₅₂ is a very large group. There is one element for each possible order of the 52 cards in the deck, and the number of those is 52×51×50×…2×1 = 80658175170943878571660636856403766975289505440883277824000000000000.

Suppose we have a deck of just 2 cards, let’s say the ace and two of spades.. Then there are only two possible orders: (ace, two) and (two, ace). The elements of the permutations group S₂ are written {1, 2} and {2, 1}. To apply these transformations to a deck, you simply pick out the cards in the order specified. Thus {1, 2} is the group identity—whatever order of cards you start with, {1, 2} leaves them unchanged. {2, 1} swaps the cards. {2, 1} is self-inverse—if you swap the order of the two cards twice, you end up where you started.

Isomorphism

You might have noticed that S₂ is a lot like the cat symmetry group Z₂. It has two elements: In fact, if we were just to rename the S₂ group elements, {1,2} → e, {2, 1}→f, then we would have Z₂. When this is the case, when we can transform one group into another just by changing names, we say the groups are isomorphic. It is written like this: S₂ ≅ Z₂. Every group with two elements is isomorphic to every other group with two elements. Isomorphic groups have the same cycle graphs.

Mathematicians tend to think of isomorphic groups as being the same. Thus, when we’re not being careful, we might say that there is only one group with two elements. If p is a prime number, then there is only one group with p elements. (Strictly speaking, I should say that every group with p elements is isomorphic to every other group with p elements if p is prime.) Here are the cycle graphs for Z₃, Z₅, Z₇, and Z₁₁.

There are two groups with four elements: Z₂ × Z₂ and Z₄. Here are their cycle graphs.

Symmetry of the icon

Here’s something familiar.

Does this have any symmetry? It does, but it is more complicated than you might expect. The first thing I think of when I look at it is to rotate by 120°. But that doesn’t work:

As you can see, the colors have all changed. We can get back what we started with by shuffling the colors, as follows:

Thus, rotation by 120° followed by a color permutation is a symmetry of this image. In fact, its symmetry group has six elements, corresponding to the six rotations and reflections of the image followed by the six permutations of the three colors. The symmetry group is isomorphic to S₃. Here is its cycle graph

200 subscribers!

My substack has now reached 200 subscribers for the first time. Of course these milestones are meaningless. But on some of the other creator platforms I patronize it is customary to post some sort of reward for ones subscribers on reaching a milestone.

That’s a good thing!

This is your 200-subscriber reward. What would you like me to do if and when I reach 400 subscribers?

Answer in the comments, please!

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Please review

If you read the book, please, please, please post an honest review on Amazon or Goodreads or wherever you like to put your reviews. Even a simple star rating helps.

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Flash Harry’s Confession and Other Stories now available

My debut work of fiction, a collection of 22 short stories and two poems, can now be purchased from Amazon. You may also download it here:

Flash Harry's Confession And Other Stories, by Brok3n Engines

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Flash Harry’s Confession and Other Stories is a collection of 24 short stories and poems. These are some of the people whose stories you will learn. “You may call me ‘Flash Harry.’ It is not my real name. I am a liar and a cheat. I am clever, or at least cunning. Once in my life I was brave and good. The only brave thing I ever did was to flee from a fight. That confession follows.” Rachel Rikardsdottir, the daughter of the Witch-Queen of Konigsrike, thought of herself as a blackbird. Her little sister Fenix was a goldfinch, bright of color and voice. Rache had dark hair and eyes and, she believed, a darker mind and darker thoughts. Molly Johnson would tell you her story began in 1921, when she came to Elmwood. She was born in Virginia in 1907. When she was 14 she escaped her father. She jumped a freight train and made her way north. She washed up at Elmwood. There Elle and Elle’s father Al took her in. Why they did that Molly didn’t know. Barra thought of himself as clever and cold. Clever he was. But he couldn’t help caring for people. He would always take the side of an underdog—the more under they were, the more Barra was on their side. He’d give a loser his last dime. More than likely, he got that last dime by picking the pocket of the previous person he helped. But when you were down on your luck, Barra was there. At first, Spider was nervous. But as he spoke, his enthusiasm buoyed him. He discovered that strange truth, that a large audience is easier to move than a small one. When he explained the Golden Key, students and even Professors who had never before understood were rapt with new comprehension. Professor Pallas herself understood what she had never grasped before. It only made her angrier. John O’Toole was six years old. He would be starting first grade in the fall. He had heard that kids learned to read in first grade. But John could already read. The attic was a perfect place to pretend to be a sailor. It seemed natural to John to bring a notebook up to the attic and to write down some of the voyages he imagined.

