#sea of tranquility

[mostlyghostie]

Latest commission! This one was fun, Count of Monte Cristo is one of my favourites and I love this recent Penguin cover design.

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[oldschoolfrp]

Happy 6th anniversary of the founding of the first permanent lunar colony, to all who celebrate

[stingrayextraordinaire]

Literature Moodboards // Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

We have a desire to believe that we’re living at the climax of the story. It’s a kind of narcissism. We want to believe that we’re uniquely important, that we’re living at the end of history, that now, after all these millennia of false alarms, now is finally the worst that it’s ever been, that finally we have reached the end of the world.

[dd-is-my-guiltypleasure]

[jurisfictional]

"Pandemics don’t approach like wars, with the distant thud of artillery growing louder every day and flashes of bombs on the horizon. They arrive in retrospect, essentially. It’s disorienting. The pandemic is far away and then it’s all around you, with seemingly no intermediate step."

no one has ever put into words what it felt like to live through the covid-19 pandemic as well as emily st. john mandel. station eleven and sea of tranquility are truly the two best books I've read about pandemics since albert camus' the plague.

I still remember seeing reports of a new virus in china in january 2020 and thinking, "oh that's nothing, it'll never affect me!" and going about my daily life. and then it was everywhere.

[odinsblog]

Scientists have for the first time discovered a cave on the Moon.

At least 100m deep, it could be an ideal place for humans to build a permanent base, they say.

It is just one in probably hundreds of caves hidden in an “underground, undiscovered world”, according to the researchers.

Countries are racing to establish a permanent human presence on the Moon, but they will need to protect astronauts from radiation, extreme temperatures, and space weather.

Helen Sharman, the first British astronaut to travel to space, told BBC News that the newly-discovered cave looked like a good place for a base, and suggested humans could potentially be living in lunar pits in 20-30 years.

But, she said, this cave is so deep that astronauts might need to abseil in and use “jet packs or a lift” to get out.

Lorenzo Bruzzone and Leonardo Carrer at the University of Trento in Italy found the cave by using radar to penetrate the opening of a pit on a rocky plain called the Mare Tranquillitatis.

It is visible to the naked eye from Earth, and is also where Apollo 11 landed in 1969.

(continue reading)

[goldengirlssaywhat]

📺 The Golden Girls (1991)

[theinquisitxor]

July Reading Wrap Up

I read 5 books in the month of July, which is a little bit less than I was hoping for, but I read some chunky books, so they took me a little while to get through. Overall it was a good reading month, and I didn't read anything less than a 4 star book.

1.Blood Over Bright Haven by ML Wang, 5/5 stars. My first book of this month, and one I could not put down. This falls in a very similar vein as Babel by RF Kuang, and one of the best books I've read so far this year. It's 100% worth the hype.

2.The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison, 4/5 stars. This book has been on my tbr forever (since 2018), and is a beloved fantasy book here on tumblr. I enjoyed this quite a bit, and I do love a political fantasy, as well as books with good hearted characters trying their best. Solid book with cool worldbuilding

3.Storm of Locusts (The Sixth World 2) by Rebecca Roanhorse, 4/5 stars. I actually enjoyed this a little bit more than book 1 (which seems to be against the grain, but I do enjoy a doomsday cult narrative). I'm really liking these urban fantasy/ post-apocalyptic monster hunting books, unfortunately it doesn't look like we'll be getting any more :(

4.The Shadow of What Was Lost (Licanius Trilogy 1) by James Islington, 4/5 stars. This is a doorstopper fantasy book, and I felt like it was overall a solid first book (first book in the series + authors first published book). It was a lot of set-up and introducing the world/characters, but it kept my interest and I'm looking forward to book 2.

5.Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel, 5/5 stars. Both Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel are two of my all time favorite books, so I was hoping this one would also live up to my expectations. I did end up really loving this book, and how Mandel weaves her story and narratives. This book veers into sci-fi, and I enjoyed every moment of it.

Those are all the books I finished in July! I started The Councillor by EJ Beaton, and I am currently reading that (I had hoped to finish it in July, but alas..). I also was planning on reading Tales Before Tolkien, but when I got my hands on a copy of the book, it wasn't exactly what I was expecting, so I'm unsure if I'm going to even pick it up.

August is going to be busy, so I'm not sure how many books I'm going to realistically get to. Maybe:

finish The Councillor by EJ Beaton

An Echo of Things to Come by James Islington

Hemlock & Silver by T Kingfisher (new release)

Katabasis by RF Kuang (new release)

Hild by Nicolla Griffith (finally time to revisit this and try again???)

Random TBR book?

Nonfiction?