The Android's Dream by John Scalzi

 Before I begin, I should say that yes the title does indeed refer to the Philip K. Dick novel. Though in this case it refers to a breed of genetically modified bright blue sheep.

Plot

Android's dream is a science fiction novel and it begins with a diplomatic incident between representatives of Earth and that of the alien race Nidu. Nidu has been Earth's ally, but relations have been strained for some time now as many on Earth feel exploited. To restore Nidu's goodwill, Harry Creek is tasked with finding a sheep needed in the coronation of Nidu's new ruler. This is made more difficult by the fact that there is only one sheep of that kind left. It is also complicated by conspirators from Earth, Nidu and a religious order.

And then the book gets really weird.

My thoughts

The book partly reminds me of the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy or Terry Pratchett in that it constantly interrupts the plot to tell stories about the different characters, peoples, organizations and other things. It's the kind of absurd writing style that I quite enjoy when it's done correctly.

I have previously read Scalzi's book Redshirts (which I recommend to anyone who has seen the original Star Trek) and this is similar in many ways. Redshirts is definitely the weirder of them (especially at the end) but androids dream I'd say is more exciting and maybe even the funnier of them. Assuming you're into bizarre humor. 

If you have read it what did you think? Leave a comment. If you haven't read it you can check it out here Androids dream.

The Scum Villain's Self-saving System by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

This is a meta story about a person being transported into the plot of a book he's read.

Shen Yuan has a love hate relationship with the immensely popular web-novel series "Immortal demon way". Having just finished the last book and upset about the unresolved plot threads, the cliche plot and bland side characters he dies. Only to find himself waking up inside the book. Not as the male power fantasy protagonist Lou Binghe but rather as his horrible teacher Shen Qingqiu. Who routinely encourages the other students to bully Bingue and will in later parts of the series try to kill him. 

He will also (as Yuan knows) later be gruesomely killed by the protagonist. Something Yuan (since he is in Qingqiu body wants to stop). Using his knowledge of the books, Qingqius magical powers and along with the unhelpful system (a google translate voice that only Yuan can hear that arbitrarily assigns him points and quests) he must set out to fix the plotholes and avoid his fate of death by protagonist. Except until that feature is unlocked he can't act too out of character.  

My thoughts

I like it a lot. Yuan arguing with the system is very funny and I like him although he is a bit slow to realize that his actions has consequences for the plot going forward. Also that Bingues respect for him as a teacher becomes hero worship once he is shown the least bit of kindness and self sacrifice. 

Although not getting murdered is one of the reasons for Yuan wanting to change the plot it is mostly just that Yuan is a mostly decent person and seeing a child bullied is just wrong. 

Unfortunately it doesn't have the best view on women. the female characters are mostly there to be saved by Binghe and then ignored. Which isn't surprising considering that the story is supposed to be a male power fantasy (In the Original book Bingue ends with a harem of 300 women) but it's also not questioned by Shen. Hopefully that will change in the later books. 

If you have read it what did you think? Leave a comment. If you haven't read it you can check it out here Scum Villain

Forging Hephaestus by Drew Hayes

 This is a story about superheroes and villains but more realistically portrayed. And I don’t mean that in a The Boys, everyone's an arsehole, way.
The heroes are mostly just people trying to do their best, even if they are a bit too obsessed with public perception. The same goes for the villains. Their focus is on having the freedom to do what they want and are in general nice to one another. 
Several decades ago a scientist, who would later become the world's first superhero Professor Quantum, broke physics with an experiment and since then people have been randomly getting superpowers, becoming metahumans. There followed a time of general chaos where superheroes and villains regularly fought in the streets but for the last or so decade things have been mostly quiet.
The story mostly follows Tori Revas. She gained fire powers after an accident trying to design a meta suit (think iron man) and is caught stealing plans from Indigo technologies a company that unbeknownst to her is owned by Wade Wyatt aka Doctor Mechanical a legendary super-villain and founder of the guild of villainous reformation. Taking an interest in Tori he offers her a place at the guild (the other option is death so she agrees) and then blackmails his old friend and former roommate Ivan Gerhart (aka the infamous Fornax) to mentor her.
She befriends the other new recruits, learns to harness her powers, how to hold down a regular job and generally manage her public persona as well as her villainous one. During this she finds out that the reason for the quiet is that the guild follows a strict code of conduct and brutally murders anyone who doesn't follow it. But things aren't always what they seem and there are forces that lurk frying to get back to the good old days of murder and mayhem.
I've read it three times now, well listened to it and its sequel as an audiobook. The things that make me want to reread a book are usually characters I like and this one has several.