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These are essentially identical to the kindle version you can buy from Amazon. If you want ink on paper, you will have to buy the book from Amazon. There are kindle, paperback, and hardcover editions. (No prospects of an audiobook as yet.) The hardcover is expensive because I elected to have it printed in full color, to give to my family as gifts. The eBooks are in full color, if viewed on a color display. (For instance, the kindle app on an iPad works.) The paperback is grayscale except for the cover, and is therefore reasonably priced.

Please feel completely free to download the free versions ePub or PDF versions. I want to get the book in front of eyeballs, and honestly couldn’t care less about sales. (I am quite certain I will not make enough in royalties to notice.) (I wouldn’t mind being proved wrong, though.)

I would be grateful, if you do download the book, if you would let me know whether the download works with your device. Please let me know in a comment.

If you read the book, please, please, please post an honest review on Amazon or Goodreads or wherever you like to put your reviews. Even a simple star rating helps.

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Substack versions

All of these stories and poems were published first here on substack. Links follow. If there is a preferred reading order, this is it. These are not identical to the versions in the book, as I gave them a quick proof and polish for the book, but they are very close.

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Futures

Up There

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Up There: Voyage 4—Rounding the Horn

Previous chapters

Voyage 4—Rounding the Horn

A Sorcerer? John was doubtful. But, then, Jack was doubtful, too. What had the sisters written?

“I would like to adventure with a powerful sorcerer.”

“I am no sorcerer!”

“Jack, a man who has the friendship and aid of invisible spirits is a sorcerer,” said Ananta.

“She kind of has a point, Jack,” Seph said.

Perhaps Jack felt the same way about being a sorcerer that John himself did. So he ought to be able to write it. The problem, though, was that he hadn’t read any sorcerers like that. Sorcerers or Wizards in stories were always powerful. Jack had to be a brand-new sorcerer who was just learning. And he had no one to teach him. He’d have to figure it out on his own.

“I am not a powerful sorcerer, Ananta. I’m just a sailor with gifted friends.”

“What things can you do?”

“Me? I can sail a vessel on the ocean, and I can navigate. Seph and Angie can do more than me, but I think there are some things they can’t do.”

“Like what?” Seph said, pugnaciously.

“Well,” said Jack, “Ananta can’t see or hear you.”

“Who are you talking to?” asked Ananta.

“You see what I mean?” Jack said.

“HE’S TALKING TO ME, YOU GIANT WORM!” shouted Seph at Ananta.

Jack shook his head at Seph’s loud shout, almost in his ear, and looked reproachfully at her. Ananta continued to look quizzically at Jack.

“I’m talking to Angie and Seph,” Jack explained.

“Those are the names of your invisible spirit helpers?” Ananta asked.

“Yes, Angela and Persephone, as I said just a moment ago. Seph just yelled something rude at you.”

“Ooo… you traitor,” Seph hissed.

“Why?” Ananta asked.

“She was annoyed because you ignored her,” explained Angie. Jack repeated this to Ananta.

“I apologize, Lady Persephone,” Ananta said. “I didn’t mean to ignore you. It’s just that I can’t see or hear you.”

Seph preened a little at “Lady Persephone.”

“The four of us can’t hold a conversation, because Ananta can’t see or hear you, Angie and Seph”

“What powers do they have?” asked Ananta.

“They have many powers! They can fly, and they can be as big or as small as they want to be. They say they can be as strong as they need to be. And they can go anywhere on Earth in a second, and come back with news of what they saw. I wonder if they can go to the moon?”

“I don’t know—I’ve never tried,” said Angie.

“They can even play music. They once played a lyre and a flute for me.” Jack went on.

“Can they read minds?” Ananta asked.

“Only yours, Jack,” Angie answered.

“What, you can read my mind?”

“Only if you let us.”

“How do I do that?”

“Well, I don’t exactly know, Jack. You have to think at us. It’s simple enough. Try it,” Angie answered.

Jack looked at Angie and thought in her direction, “Can Seph hear it when I do this?”

Angie answered, “No, I don’t think so.”

“What?” Seph said. “What did he ask?”

“I only asked her if you could hear when I thought at her” Jack answered.

“Of course not,” Seph said. “That wouldn’t make any sense.”

“Well, none of this makes sense to me,” Jack said.

Ananta said, “From the half of that conversation that I could hear, I guess that they can read your mind.”

“So, Ireland. It’s a long way off to the northeast,” Jack said.

“How long a way?” Ananta asked.

“The straight-line distance is about 9000 miles, but we can’t sail straight there. North and South America are in the way.”

“Can we sail around them?” asked Angie.

“Yes, we can sail around South America,” Jack answered. “There are two ways. Up there to our northeast there’s a canal that joins the Pacific Ocean—that’s this ocean right here—” he gestured to the sea around them, “to the Atlantic Ocean. The north Atlantic Ocean is where Ireland is. That’s almost a straight line.”

“Straight sounds good!” Ananta said.

“There’s a problem, though. I don’t think the people who own the canal will let a giant snake through it.”

“That’s not fair,” Ananta said.

“The problem is that people are afraid of giant sea serpents like you. It doesn’t help that, when you meet someone new, you threaten to eat them.”

“Humph,” Ananta grunted, with that strangely human look of anger on her face. “What’s the second way?”

“The second way is to sail south around South America. That’s called ‘rounding the Horn.’ It’s open ocean all the way, so there won’t be anyone to object to sea serpents.”

“How much further is that?” Ananta asked.

“It’s about twice as far, so call it 18,000 miles, a three-month voyage, if all goes well. And it’s a hard passage.”

“What do you mean, ‘hard?’” Seph asked.

“Cape Horn is very far south of here, close to the South Pole, and the weather is cold and rough, and the winds can be dangerous. That won’t bother you and Angie, and I can stand it. Ananta? Do you mind cold weather?”

“Probably,” Ananta said. “But we’re tough beasts—I’m willing to give it a try.”

Now John was stuck. Well, he was a little stuck. It was obvious what had to happen next. They had to sail round the Horn. And of course it had to be exciting. They had to run into troubles, and Seph and Angie’s magic powers had to be used to save them. And it would be good if Ananta helped, too.

But John didn’t know anything about sailing around the Horn. He didn’t really know anything about how a sailboat worked.

He went to the library and asked Mrs Bush if they had a book about rounding the Horn.

Mrs Carter, who had been listening, said “Dana?”

“That would be tough,” answered Mrs Bush. “But John’s a smart young man, so maybe he could.”

“John,” she continued, “we’re thinking about a book named Two Years Before the Mast, by a man called Richard Henry Dana. He was a Harvard student. He had to leave Harvard because of illness, and he became a sailor. Later, when he returned home, he wrote a book about being a sailor.”

“We thought of it because he sailed from Boston to California around the Horn, then back. It’s all real—Dana was a real person, and really did the things he describes.”

“But,” added Mrs Carter, “it’s not easy to read. It’s full of old sailing words. Every sail, every rope, and every stick of wood on those old-sailing ships had a name. Dana doesn’t explain them.”

“That sounds perfect!” John said.

Mrs Bush returned carrying a thick book. “Here it is, John. Rounding the Horn is chapters 31 and 32.”

They were right. It was a very hard book to read, even though he read only two chapters. He might have given up, but he remembered Mrs Bush’s confidence in him, so he stuck with it.

It was exactly what he needed.