If you have read it what did you think? Leave a comment. If you haven't read it you can check it out here Forging Hephaestus

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

The book is something of a cross between a novel and a collection of about twenty chronological short
stories. 

Slowly they tell about how the first humans come to Mars and the reactions of the martians already living there. How expedition after expedition fails and the crews die, not by violence (the martians as a whole barely even notice they're there) but by situations that could have been completely avoidable. Until disease and apathy kills the martians leaving the planet open for human colonisation.

This is one of the most melancholic books I've read in a long time. About the collapse of two civilizations, the Martian, which have been slowly falling for a thousand years until, in a move reminiscent of the H.G Wells War of the Worlds, they are killed by chicken pox.

Or maybe it, like War of the Worlds, draws parallels to imperialism. Where the War of the Worlds draws parallels to how Europeans were long kept away from the interior of Africa by diseases like malaria. The Martian Chronicles refers to the colonization of the Americas where the indigenous population died of smallpox. 

While this is happening, people are fleeing Earth and the impending war there. A continuation of the cold war maybe the book was written in the 50's and takes place in the not too distant future. When the war erupts at the end only a few people manage to escape and settle on Mars becoming the new martians.

There is an interesting thought when old science fiction. books written in the 1950 set in the far of future of 2020 not just what they got write or wrong no space travel or aluminum foil clothes yet but the things they thought would remain unchanged. Or maybe things that was so common in their world that they didn't consider it. In the Martian chronicles gender roles is one such thing. Where the the women are mostly housewives something they interestingly enough share with the martian society. I find it interesting but I doubt the author considered it.

If you have read it what did you think? Leave a comment. If you haven't read it you can check it out here Martian chronicles. and since it's been around for so long so there's lots of different versions to pick from.

I've written a book!! Untold City by Me

Starting in 2019 I have been working on writing a novel. The writing took about a year the proof reading, rewriting, publishing and procrastination took far longer. Long enough that the sequel is also written though that one is till a long way from being published.

It's been lots of fun and very rewarding though at times frustrating. A lesson to be learned from this is to not set your story in the real world unless it is a place you are intimately familiar with. Which considering I've never been to the united states I'm certainly not. So I had to spend so much time googling about massachusetts. But it's done and soon also the sequel so let me tell you about it.

Something strange is happening in Arkham. And this time it might be more than just the usual rumors surrounding the isolated town. Detective Matt Lynch of Boston PD is sent to investigate. But when his new colleagues are keeping secrets and unsubtly encouraging him to leave that might be harder than he thought it would be. But as the old secrets are reluctantly revealed, new questions emerge. When local politics cause riots in the streets and the delicate balance of Arkham is threatened Matt must decide if he should keep up the status quo or join the fight against the things hiding in the dark corners and cemeteries of Arkham.

And yes I did just copy the blurb but basically it's a lovecraft inspired detective novel set in a modern day Arkham.

If you want to buy it then it can be so here. 

Kindle

Google play

Adlibris 

It's just as an ebook so far, who knows maybe I will get around to putting up a physical copy but I wouldn't hold my breath this blogpost has been sitting unpublished for six months. 

Baking with protein powder try 1

 

A bit of a caveat before I begin.

1 this is not a finished recipe it's me documenting my experiment. 

2 this is not meant to help anyone lose weight just increase the amount of protein. 

I did this experiment using a unflavored pea protein powder. I have no idea if it's the best or even good but it was on sale which is good enough for a first attempt. 

To start with I used this chocolate chip cookie recipe as a base.

4 dl Flour

6 dl Oatmeal

150g Butter (room temperature)

1 dl Muscovado sugar (very dark brown sugar)

1 dl Sugar

2 tsp baking powder

3 tbsp light syrup

110g Milk and dark chocolate

1/2- 1 dl water or until it is possible to roll it our without it crumbling too much

How many cookies depends on the size I made them roughly Oreo sized and got 60.

Preheat the oven to 200 (Celsius) and mix all the ingredients. Roll out out the dough approximately 1 cm thick and cut out with cookie cutters. Place the cookies on parchment paper, they can be placed fairly close. Lower the temperature to 175 and place in oven for 10-15. Leave them to cool before eating.

What I did

I was interested in weather replacing the flour or oats with protein powder would yield the best results.