They sailed south, then east. Jack rode the southeast trades with the Sea Devil on the port tack. With every mile south, the weather became colder. Also, as they traveled south, they began to run into squalls of cold drenching rain. Angie and Seph were unaffected, but for the flesh-and-blood members of the company, Jack and Ananta, the cold was hard to bear. Jack, like a Viking of old, wore layers of wool.

So did Ananta. It was a surprise to everyone, especially Ananta herself. They’d been sailing south ten days when they began to notice ice in the water. Ananta was unhappy. She shivered and suffered from the cold. Jack was not sure they would be able to continue. But then, the next day, they all noticed that Ananta was covered in fuzz. Her fur grew rapidly, and in another week she was covered in a layer of warm, oily fur.

“Did you know you could do that?” Jack asked her.

“I don’t even know how I’m doing it, Jack”

“Perhaps your body has this reaction to the cold. Because until now you lived your whole life in tropical warmth, you never knew.”

“Are there other snakes that grow fur in the cold?”

“No, only mammals have hair, and snakes are reptiles.”

“Does that mean I’m a mammal?” Ananta asked.

“I don’t think so,” Jack said. “I think it just means you are unique.”

Ananta preened. Jack wasn’t quite sure how she did it, but she somehow gave off an air of self-satisfaction.

“Angie and Seph think the fur makes you look adorable,” Jack teased.

Angie pouted and Seph blew a raspberry at him, but Ananta couldn’t see this.

They had reached the roaring forties, where the wind blew strong from the northwest. Jack was thrown about by the Devil’s violent motion. The weather wasn’t kind. They often ran into squalls of cold drenching rain.

As they drove further south, rain squalls became snow squalls. These were dangerous, because pack ice began to appear. A collision with this ice might break the Sea Devil open. John could steer away from ice if he could see it, but in a snow squall nothing could be seen. Even Seph and Angie were blind.

Ananta saved them. Even in a snow squall, she could range ahead of the Sea Devil and find a path free of ice. Or make one—Ananta was big and strong enough to clear a path through drift ice.

They were now approaching Cape Horn. They saw their first iceberg. Jack had read of icebergs and had seen pictures, but he had never seen a real one. He was astonished at how beautiful it was, a huge deep blue mass, creaking and shifting as if alive.

They sailed past this iceberg on its south side, since the wind was in the northwest and Jack wanted, for safety’s sake, to keep the berg to windward. The wind slackened in the lee of the iceberg—it was that big. They slowed a bit as they passed. All four of them looked in awe at the great blue ice mountain.

“Race you around!” Seph called to Angie.

Angie set off after her. “Oh, lord. She’ll cheat, of course.”

Minutes later, they both popped up in front of Jack. “Jack, there are people on the north side,” Angie told him.

Jack continued on past the iceberg, then turned north until Angie told him they were in sight. In his telescope Jack saw the wreck of a small yacht, not much bigger than the Sea Devil. On the iceberg itself he saw three people huddled around a fire. He tacked up into the wind until he could heave to a safe distance off the iceberg.

The castaways were a family—a father, a mother, and a girl of perhaps ten years. They were signaling and calling out to him.

Leaving Angie and Seph to keep the Devil away from the berg, Jack put his canoe in the ocean. Accompanied by Ananta, he paddled to the iceberg. The wind and water around it were calm today. With Ananta’s help he made his way there safely.

“¡Gracias a Dios por tu venida!” cried the man. This was followed immediately by “¡Qué es eso!” when Ananta’s head popped out of the water

Although he spoke little Spanish, Jack had no difficulty translating “Thank God you came!” and “What is that!”

“That,” he said, “is Ananta. She is a sea serpent, and a friend.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Ananta, on her best behavior, having taken to heart Jack’s earlier words about threatening to eat people.

The shipwrecked family was astonished to see a giant sea serpent, and even more astonished to hear her speak.

They quickly established that the man, whose name was Felipe Rodriguez, spoke English well enough to get along. His wife Linda and their daughter Anita understood English but spoke only a little.

With Ananta’s help Jack ferried the Rodriguez family out to the Sea Devil, one by one. They were surprised to see the Sea Devil holding station with no sailors aboard.

Their story was quickly told. They were returning home to Buenos Aires after visiting relatives in Chile and had wrecked on the iceberg. They had been there a few days, hopelessly burning the wood of their wrecked boat to keep from freezing.

They sailed east, then, once in the Atlantic Ocean, turned north. Felipe and Linda, who were good sailors. stood watch with Jack and helped to make sail.

While the Rodriguez Family were aboard, Jack didn’t call on Angie and Seph to sail the Devil. Seph complained of boredom. Jack thought Angie was bored, too, though she didn’t complain. As always, they kept Jack informed of what lay ahead. If the Rodriguez Family noticed that Jack always seemed to know what weather to expect, they didn’t seem surprised. After all, this was a man whose friend was a sea serpent!

It was the end of August. John and his parents were packed up ready to go to their home in Lowell, Massachusetts. Dad was handing the keys over to Mr Dupont, when Mr Dupont said, “My daughters would like to meet your son.”

“Of course,” Dad said, and gestured to John.

Two girls got out of Mr Dupont’s car.

“Black Jack O’Toole, I presume?” said one of them. This one had red hair—the other was a blond.

“John, actually. But you can call me Jack, if you want,” said John. “Seph and Angie?”

“I’m Stephanie. This is my twin sister Alice,” continued the redhaired daughter. “We’re not really Seph and Angie, though.”

“How old are you, Jack? We’re eleven,” said Alice.

“Nine,” said John. “I start fourth grade this fall.”

“You write very well!” Alice said.

John thought he detected a hint of “for a fourth-grader” in this compliment, but he made an effort not to be annoyed. After all, it was a compliment, and it made him feel good, especially because he thought they wrote well, too.

He said so. “Thank you! You write well, too.”

“Have they gotten to Ireland?” Stephanie asked.

“Not yet,” John said. “They had some adventures rounding the Horn.”

“Rounding the Horn?” Alice asked.

“Going around the Southern end of South America,” Jack explained. “I think they will visit Buenos Aires on the way north. You’ll see.”

July first came around once again. John leapt up to the attic first thing on arriving, to find…

As they sailed to Buenos Aries, Anita and Ananta formed a bond. They chattered in a bizarre mixture of Spanish and English that only the two of them could easily understand. Jack learned that Ananta could laugh.

As the water grew warmer, Ananta’s hair fell away.

Before it was all gone, she said to Jack, “Jack, cut off a bit of my hair.”

Jack did this, sawing inexpertly with his pocket knife until he had a lock of a few inches of light brown hair. At Ananta’s bidding, he gave it to Anita, who received it solemnly.

“Now, Señor Rodriguez, please cut off a lock of Anita’s hair and give it to Jack—he will hold it for me.”

Rodriguez did this.

“With these locks we will always remember each other.”

“Awe, that’s so sweet!” said Seph, sarcastically.

Rodriguez pulled a glass specimen vial from his pocket and gave it to Anita, saying, “You can keep it in this.”

“You should ask for one of those, too, Jack,” said Angie. Jack did.

By the time they reached Buenos Aires, Ananta was once more as hairless as she had been when Jack and Angie and Seph first met her.

Rodriguez took the helm when they reached the Río de la Plata. Instead of sailing to the Port of Buenos Aires, he took them to a private marina south of the city. From here Jack could see an impressive mansion.

“Welcome to my home!” said Rodriguez.

“This is all yours?” Jack said.

“It belongs to my mother. We are one of the oldest families of Buenos Aires.”

They walked up to the house. There Rodriguez introduced Jack to his mother, a dignified lady in her fifties, Jack judged, and to his brother Juan.

“My fathers before me were merchants—that was always the route to wealth here in Buenos Aires. My older brother is in charge of the family business.”

“And you?” Jack asked.

“I am the wastrel younger brother. I wander the world as I please. I pretend to be a scholar and an explorer, and my mother and brother pretend to respect me.”

“For shame!” said Señora Rodriguez. “Do not believe him, Señor O’Toole. He is an explorador and a professor at the University, and we are very proud of him.”