So I mixed all the ingredients except flour, oats, baking soda and the water. Baking soda because it should be mixed with flour to avoid clumps and water because I anticipated having to change the amount to get the right consistency. That done I set it to the side

I had decided to do four test batches so I found four (in hindsight too small) bowls and filled all with 1/4 the rest of the ingredients with alteration according to each batch.

control                       Batch 1                       Batch 2                      Batch 3

1 flour                        1 protein powder        1 protein powder       1 protein powder

1,5 oats                     1,5 oats                      0,5 dl flour                 1 flour

0,5 tsp baking soda   0,5 tsp baking soda   1 dl oats                     0,5 oats

                                                                     0,5 tsp baking soda   0,5 tsp baking soda

Then I mixed in 1/4 of the butter sugar mix in each batch before following the recipe as usual. Rolling the dough out, using cookie cutters, placing on parchment paper and baking in the oven.

Per batch they are approximately 30g of protein or 2 g/cookie for my size.

Top left control, Top right batch 1,
 Bottom left batch 2 and bottom right is batch 3.

Lessons 

1. Don't start experimenting at 8 pm after along day at work. It's not really relevant to this experiment just more general life advice.
2. Pea protein has a distinct taste and with a neutral dough that becomes more noticeable. Picking a cookie with a solid flavor like ginger, cardamom or chocolate would be better than the chocolate chip I used. This might not have been a problem with a different kind of protein powder.
3. The pea protein gave a more crumbly feel to the cookies and none of them melt together like the control did. An increase in the amount of butter might help.
4. Batch number 1 was most best liked among my test subjects with batch 2 a close second. 

Next time solid flavor and more butter using batch 1 for my protein ratio.

Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir

 So far three books has been published in this series Gideon, Harrow and Nona the ninth and we are awaiting Alecto the ninth that is supposed to end the series. I'm mostly going to write about the first two partially to avoid spoilers but mostly because the books get weirder as you go and I don't think i can explain Nona in a way that makes sense.

Gideon the ninth

Ten thousand years from now humanity is spread out into space divided into and controlled by the nine necromantic houses. Sort of, the first house is mostly the emperor and god and his immortal lyctoral saints and the ninth house is a dying cult desperately trying to keep up appearances.

There's also a war happening but its not relevant to the plot and so its not explained, as in after three books I'm still not entirely sure who they are fighting. this book takes an unusual approach to exposition as in there are none figure it out from context.

Anyhow several of the lyctors have died and in order to fill out the ranks the emperor has called on the nine houses to each send a necromancer and their cavalier (swordfighter) to become new lyctors. the ninth house sending the Reverant daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus (this is not the weirdest name in this series) and her cavalier Gideon Nav. They are chosen because they are literally the only people in the ninth house below retirement age. They arrive at the mostly empty planet and the research facility there the past lyctors worked were given access to their labs and told to figure it out. 

Then one by one the other chevaliers and necromancers are found dead. 

Harrow the ninth 

After the events of the first book Harrow isn't doing too well. She is a lyctor living with the emperor on his space station and being taught by the older lyctors. But her powers doesn't work the way they should and she keeps having flashbacks to the events of the first book. Except the flashbacks doesn't show the events as they happened. Most notable Gideon isn't there and having been replaced by Ortus as Harrows cavalier.

Don't remember Ortus? He died off screen in the beginning of the first book while harrow and Gideon were fighting.

To make matters worse Ortus is trying to kill her. Not flashback Ortus, there's a lyctor that's also named Ortus. Though the Emperor treats it all with exasperation so it's probably not too serious. Plot-wise we find out that there is something called resurrection beasts. These are mile long Lovecraftian horrors that they have spent the last 10 000 years fighting. The reason new lyctors were needed was that the others had all died fighting them and now one is approaching.

Also the Emperor undying and Necrolord prime is a nice if weird man named Jon and Harrow can't wrap her head around her god being a person.

What do I think

Do I like it? I don't know, I mostly spend most of the book trying to figure out what is even happening.

Will I read the next one? Definitely, these are the most unique books I've read in a long time and I plan on rereading them, hopefully by then I'll understand something.

An interesting part of Harrow the ninth is Jon and his remaining three lyctors. It explores the long term effect of immortality. They are all somewhat disconnected from time, they speak of things that happened thousands of years ago as if it happened last week and keep rehashing the same arguments again and again.

It's a very good and interesting series, I like both Gideon and Harrow as characters and I would recommend it to anyone who likes fantasy. But it's not an easy series, you can't just sit back and relax. You need to actually pay attention if you want to figure it out.

If you have read it what did you think? Leave a comment. If you haven't read it you can check it out here Locked Tomb.