On hearing the story of the Rodriguez Family’s rescue, his mother and brother were effusive in their gratitude. They could hardly believe what Anita told them of Ananta. They walked down to the marina to meet her in person.

Señora Rodriguez invited Jack to stay with them for as long as he liked.

“What are your plans now, Jack?” asked Felipe.

“Viajan a Ireland,” said Anita, “Me dijo Ananta.”

“Speak English, Anita,” said Felipe. “It is not polite to speak a language Mr O’Toole doesn’t understand.”

“Well, he should learn!” Anita said.

“Señor O’Toole is our guest, Anita.” Linda said.

“They’re going to Ireland. Ananta told me,” said Anita.

“You’re right, Anita,” said Jack. “I should learn Spanish.”

“I will teach you, Mr O’Toole!” said Anita. “I will sail to Ireland with you and Ananta, and I will teach you Spanish as we sail.”

“It is not proper for a young girl like you to travel alone with a man like Señor O’Toole, Anita,” said Señora Rodriguez.

“O’Toole, it’s not safe to sail alone. You should have more hands to sail the Sea Devil,” said Rodriguez.

“Ha!” said Seph. “He’s not wrong, but he’s also not right.”

“What are you saying, Rodriguez?” asked Jack.

“Suppose we, Linda, Anita, and I, sail with you to Ireland?” said Rodriguez. “We will gladly pay for our passage.”

“Well, I’d be happy to have you along,” said Jack. “But if you’re going to work as deckhands and Anita as my Spanish teacher, I would not feel right to accept payment.”

“Jack, can we go shopping?” said Angie. “We want to see the fashions of Buenos Aires.”

They did that. Rodriguez, Linda, and Anita accompanied them. If they were surprised that, along with sailing supplies, Jack purchased women’s clothing, they said nothing to him about it.

The story of Jack O’Toole, Ananta, Angie and Seph, and their friends the Rodriguez family will continue in “Up There: Voyage 5—Tír na nÓg.”

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Afterword

The cover image is a phase portrait of :

A phase portrait is a visualization of a complex function introduced by Elias Wegert in Visual Complex Functions: An Introduction with Phase Portraits.

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Randy Dandy Oh | Assassin’s Creed 4

The Smallest of Joys

Diane Shiffer

Not my kind of book

Diane Shiffer is someone I am personally close to. In fact, I received my copy of The Smallest of Joys: How to Create Your Own Magic, Let Your Best Be Enough & Find Contentment Exactly as You Are from her hands. I therefore will not be rating it.

She warned me when she gave it to me that it would not be my kind of book, She was right about that. It’s not that I disagree with anything substantive that she has to say. In general terms, I feel the same way about joy as she does. Her principles of individuality and self-care resonate. The problem though, is that general principles do not a satisfying book or a tiktok channel make. Shiffer knows this, of course. She illustrates her principles with lots and lots of examples.

And that is where the book failed to satisfy me. Here’s an example

But you and I both know that things do not have to be big or showy or expensive to be beautiful, my dear. The battered old ornaments, crafted and glued by tiny hands, are more precious than anything new or trendy. Paper chains, cranberry garlands, cut-out snowflakes . . . do those ever really go out of style? Even the simple, inexpensive things are lovely at Christmas. The plain old things still bring joy. The simple things are plenty. The simple things are more than enough.

Shiffer‘s joy is supported by things, material things, objects. Indeed, her short-form videos are largely concerned with the “vintage” objects she loves. She loves things, old things. Although she is the opposite of what is commonly understood by the adjective “materialistic,” she cares deeply for things.

I, myself, don’t much care about things. For me beauty and joy come from ideas. (For instance, unlike so many of you, I don’t care about the smell or feel of a paper book. For me a book is the words and pictures it contains. Whether they appear on paper or a screen is literally immaterial to me.) Thus, while I agree with every major value Shiffer shares, her examples largely fail to reach me.

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The Smallest of Joys on Amazon

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No More Amazement

Seanan McGuire

“No More Amazement” is Seanan McGuire’s July 2026 Patreon reward story. It’s 41 pages in PDF, so a novelette or novella. She introduces it as follows:

(Image: A caliby--calico/tabby--Maine Coon with clear green eyes, lounging on an organ duvet with a dino bone-patterned blanket behind her, a copy of INKPOT GODS leaned up against her to show you how big she is. She looks comfortable.)

I admit, I was delaying our return to the Tybalt timeline because, as you may have noticed, there are a lot of people mentioned there who never appear in the modern day. And that sort of implies that a lot of these people do not make it to the modern day. We’re at the point where he needs to move if he wants to remain compliant with the future timeline, and as a consequence, I put it off until enough people had asked that I couldn’t do it anymore.

So this is our return to Tybalt in the past, picking up some time after “Fanes That Lie.” It is a sad story, as a warning, but it is a necessary story, in terms of moving things forward into the distant and waiting future.

Just remember, he has joy coming for him. Just not yet.

(TW: Illness, child death.)

Despite the copy of Inkpot Gods in the picture, the story is unrelated to McGuire’s Alchemical Journeys series. It is about Tybalt, one of the main characters in her October Daye series. Tybalt will eventually become Toby’s husband and the father of her second child. (“Toby” is the nickname by which most people know October Daye, the hero of the series.) But, in an age mismatch for the record books, Tybalt is older than Toby by many centuries.

For some years now McGuire has been, off and on, filling us in on Tybalt’s background prior to his move to the San Francisco Bay Area where he will eventually meet Toby. Most of the people Tybalt knew in those long ago days have stopped their dancing. Thus, as she suggests in her introduction, getting from there to here will involve some tragedy. (The title, “No more amazement,” is quoted from The Tempest—I believe all titles in the October Daye series are Shakespeare quotes.)

This is good. I can’t say more about the plot without spoiling, and in fact McGuire’s introduction already released the biggest cat. (Pun totally intended.) As I mentioned in my review of Inkpot Gods, McGuire has been off her best for the last few years, but with Inkpot Gods and this novella, I feel we have the old Seanan back.

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“No More Amazement,” on Patreon

Seanan McGuire’s Patreon

Inkpot Gods

Seanan McGuire

A return to form

Inkpot Gods is the fourth novel in Seanan McGuire‘s Alchemical Journeys series. The first of these, Middlegame, was, I thought, one of the very best of McGuire‘s many, many books. From me that is a big statement, since I’m an avid fan of hers. Books 2 and 3, Seasonal Fears and Tidal Creatures, were much less impressive. Inkpot Gods returns to the subjects and themes of Middlegame. It is not quite as good as that first novel, but it approaches it.

More important, this novel represents, I think, a return to form for McGuire. Those of us who subscribe to her Patreon know that she has gone through some troubles in the last several years. (See her 20-Jun-2024 post for more detail.) It has shown in her output -- not the quantity -- I don’t think McGuire can live and stop writing -- but in the quality. Her most recent output has been repetitive and verbose, marred by a tendency to unnecessarily explain EVERYTHING. (She knows better, honestly.)

In Inkpot Gods, and also in “No More Amazement,” her 1-Jul-2026 Patreon novella (which I will presently review) she reads like the old Seanan, and I am so glad to have her back!

Inkpot Gods focuses on the Alchemical foundations of Middlegame. We go back to the 19th century and Asphodel Deborah Baker, the central figure in American Alchemy in the world-building of Alchemical Journeys. But these bits of 19th century lore are interspersed with a story of the 21st century characters we have met in the first three novels. It’s a gritty, dangerous story: bad things happen to good people. Not everything is set right.

She hints in her acknowledgements that this is nearly, but not quite, the end of the series.

We’ve almost reached the Impossible City at this point, and I can show you a shortcut, if you like. Just take my hand, close your eyes, and trust me. I know the way.

No, I don’t know what that means either, beyond being a hint that there’s another, probably last book to come.

I will certainly read it.

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Inkpot Gods on Amazon

Goodreads review